Entrepreneurial Empire
Learn the fundamentals of where you are in business and how to scale with your host Jacqueline. Your business will go through many stages, and every stage will have it's own set of requirements. Let's unravel the journey ahead together and find strategic solutions that will help you conquer it all.
Entrepreneurial Empire
🚀 Tech Ecosystems Unleashed: Building San Antonio's Entrepreneurial Empire with Charles Wooden 🌟
Ever wondered how tech ecosystems are built from the ground up? Join us for an insightful conversation with Charles Wooden, the dynamic CEO of Geekdom, as he reveals the secrets behind San Antonio's booming entrepreneurial scene. From helping startups navigate the critical stages of business development to fostering a community where diverse entrepreneurs thrive, Charles shares the mission and impact of Geekdom’s incubator, accelerator, and co-working programs. With a strong foundation in understanding markets and effective communication, these initiatives are transforming ideas into scalable businesses, securing San Antonio's reputation as a hub of innovation.
The episode takes a personal twist, recounting a journey from Michigan to McAllen, Texas, during the transformative NAFTA era. Experience the cultural shift through the eyes of a young individual who eventually found purpose in the Air Force as a Korean linguist, and later, as a mentor. This tale of transition and self-discovery underscores the value of mentorship and community in entrepreneurial success. We discuss the pivotal moments that inspire the leap from side hustle to full-time pursuit and how a supportive environment can turn entrepreneurship into a pathway for generational wealth and legacy building.
We also spotlight San Antonio Startup Week, a celebration of startup culture that has seen nearly a decade of success. Delve into the "Invest In" theme emphasizing impact, Latinx, women, innovation, and San Antonio’s unique charm. Get inspired by the stories of remarkable figures like Arlan Hamilton, who joined us to share her journey from adversity to founding a successful venture capital firm. With record-breaking attendance and exciting events like the "Pitch It to Win It" competition, this episode is a celebration of the milestones and diverse investments fueling startup success in San Antonio.
Welcome to the Entrepreneurial Empire podcast. This is the place where you can find business and career strategies, techniques and real life success journeys of individuals who have built their businesses to the million dollar revenue mark and beyond. I'm Jacqueline Hernandez, life coach and business development consultant. I have worked with startups, fortune 100 companies, network marketing, direct sale organizations, churches, nonprofits and government agencies all to become the authority experts in their industry. Lead with people and scale their revenue. Let's get started. Okay, entrepreneurs, welcome back. I have a phenomenal guest here in the city of San Antonio. We have Charles Wooden, who is the CEO of Geekdom. Now he's going to tell you all about what Geekdom is, but I've been here for a very short period of time and I can tell you I am absolutely in love. This is, I would say, a well-kept secret, but we need to not have it be a well-kept secret anymore.
Speaker 2:We need to tell the world.
Speaker 1:Have it be a well-kept secret anymore. We need to tell the world. Yes, we're going to announce it out there to the world so he's going to tell us all about it and what they do for entrepreneurs. So I can't think of anybody better to be on this show today than somebody that is actually in the trenches helping people build opportunities through their businesses and startups. We just came off a startup week last week, so we'll talk about that in a moment. But, charles, welcome to the show.
Speaker 2:Thanks for having me. I really appreciate it.
Speaker 1:Awesome. Okay, well, let's dive right in into Geekdom and then we'll kind of dial it back a little bit. Let's do it, geekdom, tell us a little bit about what it is and what you guys are accomplishing out here.
Speaker 2:Yeah, geekdom is an incubator, accelerator and co-working space downtown San Antonio, right in the heart of that downtown area. Our focus is to build San Antonio, one entrepreneur at a time. We've been doing this work. The organization's been around for 13 years I've been CEO for the past five so that any entrepreneur or aspiring entrepreneur can walk through the door, attend our programs and then, going through that journey, ideate, cultivate, shape and grow an idea into a viable business that is ready to scale and grow, something that you or I could go and visit, pay, buy whatever. That is amazing to see. And we have hundreds of new founders coming through the doors on any given year and it's just amazing to see that demand across this city.
Speaker 1:Awesome, oh my gosh, you just like totally nailed that right there. Ok, so walk us through. What does it look like? Well, first of all, what type of industries do you guys work with?
Speaker 2:We're agnostic, so any idea we look at it as, the foundations of any successful business are all the same. You need to understand your market, you need to understand what your product does that others do not, and you also need to understand how to talk about that. Those things are key, and that is where we spend the majority of our time with our programs is making sure that these founders and these companies are set up on that solid foundation, no matter what industry they are. We do see a tremendous trend towards tech, primarily with the companies that come through here, and the majority of our mentors come from a tech background as well. But as you look across any industry today, tech is in every single one of them, no matter even if you're creating a.
Speaker 2:CPG. It is something that it requires or will utilize tech, Even if it's just you selling it online. It is a part of your life, so how do we make sure that that's a component, but it is not solely tech, and we've realized too, that that word sometimes can create yeah, it can create a barrier.
Speaker 2:You know, I did this talk during Startup Week, where one of the focuses was words matter, and when you start using words like saying tech founder, people get a vision in their mind of what that person looks like and they tend to look more like me than they do like you, and that is not what we want. We want everybody to see the opportunities to walk into that and for us entrepreneurs, when you use that word, you notice that that broadens the scope of demographics, and we want every single person to see themselves with the possibility of a scaling company that can disrupt an industry. We want that pathway to be coming out of San Antonio left and right, and that is where we see ourselves placed.
Speaker 1:Wow, I love that. You said disrupting. I absolutely love that. Okay, so walk us through. What does it look like A new startup comes in your doors? Through what does it look like a new startup comes in your doors? What's the? What does it look like? What's the protocol for them?
Speaker 2:So for us, we have kind of a funnelized system of programs to help individuals narrow down what their resources that they need are.
Speaker 2:It starts with what we call a startup boot camp.
Speaker 2:Startup boot camps are free weekend long, coming in a Friday, leave on a Sunday.
Speaker 2:When you do that, you're going to leave with some key pieces to your beginning parts of your business. So, number one, you're going to be able to talk about your business with an elevator pitch that is synced and people can understand and in human language, you know, not using all these technical terms. You're also going to leave with a lean canvas business model. So you're going to have this one piece paper or this one piece of paper that is your business model that you can share with others, that you can really talk about what it is that you do, and you're also going to leave with the beginning parts of a pitch deck, which is so essential in today's world to be able to talk about who you are and what you're doing. That is just one weekend long, and so that's where it starts and we see hundreds of people going through that in a given year that one program. The next step is our incubator program, eight-week long, typically about 15 different companies. We do two of those a year.
Speaker 2:So, 30 different companies will go through that and that is really where you focus on your go-to product. So if you are building any type of product, you need to understand what's unique about it, how you position it and how you sell it. That is what you spend that eight weeks doing and you're going to be hearing from some of the best mentors in the city. Then we go into our pre-accelerator program.
Speaker 1:Well, hold on. Does that program cost anything?
Speaker 2:No, all these programs. So, going back to the bootcamp, that is free and accessible to anybody that has the time to be able to go to it. Our incubator, pre-accelerator and community fund, which I'll talk about in other programs, require you to be a member here at Geekdom, but that is not anything that's too large of a barrier of entry. It's about a hundred bucks a month for you to have that access, but that programming is priceless, but so worth it.
Speaker 1:Definitely worth it. Okay, so tell us about the next program.
Speaker 2:Yeah. So then the next is the pre-accelerator and the pre-accelerator and the pre-accelerator program really focuses in on that go-to-market strategy. You may have that product, you may know who you are, what you do, but how do you talk about it, how do you get it out to your audience, how do you receive market feedback and adjust and pivot? That is where we spend that time. And then our last kind of major program, when you're going along that initial journey, ID Cultivate, Shape and Grow is what we call our community fund and that is an investment. So that's a $25,000 investment in the form of a safe note to a company, a quarter.
Speaker 2:We've kind of shifted that around a little bit this last year and did it towards our programs. So just during San Antonio Startup Week last week, we had a $30,000 investment into a company called Waste Away, where they're focusing on I don't know if you've ever done this, I've done it a lot you forgot to get your garbage out on garbage pickup day, or you just did a move and you've got a crap ton of boxes and you need to get them gone. Uh, you can utilize this. Uh, the the phrase in Melissa the founder has the best phrase. She says it's your door dash for trash and uh that is brilliant.
Speaker 1:That is definitely yeah.
Speaker 2:And so she uh, she's really focusing in on that and building out a platform for people to be able to engage with them. Get somebody to pick up the trash, love it. They got $30,000. We also had a $20,000 investment into a company called GrantApply and they're focusing on nonprofits and allowing them to utilize AI to build their grant applications and define grant applications Brilliant idea. And the founder of that, elias, a really great founder went through the foster care system so he understands how impactful nonprofits can be because he experienced it firsthand and he spent his last few years professionally I think like 10 years or so working in that industry, raising a lot of capital for those organizations, and so we understand the key pieces and pain points. So we built out a platform to fix all that. Now those are our main core programs to get you through that IDA Cultivate, shape and Grow but there are support programs that go along with that Our workshops, our mentorship, our entrepreneur residents and our startup alley, which really give a space to these founders to continue to build.
Speaker 1:Well, this is definitely more than an incubator. I mean, this is the place you come to learn about business and learn about it from start to finish, basically learn how to scale, and I feel like that's like the biggest challenge that a lot of companies mom and pop startups have are to how do you accelerate, how do you scale it.
Speaker 2:Right, and how do you see those opportunities? But, but then also like how do you not waste time when you're going after those opportunities? That's a big part.
Speaker 1:Time and revenue right, so they spend a lot of money doing the wrong thing sometimes and they could have been allocating that funds towards something that would have been more productive 100%. Yeah, absolutely Okay. That is amazing. So now my next question for you is then how did you get involved in Geekdom? How did you hear about it? How did you involved in geekdom? How did you hear about it? How did you, you know, five years into a 13 year old company? How did?
Speaker 2:you get involved. Well, I hope you're all right with a long story. Uh, so I was born and raised in michigan, uh just north of detroit yes, I love that yeah, spent my first 10 10 years there. Uh, right after nafta was passed, my father moved down to mccallan, texas and took our whole family with us, opened up a factory factory in Reynosa, mexico.
Speaker 1:What kind of factory?
Speaker 2:It was a. I think they did seatbelts. Don't quote me on that, but I remember the name of the company. It was TRW. They did a lot of automotive products.
Speaker 1:So you didn't work there then.
Speaker 2:No, I did. I did go to the factory a couple of times as like an 11 year old. It was my. I did go to the factory a couple of times as like an 11-year-old. It was such a culture shock for me, growing up in somewhat of a small rural community just north of Detroit, to then go to a 90-plus percent Hispanic community at the border. It was culture shock, but in such an amazing way, like I learned so much One of the funniest things Did- you learn Spanish.
Speaker 2:No, absolutely not. I need to, but no. One of the craziest things for me was going to the movie theater in McAllen, texas. One of the most uh sought after products there was a dill pickle. And that is not a thing in uh in Michigan. And so you see these people with these bags of dill pickle and the drink, the juice, anyways, loved it. Um, spent two years down there.
Speaker 2:But we moved back to Michigan. We moved up to a little town closer to Flint. Little town was called Lapeer and for me, I had this experience, kind of juxtaposed but also like bookended, by what Detroit was going through during those couple of decades and what Flint was going through for those couple of decades. And you know, if you think back to the 90s, you know 80s, 90s and the early 2000, thousands, they were not in good place, right? So I just I'll put a pin in that. Uh, I, you know, graduated from high school, didn't really know where my destination was going to be. Ended up joining the military because my sister had joined before me and told me like hey, you should do this. And so I did.
Speaker 1:And you were what, what branch. Air Force, air Force Now your sister was Air Force too. She was Air Force, air Force. Your sister was Air Force. She was Air Force as well, ok, got it.
Speaker 2:I ended up going a different route than she did. She went as a lab tech. I ended up going as a linguist and learned Korean. So, yeah, I spent eight years as a Korean linguist which rode on the ugliest plane in the whole entire United States Air Force inventory but I loved it. It was such a rewarding job inventory, but I loved it. It was such a rewarding job.
Speaker 2:But the best part of that career was my last two years, which I spent in San Angelo, texas, where my job was to take the students that just left language school and teach them the unique professional application of what they were going to be doing with that language. And it was so powerful to watch them transition during that period, and that is where I learned something about myself. Number one, I love watching people transition. And number two, I love to solve problems, no matter what problem you put in front of me. That was something that I knew. But I also knew that the Air Force was not my end career, like I knew that I wanted to do something different, and so when I concluded, that was just a starting point, exactly.
Speaker 2:And I also didn't know, like, what is Korean going to do for me when I get out?
Speaker 1:And what did it do for you?
Speaker 2:Nothing Like I mean nothing against it Like I love that I had that experience. I love that I can go to a Korean restaurant and get some beer, you know, at a discount, because I can slang some Korean here or there.
Speaker 1:Okay, slang us some Korean right now.
Speaker 2:Annyeong haseyo jade minu chalsu imnida. Oh, you do it so good. Well, it's the little few phrases I remember. But yeah, it was such an amazing experience, but it was not where I wanted to be and I still did not know. You know, leaving Michigan and thinking that like I need to know what I want to be, I still didn't know.
Speaker 2:And this was, you know, 2010, late 2010. And I decided my sister had just set up groups here in San Antonio and she was like you should come down here and you should start going to school down here. So I was like, ok, well, I don't want to go back to Michigan again. You know, kind of giving you a picture, a macro, of what Detroit was going through at that time. I think they were just going through bankruptcy. It was not in a good place. There wasn't a lot of like career prospects back home. So it was like, what am I going to do? Move down here.
Speaker 2:Started going to school at UTSA, which, from being an instructor to then shifting to a student almost the next day, one of the dumbest ideas you could ever do Just letting you know, were you up there teaching the class too?
Speaker 2:No, I was in the seats next to, you know, 18 year olds, and it was just such a difficult transition.
Speaker 2:I did not do well and I needed to find a job, and so what I ended up doing is I found my way to Apple and I fell in love with that company. I fell in love with the opportunities that they gave me, but I started as just a part-time, like you walk in with a phone issue and I help you. But they saw something in me I didn't see in myself and gave me a pathway. What I ended up becoming was what they call like business professional, and the job behind that was helping small to medium-sized businesses utilizing Apple technology to scale and grow, was helping small to medium-sized businesses utilizing Apple technology to scale and grow, and that was the perfect mix of what I love to do solving problems and watching people transition. I was watching these companies transition and I fell in love with it. Honestly, if you would have met me in 2016, I never would have thought that I would be anywhere other than Apple because it was such an amazing company. But then, one fateful day in the summer of 2017, a former boss of mine at Apple was the COO here at Geekdom and he was like, hey, you need to come and check out this place, and I knew, when he asked me that, what his intent was yes, exactly, but I was 99% sure that, no matter what he was going to offer, me Because you were Apple yeah
Speaker 2:exactly. I bled it and there was no way I was going to change. But I walked into this building that day in the summer of 2017. And I met with a guy who his name is Dax Moreno, and he gave me this insight of what although geekdom again, you know incubator, accelerator, co-working space, what its role was in the overarching change that we wanted to see in San Antonio, and that was to build an ecosystem for entrepreneurs, to build an ecosystem for tech developers and to help build an urban core in San Antonio.
Speaker 2:And that brought me all the way back to Michigan and watching these two cities, which you know. Specifically, when you join the military, your identity is so tied to where you're from. Here, I now have this opportunity to be a part of a bigger movement in my new hometown, where I'm raising my kids. It was something I could not say no to. So, although I walked into the building, 99% sure that I was going to say no to whatever it was, I left that day, 99% sure that this is where I needed to be this was home, yeah, and so I left.
Speaker 2:I ended up jumping on to this team just doing sales.
Speaker 1:So, danny, uh, just doing that job, yeah.
Speaker 2:I was never as charismatic as he is, but I was like sold yeah he's, he's so amazing, uh. But I jumped on the team just doing that. But within a year and a half I just drank the Kool-Aid and I drank it hard and I knew for seconds.
Speaker 2:Yes, and I remember I wrote this my friend John here on the team in 2018. So, as a year into my job here, I ended up writing down this Apple note I still have, which is called the plan for it all, and it was my idea of like, if I had the reins of this organization, what I would do. And lo and behold, six months later, I was given the opportunity to step in as CEO. I was not ready at all, didn't know what I didn't know, but I knew what I wanted to see and they gave me the opportunity to see that into reality, wanted to see, and they gave me the opportunity to see that into reality.
Speaker 2:We built a board of advisors that really helped guide me into being a leader. I built an amazing team. We survived the pandemic, like we did some really amazing things throughout that. But now that we are five years past that point where I took the reins, we can see the substance of what we've built, which is that programmatic journey which I told you about just a little bit ago reins. We can see the substance of what we've built, which is that programmatic journey which I told you about just a little bit ago, and now we can quantify it, and now we can see the impact of it, and it is so powerful that I just am amazed by it myself.
Speaker 1:So you know what you said something in there. Right there, where you were talking about transition, right, dialing it back a little bit, entrepreneurship is so broad, right. You have people that are really hustling things kind of like out of their own house and trying to figure it out as they go, right. So what do you think is that transition from doing that to like going mainstream and becoming big and scaling, like what is that pivotal moment? What do they need to do? Is there a mind shift?
Speaker 2:There is a mind shift. It's nuanced and it depends on who you talk to Because, honestly, for some individuals, their entrepreneurial journey may only ever be that, the side hustle that you're doing, and they could be happy. But for us, the big thing is taking this scary leap into making it your full-time job. I think one of the scariest things that we see is an individual who's working their nine to five, who started that side hustle, that are seeing some fruit from that labor but are asking what could this become? And when we see them walk through our doors and we see them take that scary leap, that is one of the most exciting things to watch and that is that transformation from a, you know, into a butterfly, like they've gone into their chrysalis, and that is like walking into the space, seeing this community being surrounded by the energy and then watching them come out the other end with this brand that they are selling, with something that they can now, like, see the fruits of and monetize Exactly.
Speaker 2:Monetize, I think is the big thing is is then they have the money to be able to move social mobility, you know, to be able to leave behind money for their next generation Like that is so powerful and I don't want us to ignore what role that can play in a society and I'm just so grateful to be sitting at that kind of intersection.
Speaker 1:Oh my gosh. Ok, I want to talk about that because this last year I spent a lot of time building programs, doing events for legacy building and within the legacy realm. Let's talk about that a little bit. You made a great point there. You talked about it's not just about your business and making that money right then and there and helping you through the year, but it's about making something that's going to monetize and create a lasting legacy for your family. Why do you think people are not thinking on that trajectory immediately?
Speaker 2:I honestly think that a lot of people in a way create a mystic relationship with what entrepreneurship is, kind of create a barrier, convincing people that it is not as dramatic as you may be thinking it is and simplifying it with simple steps, a mentor to help guide you like that is where we spend our time and you will see this reluctance start to shed from their personality and their excitement around what is possible start to come to the forefront.
Speaker 2:Their excitement around what is possible start to come to the forefront and that is when you see that legacy idea start to spark in their mind because they see, hey, this is a different stream of revenue than I've thought of before and with this avenue I can create so much more. And that is that transition, that is that transformation that I love to be a part of and what we have the opportunity to see through our programs. Now, let's be honest, not every one of these ideas ever. You know like there's still statistics out there which are not always in the favor of the founders, but it is still a journey that you learn so much from and even if you come with one idea, that idea is gonna change dramatically in the execution of it, but always for the betterment of the end result, which is changing that person's life and, hopefully, their family and their next generation's lives.
Speaker 1:I feel like when they start thinking legacy in terms of legacy, that's really looking long-term now, because in a way, some sense, entrepreneurs look at like how am I going to provide an income for my family right now, instead of looking at long term, how am I going to provide income for my family or wealth for my family for generations to come?
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:You know, and then that's really setting up. You know that generational wealth, and you're talking about all of that now, at that time.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I feel like it's a you don't want to. You don't want to shock them. I'll say that much because if you come at them with that from day one they're going to be like how do I get from where I am now, Paycheck to paycheck? Some of them that walk through our doors are on their worst day. They may have just lost their job. It is a really hard thing to say we, we can weave this dream with you. Uh, so it comes in bite-sized pieces.
Speaker 2:And those bite-sized pieces are just like. Do you have an idea that you think or that you've had in the back of your mind? Do you have that side hustle that you've been kind of working on but not putting a lot of energy towards? How do we put water on that plant and watch it grow? And I'm not just saying that because, there's a plant right next to us.
Speaker 2:But that is honestly what we end up doing a lot of the time is just really bite-sized pieces showing them that this idea can become something more, getting them to pitch it, to talk about it, to meet with market.
Speaker 1:Be comfortable with it, right.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and I think that that is how we do it, because, honestly, I think if we came out and we told them from day one that this is going to be a legacy changer for you and your family, I think that they would be even more scared than what they are and just talking about that idea. So we bring it at the right time.
Speaker 1:Well, I love it. I mean, you guys are literally you know, as we're talking. I'm just getting the sense like this is like the only business school you need to be going to, and it is a membership and that's it.
Speaker 2:Well, I mean, we hope we realize that it takes a village. You know, it's more than just. It's more than just the right players in hand.
Speaker 1:So I mean you guys got John, you got Christy, all these, you know everybody your mentors how does your mentor base look like? How many people do you have on the mentorship?
Speaker 2:I want to say I don't know the exact number, but it's over 90 different mentors coming from all sorts of different backgrounds and the way that they give their time, which, like, let's take a moment and let's recognize we cannot do any of this without their giving nature. One of our core values here at Geekdom that you see every single day is what we call a be helpful or hashtag be helpful, and it was came from one of our you know legacy founders here who passed away in 2016. His name was Alan Weinkrantz and he really instituted that as a part of this community, and the idea was, in the early days of geekdom, when you walk in and you sit down at a table, you're going to be hounded by others coming up to you and just being like what are you building? What are you doing?
Speaker 2:And then, but also sharing like I do this. Can I help you? And that was always the nature of the culture that was built within Geekdom, and it has stayed.
Speaker 1:Everybody's helpful Exactly Everybody's helpful with information. Nobody is trying to hoard that information and just be better than everybody else. Everybody is very collaborative. Yes very collaborative here and that is amazing. The culture that you guys have built here is just I mean, you see it with everybody you meet and everybody that you talk to. Well, credit where credit's due.
Speaker 2:That goes to one of the.
Speaker 2:So there was original two co-founders of Geekdom, graham Weston and Nick Longo, and I think that that nature really goes to Nick Longo.
Speaker 2:He was the guy on the ground, meeting with everybody when they walk through the door and convincing them that, a this is the community for them but B be collaborative work with others, and I'm so glad that we still have that as a nature.
Speaker 2:But the mentorship is really that core piece and the fuel that runs the engine which is geekdom. Those 90 mentors give their time through those programs as I mentioned, the boot camp we have these mentors taking their time on Saturdays and Sundays, coming in meeting with these founders that just have an idea Wow, can't even really talk about it and it is so great that they're willing to give their time. But also through every other one of those programs, they will come, they will sit down, they will spend quality time with these founders and help them tackle these major issues that end up being the death note for some companies. And that is what is so powerful, because if you do not have that, then you become that statistic of the 90 whatever percent of companies that are formed and die within the first five years. We have this village community that builds these next generation of founders and gives them a pathway where they can be successful.
Speaker 1:Wow, that is impressive. Okay, so now what does it look like? How do they get involved, so they get get going with you guys? Is there a calendar that they look into? Is it something they have to schedule?
Speaker 2:Uh, and you're saying from the point of view of a founder right.
Speaker 1:Yes.
Speaker 2:Yeah, uh, we, there is a calendar, uh, we always have something going on.
Speaker 2:I mean, if you uh get a peek behind the curtain of what last week was like San Antonio startup week. Our team is running at a 100 miles an hour all the time and I'm so grateful that they are as committed as they are. But yes, so with that major first step program, startup boot camps we host typically at least eight of those a year. I think this year it's going to be closer to 10. We have one more at the end of the year in December, beginning of December.
Speaker 1:So that's the boot camp.
Speaker 2:And that is that first step. Again, not everybody has to go through that, but I will tell you that it is so beneficial that even if you already have a well thought out idea, it cannot hurt going through that, because you will only be better out the tail end of it. And then we have two incubator programs we run per year. So we've completed that journey for this year and we had two pre-accelerators run this year.
Speaker 1:We've completed that journey as well. When does that one start next year?
Speaker 2:The incubator. I know that we're solidifying the dates so I can't tell you exactly. But I will say applications will more than likely open at the tail end of our bootcamp in December and we'll probably launch it in either late January or early February. The beginning incubator of the year will start and so there'll be about 15 companies that will go through that and then our pre-accelerator will follow shortly thereafter and so each one of these kind of funnels it down so each boot camp can have anywhere up to 20 to 30 founders in it, and then it'll narrow it down to a incubator, which is about 15. And then we narrow it down to about six or seven that go through the pre-accelerator, and so it's kind of this really rigorous, kind of yeah.
Speaker 1:Kind of weeding it all out yeah.
Speaker 2:And one of the great things too, if you don't mind me kind of deviating really quickly over this.
Speaker 2:Last year we added a partnership with the city of San Antonio with a program called Launch SA, and the idea behind Launch SA is to be the hub for all small business resources across San Antonio. And what's so wonderful about us being a partner with the city on that is, as we're doing, that narrow down process. Part of the reason why the narrowing happens is a handful of different reasons, but one of them could be hey, I don't have time to make this my full time thing yet, so I do want to keep fueling that idea, but I want to do it at my own pace and I want to do it a little bit slower. I can't commit to this program of eight weeks. Well, guess what? Launchsa has these resources for you to continue to educate yourself number one. But number two, it can connect you to all the other small business resources across San Antonio. Whether you're looking for funding, whether you're looking for a CPA, they can do it for you and it's all free, launchsa. Every single thing that we do over there is free, self-paced and resource driven.
Speaker 2:It's just up the road, about five blocks away from us in the central library in downtown San Antonio, so we have that as a part of our offerings now too, and so, as we see that funneling system, I look at it as like a highway there are exit ramps.
Speaker 1:So you're covering every base, trying to, trying to Literally covering everything there's always more, and I think that that is You're a part-time entrepreneur. We got this for you, Bingo. You just lost your job. We got this for you, Bingo.
Speaker 2:Yep, and we want to continue to build that journey until we get it from idea to IPO or to exit of some sort. Wow, and that is where our goal is headed. But the way that we decided to go about it was to start at zero and then go to one, and now we're going to two and then three, and we're just going to continue to build on that.
Speaker 1:Okay, so you guys have produced some taken startups to the multimillion dollar marks, right.
Speaker 2:Yep.
Speaker 1:Now we talked about, you have some unicorns that are about to pop as well.
Speaker 2:I think so.
Speaker 1:How do you feel about that? I mean, you took concept to market, to monetize, and now you're talking about a unicorn company. I think when Well, first of all, tell us what is a unicorn company for our audience? Yeah, for sure.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so, unicorn company, for us, that parlance means that you've hit a billion dollar valuation, which is massive. And so you think about that. If you, if the company that you are a part of, has all of a sudden hit that milestone, it is massive. And what don't want to like don't want to mince words that is huge, massive. And what don't want to like don't want to mince words that is huge.
Speaker 2:And for us, as far as what Geekdom's done, we came as a, as a component of the after effect of a company like Rackspace, which did hit that billion dollar. It ended up selling, I want to say I think it was like three or four billion dollars in 2016 to private equity. But that company became one of the biggest catalysts for this movement here in San Antonio, because when a company went from three founders that pitched Graham, one of our co-founders back in 1998, they pitched the idea of what Rackspace was Went from three employees to over six thousand when it was sold in 2016. Oh my gosh, that is massive, it's huge and that can be what changes an entire ecosystem. That is massive, it's huge and that can be what changes an entire ecosystem.
Speaker 2:But Rackspace, throughout that entire journey, was courted by every other city and or you know fund that says like, hey, you've got to come to Silicon Valley. And we did. I mean they did what they could to be able to say like we want to continue to build that in San Antonio and what we're doing? Geekdom now is to say we want the next Rackspace to be able to succeed in San Antonio without that pull and pressure. And I hope that when we get these unicorns to come out and you hear about it, it is going to create that pathway and solidify it in people's mind to say it is possible. And I think we're a year or two away.
Speaker 1:Talk about disrupting an ecosystem Like that is going to be like the precedence for coming out with your business scaling. Like people are going to want to try to hit that mark now.
Speaker 2:Yep, and they're going to see that it's possible.
Speaker 1:Yes.
Speaker 2:And they're going to see that it's possible.
Speaker 1:The belief is there.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and they're going to see it from the perspective of like these are not that typical tech startup founder that looks like that. You know, prototypical white male in a hoodie, you know doing that. It is something different.
Speaker 1:No flip flops.
Speaker 2:No, I mean, they might wear it, but not normally.
Speaker 1:OK, got it. Ok, this is awesome. Ok, so we're talking about startups, we're talking about unicorn companies. Where do you feel like is the next five years for you? I mean, you've already done it big. I want to talk about startup week, but I want to talk about what's that next five years look like for you. What do you want to accomplish?
Speaker 2:For the next five years. For us, I think it is really broadening the awareness of what we have here. You know, I think San Antonio, even the Rio Grande Valley, the time that I spent there, you realize that a lot of this community thinks that if we are going to build a unicorn, they don't typically think they can do it in San Antonio, and we want to change that perception.
Speaker 1:Why is that perception?
Speaker 2:I think it's because you can't look around and run into one and say like, oh, that is possible. I think we need to change that because I think everybody is thinking that you have to go to Silicon Valley to do those types of things. Those founders could be the best and brightest of this next generation that comes from the talented pipeline of San Antonio citizens. I do not want us to lose that. I want us to build a ecosystem where that next kid that is thinking about that idea sees what we offer here at Geekdom. What this city offers is enough for them to build that.
Speaker 1:Well, I can say I am from the Silicon Valley, but I also was born and raised there, right. So I've seen Silicon Valley go from what? Orchard fields to data fields, right, and that transition and what that looks like in Silicon Valley today. San Jose is definitely so wildly different than what the city that I grew up in and what I saw when I moved here to San Antonio was like. I keep telling everybody is like wow, san Antonio is the it, that's the it place, it's about to blow up there and I don't even think people are really recognizing that yet I and I saw the exact same thing when I when I came here.
Speaker 2:There are all the right ingredients, all the right ingredients. I love that, yes it's just a matter of of getting the right like I don't know what it is the right pressure together the right founders and and giving them that ingredients and the other thing, and the runway too.
Speaker 1:Exactly yeah.
Speaker 2:The runway and the resources. The other thing that I'll say that I've loved about what I've watched in the evolution of San Antonio over the past 13 years that I've been here is the culture has remained a component of it. It hasn't changed. Based off of I mean, we're right now, as you and I are talking, are the number one fastest growing city in all the United States.
Speaker 1:Oh my gosh, definitely I'm watching it happen every day.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you're seeing new people and I think when a lot of that happens, a lot of the current community gets concerned that the culture is going to change and although we've been top cities of growth over the past several years, I have not seen it change yet. Actually, I've seen the opposite, which is the culture of San Antonio has permeated into that new community that is formed here, and I think that that's a powerful ingredient for an amazing future for the city and I really hope that we continue to see that in the coming years.
Speaker 1:No, absolutely, continue to see that in the coming years. No, absolutely. I mean, even for me, coming into the city, there's a lot of cultural things and also just traditional things that are happening here in the city that we have now become a part of and it's like, oh, there's no way that we're not a part of that now, because it is so ingrained in the city, in the culture and in the people as, even as they're growing. So it's amazing.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's infectious.
Speaker 1:It definitely is infectious, for sure, you know, and the one thing that I love about Geekdom is that everybody here it's like a safe place too, you know that safe space where you can, you know, have these ideas, talk about them out loud. They don't sound crazy, you know, and they definitely sound like everybody around you is like, yeah, that's doable.
Speaker 2:So supportive.
Speaker 1:Yes, very supportive. So thank you so much for creating this space for all San Antonio entrepreneurs and you know, and just really being able to give them that education piece, because that's that one piece that everybody tries to go into entrepreneurship, you know as a whole. And they say, ok, I'm going to figure this out as I'm going, I'm building the rocket ship as it's flying, but you're like, let's build the rocket ship as it's flying, but let's give you the right ingredients for that.
Speaker 2:Let's give you the right ingredients and let's give you a helping hand. And yeah, and some of us have from the previous generation of founders that have come through we have somewhat of like a blueprint that we can give you to say like, hey, yeah, you need to put this engine here, whatever, and so it's really been great to be a part of that sharing of knowledge.
Speaker 1:Okay, let's talk about startup week, because I was like blown away. I got to peek in, I just got surgery, so I was like not supposed to be out, but I was like I got to see what this looks like.
Speaker 2:That is the success of FOMO. Right there it works.
Speaker 1:Yeah, definitely. So tell us a little bit about Startup Week. You guys have it annually, it's in October. You hosted in October. What does that look like? I mean, I saw the behind the curtain in pieces. It looked chaotic and crazy and everybody was, you know, really in the trenches and putting their hands to the plow at that.
Speaker 2:It is all hands on deck events and it takes more than just the Geekdom team. It takes uh, we've got great partners with Symbio Hush, the Wonder Chamber, who make the production possible. Uh, it has been just an amazing thing to watch, and so I've been. You know, Geekdom has been a part of Startup Week ever since it was founded nearly 10 years ago. We're going to hit the 10th anniversary here in next year and for us, we're trying to figure out like, how do we blow it out of the water?
Speaker 1:even compared, to what we did this last year, right.
Speaker 2:But although we've been a part of it, we didn't run it for the first seven years. But three years ago we kind of decided that, hey, we were going to help really execute it now, and so we ended up doing was? We ended up having one of our team members run it. We did that for the first two years, but then this year 2024, was the first year that the entire Geekdom team was a part of it and had their hands and just took it on.
Speaker 1:Yes, a wild beast and you could, could feel it.
Speaker 2:there were so many positive things that came from it. We blew the numbers off the roof as far as attendance 23 percent up from last year. Um, our engagements on social media. We did this program this year called pitch it to win it, which was wonderful, where we had, uh, basically a crew on the street, uh, that was running up to anybody who was willing to pitch an idea and they had the opportunity of getting a thousand dollars. We're giving a thousand dollars per day to a new idea and we would pitch them, we would have them share it on their socials and then, depending on what got the most engagement, they would get a thousand dollars. And so, actually, the announcement of the winners is today.
Speaker 1:Okay, we'll be on the lookout Exactly. So I think that that was a wonderful thing, unless you want to share it right here.
Speaker 2:Actually, I don't even know. I got to ask my team Give us the insight. But it's so awesome to have seen that. But I guess like to kind of encapsulate what San Antonio Startup Week means for us. Going back to that awareness, it can be intimidating to say, hey, I've got an idea, or I'm just curious about what startup resources exist.
Speaker 1:San.
Speaker 2:Antonio, startup Week becomes a very digestible pill that somebody can come and experience. You can pop into one event, you can pop into the whole week of events, you can come and see pitches, you can come and hear from experts, you can hear from investors, you can hear anything that you want in that one given week and you see thousands of people coming in and around it just to learn. This year's focus was invest in and we chose that theme very intentionally because we wanted to make sure Yep.
Speaker 2:And investing can come in a lot of different ways. Not only is it financial when you think about a startup and wanting to get investment from venture capitalists, but there's a lot of other ways that you invest. You invest your time, you invest your resources, you invest your focus on certain key areas, and what we decided to do this year was to pick five key areas to focus on during that week, and so we focused on impact. Number one, that was Monday. So invest in impact. Tuesday was invest in Latinx, and the idea behind that was we are a primarily Latinx community in San Antonio and we see so much positive potential when it comes to the founders that are coming from that community that we need to put it on a stage, specifically because only 2% of VC funding across this entire nation less than that ends up going to the Latinx community and the women-led companies.
Speaker 1:Oh my gosh yes.
Speaker 2:And for us. That's why we made sure. Tuesday was about investing in Latinx, wednesday was about investing in women, thursday was about investing in innovation, because all this takes some kind of new idea. And then, last but surely not least, on Friday was invest in San Antonio. And really, how do we bring this all together? So it was so amazing to see, that is a great theme.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it worked. We saw so many uh great uh keynote speakers. We had arlen hamilton. She's just an amazing, amazing vc has a such a compelling story about living in her car to now running a multi-million dollar vc firm called backstage capital wow, simply amazing. She has two books, uh, documenting this journey.
Speaker 1:Uh, please check them out yes, what are the names of the book? Do you know what I'll have? The first one, yes.
Speaker 2:The first one is About Damn Time, which couldn't agree more. The second one is your First Million, and that was where we really saw this really big connection, because she celebrates with all the different founders that she touches and meets. That when you get that first million whether it's your first million customers, first million dollars sold, whatever that is it is a very powerful milestone and you need to take a minute, you need to celebrate that and you need to think about how you get to that next, because one million begets two, begets three and continues to grow. So she was such an amazing and compelling keynote speaker for Monday morning. It set the stage for the entire week.
Speaker 1:Wow, that's impressive. Okay, so we're going to wrap this up. Before we do, though, what special advice, or you know anything, you want to say to our listeners and our viewers today? What can you leave them with?
Speaker 2:I'll leave them with two quick things. Number one don't be intimidated by the idea of talking about your idea, or at least putting pen to paper and getting it out into reality. I know it can be scary, but there is a community, no matter where you are. Specifically, if you're in San Antonio, we're here to help, but anywhere, there are people there to support you. So please seek that community, look for help and look for input on that idea, because it's what's. It's what will shape the future of your life.
Speaker 1:Seek for the help here at Geekdom if you're here locally.
Speaker 2:Yeah, we're happy to help. So, please come in. You've got a supportive community, amazing people just like you that are here to help. And the second thing that I'll add is also just be open to feedback. So number one you're going to seek those resources Crucial but be coachable and be willing to realize that your market, the people who are going to pay you money for the product that you are creating, are the lifeblood of your life, specifically when it comes to that revenue.
Speaker 1:So be open to listening to what they have to say, oh my gosh, you crushed it right there. So many people. We need to be coachable. Yes, yes, absolutely. Thank you so much and I'm so excited that we were able to have you on as our episode guest today. We got it Charles Wooden here. Thank you so much.
Speaker 2:Thanks for having me.
Speaker 1:Thank you so much for listening to the Entrepreneurial Empire podcast. If you enjoyed this episode, do me two solids Subscribe to the show so that you never miss an episode and leave us a review so that others can find this life-changing content that we provide here. This show can be the very difference for someone you might know struggling in their business, and we need your help to bring us together. And thank you again for being a part of our entrepreneurial community and for tuning in each and every single week until next time. Bye for now.