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Cecilie Korst

Devin Miller

The Inventive Journey

Podcast for Entrepreneurs

9/4/2020

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The Inventive Journey

Starting and growing a business is a journey. On The Inventive Journey, your host, Devin Miller walks with startups along their different journeys startups take to success (or failure). You also get to hear from featured guests, such as venture firms and angel investors, that provide insight on the paths to a successful inventive journey.

one thing they really need to do is get a team of experts and a team of experts does not cost that much so make sure that you have one person who is really uh a good mentor so start with that and then get a good attorney get a good cpa get it started right [Music] hey everyone this is devin miller here with the another an episode of the inventive journey i am your host evan miller the serial entrepreneur that has uh grown uh several businesses to seven and eight figure companies as well as founded miller ip law where we help startups and small businesses with their patents and trademarks and today we have a another great host on and i always worry that i'm going to kill everybody's day but i always do so cecile is that right cecile i want to say cecilia it's cecily cecily i knew i was gonna slaughter and i'm like i'll give him our best shot cecily and then course is the last thing yeah that's easy at least got the last name so uh anyway apologies about the name no no i blame my dad for real uh he's the one who named me and i was just like you know it could have been like something easy like sally and he's like nope don't care right makes it interesting so anyway so short intro to you or to um or mrs coarse so i don't know that that sounds about that makes you sound old so that sounds that sounds like my grandmother she's mrs course i'm just cecily it's okay you want to call me major that's fine too but that gets weird where i have a less like less less likelihood of messing anything up so we'll go with major all right um and with that because you were in the air force was an aircraft mechanic for a period of time enlisted officer in communications and engineering and then you started kind of your journey of doing uh different businesses i think when we talked a little bit before you got into everything from motorcycle racing to aerospace to app development to everything you're doing today and all sorts of fun stuff so i won't dive too much into your journey i'll let you tell yourself but uh welcome uh welcome to the podcast thank you i'm happy to be here all right so i gave a after talking about your name for way too long i tried to give a reasonable uh introduction but maybe if you want to walk us through a bit more of your journey and kind of tell us what led you to where you're at today um wow okay well um we'll go in the wayback machine way back to the 80s let's say because i mean this this gray hair is no lie um so i went to uh architecture school uh in the middle of the country ball state university and um really enjoyed it learned a lot about design designing environments for people um graduated from there but in the meantime joined the air force reserve um because i think i needed a little discipline and a friend of mine said you know what would be good for you i said yeah you're probably right i probably do need to you know get a little discipline in my uh in my resume so um so yeah i joined the air force reserve as an enlisted member became an aircraft mechanic so one weekend a month and two weeks a year and it was great i had so much fun um and yes i did get a little discipline but um it actually took the discipline from my life from being really crazy to my life being becoming really ambitious okay so you took that you took the craziness and funneled it into ambition i did i did um but then finished my degree and uh became an officer in the air force and uh was in communications and civil engineering so 23 years of that um but i think what what people don't know about the air force is there are like a lot of different ways to serve so you can do the reserve regard and those are very different even though everybody says yeah one week in a month and two weeks a year that's sort of the general model but really you can jump in and out of active duty you can service a civilian you can there are tons of different ways to mix it up so i spent 23 years doing a combination of um just being a traditional reservist and working the weekends and doing a lot of full-time stuff so i got to do some amazing things um on active duty as a reservist i worked for the army corps of engineers for a while and also worked at los angeles air force base for a while over there as the deputy director of staff that's an interesting place most people don't know that there's an air force base right in the middle of um los angeles but there is um they do uh satellite acquisition right exactly nobody knows it's there it's 4 000 people just sitting right there in el segundo um yeah they buy satellites that's what they do [Laughter] um so yeah from there um bounced back and forth again in to traditional reserve side and got to work with the aerospace corporation um a large company called uh hilti they sell tools and fasteners to the construction industry which you know let's i was the military director of sales in the for the us so that combined like all of my talents was great because i was a civil engineer got to go talk to people um it was fantastic on military bases yay so on that so now remind me and i'm i may be jumping ahead of the story because i can't remember but hey this is not a linear story but so we talked a little bit about you got in with a friend to do motorcycle racing or in order to i think you know teach people and i think it was train them how to ride and be safely and ride quickly and that was that why you're in the reserves or as you're doing the military is that after you finished up with the with the reserves no that was while i was still in um so i was a traditional reservist at that point in time um i was just leaving the aerospace corporation but um a friend of mine who we used to ride motorcycles together uh he he said what i really hate to see is military members dying because they don't know how to ride properly um because they're taking their bikes which you know go 200 miles an hour they're taking their bikes out and doing 200 miles an hour on you know roads like public roads and they don't know how to recover they don't know how to ride very well and he said i want to fix this and i'm like dude i can help you fix that just just jumping in real quick where do you go on a public road to go 200 miles an hour or i guess you're doing it illegal but even aside from the legality where do the where are people going to ride 200 miles an hour oh uh you can do it in colorado pretty easily which is where that business was okay yeah there's a lot of beautiful open road don't get me wrong i want to go 200 miles an hour out there legal and stupid we're going to teach you how to do it better so you don't kill yourself right exactly and we're also going to introduce you to motorcycle racing so instead of going crazy on an open road you're going to go crazy on a track which is fantastic so that's you know there's medical there there are rules you get to win something if you're really good at it so taking though that that craziness for those guys riding motorcycles and turning that into ambition it's sort of the same path okay no that makes good sense and so and and you're teaching them how to channel the going fast in them safer and better way so all right so you did that and so and then i think or you mentioned that you went on to aerospace which you already kind of hit on and you did that for a period of time and i think the third company was if you're if i remember it was something to do with app development uh and um you'll have to remind me on that one what the app development was that's okay um actually that one was uh that was really fun um so we started a company called chapel or media with a very good friend of mine and um we were doing basically a nice mix of uh online and offline pr so uh digital media and and traditional media uh she did the traditional side and i did the digital side so it worked really well um and we had clients that bridged both and some that that didn't but uh that that we had a client that was a uh domestic violence shelter and um we became good friends with the ceo over there and she said you know what we we don't have is a way to check on where all the vacancies are for all of the shelters in the los angeles greater los angeles area and she said it's really even harder for the police because they can't they have to start just dialing wherever they don't know like necessarily who speaks the right language who has the right open beds who can take care of this survivor the best and so we created an app to um to solve that problem and so whatever just out of curiosity so what happened to the app was it still being used sold off shutdown all of the above or what happened to it i'm actually not sure because um from there we we broke out um they wanted to take it in one direction and i couldn't take it in that direction so i said you guys have it run with it go crazy um the website's still on my server so i i assume it's still up but we don't talk about that when we talk fair enough no i thought i just think i certainly get on on that one where you know you'd have that where if you're suffering from the domestic violence and you're having the police involved where they're saying hey here's almost either they have to call a whole bunch or here's the most they're the closest one nearby or whatnot so this was curious you know where it evolved to and it sounds like others are still off and running with it and maybe someday you'll have to circle back and see how it's going maybe i took it as far as i could um but yeah i hope they i hope they do some really good stuff with it so all right so then you did that so you kind of you throughout this and and you've done the military reserves everything for motorcycles you did in when when worked in aerospace he did apps for identifying uh domestic violence shelters and then i think when we talked before he kind of took all that and you quit everything in december and decided you're going to go with what you're doing now is that right right exactly because i always i mean really i retired from the air force in 2013. and so i'm sitting here going you know okay seven years later um and i'm like hmm well let's take all of the best pieces of what i like to do and just build a business around just the fun stuff because i mean for real i have what eight more years until i get a retirement paycheck from the mother air force but um yeah so it's sort of like what do i what am i gonna do um and so it's websites and social media and that's that's all i do in and out every day so was it something that you already could you see because you say you do the fun stuff right everybody first of all has a different definition of fun stuff some you know for me if you're to tell my you know when i talk to my wife when i talk about patents and trademarks that would not at all be fun for her and she'd say it's boring to sit at the desk and read about adventures all day and type and whatnot and yet i enjoy it um and yet for her the flip side is is she likes to do you know before she's a full-time mom now but before that she was a nurse and worked for the cleveland clerk clinic for a period of time and so that would be her definition of fun so how did you identify what was the fun stuff or where you wanted to focus on or what was the fun stuff to you oh um i think it goes back to the architecture degree quite honestly um it's about it's taking that education and that creativity and designing experiences and online spaces for people to explore so um i think it's it's just it's content creation is just super fun for me it's the stuff that makes me laugh it's the stuff that makes me just want to get up in the morning and go directly to the office you know that's how else do you define the fun stuff it's the stuff you want to do all the time well because you know oh it's a fair enough answer i'll flavor my or my question or i'll update my answer so you can there's a lot of fun things that you can do that don't make any money right or aren't a business right so right one of the fun things i like to do or the ones that we're working on now well it started out fun and i'm hoping the fun comes back is that we we were restoring a an old vw bus to take on family vacations and working on that so you know it kind of goes in ways where it's really fun and then it gets expensive and it's less fun and then it comes back and it's fun but you know while well while that's very fun to do as a family it doesn't necessarily make a business right it doesn't make something that i like i'm never going to be a vw bus restoration expert or anything of that nature even though i enjoy doing it for myself and so how do you how do you find the mix of what's fun and what along with what makes a good business um well is there no is there a need um number one because if there's if there's a need then somebody's willing to pay you to do it so i mean like i'm i have a need uh for my house to be painted and um right now the guys are in the back um you know i'm willing to pay somebody else to do that well you know if you're not very good at social media or you don't have time to do it you have the need and you're going to pay somebody else to do it for you that's where i come in hi you need me to do social media for you we do content creation we fix up your website if you have one um because most of the time we run across websites that are just dreadful but yeah that's i guess that's how you do i mean i guess i would do this regardless of whether i get paid or not it's just nice to get paid it is always nice to get paid no but i think it's one that people often time you know you always hear follow your passions or follow you and i i'm all for that and i'm not putting that down at all but your passion especially you know if you're younger in your career you're gonna if you don't have retirement in place if you don't have savings in place and you're trying to say i'm going to follow my passion and dream i think that you do need to identify how you can apply that in the marketplace or where the as you mentioned where the need is so you can say okay this is my passion this is where i'll be doing a great job at but i also have to make sure that actually it suits a need and people will pay me for and then if you can find that sweet spot that's a fun place to be because then you can enjoy what you do it's fun to you as you enjoy it as it's fun then you get to help more people and you get to do it and have fun along the way and it suits the need and you're going to make some money along the way so so you made the example there are a billion jobs out there you know go find one that lights your fire for real and if you can't find one make it up all right make it up that's i i like that that's what you could do manchester make up your own job if you can't find it so so now you did it you made the jump back in december quit everything else focus on what you're doing today how has it gone so far you know we've also you know everybody several people i've talked on the podcast you know they've made the jump in december january february even in march and you have covet hit and they're all saying well it wasn't maybe it wasn't the best time but hey we got i made the decision i'm gonna go with it but how has it gone for you as far as making a jump in december and then building up to what you find or building on what you find fun oh wow well um you know i would live in a digital world really uh so i really nothing's changed for me um i could go out and get more business um but what i have right now keeps me super busy and it allows also a little extra wiggle room so that i can do some extras for my clients that you know just make them happy and make things work so um yeah it's kovit has not changed anything i'm still working in the same office um you know i've got the i got a new little pound puppy over here she's you might hear her every once in a while she's scratching but uh but yeah life has not changed a whole lot all right so then if life hasn't changed what is the next if you're gonna look at now try and forecast out next six months to a year what are the goals or where do you want to be um i have two freelancers that i would like to bring back on so that means more clients so that i can keep them employed um because you know not everybody is is doing as well as they'd like to be so i like to keep take care of my people um so i will be going out and getting more clients probably starting in august um but uh yeah things aren't going to change as much it's just going to get bigger so the goal in the next six months a year is to grow bring out additional clients and be able to bring on your contractors full-time and have the work to keep them busy so okay great so now as we kind of get towards uh towards the end of the podcast and i always ask two questions towards the end so we'll jump to those now so if you did the first question i always ask is uh what is the worst business decision you ever made um actually there are i'm gonna i'm gonna answer that by saying the worst decision that i've made that impacts my business now um was i should have gone full active duty when i joined the military i should have i should have said great i'm gonna sign the paperwork and just be 20 and done so um so that i wasn't waiting for that retirement check and my could accelerate my business just a little bit more because of that income so that's that in that decision back in 1990 um really affects what i do now and how i operate because it's a little more out of it's a little more out of a necessity instead of just pure fun and desire okay no but it's not but the fun and desire is still there understand but i want to tell you that the best business decision i've made um is going back to school quite honestly yeah i didn't even ask for the best business decision so all right so yeah worst decision that you wish you'd go back was to be able to sign into the the military full-time um but and into contemporaries do that the best one is to go back to school so okay that's the first question and then i'll jump to the second one which is so if you're to talk with somebody that's just getting into a startup or a small business just winding it going just getting started what would be the one piece of advice you'd give them um okay i'm gonna give them two pieces of advice because yay so the one thing they really need to do is get a team of experts and a team of experts does not cost that much so make sure that you have one person who is really a good mentor so start with that and then get a good attorney get a good cpa get it started right and the second piece of advice is just start just do it i mean if you however you have to scrounge the money to get your big team um and you can also you know sometimes you can barter with people um is just start i mean quite honestly and don't compare yourself to others because well if you do that you can always say well dumber people than me have started businesses so let's just start there you go so there's almost three pieces of advice one is to get a good team and get experts just get started and dumber people that me have started a business have been successful so all of the above are great i think great uh piece of advice so so as we wrap up and people are wanting to reach out to you they're wanting to use your web services your digital marketing your expertise or just wanting to or bounce ideas off of you or get involved what is the best way to connect up with you they should go to my website which is coursed.co so k-o-r-s-t dot c-o that's the best place to get a hold of me we've got a bunch of different forms and also right now we are right now the website is temporarily closed um only because we are putting a um we're putting in a new little feature that is uh trying to stop hate across the interweb so um i just i don't want to i don't want to see any hateful websites out there and if somebody wants to report one we are happy to do that for them so right now we're we're pushing we're pushing that out and it'll be up today by the time the podcast airs it should it will already be up and we'll be good to go so exactly exactly but yeah course.co you can reach out to me there all right perfect well i certainly invite everybody to reach out to uh whether it's to stop the hate and to help or get your help there just another what any other digital uh digital or platform um helped to certainly reach out to you there um for those of you that are looking to uh tell your story and have a great story to tell and been through a great journey love to have you on the podcast and you can apply to be a guest at inventivejourneyguest.com and if you'd like to uh make sure if you're a listener to subscribe to hear this episode and all other episodes that are coming so you get that notification and certainly if you need any help with patents and trademarks we're always here to help at miller ip law thanks again for coming on the podcast it was fun to hear your journey it certainly was a great journey and wish you the best in the next leg of your journey as you work towards building it your digital empire as well as to wait for the retirement so that you can even ramp it into further gear so thanks again for coming on thank you and everybody else out there be safe on the interwebs you English (auto-generated) All Recently uploaded