Henry Kaestner: Welcome back. Live to the Faith Driven Investor podcast. I’m here with my great friend and partner in Sovereign’s Capital, Luke Roush.

Luke, welcome. And it’s good to see you, brother. We are doing this on both audio and video. We’ve got Bryce Butler in the house and we’re just coming in as we’re getting live online. We’ve got Bryce, who is sharing with us right before we went live, about what it looks like for him to have four daughters who are learning about Faith Driven Entrepreneurship and doing that out on a farm and some really neat e-commerce businesses. And we’re going to put some links up there and in the show notes. But we wanted to go ahead and talk with Bryce about what he uniquely does and some of the gifts he has and some experiences he has with Access Ventures. This is, of course, a podcast for an audience of people that are getting really intentional about storing their investment capital for the glory of God. And as we do that, we like to have stories. Luke and I like to get out and interview people that are being faithful and being innovative with the way that they’re deploying capital in a way that they are loving on their communities and looking for investment returns. And Bryce has done just that, and he’s done it for a long time. We oftentimes think about Faith Driven Investing and being in three buckets with the funds we look at. We think about funds that have existed with some level of spiritual integration in them. We think about the funds that are starting up and there’s a great new group of men and women that feel called by God that have operating or investment experience, that are launching new funds. And then also there’s a fair number of funds that are being retrofitted, funds that have been run by Christ followers and have had great success and are getting more and more intentional about how they love on their portfolio companies by bringing in things like chaplaincy and faith driven employee resource groups, et cetera. Bryce is very squarely in that first camp. He’s been very serious about his faith and investing for a long time. And one of the people that we look to and talk in at the conferences that were involved in and so we’re grateful that he’d spend time with us today, sharing with us what God has done through his life and Praxis ventures, what he does, why he does it, where he does it. You’ll get a sense that place is really important to him. So, Bryce, super glad to have you on the show. Thanks for joining us.

Bryce Butler: My pleasure. Thank you.

Henry Kaestner: We love to open by hearing how our guests have their stories, what your origin story is, who you are, where do you come from to tell us a bit about who you are and and how you got here and how God and in your faith has led you to Access Ventures.

Bryce Butler: So my journey a little circuitous. I’m the son of an Army officer. My dad actually this summer retired after 45 years of federal service. Twenty three with the army, sixteen or so with the US attorney’s office and and recently as a judge. So I moved around a lot, actually, when I was growing up. I moved eight times in twelve years and so lived all over the place, lived six of my years overseas. And really the military is a big part of my life. My great great great grandfather was a sergeant in the union cavalry. And so ever since, as far back as I can track, there have been members of the military in my family. So it was one of those things where that’s what I did. So when I graduated from college, I got an undergraduate degree in economics. I went into the army. That’s what paid for my school. And so the timing was like 2003. So the ground war started in April of 2003 in Iraq. And I was commissioned in May of 2003 as an Army officer. So I was on tanks and I actually found myself being deployed to Korea. And so I spent two years on the DMZ in Korea before being reassigned to Fort Knox in Kentucky. And that’s what brought me here. So I actually live in Louisville, Kentucky. I’ve been here for about fifteen years now. It’s the longest I’ve lived anywhere. But I married a Kentucky in I am deeply planted here. I actually inevitably got out of the military after four years on active duty and went to seminary. Are calling from the Lord to step into ministry, didn’t know what that was. Didn’t really know if it was pastoral ministry, international missions, but really at heart for just learning more and applying my faith more deeply. And so I went to seminary, but I wanted to work in a church while I was doing that to actually put that into practice. And so I found myself at a church plant and this was two thousand seven. That was really on a pretty steep cliff trajectory of growth. They went from 400 to three thousand in my time there in about two years, one campus to four church called Sojourned Community Church in Louisville, Kentucky. And I just honestly, it was more I was in the right place at the right time. The more I use the gifts of strategy and logistics and operations that I had. But I became the executive pastor for about five years and kind of in that process learned a lot about church, church dynamics, church growth. And that brought me into kind of like, OK, Lord, I’m here at seminary. I enjoy preaching, I like teaching. But it’s not that doesn’t drive me like a lot of the students that I see around me. I really get jazzed by working on these complex problems of organizational dynamics and leadership. I started working with the Entrepreneurship Initiative at Redeemer, got involved in their effort as a judge, spoke at a couple of their conferences and just really got turned on to business for the common good.

This was probably two thousand, ten or so.

And just really it activated a lot of just my own gifting and desire. And it was then that I was like, I really feel like the Lord is leading me back to the marketplace. So I finished up my masters. I do a master’s in theology, and then I ended up leaving the pastoral ministry and working at a family office and so worked with a family that was doing pretty innovative microfinance internationally, also investing in India and East Africa and also their foundation. And kind of through that work, I learned a ton and kind of over the course of four years, kind of took those learnings and built what has become Access Ventures.

Henry Kaestner: So tell us about Access Ventures. Tell us about what uniquely does.

Bryce Butler: So Access Ventures is, you know, so technically it’s a 501c3. It’s a private operating foundation. So we’re not like it when you hear the word foundation. A lot of times people immediately jump to grant writer that, you know, just this endowed capital that is investing its resources to maximize financial return and then turning around and writing grants to organizations that align with their charitable purpose. We don’t do that. We are an operating private foundation. So we actually kind of are a hybrid. We function much more like a public charity. We run programs. We’re strategically looking at things like program related investments, things that are aligned with our mission. So we don’t write grants. We do activities as a charitable entity, but we also are endowed. So over the course of the last seven years, I went from kind of this idea on the back of a napkin to what is now a fully endowed private operating foundation with about fifty million dollars. And then what we do is we look to take all of those resources that we talk about this idea of a one pocket mindset. And so we really have been since the beginning saying like it’s not the charitable dollars that should be achieving our values and purpose. But how can we align all of these investment dollars across a multi asset strategy, whether it’s real estate, whether it’s private equity venture? How can we take these tools, i.e. capital tools, resources and identify fund managers, identify entrepreneurs, identify real estate opportunities, identify partnerships that are in line with our mission and that get us across that board a blended strategy, a blended portfolio, a blended return. And so we do charitable work. We do a low market lending. We do non concessionary direct investments. We have a block change strategy. We have a lot of other asset classes as well. So we look to take that entire portfolio and invest it in line with our purpose. And it’s a lot of fun.

Henry Kaestner: So that’s really interesting. I love this idea and I hope that we’re going to be able to unpack this a lot more during our time together of this one pocket mindset. And I think that many of us can kind of understand it intellectually at one level, which is that we have bifurcated our giving from our investments and maybe there’s an opportunity to bring them both together. But that’s hard work. And even though I obviously are maybe not so obviously, but I obviously believe in that. Just understanding how to do that is something I really want to understand more. And so tell me if I’m getting this right. Traditionally, Christians have thought of I want to make as much money as I possibly can over here in my left pocket. And then to the degree that I understand the biblical message of generosity, I want to give away as much as I possibly can over here with my right hand or my right pocket. And you’re suggesting that the very process of investing capital might accomplish the same mission’s goals that we had over there on the giving side. And so we need to be thinking about storing that capital in the same way. And yet it goes. Backwards, too, which is that sometimes when we might otherwise think about investing, maybe we should be giving. So how do you think so? You stored a large sum of capital. How do you go ahead and say, gosh, I need to have a certain return on this? What’s a framework you use to be able to process all of this? Is it just the impact now?

Luke Roush: How do you create buckets and you decide kind of what goes and what bucket?

Bryce Butler: Well, I think you have to start by asking yourself a lot of questions like what is the purpose of capital? What is the purpose of this capital? What do I need as a return? I think we need to be unapologetic about what we’re trying to accomplish. And so if it is outsized returns or market returns, that’s fine. Put it on the table and let’s talk about that and then say to what you’re saying, Henry, I think the old adage of like, make all you can save, all you can give, all you can. I do think there is a notion like make all you can so that you can give all you can. So we still need to do charitable work. We still need to do philanthropic activities. We need to support local churches, ministries that are sharing the gospel in places that are unreached. But in the course of making all you can, how do we align our values and who we are as people and our understanding of God and his universe and our responsibility in that universe? How do we align that with the making? Because I do believe that there are unbelievable fund managers, there’s Sovereign’s Capital and others that are intentionally trying to align various return profiles with Kingdom or impact orientation. And so as you think about your own personal net worth or your own organizational purpose, make all you can. But in the making, the one pocket mindset is thinking through. It’s really fundamentally. Do you believe that money is a tool? It’s a resource. And so how do we deploy resources? Right. When you’re building a house, you don’t use a screwdriver where you should use a hammer. And so you fundamentally do have to ask your question, what is the purpose? What is the purpose of this capital? Do I need this to be non concessionary? OK, great. In the pursuit of a manager or an entrepreneur that’s going to help me achieve that financial outcome. Can I. Is there a way that I can work to align that with someone also pursuing a business model or intentionally leading their company in a way that honors the Lord? And so I think your point on chaplaincy or the way we lead our companies, the way we think about resources and the stewardship of those resources or time off, or when you start to unpack what it means to really understand the dignity of the person and how that’s manifest in our companies and how we care for people, it gets really exciting. And then you get to work with these entrepreneurs, these fund managers that are really trying to think creatively about things, you know, like the tent making. Right, T1-T4. I think sometimes people look at like the ones that are the business models in unreached people, groups that aren’t financially sustainable as lesser businesses. I like to put it up and say, well, if that was their intention, it’s not necessarily bad. There are places where we should go into those countries and the business model may just be sustainable, i.e. we’re covering our costs, but it’s allowing that missionary to be in a place that they otherwise wouldn’t be. If we’re achieving our intended goal, our intended outcome with the financial return and we’re able to bring about human flourishing, the Imago Dei know that’s a beautiful thing. If the goal is outsized returns and also to invest in Kingdom-oriented entrepreneurs, great, let’s do that. But I think what we’ve got to do is start to look at what was the financial goal, what is the impact, and to look at that and not compare a nonprofit return on community activity that’s charitable and supported through grants against a technology company that’s scalable and looking for venture rate returns.

Luke Roush: So I think that’s good. And, you know, I always love examples when you talk about Access being inclusive and creative and resilient. You know, we recently had Jewel Burks on the show and she talked a little bit about less of a pipeline problem, more of an access problem. How have you kind of seen that playing out within Access in the mission that you serve and then maybe just elucidated some of what you’re pointing to there, Bryce, with a couple of examples of how you’ve seen that play?

Bryce Butler: Yeah, Jewel’s great. And it is an access problem. So, I mean, our name Access Ventures, I think at the end of the day, as Christians, I’m not surprised by inequality or Jesus as the poor will always be among you. So the issues of inequality that exist aren’t surprising because they’re products of the fall. It’s not as God intended, it’s not as it was to be. And so in our role as his created image bearers, like what does it look like to participate in rolling back right. To roll back these injustices? And so I think the notion of an access issue is true. There are things in our world that are unjust. And so I think as Christians, what does it look like to right the wrongs? And so I think for entrepreneurs of color specifically, they have an access issue like less than two percent of venture capital goes to founders of color. When you have white families in America, that average over one hundred thousand dollars in net worth and the average black family is seventy six dollars in net worth. When you talk about who has access to financing, that’s an access issue, right? There’s a capital I as a white man in America, I can go to my family and friend network. And more often than not, it’s the first place an entrepreneur goes. And I’m not going to have of a time finding capital to support my business. Whereas a black founder, they may have great social networks. Oftentimes communities of color have unbelievable networks. But when those networks, because of wealth inequality has existed for centuries, when that network doesn’t have financial capacity, it makes it very, very difficult. And you look at issues of redlining around housing and the modern day redlining around business financing and access to just debt through traditional means. It is an access issue. So I think as Christians, we’ve got to look at solutions, i.e. companies that are solving for problems, i.e. one of our portfolio companies is a company called SoLo Funds. So SoLo Funds is a technology company venture makeable. Just close the series a based out of L.A. and they’re a marketplace as an alternative to payday lending. So by nature, the product itself is helping to solve for a community issue, which is the crazy payday lending system that we have in America where people are paying two or three hundred percent to access a loan that you used to get at a community bank on a signatory. Right. You can get a signature loan for less than a thousand dollars. You can’t do that anymore. And so what happens is low income people are pushed to these check into cash places and it’s just this vicious cycle. So SoLo is creating a marketplace where the borrower can actually set the terms on the loan and then the lender, individual, peer to peer, can go on and accept that term and in two weeks. So it’s a great win win. And so that product itself is doing an amazing thing in solving for some of the injustice that exists. But then on the capital side, we’ve got to say there is an access issue related to capital. So Jewel, for example, with Collab, is looking at how do we get more money into the hands of black founders, female founders, because historically they haven’t had the same opportunities with regular mom and pop businesses, not your impact oriented one, like a solo funds, but a great company where there’s a decision bias because most of the people on the investment committee look like me or look like you and don’t understand perhaps the business models that they’re bringing forward or the type of capital they need to scale is different than traditional venture. So I think it’s our responsibility then to reimagine what it looks like for the capital itself, to meet the needs and to help solve for some of that injustice as well. We need both. And new models. New businesses.

Luke Roush: Yeah, no, that makes sense. And as you think about the capital that you guys are in charge of shepherding. Fifty million dollars, a lot of money, but the access problem is certainly a lot bigger than what’s going to be solved by 50 million dollars. How do you think about catalyzing others to step into that gap, particularly in secondary market cities, not the big three or four or five that capture 80 percent of the private equity?

Bryce Butler: Yeah, so this kind of hits a little bit of Louisville, Kentucky. So Louisville is one of those cities. And I think what we’re trying to do, we created a new regional fund called Render Capital that sits under Access Ventures. And really, it’s a strategy. It’s not a fund, even though it’s about 15 million dollars. We have portions of it that are managed traditionally like a traditional venture fund, because that’s what some entrepreneurs need, but actually trying to create the capital structure in a way that meets the needs of the entrepreneurs. So we actually have a portion that’s focused on partnering with banks, because what we found in our market is banks aren’t lending. And, you know, especially with what’s happened this year with covid and what’s just happened over the last 10 years since the housing crunch of 2008. So what we’ve seen is banks have retracted from startups. And so if you don’t have collateral, don’t have a personal guarantee. Good luck getting access to capital from a bank, even though they’ll tell you all day long. Yeah, we’ll work with you. And so what we’re trying to do is actually create guaranteed pools. We have a guaranteed pool that we created to try to attract local banks. Where you do the underwriting, you help them build credit. You build this relationship with the traditional bank and we’ll guarantee that loan because we believe that the entrepreneur is good for it. You know, it’s really an access issue. It’s a capital access issue. So can we put our money at risk and help support that entrepreneur by parking it at that bank and working through the bank to lend to that entrepreneur? So we have that going, looking at alternatives to equity, profit sharing or revenue based financing, which are some new kind of creative models on how to deploy capital. But then also because it’s a strategy, looking at a market like Louisville, we have to acknowledge we’ve got to be on some level as a market builder. So I’ve got to look at below market lending. I’ve got to look at even some philanthropic work through universities to spur innovation for future next gen entrepreneurs. And so what we’ve done is we’ve built a actually a pretty robust blended strategy that has philanthropic work, traditional equity, alternatives to equity guarantees with banks, main street lending. Because the other thing we found, too, in a place like Louisville, as you do work literally in a grassroots community like that, Main Street supports high growth, tech enabled companies. Talk to any high growth company. We were just talking about it before we jumped on the podcast. Austin, Denver, these entrepreneurs are attracted to. Places where there is a thriving cultural scene, they want local food, they want something to do with the outdoors, they want their people, their talent to have a place to go and be excited outside of work. And so if we only solve for the capital access issue of this high growth, tech enabled company, i.e. venture, and we ignore the issue going on in Main Street, how are we going to create an environment where that tech enabled entrepreneur sees this as an opportunity to grow and thrive? If the local coffee shop, the local ice cream store or the local brewery, whatever, is struggling to find capital, nobody wants to go where there’s, you know, tons of fast food chain restaurants. So we need all of that. And so we we’ve got to get really created around the structure of capital.

Henry Kaestner: So when you talk about the structure of capital and you’re talking about the different sources and different purposes, you alluded to something there that I want to look at a little bit more, which is that you find out that as compelling as some of these opportunities for impact investing are or more market return investing might be, there’s this third area, which is grant capital, that’s also part of the battery or the areas that you have in your quiver to address a particular societal need. So tell us about know Faith Driven Investor in a lot of people think, well, guess we’re going to be focused on impact investing, we’re going to be focused on market return investing. And yet what makes us unique in this podcast is that we’re all Christ followers. We’re trying to understand how God might have us allocate his capital, and that absolutely needs to include grant capital. So if you’ve got a large sum of money, you may be called to writing a large check where you don’t get any return back because of the ultimate return. In addressing the particular issue, you feel called to say, how did you do that in this instance? Because you talked about a number of really compelling investment opportunities. And yet at the end of the day, you said it’s probably not enough. We also need to invest in the next generation. How do you decide which programs to support, how to decide how much to put in that program versus what you would otherwise put in the investment pocket?

Bryce Butler: It’s a great question. I think some of it’s driven by the strategy, some of us driven by what you’re trying to accomplish. So for us, I’ll give you an example. I was talking with some folks recently about opportunity zones. So we’re part of an opportunity zone fund. We help incubate one call blueprint local that is now in Texas and Maryland and across the southeast. And it was kind of incubated off of some of the real estate strategy we’ve deployed in Louisville. But what I was sharing with this group was they were really interested in attracted to this idea of the opportunity zone funds. Right. This equity investment predominantly in real estate, in under invested communities. And this is a great financial opportunity. And it is it is a great way to grow wealth. But the real intended purpose of the opportunity zones is to reinvest and to build wealth, not just for the investors, but also for the community. And so what I was trying to help them see in which a light bulb finally went off with them, I said, what are you doing philanthropically? As if because if you look at the communities in which you’re deploying your opportunities zone fund, they’re all below market neighborhoods, they’re all low income neighborhoods. By definition, they are an opportunity zone. And so as you look at your donor advised fund, as you look at your own foundation, as you look at your own charity, who in that community is already doing good work that would support the work that you’re doing on the real estate side? You know, think about like the businesses, right? The Opportunity Zone Fund doesn’t allow for debt financing, but every single business that you want to go into that brick and mortar shop is going to need tenant improvement financing. Well, if the banks aren’t lending, what are you going to do? Can you create some sort of debt vehicle that supports businesses that might be willing to establish their presence in that community? Who’s doing early childhood education? What churches are in that area? What other local ministries are there that are supporting the needs of those neighbors so that as you’re doing the work in the opportunity zone, you’re working philanthropically or in other creative ways to support that work. But ultimately, the community wins because that’s the goal. The goal is to build wealth for you, but also to build the wealth of that community and the the flourishing of that area. And so leveraging that tool, but then wrapping around it some other ways that you can bring about some shalom that doesn’t exist or hasn’t existed there for a while. So, you know, as an example of a way that we try to think about it on the investing side, the render capital side, we’re just looking at and saying, look, we’re trying to solve for this problem. The issue is access to capital, regional entrepreneurship. And in order for us to do that, it has to be a longer vision. And so how do we create opportunities for the entrepreneurs that exist today? But if we want a thriving economy, thriving community, how are we setting the stage for next gen?

And so it got us kind of focused earlier and looking at high schools, universities and saying, OK, for us to be successful five years from now, 10 years now, we’ve got to be thinking about that. And that’s not something we’re going to get a financial return from. So we kind of start to build back. Into kind of how much capital, what type of capital, that kind of stuff.

Luke Roush: Yeah, so, you know, as you’re talking about Eco-System, which really resonates with me and it’s mirrors some of what we’ve seen in markets where we’ve invested, it’s not just sort of one thing that needs to get done. It’s actually a whole ecosystem of things that need to get done. Love to understand just how you think about sequencing. When you were first starting access, how did you think about what do you do first? You’ve been really active in real estate. You’ve done some other things that are exotic, like Bitcoin.

Bryce Butler: Well, I think I would like to at least start by saying we kind of made up a lot of it as we were going along. I mean, to be to be frank, like when I started Access Ventures, it was a side car project. I was working in a family office. I was working at a manufacturing company. I kind of had this idea to take some of the lessons learned that we were doing in India and East Africa and say, look, there’s some problems here. Could we just get creative around the financial structure? So I built this real estate holding company, basically borrowed patient debt from a couple of high net worth individuals that caught the vision and started putting it to work, worked with some homeless shelters to create jobs in the renovation of those projects. And so it just started working. And then like a year later, we had to ask ourselves the question, like, OK, what is this? And that’s when it started to become a thing. But even as it became a thing, we realized that much like ecosystem building, the real thing is these problems and these solutions are so connected. Housing is connected to capital, is connected to jobs, is connected to transportation. I mean, so when we started working on housing, we realized very, very quickly, I can give somebody a better home, a more stable home.

But if they don’t have a job, if they don’t have any education, you know, so we found ourselves in other areas, we started doing micro lending because the banks aren’t lending.

And so we just kind of as problems emerged, we tried to think creatively about how to solve for that. And then over time, as the capital grew, we were able to kind of build more of a cohesive, cohesive strategy. But, you know, it’s been the last six years journey to kind of learn some of those hard lessons and try to figure it out.

Luke Roush: Yeah, well, the idea of kind of making it up as you go along or at least kind of doing the right next thing is certainly not unfamiliar territory for us. So that resonates. And, you know, just the idea of not having to necessarily have a grand master plan on day one of how the next 10 years are going to roll. But you’ve got a vision and a calling and a mission that God put on your heart to sort of do one thing and then you do that one thing that leads to others.

Henry Kaestner: So it resonates with me as you’ve proceeded, as you’ve done this, though, and done the right next thing. What are some lessons you’ve learned along the way? And I know enough about you and your story and what actually adventures has done and how God has worked through that, to know that it’s been really successful and you serve as such a great model for people to be intentional about the local communities. But you probably have learned some lessons along the way. Like, for instance, in the early days of Sovereign’s Capital looking, I learned that you really actually should have a cap for every convertible debt loan that you set out. Right. And so we won’t make that mistake twice. But what are some of the things you’ve learned as you’ve gone out there and kind of just rolled up your sleeves?

Bryce Butler: Yeah, I think so. We used to be heavily invested in real estate. We’re not so much anymore. So that’s one of the things that we learned rather quickly. One, it’s like, what are you good at? What are you not good at? And I think we were successful in what we set out to accomplish financially. We got better returns than we had anticipated. And I’m very proud of the work that we did. But we’re not a real estate development company. You know, we worked with a general contractor. We worked with different partners. But a couple of years ago, we looked around and said, where is this going? And are we uniquely gifted in order to do this at scale? Or are there better ways for us to apply our team and our talents to address some of these community issues and what are those underlying issues? And so as much as we did a lot of real estate early on, we actually don’t do that as much anymore. You know, that’s what Genesis to the opportunities own fund and different things. So those are some lessons, I think.

Another one is being flexible, especially this year with covid, one of the things one of the passages I love is like we planned to God determines our steps, Proverbs 16:9.

And so I think there’s an important like we do need to plan the God term. So we need to hold these with open hands. But like, I didn’t plan any I mean, I had plans for twenty twenty, but the things I planned haven’t manifested in the way that I thought they would. And so how were we flexible? How are we looking at the impacts of the market and saying, look, what are we not doing now because it just doesn’t make any sense. And instead of being dogmatic and pressing forward on something that’s just not going to work, we’ve got to be flexible and adjust in order to meet the needs of our community. Ultimately, what’s the mission? What are our values? And the path might be different and circuitous. But ultimately, if those are the things that are forefront, then I think then we can get pretty creative. So I’ve learned a lot. I think evaluation is an interesting thing. We’ve talked about this before, Henry, and can I just run? I think defining at the outset what you’re trying to do and then how you’re measuring towards that, because I think in this exciting world of impact and Faith Driven Investor and Faith Driven Entrepreneur ship, it gets pretty sexy, but it also gets pretty squishy. And so we’ve got to get real about what we mean by that.

Henry Kaestner: Give us an example. What does that look like as you look to measure success and understand that indeed we’re making the progress that we think we’re capable of or that needs to happen? What is success look like for you?

Bryce Butler: Yeah, I think it’s having a conversation at the beginning so that it’s not assumed. You know what else Faith Driven Investor mean for you? And I think because the unfortunate thing is, if we don’t have these conversations, what happens is sometimes it can become unbelievably tribal. And so I have a conversation with my faith tribe, my denominational tribe, about what Kingdom impact means. And so that might be chaplaincy, that might be conversions or church attendance or, you know, dollars donated to homeless shelters or whatever it might be. But how do we expand that and make it more of an accessible conversation for Christians of all stripes to come to it and say, well, here’s my faith, here’s my values, here’s how I think about Shalom, human flourishing Imago Dei people, planet profit and how that’s reflected. And I think what happens is you have a more you have a more full conversation. You help an entrepreneur understand, maybe expand their understanding around what it means to be a gospel centered entrepreneur or Faith Driven Entrepreneur because they’re thinking as well. I need chaplains. Well, that’s great. That’s a great first step. But like, how are you paying your people? How much time off are you giving? Are you allowing for them? Do you have adoption services to help support families? Do you have I think as we start to imagine what this could be, it gets really, really exciting child care on site services for women to be able to work and to grow in their profession, but not have to sacrifice their profession for families. They start to make those choices, like what does that mean for you? And then once you define that as an entrepreneur, having those honest conversations with your aligned investors to make sure, because I think what happens sometimes where I’ve seen it go kind of squishy is one, it’s not defined. And on the other side, it might be defined, but there wasn’t a conversation and so there was an expectation that was unmet. And so the investor might get frustrated, like, I thought you were going to do this or why aren’t you doing this? This is what it means to be kingdom oriented. And I think where those conversations can be thoughtful, consciously determined, collectively understood, I think we’re going to see a lot more, I think, exciting future for both the entrepreneurs and the investors.

Luke Roush: And, yeah, the idea of the conversation up front and being clear about how do we want to think about impact. Otherwise you can kind of become whatever we want it to be over time. And we’ve seen investments that started out being for profit, investments at market that become concessionary investments.

You know, it’s could be on the financial return. Yeah, it could be like I’m just the definition of what it means to be Christian. Right. So I think because even in our modern world, it’s like a lot of people culturally are Christian. What does that look like? And so defining that and ultimately, what does that mean for you? What does that mean for me? Are we aligned? Yeah.

Luke Roush: How can we have that as a conversation that you and I have had, I think in the past, is this idea of how do we invite people in? You know, and you and I and Robert Kim had this conversation at some point about how do we engage within even SOCAP, which is a decidedly secular environment. And yet there are some common ground points that we can kind of reach with people. And so this idea of having a conversation up front and also being open minded about what impact is, it’s not one size fits all.

It’s one size fits one. Maybe just one thing I’d love for you to share for two minutes. And then Henry’s going to wrap us is if you could just maybe just offer an encouragement to the other Bryce butlers who are out there who are thinking about really wanting to have an effect and be used by God to effect change in their city, but are unsure kind of how do they get going? How would you encourage them to kind of lean in and start down this road that God’s taking you on over the last eight or ten years?

Bryce Butler: It’s a great question, a verse that I’m reminded of often is 1 Thessalonians 4, the goal of a Christian life is to lead a quiet life. And I think sometimes in scripture, God is this interesting, awesome, awesome thing, you know. So he has passages in the Bible about ambition. Right. And he has passages in there about patience and rest and waiting on the Lord.

And on some level, you could think, well, those are you know, there’s a paradox. But I think what I love about, like First Thessalonians four is like let’s pursue again, much like the planning and God determining our steps. I’m always asking myself, what’s the difference between complacency and contentment? And am I being complacent with the prayer that I have oftentimes is am I being complacent, i.e. burying my talents, not doing the things that I should be doing as a follower of Jesus, or am I truly just living into, like, resting, you know, be still and know that I am God? What does that look like to be still? And so I think as people are working in local communities, they’re going to have to wrestle in that tension. And because it’s hard work, it does require persistence. And so where I’ve seen people go awry oftentimes is they press into these ambitious goals and they forget to rest or they get a little complacent because they’re comfortable in the work that they’re doing and they don’t take some of the opportunities that they might.

So what does it look like to live in that tension of saying that I love is like how do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time. I think some people hear my story and it becomes overwhelming because I hear it sometimes like, oh, my gosh, I don’t have 50 million dollars, so I can’t go do that. And what I would say is like, what small incremental steps can you take? You know, I started with a half a million dollars. It didn’t have to be that. It could have been far less. It could have been one home and just partnerships. And so what is a very small step that someone can take in investing in a strategic fund manager that cares deeply about the kingdom, adjusting their allocations, looking for real estate investments that have some value alignment, aligning their charitable dollars with something that’s different than just traditional philanthropy. So I think what are some of those small steps instead of getting overwhelmed by the enormity of it?

Henry Kaestner: That’s very good. And then you also touched on some of the things I wanted to ask in our final question. We like to finish off every one of the podcasts that we do across Faith Driven Entrepreneur Faith Driven Investor by asking our guests what they’re hearing from God through his word. And then also something we can pray for you about. Our hope is that this will be a podcast that will be an inspiration and encouragement to many, and it will be passed along and shared with other people that want to be intentional about loving people in their local communities and that people will listen to this and be able to lift up a prayer for you and Access Ventures and what you’re doing. But tell us what you’re hearing from God and his word. And yes, of course, let us know how to pray for you.

Bryce Butler: Well, I think I hit on a little bit, but just this notion of rest, I mean, 20, 20 has been this crazy year. And I would say 80 percent of the plans that I had, the things I’m doing are not the things that I had planned to do this year. I am unbelievably excited about the future. I’m resolute on the work that we’re doing and love it. But I think for me, the complacency and contentment, resting, trusting in the Lord, patience, balancing that, though, with this push for doing as much as I can. And so I want to be faithful. So the prayer is kind of tied to some of my own. Wrestling with First Thessalonians four. And this notion of proverbs and planning and God’s direction is I don’t want to be so content in what I’m doing that I miss out on something that the Lord might have for me.

So I do covet prayers that relate it to just wisdom for myself and for the work that we’re doing that we are pressing forward and the things we should be pressing forward into. We didn’t talk about it much, but I have four daughters, married 14 years and four kids, and they’re getting into that age of just curiosity and maturity and that I would lead them well, give them good direction as they venture out into this crazy world.

Henry Kaestner: And for you, too, buddy, not north. That’s right. Good good byes, Baker into divinity and beyond. That’s right.

Outstanding. Well, thank you very much for your friendship and encouragement and partnership in the Movement and Access Ventures.org is a great website that goes through what you are doing and what God is doing through you. And may God bless you and everything that’s going on in Louisville and and beyond.

Henry Kaestner: Very, very glad to have you on the show today.

Jewel Burks Solomon: Thank you for joining us. Thank you so much for having me.

Henry Kaestner: So we’re going to talk all things Collab and the things that God has uniquely equipped you to do going forward. Really excited about the journey that you’re on as you start with Collab Capital. But as we’re trying to do with anybody we talked to on the show, as we’re trying to understand a little bit about your background and who you are and where do you come from. And how is God worked in your life from the very beginning. So tell us a bit about your story, please.

Jewel Burks Solomon: Sure. So I was born in Mobile, Alabama, which you may be able to pick up on a little bit of a Southern drawl. And raised primarily in Nashville, Tennessee, and was fortunate to be born into a family of great people, entrepreneurs, both my parents. And so I always tell people I got that part on this because that’s what I grew up around, but was born into a family that was a really faithful family. And so I started my faith journey at a very early age and can remember, you know, Sunday mornings were spent in church. My grandmother, I’m sure, will listen to this podcast. And she made sure that I was in Sunday school and always right there, you know, front row for a service. So that was a great foundation for me. And then I think, you know, speaking about the faith journey, I was in a routine growing up of being in church. I grew up in First Baptist Church, Capital Hill in Nashville, Tennessee, which is important because there was a lot of history in that church. It was. Training ground for a lot of the civil rights leaders during the 60s working on the national sit. And so I think that growing up in that church planted the seeds in me that I didn’t even know were being planted. But it actually was not until I went to Howard University and started getting involved in the chapel at Howard that I really sort of developed my faith. So that’s little background.

Henry Kaestner: That’s good background. So, you know, this is one of these unique times where we actually do a interview that is going to be released on both Faith Driven Entrepreneur and faith driven investors. So much of your background is on the entrepreneurial side. And then also, what you going to be doing now, What you are doing now is on the investor side. But bring us into the Faith Driven Entrepreneur part. Talk to us about Partpic. Tell us about the problem or actually the opportunity that you saw and how that worked out.

Jewel Burks Solomon: Yeah. So set that foundation to kind of let you know about my background and growing up. But as I mentioned, I grew up in a house where asprin ownership was seen as a great thing. And so I always knew that I wanted to become an entrepreneur. I didn’t know what the path would be to get there, but it was on 12, 12 twelve that I had. What would be the idea for what would become part pick? And I sent my mom in an email on that day and told her, you know, I want to create a technology solution for part search. And the idea came to me because I was working at a company called Amen McMaster Car, where I was managing in the call center. And I was the person who received escalation. And so basically that yell that she so for the majority of the day and wanted to find a better way to help customers. And so I was experiencing the problem of people being frustrated with searching for replacement parts, industrial part everyday. And then I also had a personal connection where my grandfather, who was running our family farm in Reston, Alabama. He was in the middle of a harvest and his tractor broke down and he called me to help him find a part for the tractor. And I could not find this part. And so that was, for me, sort of a sign to say I actually need to pursue a better way for people to find parts, because it was one thing for it to be my customers who were having the problem, but it was another thing for my grandfather to be also having that same problem. And so I sort of thought about, OK, what would be a better way to allow people to search for part? And the idea just kind of hit me that you could do it with a camera search and leverage, you know, computer vision technology, which I didn’t understand fully what that meant at the time, but learned a lot about it and set out on our journey to build this technology and build a company around the technology, which became part Picon. We had a really interesting journey in building that business, ultimately selling it to Amazon into 2016 and integrating the technology into the Amazon mobile app.

Henry Kaestner: That must’ve been really exciting. Tell us about the journey up through that and maybe just take a second before we end up talking about more on the investment side. Take us through some of the lessons that you learned at Partpic. And I’m going to presume that is called Partpic was you probably didn’t go toe to toe across the negotiating table with Jeff Bezos. But if you did, I want to hear that story. But tell us about some of the lessons learned.

Jewel Burks Solomon: Yeah, I mean, there were so many lessons learned during my Partpic journey. One thing to point out is that I was 23 years old when I came up with the idea and started the company. And so I was very young entrepreneur and was learning a time during that time. And I would say, you know, the top things that I was able to work with and perfect with. Really circulated around building relationships and trusting that even when things were difficult and they were often very difficult given the fact that we were building this kind of novel, new technology and particularly building it in an industry that is pretty old school, I would say pretty archaic as it relates to technology, or at least it was at that time.

And so trying to convince, you know, decision makers that large companies that they should trust a young CEO and also a CEO, that look quite different than probably most of the folks that they were. You saw receiving pitches from them, a little intimidating. But for me, it was a huge learning experience and one where I would really have to rely on my faith to kind of push through some of the obstacles that I was in channeling along the way. So obstacles, everything from, you know, how do I attract the right team to help me in building this and how do I want it? The white investors that actually believe in the vision and believe that I can execute the vision. And then even now to the point of showing the company, is that the right decision? Is this the right company? You know, Amazon is a huge menace. And going through that process of having to sell across the table from a more powerful and mighty entity was obviously daunting for me.

So I had to really rely on my faith through all of that. And I was fortunate that that worked out, that I did not leave me at any point in the journey. So I’m really thankful for that. And I know that my faith was certainly increased through my entrepreneurship journey.

Rusty Rueff: So what’s really cool about your your background is, is that, you know, you go through the sale of the company and then, you know, you find your way not only to Google as the head of Google startups, but you also, you know, have been involved in venture capital yourself. And we’ve shared about CoLab capital. But I want you to talk a little bit about Google startups and what you do there. But then I want to go into CoLab capital because the problem that you’re trying to solve there is we know is an important one and we want to make sure that we dove into that. But tell us about Google startups.

Jewel Burks Solomon: Sure. So I think about my role as head of Google for startups, for the U.S. as a really big full circle moment for me. I started my career at Google. Eleven years ago as an intern, you know, summer of 2009. And at that time, I could only imagine that, you know, at this point I would be leading a team that’s focused in an area where I’m deeply passionate, which is around leveling the playing field for underrepresented startup founders across the country. And this year, we have a special focus in Atlanta, which is where I’m based. And I was led to this role really because it was a bit serendipitous that I came into this role. I actually just went to the Google office to have lunch with a friend, and I ran into a member of this Google started team and started talking to her about, you know, how she was doing, what was going on. And she let me know that this role was going to be coming open. And when she called me about it and I continued to talk to other people and learn more about it, I thought, wow, this is exactly what I would be doing. Even if I didn’t have this job, I would be working with startups and early stage companies and trying to help them get the resources that they need anyway. So it’s really a blessing for me to be able to do it as my day job. I would say and we’ll talk about collabs, which is my second day job, but it does allow me to leverage, you know, all of the resources of Google and make sure that they are adequately distributed to early stage startup founders. And particularly we focused on working with black lab mix and veteran founded companies, helping them make inroads and grow their businesses so that they can impact the communities that they reside in.

Rusty Rueff: And then I know a lot of our listeners know Google Ventures, right, because they want to raise money from Google Ventures. Just distinguish a little bit between Google startups and Google Ventures.

Jewel Burks Solomon: Sure, we will. Ventures, which is now known as G.V., is one of the investing arms of Google. There’s actually a few investing teams, but G.V. is probably the most well-known. And they actually sit outside of Google proper for their part of Alphabet, which is the parent company, but are completely separate from Google, whereas Google for Startups sits inside of Google and it’s not an investing team. So it is really about getting resources, connections, you know, connections to the right product and people, mentorship, working with partners throughout the country. So we do a lot of work with organizations and coworking spaces that serve entrepreneurs in markets throughout the U.S. and actually globally. The team is a global team. And prior to me joining in. Back in December, the focus actually was in emerging markets outside the U.S.. So there are campus locations that serve as kind of startup hubs in places like Sao Paolo, Brazil and Televisa and London. And so when I joined, this was actually the first time that there has been this concentrated effort in a whole team focused on the U.S. based startups and particularly looking at what we consider to be an emerging startup ecosystems within the US. So the role that I had is not an investing role, but I do get to get resources to founders that are in need of them the most.

Rusty Rueff: That’s fantastic. I mean, here we are on a Faith Driven Entrepreneur faith driven investor podcast trying to equip both entrepreneurs and investors. And we have a Faith Driven Entrepreneur who’s equipping a lot of investors and entrepreneurs through Google. And it’s great work that you do there. But you get the investment side on CoLab Capital. So take us through that.

Jewel Burks Solomon: Yes. So we started Collab Capital because we felt that there was a pretty wide gap in need as it relates particularly to black entrepreneurs. I’m sure you all have seen the statistics, but it said that less than one percent of venture capital funding goes to black founders and black founded companies. And we know that particularly black founders and black women founders are some of the largest growing segment of astronauts. So there’s a disparity there that we thought needed to be addressed. And instead of just saying, OK, we’re going to invest in black founders, we really wanted to explore, you know, what is happening. Why is it that. Black founders are not receiving the same rate of funding in relation to how many of them are starting businesses. And so when we thought about that and we really explored our own journeys and also took the data from all of the conversations and meetings and mentorship sessions that we’ve had with black founders over the years, what we came to see is that actually we think there is a need to create a new vehicle and a new structure that is designed with black entrepreneurs in mind. So we created what we consider to be sort of an alternative capital structure that really thinks about the alignment between the entrepreneur and their goals. And as as the investors and also considers this kind of macro problem around the wealth gap in this country. And so we think that is very important for entrepreneurs, particularly black entrepreneurs, to maintain equity and ownership in the businesses they start, because that is one way that we can start to counteract this gaping wealth gap that we have in this country. And so we built this model so that black entrepreneurs don’t have to raise a lot of rounds of funding and therefore potentially give up quite a bit of equity and perhaps lose control of the companies they start. But instead, they can have an option to maintain ownership in those companies, pass them on in their families if they so choose, and then start to create real wealth in the black community, which we think can kickstart a lot of other solutions to the problems that we see in those communities.

Rusty Rueff: That may be one of the most fascinating and impacting insights that I had never thought about around investing in black and minority owned businesses, that when traditional venture capital goes and invests, it’s one round after another, another, and it’s just dilution, dilution, dilution. And by the time you’re done, that equity could be little to nothing. And there’s nothing to carry on. That’s awesome. That’s just awesome. So if you look ahead 10, 15 years, if we can look that far. What do you hope is true for black entrepreneurs and investors in America? And what would it take to make what you see as a vision, a reality?

Jewel Burks Solomon: Yes. So I think about this a lot. I want there to be access and options for black entrepreneurs. And what we present at collab, we’ve considered to be an option. We don’t think that it is an all encompassing solution. But we do think that it will help jump start and hopefully there will be many more funds and people who are thinking about sintering the communities that need the resources the most. So that’s a vision for 10 years from now, I think about what the change will be and the impact will be on the communities where the businesses that we invest in are located. I think about something that we’re already seeing happening just with our first investment. We invested in a company just a few months ago and the asprin were recently posted, a picture that showed her and five of her family members in her warehouse where she’s shipping out her orders. And she said that, you know, this is really changing her family dynamic because she’s now in a position to hire the people that she knows and trusts. But also that may not have had that type of opportunity. And so we’re already seeing it. And we just think that in ten or fifteen years, we will be able to showcase a whole plethora of entrepreneurs that have done the same things in their communities and in their families. And we really are excited about the fact that, you know, in our mind, this is all for the kingdom and offer glory of God in the end and thinking about that society that we want to live in, where people have access, they have opportunity. They’re able to realize their potential. So that’s the vision that I have was in the 15 years down the line. And I think to get there, it’s going to require people to think differently and to invest in different ways and to be open to new ideas and new models that would break the norm of what we’ve seen up until this point.

William Norvell: Jewel, William here. Thank you so much for sharing that story. I’ve gotten to hear parts of it from you before. And it’s just it’s encouraging every time. It’s exciting every single time. And it brings something new as you think through your faith. It sounds like a little bit all encompassing for you and your founders. Did you think through your faith and the work you all are doing at CoLab Capital? How do you see those intersecting each other in your investments? You do and the way you’re raising money right now? All the different facets of how you’re going to run that organization.

Jewel Burks Solomon: Yeah, I mean, I think that because of how we’ve started in. I can share a little bit about our origin story as it’s myself and two other partners. And because of the fact that we started in a way one that was kind of driven by conversations that we had outside of church. And when my partner Barry and I shared with each other sort of the experiences that we had starting companies and actually being depressed after we finished our startup journey and then using that moment to come up with this new idea. And really, the idea is steeped in the notion that we don’t want founders to go through some of the same things that we went through. And we want to think about how do we make it so that they can achieve their goals and achieve whatever success looks like for them in a way that is well supported and where they have safe haven as they are going through all of it. And so the fact that we started with that kind of central idea, I think has blessed the journey so far. And, you know, we think about how do we continue with where we started? And how do we grow it? And as we bring new people in, how do we make sure that they have that same conviction and passion about what we’re doing? That’s the challenge that we have today, is thinking about the growth of this and how do we just continue on this path that we’re on. But that’s where we bring in great folks. Like I know you all have Lecrae on the podcast and other people that we are surrounding ourselves with who we think share our vision and share our faith as well. And we think that by doing that and bringing the right people into what we’re doing and finding entrepreneurs who also have a passion and conviction for doing the right thing for their communities, that for us is really what wakes up every morning and helps us to continue on doing this work.

William Norvell: I mean, that’s amazing. And as our listeners are here from both communities, how best can we support the work you all are doing right now? What are some ideas?

Jewel Burks Solomon: Well, I think one of the things that we are really big about is access to networks. We believe that access to capital is incredibly important, but it’s actually being able to walk in to a customer that we’ve been trying to land for a long time or have someone we can call who knows the right decision maker. That for us is a huge part of our model as well. So we really invite people, and particularly folks that are faith driven in these corporations who understand the vision and see the benefit of maybe taking a risk on an early stage entrepreneur or, you know, putting their neck out for someone who is building something great. We invite people to let us know if they’re looking for solutions, technology, solutions to problems that their organization is facing or if they would be willing to mentor a founder if they have expertize that they can win. We’re open to talking to folks about how they can get involved with what we do and also, more importantly, with what our founders are doing, because we think that there is so much that can develop and grow from these legal fees that we’re planning. And we just want to continue that growth as we go march toward that bigger vision that we talked about in 10 to 15 years.

William Norvell: That’s amazing. Well, as everybody is listening, we’ll obviously be posting links to what they’re up to. So just hopefully we can rally around them. One thing I want to jump back to. I know we’re kind of come to a close here, but I want to jump back to use a big word. Earlier when you talked about selling, your company used the word depression and you said one of your co-founders shared a similar sentiment and he may have gone through that. Did you go through that journey of selling a little bit in the emotions that you went through? I think it will give our audience an amazing idea, both just how they can approach something like that, how they can live with someone who may be going through that, and then also just further empathize with founders and how they go through these varying sets of emotions that maybe someone like me who’s never founded an operation like that maybe can’t quite figure out.

Jewel Burks Solomon: Yes, it is a big word. And I will tell you, I was afraid of the word for a while. And it wasn’t until I sold my company and found myself in a situation where, you know, the day that I was supposed to go and sign and the next day and the next day, I really had a hard time getting. Bed and I was crying, and it was just such a emotional time for me. And I did not understand what was happening and I had to go to the doctor because it was weighing so heavily on me. And I did not have the language or the tools to deal with it at that time. And it wasn’t until the doctors said, you are clinically depressed and encourage you, me to go to a therapist. And you think about my diet and my exercise and really examine what did self care look like. And for me at that time, I didn’t even know what that meant because I had spent so much of my life, my time, my energy, everything pouring into this company. And I did not know how to look at myself without having this title, you know, Feo of Perpich attached to my name. I just didn’t know how to deal with all of those emotions. And so I had to do a lot of things. I had to pray. Of course I had to pray about it. I had to ask God, who am I? Who am I to see you? What is my life about now? What am I here for? I had to ask these really big questions and seek guidance on how to step forward and realize that actually I’m purpose for life as you know what I built and that I was, you know, that that first year going from this bell and then my first year at Amazon, I was a really challenging year for me, but I just had faith through it. And I use the tools that God gave me, as well as the tools that the doctor gave me. And I was able to get into a much better place and so much so that I could be in a place where I could actually recognize it in someone else. So when I had the conversation with Barry without a partner in the lab, it came about because I recognized that something wasn’t going right with him. I knew that there was something a little bit all. And so I just asked him a simple question of how are you? And that’s what started him sharing and me sharing. And I think for everyone who’s listening.

If you have people around you, and especially if you are in the presence of entrepreneurs or in a relationship with an entrepreneur, I think that periodic check in just to ask, how are you? Is there anything that I can do to relieve some of the pressure that you may be feeling? That is a great thing that you can do. And also, just checking in with yourself if you are the entrepreneur who’s listening. Really trying to understand. Are you OK? What is happening with you? Have you checked in on yourself recently? So these are all things that I learned and unfortunately, I learned it when I hit a pretty big wall. But I’m just grateful that I had that experience. But now I think it’s powerful to talk about it and also just to have the tools to deal with it, especially in a time like we’re in right now where there are so many things happening. You know, we’re having so much loss and we’re having to deal with things that we’ve never had to deal with before. I think it’s very important for us to talk more about what does it mean to be depressed, to go through emotional turmoil, to feel lonely, to feel lost? I think it’s important for us to, in the Bible, talk about women things. And that is that is something that is actually encouraged. And I think we shy away from it a lot. So I’m very open to having this conversation. I thank you for asking the question. And I hope that it encourages the listeners to talk, to seek guidance, to seek help and to not be afraid of having these types of conversations.

Henry Kaestner: That’s such a powerful aspect and one that we haven’t explored as much as we should on the podcast. We did have a really neat interview with Max Anderson in which he talked about mental illness in the life of an entrepreneur. And it was all start to a different editions with time, but it really hasn’t gotten this concept. I think it’s really it’s a postpartum type of depression. I’ve had two questions come after that. And he partially answered one of them already, which is the part about limitations. But you mention the fact that you did seek professional help. You didn’t look at things like diet, but also that there is an aspect of your relationship with God and maybe his word that walked you through it. Once you speak a little bit, then I’ve got a follow up question as well.

Jewel Burks Solomon: Yes. I really had to dive deep in to a word, I had to dive deep in to my practice of spending time with God because I had gotten away from it, even though I was faithful throughout the astronaut ship journey. I was not spending the right amount of time on my relationship with God. And so one of the things that helped me to get to a better place as far as my mental health was making it a daily practice to spend time with God, to spend time in the world. And it really did work on that relationship. I think that sometimes I know in my life I’ve taken it for granted and I’ve always known that God will be there. But I haven’t necessarily been the person that I should be for him. And so one of the things that has helped me and to this day still helps me and has helped me honestly through the time that we’re in right now is just making sure that every single day I am spending time with God and and thanking God and being full of gratitude for the fact that, you know, I’m waking up each day. I’m getting to do the things that I want to do and live in what I think is my purpose here and be helpful to people. And all of these things that is just amazing to me are the blessing. But that for me has been really, really critical as far as my journey is concerned. The whole thing has been recognizing when I am not spending the right amount of time in trying to get back on track and then having people that can hold me accountable to that as well.

Henry Kaestner: So that’s really important. The accountability part and bridges into actually the follow up question, too, is that as you’re invited into relationship with entrepreneurs, that you invest in entering a community with them and have some level of accountability. And investor holds the entrepreneur accountable for things like keeping them in the loop with how things are going on in the business, among other things. What does it look like for you? Having had that experience to be able to talk about things like identity and mental illness? Have you and your partners at Collab talked about what it might look like to be able to love on your entrepreneurs, knowing that these are things to watch out for and knowing that an entrepreneur, his life is full of anxiety and I’ve told it to somebody the other day, feels like an eye opener is always selling something to somebody. You’re selling to your customers, you’re selling to your investors. You’re selling to people who are going to join the team. You’re selling people to stay on the team. And then when you think you’re finished with sound for the day, you come home and then you talk to your spouse and they’re asking how to go because they’re wondering why you left a really good job at Google or Apple or fill in the blanks and you feel like you have to tell them about things through a glass half full type of lens. And that really just weighs on somebody having come out of that experience yourself as an astronaut. How are you all thinking about loving on your entrepreneurs and being really conscious of that and looking out for that?

Jewel Burks Solomon: Yes. I think this is one of the things that I enjoy the most about the seat that I’m in, where I have a chance to spend time with both the entrepreneur that we have invested in, as well as the entrepreneurs that I meet through the various roles that I hold. And one of the things that I’ve really spent a lot of time with over the past six months is checking in on those entrepreneurs were our Google program. We’ve even made therapy available and free for the entrepreneurs in the program that we run. So it’s something that I’m very open to talking to them about. And I know because I’ve experienced that way can look like to just pour everything into the business and not care for yourself, lose connection to God or whatever higher power you believe in. And so I make it a point to make sure that I’m checking in on entrepreneurs regularly and probably more so right now, because I know that it’s very tempting to just pour everything into the work and leave and forget about yourself. But for me, it’s very important to look on the entrepreneurs and make sure that they are OK, because, you know, the business can’t be successful if the founder is not operating from a space of wholeness. And so that’s something that I’m really committed to. And I think my partners are as well. And we practice it with each other. You know, we’ve all had some level of personal pain over the past several months. And so it’s really been stepping up when one person is down or going through something, you know, taking the reins and carrying a bit of the load. And so we do the same thing with the entrepreneurs that we work with as well.

William Norvell: Thanks so much for walking us through that as we come to a close. We’ll highlight one of the pieces you mentioned, how we loved to always ask our guests whether they are God’s word and what God may be telling them today. And the season could be something you read this morning, could be something you’ve been meditating on for a while. Would you mind just letting our audience into where God has you and a scripture and how it’s taking you further on the journey?

Jewel Burks Solomon: Sure. So I have been doing morning devotion around anxiety because it’s something that is still very real for me. And so I wanted to share a scripture that was just in. I think maybe this week I wrote it down and have been meditating on it. And it’s John, 16, 33. And it’s hard. I’m not really alone. Or the fathers with me. I said these things to you so that you will have peace and me in the world. You have to stress but be encouraged. I have conquered the world. And for me, that scripture is encouraging. It’s especially helpful right now. The notion that as lonely as things may feel, I can’t sink into that concept because God is with me. And that, for me, has been a big comfort.

William Norvell: It’s great words. Great advice. Well, thank you so much for joining us. Thank you so much for spending time out of your day to come tell our listeners the story that God has you on and the ones you’re trying to encourage. And I always really appreciate it.

Henry Kaestner: Jewel. Thank you. Thank you very much for sharing your story. Excited to see what God will do through you and Collab.

Jewel Burks Solomon: Thank you so much.

Tim Keller: I want to talk to you about what it takes to be a Faith Driven Investor now at this point, at least in this talk, I’m not talking so much about people who are professional investors who happen to be Christians. I’m talking about how every Christian who wants Jesus Christ to be lord of every area of your life wants to make sure that he’s lord over your your money, your wealth and how you use your finances, because all Christians should be people who use their money not just on themselves, but who are also investing in the good of others and in God’s kingdom. And so let me talk to you about just two principles on how to be a person who is a Christian, who is using God, allowing God to be in charge of every area of his life or her life, especially when it comes to the financial world. Here’s two principles. The first one, which I think people tend to miss because it’s so foundational, is you’ve got to make sure that your identity is solidly rooted in who you are in Christ and not in having money or being successful. It’s extraordinarily important. So the first thing is you’ve got to make sure that your identity is not your success or your money, but who you are. And Jesus Christ, just some thoughts on this. David Martin Lloyd Jones, who was a doctor before he went into the ministry, he was a physician and a very prominent one says he thought that there’s a lot of people who you could have put on their gravestone born a man, died a doctor, and he’s working back in a in a time in which basically only men were doctors. But what Lloyd-Jones is getting at is just this is that some professions being prominent, making money, having status, having nice big homes becomes an identity. Everybody has to live for something. And whatever you live for most becomes your identity. I remember a couple of times in my life that I this really was driven home to me as a pastor. One time I was counseling two women almost at the same time, both of whom had teenage sons, both of whom were mothers of only one child, a teenage son, and both of their teenage sons were not doing well at all. They were becoming rebellious and having troubles in school and so forth. And I do remember that even though both of them, their children did not improve and their their son’s life did not get better, but one woman using the resources of the gospel was able to get through it, and the other women just became more and more bitter and depressed. They’re both professing Christians and yet one God one was able to get through it and one was became more bitter and depressed. I also was counseling with or working with two men, young men who were actors, single men, and they were both professing Christians and they both were up for a great role that could really make or break their career. And neither of them got the roles and neither of them did well in their career. But one man became bitter and depressed and the other man got through it. And I came to realize as time went on that though they were they were all Christians, all four of those people were Christians. Nevertheless, one of the actors had made acting into his real identity, not who he was and Jesus. And so when he failed to be successful, he didn’t have a self left. And one of those mothers, though, they were both Christians, one of those mothers, her real identity was being a good mother. So if my son turns out well and he loves me, then I know I’m a good person. But one had made that our identity. And when she wasn’t successful as a mother, she had, like, no self left. Now, the reason I bring this up is because if if your success or your finances, your money is your identity, you will not be generous. You will not be able to give it away as radically as strategically as you should. You will tend to either not give enough away or you will tend to give it away and do it in such a way that you get a lot of esteem and you really will not be thinking about how do I invest this money in the good of others, our investors money and the good of God’s kingdom. You’ll really be it’s it really becomes you rather than something you can give to other people. And so, Luke, Chapter 10, there’s a great place where. The disciples are sent out to heal and cast out demons, and they come back and they’re really excited. This is Luke, Chapter 10, and they said, wow, God, sort of like that. Wow, Lord Jesus. Even the demons are subject to our name. We have all this power. And Jesus says to them, this is the old King James version. Rejoice. Not that the demons are subject to your name, but rejoice that your names are written in heaven. And what he’s actually saying is you’re getting to your eye, you’re getting too much identity out of your ministry success. Your identity ought to be rooted in the fact that your names are already written in heaven. You’re already saved your citizens of heaven, you’re loved in Jesus Christ. That is the real thing, that you should be rejoicing in an identity that’s received, not achieved. And so, first of all, you will never be a Faith Driven Investor unless you are willing to recognize that you must make sure your identity is in who Jesus is and who you are in Jesus Christ rather than in your your financial success or your business success or the money you have for your possessions. Now, the second thing is going to be even more practical. That’s a little more basic. The most practical thing is you have to make sure you are. Secondly, you are investing in line with the work of the Holy Spirit in your life. Now, what people are constantly asking me is how do I let the Holy Spirit guide me so I know where I should invest my money, which is another way where I should give my money, where I should do philanthropy, for example, or where I should invest in a way that I know is going to do really good in the world. And here’s what I suggest. There’s an objective and subjective way to let the spirit guide you. Now, here’s what I mean by objective. The objective way is you want to put your money or give your money to some ministry organization that is meeting an important need. Very well. It’s meeting an important need. Very well. Which means you’re first of all, you have to have some idea about what is an important need. You know, Mark, Chapter two, Jesus has a man brought to him on a on a who’s a paralyzed. So he’s carried in on some kind of stretcher. And it’s very clear that the all of this it may be the man himself and all of his friends say his main need is he’s paralyzed. So help him. Jesus Christ, first of all, comes up to him and says, my son, your sins are forgiven, which everybody is shocked at since he didn’t come to get a sense forgive and he came to get his his body fixed. But God but Jesus shows that having your sins forgiven is more important than having even your body healed. And yet then he goes on and heals him anyway. So you haven’t text like this and this is what a Faith Driven Investor needs to do, need to be reading your Bible, always looking for this question. What are the most important needs as far as God is concerned? What are the highest priorities as far as God is concerned? I love Chapter two of Mark because it does show that that that evangelism and spreading the faith is an extraordinarily high priority. On the other hand, it’s just as important to see that God also does care about the body. He doesn’t say, well, as long as you’re going to heaven, who cares whether you’re hungry or poor or paralyzed? Now, of course he cares. But you see, when you read texts like that, you see, OK, what is God thinks, which is God is important. And so one of the things you’re going to do is from the word of God, you’re going to learn objectively what are the most important needs. So you’re looking for organizations and initiatives and ministries that are meeting important needs. Well, but subjectively and here’s maybe the most maybe this might be the thing that many people remember most from what I’m about to tell you is God has a calling on your life and he’s giving you certain gifts. And the way you can tell what your gifts are is what needs do you resonate to? Because one time, one thing people are going to say is they’re going to say there’s so many things I could be giving my money to. There’s so many things I could be investing in. How do I know where I should go? Well, I’m trying to say objectively, yeah, do some analysis. What is God say are important things and look at it that way. But subjectively, what do you resonate to? When I first got to know you to Hopewell, Virginia, many, many years ago, I was twenty four years old. I became a pastor of a brand, a brand new pastor, never been a pastor before. And I’m a pastor. This tiny little church in Hopewell, Virginia, and over the first three days I was there, I got a visitor each day, a different person. The first day a visitor walked in and said, you see that trailer caught at the end of the street away from the church? And it was a little trailer caught at the end of the street. As you see, that trailer caught there is lost people in there and our church is not evangelizing them. So I listened to him the next day, somebody came in a different person and walked in the door and said, do you see that trailer court down at the end of the street? I said, yes, I do. I said, You realize there’s poor people in there. There’s people who just can hardly you know, they don’t have enough food to eat. And we really need to go down there and we need to find out ways in which we can help them, help them get jobs, help them support their children, help them with job training and things like that. We really need to help them because they’re poor. The third day, somebody walked in the door and said to me, Do you see that? Do you see that a trailer court down at the end of the street? And I said, yes, I absolutely, definitely do see that trailer. And they said, well, you know what? Over the years, we’ve tried so much to have an outreach to that child care. We try to evangelize and we tried to help them because there’s so many poor people there. But the trouble is this church is just not administratively very smart. Nobody knows how to get things done. They have good intentions and they sit down and they say, we’re going to do this and that. And nothing ever happens because our biggest need is we just need better management here in this church. And I realized suddenly that here is three people that walked into or they looked at the trailer court. But because of their gifts, one of those people had a gift of angels and one of those people had a gift of mercy and justice and caring for the poor. I’m one of them had an administrative gift. And because of their gifts, they actually saw the need somewhat differently, which is great, by the way, all working together that you can really reach the trailer court, but only working together. But it was how do you know what those person’s gifts were? I knew immediately because it was what they noticed what what they resonated to what what gave them a certain passion. And that’s what you need. There’s nothing wrong with all these different great possibilities. But some of them you resonate to, some of them that you feel burdened for. That’s the Holy Spirit leading you through your gifts and through your calling. Now, to really do this. Well, you need to take time. You need to pray. You need a journal. You need to talk to a lot of other people. But get your identity straight or none of this is going to work objectively. Ask, what is the Holy Spirit doing in this world? And subjectively, what is the spirit leading me to do in this world? And you will be a spirit led faith build investor.

Mart Green: So in that one moment in time, I went from why to how why do we translate the Bibles for small people groups to how are we going to make sure that everybody on planet Earth has God’s word in their heart language?

Henry Kaestner: Welcome back to the Faith Driven Investor podcast. I’m here with William William. Good afternoon.

William Norvell: It is good to be here, as always. Good to see you.

Henry Kaestner: It’s great to have you discontinuing this segment, this series, I should say, of course, on other ways to think about doing Faith Driven Investor. And I’ve been thinking about Mark Green, who’s our guest. Welcome to the program, by the way.

Mart Green: Thank you, Henry. Look forward to having this time with you.

Henry Kaestner: When I think about alternate ways to think about Faith Driven Investor and different ways to think about guys economy and how to measure the success of our investments, I keep on coming back to one story that I’ve heard, Martelle, time and time again. That’s really made an impact on me and it’s made an impact on me because I really think that my thought about what a return on investment look like was probably pretty much in sync with Marte’s way up until this time he had this trip to Guatemala, which we’re going to hear about. And so I’m eager for Mark to tell a story and we’re going to get into that and we’re going to be unpacking together. What does it look like to think about investment return in light of what God tells us through his scripture and tells us through his spirit in a way that I hope will stretch us all? And I hope that in the course of doing that will bring us closer to knowing God and then just helps us to understand how to steward the resources he’s entrusted us with under his power for his glory. So hopefully that’s what success looks like. At the end of this podcast. You’ll have that much more of a closer sense as to what that what that means for you and the assets you’ve been entrusted with. So, Mark, thank you for being on the show. Let’s start off, as we do with all of our guests. Tell us a bit about your personal background. Many people will probably know of your family, but pretend like we don’t.

Mart Green: Yeah, I was born in Oklahoma. My family gravitated to Oklahoma City because of a retail company called TGen Y where my dad worked. And so when I was nine, my dad decided that he want to get work life balance. And so he borrowed six hundred dollars and started what became Hobby Lobby in our home. So we glued frames. I was nine, my brother was a seven, and then I have a sister, she was three. So she got out of the child labor and just saw the business grow in her home. And my mom ran the business for the first five years without pay. My dad finally quit his job, selling half to see if he could make a go of it. Then I went to school. I was at college. I decided I heard my dad talk about Christian bookstores, will actually quit in nineteen eighty one, came home and started a company called Mortdale. We have thirty seven Christian bookstores and then ninth grade. I found a young lady that I liked and I chased her for six years and finally she agreed to marry me and we’ve had four children and our twenty second grandchild is due today. So if I run off this podcast you’ll know that I got the call and I’m sorry, but the family comes first. But anyway, somehow the two have become twenty two. And so God’s blessings, that incredible family.

Henry Kaestner: Wow, that is awesome. You’re a very rich man and the most meaningful sense

William Norvell: in a beautiful way to end the podcast. I don’t think we’ve ever had that happen. That would just be hey, what is beautiful.

Henry Kaestner: Yeah, I would be super cool. OK, so get back to it because you gloss over that a little bit and you’re an entrepreneur. We have this sister series that we do called the Faith Driven Entrepreneur where we’ve done, I don’t know, maybe one hundred and eighty hundred and ninety segments. We’re not going to tell so much of the Mardell story today, but I want to look at it just a little bit. You grew up in an entrepreneurial home. You were glowing picture frames when you’re nine years old, and then you went and started your internal venture. What did it look like growing up in that house that made you want to be an entrepreneur? And were there ever a time, though, when you saw what was going on in the business? You said, no, I don’t want to do that. How did it all just growing up in an entrepreneurial home impact in shape, how you ended up seizing and lean into your own entrepreneurial career?

Mart Green: Yeah, what I saw probably were a couple of things. One was hard work because it was a lot of hard work. We started a business in your home, your mom not getting paid, all those kind of things. And then I also knew that it was a way to provide for family was also a way to give. You know, my family has always wanted to give and be generous. And so by being entrepreneurial, the more you can do, the more you can give. And so we kind of see it now as a prosperity gospel or the poverty gospel, but the plentiful gospel. So I use a symbol of a funnel. I have a coin in my pocket, has our family a love that intimately has a heart that was easy, live, extravagant generosity. I wanted to put a curtain being torn because I think that’s the most generous thing that ever happened visually. When Jesus died on the cross, the tartan was torn. This is hard to do that. So I chose a funnel. So on my coin in my pocket, I carry is a funnel in the back. And so that’s what I saw just kind of lived, you know, the more you get, just give. So when I was at college, I was nineteen years old. My dad, he want to do a barbecue stand. He want to do all these different things. And I wasn’t interested. But he said, Christian bookstore. I thought, oh no, that’s kind of cool because the entrepreneurial what you’re doing, you know, there’s not a lot of people go to Hobby Lobby, buy so flower and their life is transformed for eternity. Now they have incredible experience. It makes their home better and all that stuff. But a Christian bookstore, I’m thinking, oh, because usually you give to ministries and you make money, you’re entrepreneurial. Well, that’s kind of the deal. The Christian bookstore you kind of get to take. Both of those, and so, again, 19 not smart enough to ask all the big questions, you know, that I should have I probably would have never done it. So I quit school and my dad would pay for school kind of work. His measure goes, well, if I come over and I bust, I’ll make enough money to go back to school again. So that was my plan.

Henry Kaestner: So tell us also a little bit about family business, because Mardell is co-located with Hobby Lobby. You’re all together. What’s it like working in a multigenerational family business altogether?

Mart Green: Yeah, for me, it’s a huge benefit, as you can imagine, because my dad already had banking things, relationships. They had lawyers worked up. And all this is good news. I’d have to worry about a lot of heavy things. Now, obviously, Christian bookstore and at that time is off supply. Now, we’ve kind of evolved into education supplies. That was all different. So that’s what I had to do. Lots of learning. But the advantage of having a family business here together is my dad had already cut down lots of trees and lots of weeds that were in my way. And so I had huge advantage in that way. What I had to go do is say, hey, can I be a merchant in different categories? Then obviously Hobby Lobby has lots of different categories and they’re world class, what they do. And so it was just fun to go and do it there at the same time, have those advantages. But, you know, my dad kind of let me do it. You know, he didn’t come in. He only had seven hobby lobbies, I think, in nineteen eighty one when I opened. So he’s still trying to get his. And so the nice thing was my dad could have saved me from a lot of mistakes. He probably watched me walk right in that wall and get a bloody nose. When he stopped me I probably have done it again. Right. But since he didn’t stop me, I didn’t do it again. Right. And so I had a father that would empower me and not help me lots. You see what I’m saying? But in the decisions I had to make, he never Trumpton never got into the business of why did you do that? Why did you do that? So anyway, it was an incredible, incredible I guess I just assumed everybody had the same upbringing. I guess we all do. Right. I guess I assume everybody’s trying to figure something out on their house or working at home and working. Mother, nine years old. I didn’t find out later that I was I wasn’t under the child labor laws.

Henry Kaestner: So did your kids. The next generation, the tilers and and that generation start off the same way,

Mart Green: not at nine. We let them go to school and get a little bit older and stuff like that. But some of that same philosophy that, you know, your first car you have to pay for part of that college. We matched their funds, you know, so we got a little bit better than my parents. They were zero, you know, and stuff, because, again, they didn’t have the funds to help me at that time. So that’s what we try to figure that out. You know, that’s not a science. That’s an art stuff. How do you help your kids? You don’t want them to feel entitled. That’s always been a concern that we’ve had as a family. How do you do that? How do you be generous if your family seems to love got intimately and little extravagant generosity? What’s extravagant generosity to look like within a family member that’s also healthy? Right. I give my kids lots of money. That wouldn’t be extravagant generosity, really. I’d actually be killing their work, desire and all that. So it’s a it’s something you have to work through.

Henry Kaestner: OK, so that’s give me another Panksepp. So we’re going to come back to it because I’ve gotten to know Tyler and Derrick well over the course the last couple of years. And I know that you’re actually very, very intentional with the way you do that. I think that there’s a lot there to unpack. We won’t go there on this episode. But I actually want to go backwards. Just a second. You pulled a coin out of your pocket and you just said what it was. Just briefly, because I want to talk about that coin and then I want to talk about another thing that you always do as a matter of habit that’s really made an impression on me. But tell us again about the coin and then I’ll tell people about what the other habit that you have that’s made an impression on me.

Mart Green: Yeah. About twelve years ago, our family decided, you know what, we have a vision statement, a mission statement, a core values for the business. But we don’t have it for our family. And our family is more important than our business. So why don’t we do that? So at that point, Gen three object to my parents be Gen one, we’re younger. So Gen one, my parents, my brother and sister and their spouses, those eight of us sit down in a hotel room with a facilitator just to kind of put down who are we, what’s the Greens all about? So we have our core values, but we got an interest in a real simple one. So the real simple, little memorable and so is love got intimately the extravagant generosity. So I like symbols. I like things that I can look at and say, oh, that’s what that means. So as I showed earlier, that love got intimately extravagant, generous. So every morning when I get up here, I gave one to all the family members. Now I’m not ten. They kept theirs. They may have lost it. I have extras. They can have one because I’m a simple guy. But once a year we have a big family. Celebration is so at that meeting of a new family member. Then they’ll get a copy of this as well as that. We have a custom Bible for our family that when a new family member marries, then they get that Bible and we all bring us back to the meeting and they sign our Bible. We send their Bible just as a commitment to each other. Now, I can’t force my kids to love. Got into me a little extra generosity. All I’m saying is that’s where the river’s going. So if you want to go up river, you can jump out of the river. You can. But we’re kind of going this way, what we feel God’s given us. And so it’s been fun and our kids have embraced that. And just some of those little things you do as a family,

Henry Kaestner: it’s not one of those little things is a very big thing that you do as a family. Okay, here’s the other thing that you’ve done that’s really made an impression on me. You have the same way of signing off on your email every time. What is that? What quote do you put down and what does that mean to you? Because that’s a bridge. To an area, the conversation that Williams can take us through

Mart Green: now, back in the day, we were trying to do a full page ad for the newspaper about God’s word, very important to us. So I hired a firm that came back with a little tagline. I didn’t like it. So I sent him back to the drawing board and they came back with four words. I said, that’s it. That’s it. That’s it. So the last twenty three years I’ve had all my emails with these four words. This book is alive. And then I have a script that I put under that and hope most people understand because it’s the only book that’s alive. I mean, I’m watching it. There’s 6000 languages on planet Earth and every time it gets translated a new language, it speaks to the people. There is no book that does that. And so this book is alive is kind of what I love, being sure that I put on other people as much as I can.

William Norvell: So many beautiful things, so many beautiful things. I love symbols. I wrote down Quoin with family motto. I’m going in, I’m going have to get your tips. That just speaks to me.

Mart Green: I love

William Norvell: that. But one of the things we do want to dove into is Henry said, is your personal journey with God’s word and why you think it’s alive and why you think it’s so alive that you want to tell everybody about it. Every time you send an email, which I imagine is quite often, from what I understand, Guatamala is a big place for this started for you back in the late 90s. Could you tell us a little bit about that story?

Mart Green: Yeah, it’s a moment in time story, William, so thanks for asking. Nineteen ninety eight, because we had Christian bookstores and we sold Bibles, we thought and I didn’t know there were 6000 languages that people don’t have God’s word in our language. And so when I learned that, I said, oh, maybe we could be apart. So maybe Mardell could sell Bibles that helped pay for Bible translators. Well, the Bible translation process is kind of long, so that didn’t work so fine. I said, well, how do you pay for the printing, the Bibles? Because typically a new people groups, they will sell the Bibles to subsidized price. So maybe they charge them a quarter or fifty cents, but they may not be able to four or five dollars. So we started paying for first edition Bibles. So they said, well, ma, you paying these first edition Bibles, you got to come to a dedication. We dedicate the Bibles and you know how it is. You’re busy, you get your business, you’re trying to get it. You got four kids. And finally, the date worked February of nineteen ninety eight. So February 5th, I get on an airplane and I’m headed down there. And so now I’m getting some information about the translation. I don’t know much about this thing. You know, always the Asian heart attack people and there’s only thirty thousand of that. Speak this language like I’m new to this. I’m saying if you got a language, you got lots of people. My football stadium here, Norman holds one hundred thousand people. You know, all these people are going to fill up and get a little bit like an empty stadium, you know. Oh, and then only eight thousand of those people can read. A thousand of them are believers. Only four hundred believers can read. And I’m like, this is not a good hour. Oh, I you know, that’s the language I speak. I’ve got to go back to a family who all business minded. They’ll go on no good stories and I’ll come back. Oh, I went all the way down to Guatemala and four hundred people can read this Bible that this couple spent forty years translating because of warfare down there and all that stuff. They were nineteen fifty eight before I’m born to nineteen ninety eight forty years translating the Bible for people. Well for me it’s real simple. I’m not doing this again now. The forty years that the people I have no idea how to console them because they spent forty years of life. There were seventy years old when I got down. There will be one hundred ten when they get the next one done you know. So anyway so we got the ceremony and it’s ten hours out so I’m two days on the oral question. This is not working. Why do we do this then. I just ah forget it. It’s over. I’m not doing anymore. And then got the ceremony and they actually have, there was an American couple down there and for each and all the tech they give me a Bible for free. The translators get a free Bible and gas for one of the local isn’t huddle walk up to get his Bible. It’s something I’ve never seen before. In a Mortdale, we carry over a thousand different Bibles. We you take every language, every color, all that. There’s a thousand different choices. And I’ve helped people find the one, but I’ve never had them do a guest for doing Gaspar got God’s word. It’s hard language. Hinduja the first time he wept. Then he wiped his tears away and he wept. And I was stunned by that moment, watching a guy weep over a Bible. And so at that moment, the gods never spoke to me audibly. But the Holy Spirit has prompted me at different times in my life. That moment is a prompting was a simple question. Maat, why don’t you go tell Gaspar he’s not a good ahli? And that was like a spear going right to my heart sink, right, because I have been arguing that exact point for two days and I’m really not comfortable going up and telling the guy who’s weeping over his Bible he’s not a good return on investment. So in that one moment in time, I went from why to hell why do we translate the Bibles for small people groups to how are we going to make sure that everybody on planet Earth has God’s word in their heart language?

William Norvell: Let’s get it. And I’ve heard you talk before about, you know, you went from Oraibi to EROI. Could you tell us about what that metric means to you and how you put that into practice today?

Mart Green: Yeah, so I had a process. That’s what I’ve been arguing ahli the whole way down here. You know, that’s my heart language, right? That’s my language are a lie. And so I thought, well, what happened here? Then I realized, you know, I’m in charge of potent seed. I want to plant a seed that’s potent. So what? I plant potency. God’s in charge of the fruit. Now, right, I can take a scene put in right place and all that stuff, but now I understand God’s word is very potent. I have no idea what God is going to do among that group of four hundred or the thirty thousand. I mean, obviously, more people learn to read all that kind of stuff. So what I’m more concerned about now is in my planning potency and I just happen to believe that God’s word there’s only two things that last forever souls of men and women in God’s word. And so this is something I’m going to get to talk about for a long, long time. In heaven, we have all these 6000 names on our guys are going to figure all that out. He’ll figure all that out. But it’ll be fun to talk about your Bible and my Bible and all that stuff. And maybe we will instantly be able to speak six thousand languages. I don’t know. I mean, heaven is going to blow our brains out. Right. And so I can’t wait to get there because every tribe, every nation, every language is in heaven. That’s what it tells us. I love a picture that a guy does. He’s got the Last Supper, Elstein, the last supper. He took up an indigenous people around the table and I like call him at the next supper. The next time we go, they’re all going to be different indigenous people and all that stuff. So it’s beautiful. Heaven is an exciting thing and I think God’s word lasts forever. So that’s my EROI is to invest in things that last past, my lifetime.

William Norvell: That’s great. And so obviously a big point in time. Guatamala gasp Are these moments when you came back, you’re on the plane home. What do you think it did you immediately jump into how to solve this problem? What eventually led you into going really deep into the Bible translation world?

Mart Green: Before I took it home, I had one more experience and that was two o’clock in the morning. So, yeah, but it leads to that. So at two o’clock in the morning, I’m going to One Dollar Hotel and I lost the Arawa again. I didn’t get a return on investment on that Rodwin Dollar Hotel. And so I didn’t mind the hotel.

Henry Kaestner: The service at the hotel supplied you was not as good as one dollar that you paid.

Mart Green: No, it was a barn and the bed wasn’t made. And there’s no running water, just the bucket downstairs tin roof. So at two o’clock in the morning that actually there were cats, Latin reporters, jaguars, the four drunks singing out here. So that was a no sleep night. So at two o’clock in the morning, I’m not sleeping. And the most of the day I just watched as many people revival got pierced my heart. So I get out of book. Arthur being in God’s word and knowing it for yourself as a key being as well known as the key. Well, now the Lord gave me another prompting and it’s what kind of ahli is Mark Green? Fifth generation Christian, my mom’s side through my dad’s side, I own Christian bookstores, I paid for the printing that Bible, that man was over. I have 50 Bibles to my name and I read the Bible every great once in a while, maybe on Sundays when pastor opens it up and says to go somewhere. So all of a sudden I realized the oral question in Guatemala was not Gaspar, it was Mark Green. So I made a vow. February 8th, 1998, two o’clock in the morning, I get up first thing and read God’s word for the rest of my life. And so I get to gasp are weeping for me to appreciate what I took for granted. I’ve had in my English language for hundreds of years and hundreds of translations, but it took him for me to understand what I had taken for granted. So that started my journey of doing translation. But it really it took a few more years before I understood how to do that collaboratively. I went back and said, Hey guys, we got to sell more Bibles. Somebody else we can pay for more printing of Bibles. And so that was my first deal, is let’s just continue to pay for more printing of Bibles that get them done.

Henry Kaestner: So let’s talk about collaboration. Illuminations is a big project. You’re bringing together a whole bunch of different folks that might not ordinarily play well in the sandbox together. We’ve looked at this a little bit before in prior podcast with Peter Grear Rooting for Rivals. It’s just we live in a sinful fallen world and everybody’s got their own way. We know how many denominations there are. We know that we’re living in this post Tower of Babel reality. I’ve got that painting right behind me that’s kind of given birth to what you’re doing. Illuminations, right. But you’re bringing people together and you’re working on collaboration across a whole bunch of different sectors, different organizations that have different histories, and yet they’re all coming together. How are you making it happen?

Mart Green: Well, I’m not making it happen, but I’m trying to facilitate it happen. Of course, I think the Lord did it. So, yeah, back in ninety eight, right after my Gaspare experience, I was in Chicago and I just felt like someday there’ll be a project, so be the nominee to protect themselves. They would come together. No doubt I could do it. They would come together and both would come together. So that’s set my heart for 12 years. And then I went back to Guatemala because I talk about Guatemala all the time. So Todd Peterson, a good friend of yours, and see me say, hey, Mark, we’re going down to Guatemala City, I’m sure, Guatemala story in Guatemala. So I went down there when I was down there. So I’m not going back to Guatemala for about another ten or twelve years. And every time I go down there, my world gets rocked. You know, I said, oh, almost. If I get all these people to come together. And another unique thing was happening, and that’s called you Verson. So your version is a ministry based here out of Oklahoma City that has the Bible app that many people will be familiar with. Incredible entrepreneurial story. You won’t be surprised if you’ve already had him or we won’t have him on. We have, of course. Yeah. And so but he was doing these text digitized at the same time print on demand was saying, hey, green family, will you digitize these texts. Well that’s fifteen hundred dollars times two thousand languages for two different people. So I’m like no, no, no, I’m not digitizing these texts for everybody down river. I’m going back up river to who owns the intellectual property rights because bibles are intellectual property, you have to get the rights to do that. So we started by building a digital Bible library, so it kind of gave us a mutual reinforcing activity is what’s called the Collective Impact World, something we can all do together? Let’s centralize, digitize and standardize all these Bible text of the world. But my real goal was to finalize. We built this beautiful library that’s got two thousand books in it and there’s four thousand missing. So that was kind of a way to bring everybody together. And because it was called by the resource, we had four other resource partners like myself, a resource partner. You have ten Bible translation agencies that do most the translation in the world. You have five resource partners all meeting once a month, just strategizing. And so because it’s kind of cool by the resource partner now, we can be obnoxious as a resource partner and you can be a step too far. So it’s a it’s a dance. It’s a relationship of trust. You have to trust me very deeply that I’m working with you and I have to trust that you’re going to share. So I’ll build your tool as long as you’ll share with these other nine ministries, which actually represent there’s one hundred and fifty Bible societies that all have their own boards. So technically we’re coordinating probably one hundred fifty two hundred organizations all together. Now there’s a United Bible society, but they’re not over the Bible society. So they can say, hey, guys, please do this. But one hundred fifty boards could vote different way. So that took a trust, takes a long time. You get trust by the drop and you lose it by the buckets. And so we’re just trying to continue to build trust. So that’s what a collective impact really, really at the bottom line is about trust. But you know what? We all want to eradicate battle poverty. And nobody can say that by themselves. No donor can say I’m going to eradicate Bible poverty. No ministry party can say I can read. So that’s what keeps us whenever we get kind of shuffled down here and fighting with each other, all that stuff, we can keep looking up, guys. We’re going to eradicate poverty. There are people dying without scripture. We have the oxygen there underwater. We got to get them the oxygen. They’re going to die under there.

Henry Kaestner: So I’m fascinated by a collective impact. I’m actually not going to take us there because I’m a guy who saw t shirts at the University of Delaware. But William did go to Stanford Business School, which is where I think collective impact came out of. When you’re there, did you study collective impact and if so? Walk us through with Martje as he understands just the general principles of collective impact, because I think that they apply to limitations. And I think if this is an intro and an invitation for others to participate in illuminations, I hope they will. As people are motivated by the eradication of biblical poverty, I hope that they’ll find more about illuminations. But another thing that might happen from this is just the value of collective impact. Is that something, William, you’re familiar with? Did you ever study that there?

William Norvell: They didn’t let the Alabama guy into that class. Now, they were like, too heady, too much. You know, we’ve got sails for you, but so didn’t study it. I believe you that it started there. But I guess and Mark can illuminate us a little bit.

Mart Green: Yeah, it’s kind of wild because we started 2010 and in 2011, this Stanford comes out with this new concept called collective impact. And it was just so great because it gave language to what I was doing. Then as you’re doing something, you can explain it to people, but they did it. So there’s really what they call five steps ones, a common agenda. We just talked about that to eradicate child poverty. We all agree that’s a common agenda. Then you have a shared measurement system. How are we going to measure what we’re doing? Well, fortunately, in Bible translation, you can get it down to chapters in the Bible. So we have a goal that ninety five percent this world will have the full Bible, ninety nine point nine six will have at least the New Testament. And that last point zero four, which will be about three million people out of eight billion that we may have in twenty thirty three, we’ll all have scripture by twenty, thirty three. So that’s a shared measurement system. And then you’ve got mutually reinforcing activities. We talked about that, the digital Bible and let’s do some stuff together. Let’s go do something. So that’s one thing. We do lots of other things together now. Continuous communication. You’ve got to be talking. We meet every month. Typically, Dallas has the largest admiral’s club in the country, C twenty one in the Dallas airport. We all fly in for four hours. We fly back out. And so that’s the way we see each other. Now, obviously, the last year we’ve been doing that by Zoome because we can’t meet in person, but we’re about ready to get that going again. So we’ve met one hundred and three times, I think over the last ten years and then about three times. Wow. Yeah, trust takes

Henry Kaestner: time, you know, at C twenty one if you’ve been there a hundred and three times, you know the

Mart Green: gate. I know. I know so. And there’s a backbone about memorization and almost like the chief operating officer of it because all the CEOs come right, all the donors come, large donors all have businesses or things we got to go back to. So it’s not like we get full time to this. So we stir up all this trouble. I resisted it for the longest time. Then I realized no. So we have a staff of probably four or five that we helped fund that. Just follow up with all the details. Museum of the Bible, you said? Yeah, my brother on here, the Museum of the Bible want to make a room and put all 6000 languages in it. So they want to collect all two thousand Bibles. You know how hard it is to get one each of two thousand Bibles. It’s so hard that you would not do it unless you call one person called the backbone of Illuminations. And we did all that work with one hundred ninety organizations getting them to send to and from Germany, from Afghanistan, the whole world. These Bibles are not all sitting somewhere. And so now those are there. But they are now. Yeah, but we didn’t know that we started, but that’s the power of coming together. So those are the five points. The one that’s missing. Stanford missed one, the most important one, and that’s prayer. And so we have made this thing with a prayer from the very beginning. We actually have a translation prayer. It’s a six line prayer. And if we have time, maybe we’ll get to say at the end of it or something like that. But it’s just a six line prayer that I just hope maybe someday there’s so many people praying everywhere I go. I handed out my little card, a little magnet, two versions of it, because I’m a simple guy, right? So I want to leave somebody with something. I got to say to the Angels guys that prayer, I’m getting tired of hearing that we just go get that one solved, go answer that prayer. And so now, of course, people can pray what they want, but we’re also collectively having a prayer. And we just had an illuminations gathering. Three hundred people there. And every morning over one hundred people came early morning because we don’t let them out till 10:00 at night. They came up early morning to pray because we made a high priority is guys, we are operating the prayers of the people. And so that’s how you get people together, is to pray together

William Norvell: as a major. They I love symbols, too, and I’ve actually become fascinated over the last four or five years with collective prayer, praying the same thing. Right. I used to go against and of course, the Lord’s Prayer. I’ve never gone against that one, but I say, no, let’s not read prayers like God wants to hear our original thought, you know, but I love the power of it. Would you mind sharing that sixth line prayer with our audience? I would love if you would just pray that overall our audience over this moment.

Mart Green: Absolutely. God, your word is more precious than all that I possess. Your scripture gives light to my path and directs my steps. Through your will alone, lives are transformed, the mind’s made new, so I now pray for all people that do not yet know you, for you’ve promised that your voice by every tribe and nation will be heard. So equip us by your breath to provide every heart language with your word. Amen Amen.

Henry Kaestner: That’s awesome. And William, I love that you ask that question. William has authored the Sovereign’s Capital prayer and then also the faith driven movement prayer. And there is something really beautiful when everybody present together some. Thank you for sharing that with us.

Mart Green: Yeah. Thank you for allowing me to share.

William Norvell: And the last question I’d love to ask Martis, you’ve worked on this collective impact. You know, we’ve got a lot of entrepreneurs and investors that have, you know, shared high level goals. Right. They really do. But they also have their own business to run. How have you seen entrepreneurs work? Well, with that also, are there roadblocks that they should be looking out for? I mean, you do have to watch out for your own organization at some point. How does that tension play itself out and in this organization? And I would imagine others.

Mart Green: Yeah, the good news is, like we just came from this Illuminations event. We had one hundred and forty four giving units. So that’s lots of families. Now, some of those families, all they do is they come visit once a year and that’s it. We have thirty what we call co-host couples that give a little bit more their time and then there’s the five who give up their time. So some of those are in situations like Tai Peterson, former NFL football player. So he has a situation. They can give him more of his time. He still has to get some income and do some stuff like that. I also have in the way that I’ve been able to free up my time to do this. Now, not everybody can get the same amount of time. So I’m generous with my time and my talent and my treasure. Some might give us their talent and their treasure. Some might give us time and treasure. So you just try to get people, you find out what they’re getting are how can you help us? How can you do different things? And so but the five all have unique situations that they had enough time that they could give us that, because if they can’t, they won’t. There’s other people that love to be a part of our meetings every month, but they can’t because their time. So but when you get to a big enough audience, then you can have enough people that can come together to solve the issues that we have to come together with.

William Norvell: Well, as we do come to a close, this may be a little bit of pressure from someone who spent a good portion of their life translating different Bibles. So, you know, I know you hold the Bible dear and the Bible is alive as your as your sign off. But what we love to ask at the end of ours is we also hold God’s word very dear. And we love to see how God’s word can transcend your lives. Our guest lives with our listeners lives. And so we would love to invite our guest to do at the end to share something that God’s telling them through his word could be something this morning, could be something the season, could be something he’s told you his whole life that you think our audience should hear. But we’d love to invite you to do that here with our audience today.

Mart Green: Man, I wish we could take whole forty minutes on that question. I got lots of good answers there, but I’m all Jeremiah nine and twenty three in the message version. And it says, don’t let the wise regular wisdom. Don’t let the heroes brag of their exploits. Don’t let the rich brag of the riches. If you brag, brag of this and this only that you understand and know me. And so I’m really not a Bible guy on an intimacy with God guy. I just feel like the number one way to get into the God is through his word. And so that’s what I’m about. Intimacy with God.

David Weekley: I would share to you, no one go where their passion and where they’re called, but number two, not to set aside their business acumen and learnings when they give so often times, especially if you come from a place of faith, you kind of it’s like you do business with your head and you give with your heart. And to me, you ought to combine those just like, you know, hopefully we’re living out our faith during the week and work. I think we’re supposed to give with the same business acumen that we use in earning money. Just amaze me that people spend 40 hours of 50 hours a week, whatever earning sums. And then they’ll give at the drop of a hat without any investigation, understanding, et cetera.

Henry Kaestner: Welcome back to the Faith Driven Entrepreneur podcast is a special edition to combine this with our sister property, Faith Driven Investor, because we’ve got a really special guests. And to be clear. Having done a couple of hundred of these, each one of the guests are very special. And each one of them has made a major impact, I think, on all of our lives. I think they’re great stories. I hope that you’ll agree with me today, though, is, shall we say, extra special. We’ve got David Weekley on the program and from time to time we’ll have an interview with somebody who’s made an impact on my life and has for quite some time. And David is one of those people. I met David first, I think, probably about 12 years ago, and I think back to the different entrepreneurial things that I’ve been involved with my life. And to some extent, they’ve been informed by some measure of naivete and hubris. And you know, David met me when I was in my thirties. I’m now in my early 50s and I found him to be nothing but incredibly encouraging. He must have been thinking, this guy’s crazy. He just did all these different things he wants to do. He’s never going to be able to do any of them. And I’m a busy, successful guy and I don’t have time for this. And yet he did, and he’s been one of those guys that has consistently been a source of encouragement to me, of guiding me and how to think about entrepreneurship, how to think about giving and giving. Well, Sir David, thank you very much for spending so much time with me over the years. Thank you very much for being on the program.

David Weekley: I’m excited about it.

Henry Kaestner: So we like to start every one of our episodes by hearing about the personal background of our speakers. And you’ve got a great one and you’ve got incredible testimony. And so we want to start there. And so maybe you can just start off. Of course, at the beginning, bring us through quickly about the type of home you grew up in, but then what made you decide to launch your own business?

David Weekley: Born and raised in Houston, Texas, fortunate with a mom and dad who were together for seven years and two older brothers. We were all eagle scouts and, you know, kind of a suburban. Leave it to beaver kind of life growing up. So I was blessed in that way. My two older brothers were a lot older, 12 and eight years older, and so I know look up to them and always wanted to live up to their expectations of my parents expectations. Found out Boy Scouts, if you work hard, you could get badges. And it was kind of fun and I was never the smartest guy in school or the best looking or the best athlete. So I found out the working hard is what worked for me. I married my high school sweetheart, three kids and grandkids, and started out and went to work for a homebuilder right out of school because I was supposed to go get a a business degree up east, go get an MBA, and they wanted me to get a couple of years of experience. And so I went to work for a homebuilder and that was great. But then I got fired after about a year and a half, and so my brother said, Well, why don’t we start our own company so at age 20 to start my own company? Fortunately, it was the late 70s in Houston, Texas, and lots of homes were being sold and so grew that company up to the mid 80s. By the time I was 30 made a lot of money, thought I was God’s gift to the homebuilding business president, Local Builders Association, speaking to three hundred people every month and driving my BMW seven Series and building a 10000 square foot house at Memorial. I mean, I was I pretty much had it made. And then, sure enough, market downturn in the mid 80s oil and gas business in Houston and American went from 30000 starts to 6000 starts. And most builders went broke and we didn’t because we went to a couple different markets and were able to get profitable before we went broke. But the key point about that part of the story is that I remember the worst thing about that downturn was the reality that I had millions of dollars flow through my hands and nothing good had come out of it. And so kind of made got a promise to give me one more boom and I won’t screw the next one up. And he came through in the late 80s and early 90s, and guess what, about 92 that they have open heart surgery for a birth defect. I went on a Christian retreat and remembered my promise and said, OK, from this point forward, I’m going to give half my time and half my money to charitable causes. So I had to hire a CEO. I went through a couple with and found the right one, and I had taken the company up to about 300 million and he’s taking up to three billion. So I was fortunate to find someone wonderful, talented I was that was a professional manager where I was an entrepreneur, so to speak. So since then, I’ve been given half my time as well. And so that’s something that a lot of folks can’t do, but it helps you gain some knowledge, I guess, of the last 30 years and half my time, a thousand hours a year. So that’s 30000 hours into philanthropy. And you know, we’ve all heard it takes 10000 hours to get to be an expert, but I’m still making. Mistakes regularly, so still working on it.

Henry Kaestner: Well, the best part of that is that you’re showing mistakes with people like me is I and a lot of other people try to be better on that giving that helps rather than hurts. If you think about Brian Stricker and his work and so you’ve been a big part of that. I actually want to go backwards just a little second there because you talked about running the business as an entrepreneur and running the business as a manager and going from $300 to three billion. And what the type of skills are, they’re required to take it to that level. So many of our audience are entrepreneurs and they have a vision and they’ve got the energy and they’re catalyzing things. And yet it’s almost agree that you get the vision sometimes that you’re not great at actually program witnessing things. Can you talk a little bit about how that happened and just some of the maybe some of the lessons that you’ve learned in not only your own experience, but having been around enough around other entrepreneurs about mistakes made and or just council, you would give a visionary entrepreneur that is starting to see success come about and yet is really wondering what it takes to really scale something.

David Weekley: I was fortunate in that my older brother, who was my partner, was also a great mentor. And so I was able to bounce things off him and he had good business judgment. And entrepreneurship is sometimes a pretty lonely business. And so my first thought is to get some mentors people who you trust and have faith in to count for you early on. Second thought would be, is that, you know, oftentimes if you got a private company in your private stockholder, you know, the story is never sell anybody else stock or never give to anybody else. You know, you can pay them well, but just don’t give up stock. And for me, I found just the opposite to be true when I brought on my CEO as a partner sold some stock to him. Now I’ve got 40 managers that are my partners, that own real stock. And it’s great having them go through ups and downs. You know, this last downturn for us in 2007 and eight was really tough. Sixteen hundred team members and we took it down to eight hundred to survive and having a bunch of folks on the board with me pull through those waters that were my partners, whose financial net worth was on the line, just like mine was, was very helpful.

Henry Kaestner: Yeah, OK. So that’s helpful. You know, we talked a lot about partnerships on the program and I’d be completely lost. I’ve had three different entrepreneurial endeavors, and each one of them were successful because of Divine Providence, but more pragmatically, having an incredible partner because otherwise being an entrepreneur is a really, really lonely journey. And so I did not know that part of your story. Tell us about the story of the idea of trading your principles for an Oldsmobile,

David Weekley: and that goes back to when I was fired. And what happened? I was running a community for another builder and we kind of had this compensation deal that was set up where it was. I got a percentage of the profits about halfway through the in June, they said. We want to change the deal and instead of you getting a percentage of profits, we want to give you a company, Oldsmobile. And I kind of said, Well, I really don’t want a company, Oldsmobile. I kind of want the deal we set out. And so end up talk to my boss or my boss’s boss. And they finally said, Well, this is really where the companies go. And then the final. I went to the president that, you know, wrote a letter to him and he called me in and I thought it was going to be great. You know, we agree we’re not going to change it midyear on you. But he said, I didn’t really have the right attitude and I need to go find employment elsewhere. So that’s kind of what happened.

Henry Kaestner: If it had been a BMW, would you have said

David Weekley: maybe you could

Henry Kaestner: trade even weekly at home instead of one of the largest and most successful home builders and contractors in the country? It’s huge. If you went down from 600 to 800, it’s now come back where you are now. Can you share that?

David Weekley: Yeah, we got again six hundred team members, but we’re doing a lot more volume. That’s good news. Yeah, we’re back up to three billion, which is our peak.

Henry Kaestner: So if you’re in a really competitive homebuilding business, then you always have been. The fact that homebuilding is a lucrative venture is not new for other people. It’s not like you have invented a new rocket ship to the Moon or something like that. There’s some amount of execution that has to go on, and there’s some amount of really understanding your market and product market fit and understand your competition. Can you share a little bit about what that was like for you over the last couple of decades about how you’ve looked at the competitive landscape, how you’re able to come up with a product that was just better than other people’s? In a way that it was preferred.

David Weekley: When I first started out, I was up against a national homebuilder that had better buying power and more efficient. And so they were selling cheap. And we were and I figured out pretty quickly. I had to figure out how I was going to differentiate myself. And so I decided the design was going to be that first differentiated myself. So I went to California, got the latest designs, hired my own designer in house, Brad. Going outside so we could learn what our customers liked and didn’t like and continue on a path of being very, very customer focused on design. Then about the early 90s realized that we need to do more next. We were catching up on design. So then we gave our customers choice instead of design centers, and they could come in and pick out their own tile and various things. So we moved to choice. And then sure enough, most of the competition have copied our design centers, and I’m not a copy from somebody starting out, but we went pretty fast and big with it. And then so service became the key differentiator for us, and now we get about 40 percent of our sales from referrals. You know, we got 4.8 stars on a five star rating from our customers. And you know, you can’t get a steak meal where you get 4.5 stars. And this is a very, you know, complex purchase. Very emotional takes a long time. They get to see building it. And so getting people that really care for the customer and care for that customer experience has been a huge differentiator for us currently. And that’s not easy to do. You can’t just flip a switch and make that happen. That’s a culture in the company.

Henry Kaestner: OK, so I want to get to that because that’s the other differentiator. It goes beyond just design and selection. There’s a unique culture that you have, and I think I know part of the answer to this. I think that our audience knows part of the answer to this about your unique culture. Part of it is the fact that you have these 40 car owners with you that are strapped to the mass with you. But I think it’s also more than that to talk about your unique culture and how you built it.

David Weekley: Well, in my early forties, when I had that operation and kind of moved from being a cultural Christian to being more of a committed Christian, I really kind of made the decision to look at the other more than myself. Quite honestly, the first 20 years of the company history, it was all about me. After all, the company was named David Weekley home. That should be fairly self-evident. And so moving for me to the other is when we really started taking off and creating, we have

Henry Kaestner: it so that your name was on it, but your brother, at least one of your brothers, was involved.

David Weekley: Right? Well, he started out the little story on that would back the late 70s. When we started our first billboard, it was weekly homes. It wasn’t David Weekley homes and it was weekly homes from the 30s, not 130, not 230, but from the 30s. It was. It was a lot of home. Now remember a truck pulling up in front of one of our models full of furniture on the back and said where those homes to rent for $30 a week weekly homes from the 30s?

Henry Kaestner: Oh, that’s great. No, there’s an e there between the L in the world, right?

David Weekley: Right. But oh, so I talk to my brother. So we need a change, change the name of the cavities and what he want to do. I said, How about David weekly? Sounds good to me. So. Wow. So anyway,

Henry Kaestner: what was his name, Ebenezer or something that just didn’t work?

David Weekley: His name was dick weekly. It is. So anyway, one of the interesting challenge about that when I hit my thirties and I had young kids in school and you know your names on a billboard, I realized I was kind of put my kids in a situation where all the kids in school would assume their rich folks because our name was fairly well known around town, et cetera. So I looked at changing the name of the company that literally we did market studies, et cetera. And we already had enough of a reputation that it didn’t make sense. And then, you know, later as I got into my more philanthropy and being able to speak and talk to folks, et cetera, I realized that God kind of had a plan because he gave me a platform that I wouldn’t have had otherwise. You know, with a name that was known out there. And so, you know, I love the way I guess Rick Warren coined it, whichever stewardship of affluence our money. But we also have the stewardship of influence, you know, the folks we know, et cetera. So I recognize that having a company called Weekly Homes gave me a stewardship of influence that I need to work with

Henry Kaestner: and do steward that influence within the company. If I come on board and I’m a project manager and I’m one of the six. What am I going to experience a David weekly that are not likely to experience it of Pulte or somebody else like that?

David Weekley: Well, we bring everybody in here to the main office and we have a fabulous one on one. I get to meet them all and we talk and and they get inaugurated, so to speak. The main thing is we hire people that really care, right? So it starts off if you don’t get people with similar values. It doesn’t work. So we get people with summer values. We incorporate them well. We do multiple interviews before they come. We even interview their spouse.

Henry Kaestner: OK, I was going to ask you, is there something unique that you do in doing that early? And I’ll tell you that that’s one. So I’m glad you said that. That’s one of the secrets to our success at bandWith was interviewing spouses.

David Weekley: Right, right. And it’s it shows that we care about them and puts everything on a different playing field right now. And then, you know, you take care of people, you know, eight percent managing for one K, there’s profit sharing every quarter. We have weekly TV personal encounters where the manager and the team member, you know, we’re fortunate we’ve been on Fortune’s Unabridged Place to work like 14 times. And for a homebuilder, that’s not Google, you know, we’re out there building houses, it’s it’s hot and and, you know, in tough work and, you know, we don’t buy everybody lunch and we have a gym for them, you know? But it’s how we treat them and how they work well together.

Henry Kaestner: Tell me more about the personal encounters part.

David Weekley: Well, most people want to know how they’re doing and having their manager spend time with them each week for half an hour personal encounter and making it the team members time to feedback to the manager what their needs are and how they’re doing and what’s going on in their life and how they’re going with the kids. Or it’s a half an hour personal encounter every week with each team member. And it’s really their time with their manager. It also quite honestly cuts down on all the day to day interaction, having to go back and forth because they know they have this set half an hour.

Henry Kaestner: Yeah, yeah, that’s very interesting. OK. So personally, Karen, something I didn’t know about are just shocked at the frequency of it. But what you just saw obviously suggested there is that actually, it sounds like it’s inefficient, but actually is remarkably efficient because it changes the dynamic of the other thirty nine and a half for forty nine and a half hours.

David Weekley: Right, right. It saves time. It doesn’t take time.

Henry Kaestner: OK, I want to go back to Dave quickly. Homes, you’ve won lots and lots of awards and accolades over the years. Are there any that really stand out more than others? That’s a leading question, because you’ve been invited to build for a company that I think we can all really admire. You may have a different answer to it, but if you don’t answer it the way I want you to answer it, I’m going to bring you back there, OK?

David Weekley: Telling me that you want to hear about the invitation to build it was Disney. Yeah, and we went in there celebration project in Florida. And I’ll never forget sitting in my office and getting a call from somebody at Disney. And you know, this is Dave and I’m with Disney in this. I don’t want any tickets or anything. So no, no, no. Wait, wait, wait. You know, the setting, the sales call. And he said, We’ve been looking at you for two years. We’ve interviewed your customers in Dallas and in Austin, and we’ve seen your designs. We’ve had this week that we ran that because they research stuff to death and we’d like you to come with us in Orlando and said, Well, we don’t build in Florida said we know that. And but we want you to come bill for us in Orlando. So anyway, we got together with him. I went there a couple of years early before the project was opened, so we could learn how to build in Florida, went to Disney, you, you know, university. And anyway, it was a great experience for us. They obviously know customers focus very well, building that community where we were the only builder to start out and finished up. Everybody else blew out over time because the customer expectations at Disney are through the roof, as you can imagine. And they were paying quite a premium for their home, on their side, not on our side. But it was a great experience and really we were building. It’s called T and traditional neighborhood design, very higher density smaller houses, but front porches really creating a sense of community. And that has really worked for us strongly for the last 20 25 years, for probably the largest candy builder in the country and a lot of flippers come to us because of that experience.

Henry Kaestner: So there are clearly things you picked out from that engagement that you then brought back into the business for sure. OK. David, the way that we first got together was actually not around entrepreneurship, not around business. So much, although I heard a little bit about your story and I think it probably showed a little bit about mine, but it was around the concept of giving. And how does one give? Well, when I remember being on the Board of Hope International about 10 years ago and you had been a very significant underwriter that I came to understand that there’s this guy is really thoughtful about giving in. So you spent a good amount of time with me. I don’t know if you remember the first time was at a gathering and maybe an hour on kind of like a veranda. And I want you to be able to see if we in our time that we’ve got left. If you can share some of the lessons that you’ve learned in philanthropy and in giving, you talked about the fact that you’ve done some things well. There are some things you still are learning as you get to that 10000 hours of giving. Can you share some of those with people, our demographic, we tend to have our average entrepreneurs, probably in their 40s. Many of them are coming into a place now where they’re having some financial success and they want to be generous. And their heart is oftentimes really influenced by a lot of stories. And yet they’re businesspeople they want to give, Well, what would you share with them?

David Weekley: I would share to you, no one go where they’re passionate and where they’re called. But number two, not to set aside their business acumen and learnings when they give. So often times, especially if you come from a place of faith, you kind of it’s like you do business with your head and you give with your heart. And to me, you ought to combine those just like, you know, hopefully we’re living out our faith during the week and work. I think we’re supposed to give with the same business acumen that we use in earning money. Just amaze me that people spend 40 hours of 50 hours a week, whatever earning sums, and then they’ll give at the drop of a hat without any investigation, understanding, etc. And since from my standpoint, it all kind of belongs to God anyway. You know, I have no idea why he put me in this place and decided to give me a company that’s grown like it is, et cetera. It’s just been a true blessing, and it really belongs to him. Why shouldn’t I give his money away as carefully as any other investment I make? And so to me, it’s just it’s a little bit of a mess to not take it that seriously.

Henry Kaestner: Can you give us some examples of maybe some given that you did early on? Were you learned some of these lessons or was it just always just baked into the way that you thought? Were you just like, you know, from the get go? I’m just not going to give to something that doesn’t satisfy both my heart and my head.

David Weekley: No, usually, you know, said people give to people. Right. And so, you know, somebody in they’re doing good work and they come up and they talk to you about something. And I did a lot of that giving starting out. And then over time, the more time I spent, I saw some of those funds were not being effectively used were being wasted. You know, the outcomes weren’t there that were hoped for or promised. And I just realized that if I was really going to take my giving seriously that I had to again, I had to pay attention and I gave the time as well. Most people don’t have the time or don’t make the time for me as an entrepreneur. Once I got up to a certain size, I realized, you know, I was working 70 hours a week flying all over the country, and I realized that I was getting out of my skis. I was losing control. I wasn’t good at managing four cities and 300 million. I mean, it was getting beyond me. And so when I committed to give half my time, it meant I had to go find somebody to run the place. And that worked out, obviously, to my benefit in both ways. It freed up the time to be serious about philanthropy, and it also helped the company by getting somebody that had skills that I didn’t have.

Henry Kaestner: You also did something on your company structure, right? You landed on kind of a unique ownership structure that allows the company to operate in perpetuity. Can you just share a little bit about that?

David Weekley: Yeah. As you get older and you have this company, especially if it’s a large company, you got to figure out what you’re going to do with it. Am I going to sell out or go public or what’s the endgame here? And I did lots of research, talked to lots of families, looked at all kinds of different opportunities, and I didn’t want to lose what we created as a team here in terms of the culture doing a great job for customers, et cetera. So I wanted to continue specifically as a private company. So I said, OK, how are we going to do that? How are we going to get alignment, et cetera? And I decided to do a third of it since I’d had luck with ownership being in other people’s hands. I said a third of it’s going to be owned by the employees, by the team members. And so I’ve got 18 percent of it in individual managers hands owning stock individually and then we got a 15 percent ESOP that we put on top of that. And then I wanted the charitable aspect that I’ve been doing with my own funds as the primary stockholder to continue. So I put a third of the stock into a charitable trust. And then the final third is going to be owned by the founding families to keep it like a family business into the future, that doesn’t mean everybody’s going to work here, et cetera. And whether my kids or anybody’s kids have the skills to earn three billion dollar company, that’s a pretty significant skill set. But you can be great owners and you can be in different positions if that’s their choice. But I just like the concept of a third, a third, a third, all with the line values, a third for the team members, a third for charitable interest and a third for the founding families. All of them have aligned interest in trying to do the right things for the right reasons and move on down the road and hopefully be here 100 years from now.

Henry Kaestner: OK, so you hit on a topic. I want to get back in a second back to giving and lessons learned what you’re getting as you spend ten thousand plus hours and giving. But when you talk about your family and you talk about your kids, I know you’ve got three. I know Robin the best Robin. I’ve known Robin for these 10 years because I know she helped us put together a trip to Nicaragua back before there are any traffic lights in Managua. You also come from a family of three boys. And I have three boys, so I’m a father of three boys. I’d love to get any reflections that you have of family dynamics, being a good brother, being a good father and seeing faith be a part of the family dynamic. Most of the people assume that are going to be parents. You’ve been thoughtful about this. Can you share something with us about family dynamics?

David Weekley: Well, the family dynamics started seeing my father put an envelope in the plate every week, right? He’d reach into his coat. The plate would come by. He’d put it in. And so right, I think things were mostly caught, not taught. And so my father was a generous man and that helped set me up that this is what we do. This is how we operate. There’s a father growing up. It was a challenge because I said my name was on billboards all over town, so my kids were labeled rich kids right in work. And so how do you handle that? So my kids earn half the money for their car. You know, we sit down with Amigos de las Americas. They went down to Central America and live for eight weeks in a village on the floor when they were in high school and did mission work. So I mean, they’ve seen that our life is not the usual life. And I think that that builds a responsibility for you. I mean, for me personally, I’ve just always come from a place of deep gratitude for my parents, where I am in America, et cetera. And out of that gratitude, I get a deep sense responsibility of what am I to do? You know, too much is given, et cetera. And then when I act out on that responsibility through philanthropy and working with people in other ways or in the company, I just get a deep sense of joy, not just happiness, but deep, deep joy feeling like I’m in God’s flow, feeling like I’m doing what I’m meant to be doing.

Henry Kaestner: So I think that you touched on something there that it’s taken me a while to really kind of embrace, which is this kind of selfish ambition, which is this personal joy that you feel as you give is what we are trying to always get when we are selfishly had selfish ambition before, but kind of wrestle with it. So I always had a selfish ambition and a selfishness that’s been a kind of the core of my life and influence all that I’ve done. But you’re getting on something there that’s really important, which is that that you actually have an opportunity to lean into that. Yes, you probably can give examples where you sacrifice and you take up your cross. And yet at the same time, this guy’s invited to life that is truly life and that you can have this selfish ambition of looking for joy. And there’s a recipe for it. And you found that in giving you found this joy and as cool as a BMW seven Series is and it’s more fun to drive than a Prius, you get presumably more joy from some of the giving you’re doing, regardless of what car you have. Or am I just putting words in your mouth, right?

David Weekley: No. And yeah, I’ve got a pickup truck now, so I’m sorry. It’s just I had the great good fortune to have had a lot early and had it taken away in the downturn and recognized that that’s not what life was all about. So my generosity came out of that understanding.

Henry Kaestner: OK. Share with us other things that you’re learning about giving and maybe way that maybe start off with this is just how do you all give? And for those that don’t know your daughter, Robin is running the foundation and you’re giving away more and more and more money. But what’s a way aside from the amount? But what’s a way in which you give differently than maybe did 10 years ago?

David Weekley: Well, like most entrepreneurs, I love deals in models. And so I used to give to whomever had the best model for something, whether it be, you know, five for finance or savings groups or community health workers or whoever had the coolest models that I thought, This is neat. Let me go, give to it. And what I’ve found out is that even more important than the model is giving you great leadership. It might seem self-evident, but I got caught up in the deal earlier. But, you know, if you got great leadership, they’ll adjust the model and get it to the best place. But if you don’t have good leadership, the best model will fail. So the key thing is that we really, really give to extraordinary leadership. So that’s that’s one thing.

Henry Kaestner: Before you go that, I’m going to come back and remind you that there’s a second thing, but that’s really, really important. That’s really hard to do. What are some different ways where you interact with a person and are able to determine whether they’re a great leader or not?

David Weekley: Well, have they established a vision that is big and broad and is a dean supported with a strategic plan that can get them there? And do they have people around them that can help get them there as well? So oftentimes will work with or meet the second layer of folks and not just to face the organization, but people really doing the work. And then you can really see what the organization is like and what they’re doing. And obviously always trying to focus on the outcomes of what’s happening. So, you know, it can be great people in lots of flash and a great deck and a great plan. But if the outcomes aren’t there, nothing else matters. And so again, I feel like I’m investing God’s resources and I want to have flourishing humans out there as a result of my investments.

Henry Kaestner: So you hit on something there that somebody that you and I both know. Kirk Kyle Hacker is the board chair. Praxis has impressed upon me and he said, You know, they’re really only three things for a leader to do is that you’re responsible for the vision you need to resource the enterprise and you need to get the right people on the bus. And it’s that emphasis on that third one that I think a lot of us miss. And that’s why I think that just in the same way that you interview spouses of employees, they’re coming on board the organization. Interviewing the next level of leadership helps you to really understand, Is this a great leader or are people really following the leader or not? And I think that’s really important. OK, so thank you. So the first one is leadership.

David Weekley: The second one, this really has three items. I look for an organization that uses leverage where my dollar will create $5 or $10 worth of impact. You know, I’m a real estate guy. I love leverage. So one authorization that has great leverage. I want to organization that can scale like geometrically, not arithmetically, but can really scale. So I want to fund organizations that can blow things up, right? That that can really impact the world. And then thirdly, I want to fund an organization, has some type of sustainability plan for the long term. Do they do anything where they can create their own income? Do they have a plan to get government funding, you know, or bilateral funding? Because if it’s an organization and the only way that they can grow is to go get more donors, and they will always be limited by how much that they can raise. So I want to get involved in things that can have high leverage, can scale and have some way to reach sustainability over time.

Henry Kaestner: Can you give us some examples of the leverage in the scale where you go ahead? And you know, if I write a check for a dollar, it’s going to lead to four or five in any samples of ministries. Charities doing that well, they come to mind.

David Weekley: Well, the one you mentioned, Hope International does it well because, you know they lend money, make interest on the money so they can fund part of their operations. Another one that I’m very involved with is Christian Camping. And so if we go and help and build a Christian camp, so if a Christian camp from go broke, add more cabins and you know, more dining halls, et cetera. Once that investments made, assuming you have a big assumption, great leadership and great board governance that can break even and provide returns and continue to impact kids for Christ forever. And so you plant the seed and it grows.

Henry Kaestner: Yeah. So there’s this sustainability in there that you build out some infrastructure now parents feel better about spending twelve hundred dollars on the right.

David Weekley: And so things like that to me have a lot of impact for the dollar invested a lot of leverage.

Henry Kaestner: David, is we come to a close. I’m going to ask you the question that we ask every one of our guests. And that is that is there is something that God is teaching you through your time in scripture, your time in the Bible. It doesn’t need to be necessarily. This morning could be last week, but what are you hearing?

David Weekley: You know, something that is kind of guided me through my Christian journey as I try to think about what should I do this or should I go left? Should I go right? Should I go to more full time ministry or something else is I’ve always appreciated the version. First Corinthians 07:24 brothers and sisters. Each person as responsible to God shall remain in the situation God has called him to. And so to me, we’re in these life situations. And rather than presuming that to be a Christian brother or show my love of God or whatever, I’ve got to go, change my situation, take the situation to God’s, place me and figure out how I can take that to the next level and in a more Christian way, in a more loving way, in a more outreach way. How can I take where I’ve been placed and really plus it in a significant way through my faith and outreach, et cetera?

Henry Kaestner: It’s a great word. That’s a great word. So as we’re entrepreneurs, you’ve probably if you found this podcast, you probably know enough to know that God absolutely uses you in your business. And that being entrepreneur is by no means a second class citizen where we’re just doing this just so we can make money to do something else. Or gosh, if we’re really following God, we’d be in full time ministry in Botswana or something like that. But to stay where we are and look to honor God there. And of course, as you’ve heard from David today, you can make an impact on a lot of people’s lives where they live, as in the case, David. But each of us has an opportunity to be able to impact culture, and one of the things that I’ll take away from this is just the greatest investment that you can make, and culture is bringing the right people and giving them some skin in the game. But when you bring the right people in, getting to know them more than another important might and what a great way to be able to live on somebody. And when you’re having this every week where you’re following up with so many of this personal reflection moment to actually know who their spouses. So when I’m talking about going on a vacation or they’re talking about something that they’re wrestling with with their spouse in terms of where they give it, their time or their money, or what they do, or how they can support their spouse, you actually know them. And so that’s a big takeaway of mine for many. David, thank you for your time. Thank you for your friendship and partnership. And again, one encouragement that you are to me and all of us.

David Weekley: Thank you.