Empowering Entrepreneurs: Insights from Georgetown's Jeff Reid

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Jocelyn: Hello and welcome to Building the Impossible, the podcast for technical and scientific founders. I'm Jocelyn Houle I've been coding since the eighth grade, and as a founder, investor, and tech lead, I've really only been interested in one question my whole career, how to really big ideas, uh, make their way into the real world.

Uh, today we're talking with Jeff Reid at. The entrepreneurship initiative at Georgetown, and we're gonna cover topics such as using entrepreneurship as a life skill, opportunities in Africa, and how Jesuit values play into creating social good from entrepreneurship. I hope you like the show. Thanks for listening.

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Jocelyn: Hi, Jeff. ~How are you?~

Jeff Reid: ~Doing great. Jocelyn. ~Great to see you.

Jocelyn: It's great to see you too. I'm super excited to interview you because I've been, you know, working with you off and on, um, at your, you know, it was very nice of you to invite me to talk to your class here and there.

start with is. What is the, [: 00:01:00

urial mindset. not trying to [: 00:02:00

Jocelyn: Mm-hmm.

l investor network. And once [: 00:03:00

Jocelyn: Hmm mm-hmm.

Jeff Reid: ~Uh, and ~you asked me about my job as a professor. I think

Building The Impossible Jeff Reid: Yes.

Jeff Reid: you know, they do call me a professor of the practice that is, uh, part of my job title. Uh, part of what that means is, you know, I like to joke, it's, I'm not a real professor, uh, in a sense that I'm not, I, I'm not doing research. I don't, you know, have a PhD. Uh, but I do get to teach and, and share and learn and, uh, along with the students. Um, but I do think there's nothing more opposite from entrepreneur than tenure.

So it's,

Building The Impossible Jeff Reid: Mm.

Jeff Reid: I live in a world full of tensions around all that.

Building The Impossible Jeff Reid: It's interesting too, I've, uh, sat in on your class a couple times. It's very highly regarded. It's one of the most popular classes in the program. Um, and I think what's interesting about it is the focus on, um, entrepreneurship mindset and sort of the life skill of being entrepreneurial in your professional life.

A, uh, to mid-career to, um, [: 00:04:00

They're like, we're gonna put some technical founders in one end and like turn the handle and, you know, generate some entrepreneurship out of it. But you kind of go a level deeper. Can you tell us a little bit about like what that, how that works and why you do it that way?

th our students, uh, and our [: 00:05:00

The, the, the ability to start and grow a particular company is not the, uh, the long-term outcome. That's not the only thing that matters. So,

Building The Impossible Jeff Reid: Mm-hmm.

Jeff Reid: about entrepreneurial mindset. Not just in the context of starting a particular business you're working on now. Not even always about starting a business, it's just about being able to adapt and change and deal with disruption and, uh, and understand opportunities and risk and maybe a little bit of failure here and there along the way too.

So, so those are things that we like to, to have people learn, develop, practice, and get better at no matter what job title they might have.

mpossible Jeff Reid: It's so [: 00:06:00

Jeff Reid: Yeah, yeah. The world, once again, disruption is happening in our world, certainly in higher education and in business education. You know, the MBA program is one of the groups that we do work with at Georgetown. Uh, and traditionally they have a lot of interest in entrepreneurship, and I think now that interest is growing.

a different time for our MBA [: 00:07:00

Building The Impossible Jeff Reid: Hmm.

Jeff Reid: that might be a great fit for me for a while. They can bring the business skills they're learning at the university to bring maybe a little bit of order to the chaos that often exists in an early stage startup.

Building The Impossible Jeff Reid: It's interesting.

Jeff Reid: thinking of different ways, you know, and, and that's important and, and necessary.

Building The Impossible Jeff Reid: Yeah, I didn't think about it that way. Right, because I guess that's true. If the traditional recruitment is not, is drying up a little bit, then it might push more people into entrepreneurship, uh, because, uh. You know, nothing, uh, nothing drives inspiration more than necessity. Right.

Jeff Reid: Those loans aren't gonna pay themselves.

Building The Impossible Jeff Reid: Um, so yeah. That's interesting.

did you get involved in the [: 00:08:00

Jeff Reid: Yeah, it's, I kind of fell into this, but I, but it found like, it, it, it's the right fit for me. So when I was much, much younger, my one priority has always been education. I. My parents were school teachers. Uh, I loved the idea of teaching. I saw how it made my life better and so many other people around me.

So that was kinda my first interest, is figuring out some way to make education part of my life, uh, and career. And then, uh, and then I had a secondary interest or love you might say, in entrepreneurship. And that was the result of taking some great entrepreneurship classes, being around entrepreneurs. Um, so when I finished the MBA program at UNC Chapel Hill, long, long time ago, nearly 30 years ago, I was hired to start their entrepreneur center.

And, uh, and I got lucky because they had tried to hire a tenured professor to get it going and had failed to hire the right person. So my job was just to. Kind of get something started so they could make it more attractive to hire the right tenured guy or gal. but over several years they continued to fail to hire the right tenured person.

So my job, you [: 00:09:00

Building The Impossible Jeff Reid: Mm-hmm.

Jeff Reid: I loved that role. Uh, so fast forward a few years, you know, I had worked in the private sector. I'd moved to Washington, dc I did not think I wanted to work for a university again, but, uh, I wanted to volunteer at Georgetown. And I could never figure out who was running the entrepreneur center.

I asked around and tried to figure it out. Somebody eventually introduced me to the dean. said, yeah, we don't have a center. Why don't you help us start it? I was,

Building The Impossible Jeff Reid: Here's why you can't find it.

and then in the recession of: 2009

He said, yeah, come on. So: 2009

Building The Impossible Jeff Reid: that's great.

Jeff Reid: it was not a, not a hard choice. Uh, I had no idea at that point that I'd still be here this many years later. But I, but I do love it. And, uh, and we continue to grow and I think we still got a long way to go before we're finished.

ly moving forward, um, which [: 00:10:00

What it is to be a founder. Entrepreneurship. So, you know, I, I wonder if you, you know, do you have a specific, let me, like thought pattern or when you see a technical founder, like what are your kind of first couple pieces of advice?

Jeff Reid: Yeah. know, there's so many different

Building The Impossible Jeff Reid: I.

Jeff Reid: types of entrepreneurs, right? And maybe that's. Message number one, right? They, I, I believe, and I think there's a lot of data that backs this up, uh, that entrepreneurial talent is evenly distributed across humanity, right? No matter where you grow up, where you're born, whatever, you have entrepreneurial talent within you, is absolutely not distributed equally.

Building The Impossible Jeff Reid: Right.

o think when it comes to, to [: 00:11:00

Building The Impossible Jeff Reid: ~Mm-hmm. Um, ~you know, I do think it's kind of related to the expectations around being a founder. Um, you know, in your mind, what have you seen or, or what are you currently seeing that are some, I think myths about what it takes to be an entrepreneur? Yeah.

a great question and I have [: 00:12:00

Building The Impossible Jeff Reid: Mm-hmm.

Jeff Reid: Uh, you know, I think it's a lot of businesses really do require. Important uses of technology. That's almost, almost a necessity. Uh, but it doesn't have to start with the tech.

Building The Impossible Jeff Reid: Mm-hmm.

Jeff Reid: it might start with someone saying, Hey, here's a problem that I experience or that I observe. How can I solve it? And understanding, you know, the customer empathy may be the number one most valuable thing. If you figure out, of the great things I've seen change over the years is the ability to build the tech has gotten easier and easier and easier. So, you know, the, the, the requirement that you have a coder on your team on day one is not necessarily

epreneurial, right? Um, so I [: 00:13:00

Jeff Reid: They gotta be able to use technology, but they don't have to be

Building The Impossible Jeff Reid: Yeah.

Jeff Reid: on the technology, right. It's, it's becoming more and more of a, a commodity or a, you know, certainly some businesses are inventing a new tech and that's different, but a lot of other businesses are using existing tech in just new and creative ways, and you could build a great business that way.

Building The Impossible Jeff Reid: Do you think, um, just working with students in the entrepreneurial world here in dc do you think DC this where Georgetown's located, and I know it's an international organization, obviously, do you think it takes on a different tenure because we're close to the government defense space?

Jeff Reid: Culture matters, uh,

Building The Impossible Jeff Reid: Mm-hmm.

hink traditional. Government [: 00:14:00

Building The Impossible Jeff Reid: Mm-hmm.

Jeff Reid: in entrepreneurial culture,

Building The Impossible Jeff Reid: Mm-hmm.

Jeff Reid: more and more that have a major regulatory or government component.

Building The Impossible Jeff Reid: Right.

Jeff Reid: problems in our society are the ones that are great entrepreneurial opportunities, but you know, they're regulated, whether it's healthcare, transportation, energy, education, all these things that, you

Building The Impossible Jeff Reid: All right.

Jeff Reid: the defense industry now is, has got a ton of, uh, innovation going on, right?

So all these entrepreneurs that are in those spaces are gonna be coming through DC one way or another.

ical founders and others who [: 00:15:00

Uh, you know, that used to be seven to 10 years just for contracting. Um, and now that's really changing. I've seen some companies, actually, some startups base their business on government contracts successfully, uh, which we never used to invest in guys like that. 'cause we're like, oh, it's too unknown.

Jeff Reid: Yeah, I still think that's a very different type of business and I, and I agree, there's big opportunities and there's change. It is harder to predict. You know, some of those are more based on understanding the relationships as opposed to, know, just having the best product kind of

Building The Impossible Jeff Reid: Yeah. ~Yeah, yeah, yeah,~

Jeff Reid: ~I. ~So,

Building The Impossible Jeff Reid: that's true.

Jeff Reid: of challenges, but you're right.

partments, all that would be [: 00:16:00

Building The Impossible Jeff Reid: And the structures are cha are changing. I think there's an appetite for it, you know? So think, uh, that's interesting. Um, okay, we're gonna talk about entrepreneurship a little bit more, and then I wanna really wanna kind of dissect a little bit more of the, the innovation center itself. ~Um, but, um, what, this is always kind of an interesting topic.~

~I mean, everybody says, oh, you know, if you're super technical, gotta work on the relationship side and the sales side. If you're all sales, you gotta learn some tech. I get that. ~What do you. Like is the most unwelcome piece of information that you would share with founders and entrepreneurs, what is the gotcha for most people?

Jeff Reid: You know, maybe it just goes back to the very simple thing of fall in love with your product,

Building The Impossible Jeff Reid: Mm-hmm.

Jeff Reid: with your customer's problem.

Building The Impossible Jeff Reid: Mm-hmm.

Jeff Reid: I think that might be from Steve Blank, you know, the idea that. matter how good your new widget is, you gotta find somebody that cares. Uh, and that's, you know, the customer's gotta care.

So,

Building The Impossible Jeff Reid: Yeah.

Jeff Reid: you know that that's, that's one of the top reasons startups fail, is they think they've got the answer and they don't have the empathy.

k about, but it's so easy to [: 00:17:00

~Uh, ~and then it comes as a rude awakening.

Jeff Reid: Oh yeah. I mean, on day one of our programs, we want our aspiring entrepreneurs to be getting out, talking to strangers

Building The Impossible Jeff Reid: Mm-hmm.

Jeff Reid: not just talking to them, but listening to them. And

Building The Impossible Jeff Reid: Mm-hmm.

Jeff Reid: just any stranger. Uh, we're not sending them out to, you know, to, to strangers things. But the, but the idea is like, identify who you think is gonna be your customer and then find those people and listen to them and find out do they really have the problem you think they do.

And, you know. The more you learn, the more likely you're gonna find that your proposed solution is not what they want. Maybe it's only a slightly different, and you can easily change or pivot, but it might be totally different. Or maybe they just don't care enough at all to buy your thing. Maybe people will tell you, Hey, that's great.

Looks nice. It's the, uh, it's kinda like what your mother would tell you. Hey, great idea. I love it.

ng The Impossible Jeff Reid: [: 00:18:00

Jeff Reid: they gotta

Building The Impossible Jeff Reid: yeah.

Jeff Reid: put money down. They gotta, they gotta give up something to prove that they really need this.

Building The Impossible Jeff Reid: Yeah,

Jeff Reid: gotta buy it, not just say it's nice.

Building The Impossible Jeff Reid: I think we're probably saying the same thing. 'cause I, I would say the thing that I, I think people are unprepared for is how painful it is to land that first customer. Uh, it's very painful. So much more than you realize.

Jeff Reid: Yeah, and

Building The Impossible Jeff Reid: Yeah,

Jeff Reid: when you're developing a hard tech, you know, something really deep because it takes longer to build those things,

Building The Impossible Jeff Reid: that's true.

Jeff Reid: maybe your customers don't understand it as well as they probably don't understand as well as you do, but the tech really doesn't what they're solving or that's not what they're buying, right?

They're buying this solution, so,

Building The Impossible Jeff Reid: Yeah, you have to kiss a lot of frogs

Jeff Reid: yeah.

t because I do really think, [: 00:19:00

You're not just on, like, uh, sitting on your hill, you know. Coordinating an ecosystem around, uh, innovation, which always sort of sounds to me like someone's looking for their next job. Um, you know, you've really created an a community here in the DC area. And the reason I think I wanna deconstruct that is I'm gonna bet you, in fact, I know for a fact there's some other business schools out there that haven't started thinking about the impact of ai.

In a very constructive or forward thinking way. Um, I think that's a mistake and they're very quickly gonna need to pivot to create the kind of like micro systems that you've created. Um, so like put yourself in the sh and i also maybe business people too. Right? Um, and so put yourselves in the shoes of like, let's say you work in a name brand MBA program, but like they don't have this function today.

What are the pillars and how do you get there?

you know, I, I think my job [: 00:20:00

Building The Impossible Jeff Reid: Somebody's gonna capture, somebody's gonna capture those kids.

Jeff Reid: Yeah, I mean that's, that's, we do wanna serve those students, but that's not the end goal,

Building The Impossible Jeff Reid: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Jeff Reid: end goal is to have the, the thriving ecosystem, which means, which means we need lots and lots of people doing lots and lots of stuff, and we need to make it extremely easy, like an incredibly low bar to entry. we want anyone who wants to be a part of our community to feel welcome,

Building The Impossible Jeff Reid: Mm-hmm.

e to think of our program as [: 00:21:00

My professor role is, you know, I'm part of the business school. That's where I'm housed. But, uh, but we, we, we want everybody on the university campus to feel like they're welcome.

Building The Impossible Jeff Reid: Yeah.

Jeff Reid: sometimes it means we get out of our building and go to other places or we, we.

Building The Impossible Jeff Reid: And I've met medical researchers through a lot of your, you know, uh, events, uh, as well. So you definitely get the sense on campus that you are integrating. So I guess from your perspective, you start with, um, I. What's right in front of you, you've got the whole university, uh, that community, right?

So you kind of expand outta the business into, uh, other disciplines and other parts of the community outreach, right? Kinda leverage all of that. So let's say, okay, now we've got, uh. Got our aerospace engineers and our biophysicists uh, engaged, right When the, the university now knows I'm trying to do this.

, I've done this a long time [: 00:22:00

Jeff Reid: Yeah, is just this week. I've got it. Uh, one evening this week I'm gonna have three different events. and because it's exam time now on campus, I don't have classes. And so it's easier for me to get out to do these kind of things. Uh, I, I wish I had more time available to do more community building outside the university. Um, but I do think it's really important to, for us to be a part of a thriving ecosystem.

Building The Impossible Jeff Reid: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Jeff Reid: and our Greater Washington region has all the right elements for a thriving entrepreneurial ecosystem. And we do have a great entrepreneurial ecosystem, but it's a little disparate right now and maybe not clicking on all cylinders. And, and I think it requires people to kind of come together and find ways to work together. And so

Building The Impossible Jeff Reid: Yeah.

ot just me, right? There's a [: 00:23:00

Building The Impossible Jeff Reid: Yeah. Yeah, I, I think that's right. Um, so, you know, coordinating across and like inter and intra University, um, in this area though, I will just say one of the interesting things about some of your events, uh, that I've gone to so far, um, and I don't know if this is just luck or happenstance, but there's a good mix of investors, founders, and, um, potential buyers.

things are just overweighted [: 00:24:00

Jeff Reid: Yeah. Yeah. I mean, we, we love having. The right mix in the room. Sometimes we curate that carefully. Sometimes we just get lucky.

Building The Impossible Jeff Reid: Mm-hmm.

Jeff Reid: but yeah, I, I think that's right. Like a, a great ecosystem has, you have your ideas, your technology, your, and then your founders, the human beings that help advance those things. You have your, your money, your capital, uh, and the people that represent the capital and. And you have this, this kind of the grease or the oil that makes it all work together,

Building The Impossible Jeff Reid: Mm-hmm.

Jeff Reid: sometimes it's the events, it's the culture, it's, you know, bringing people together. All those are the, the kind of the, the grease that, that, those other things would just be kind of like cogs in a machine.

It. But if they don't have the grease, then they're not turning.

Building The Impossible Jeff Reid: Yeah.

, a growing partnership with [: 00:25:00

Building The Impossible Jeff Reid: yeah. Tell me more.

Jeff Reid: you know, our university, again, without an engineering school, you know, we haven't traditionally. Done a ton of commercialization effort, but we have some great leadership. Tatiana is our leader of, of our tech transfer office. She joined us a couple of years ago. She's really breathed a tremendous amount of life and fresh air into that team, into that operation.

And so we have more and more university scientists, some of whom maybe we're kind of waiting around for a little more help. We have a lot more kind of showing up saying, Hey, I've got this thing I'm building in my lab. Maybe it has commercial potential. Uh, and by partnering with her, you know, and, and.

We're helping kind of develop that culture on our campus. And, and some of those technologies are the types of things that do attract investors and, uh, and you know, it's, so it's, it is part of a thriving eco ecosystem to have more and more of that kind of hard technology in addition to all the other things that we've seen kind of over the years.

good inventors that need the [: 00:26:00

Um, like lacking in boldness. They can be sometimes, uh, they're afraid of saying the wrong thing or

Jeff Reid: Yeah.

Building The Impossible Jeff Reid: doing the wrong thing. They get very, like, engaged with research. Like that's my observation is like they're kind of solving for the perfect, I mean, I often advise people to do, like, it should feel crappy, like not, almost, not good enough.

hey've had to play a certain [: 00:27:00

Building The Impossible Jeff Reid: Yeah.

Jeff Reid: means, and that means don't get outta line, right? They basically get the right grades, do the right extracurriculars, and you get into the right college. And then there's a tremendous amount of pressure. then get the right job outta college. And so a lot of our students feel this pressure to stay on the right path. Uh, and I think it's always been true that a teenager or a or a undergraduate student doesn't wanna speak up in class. 'cause what if my friends think I'm stupid? Right? But I think that same thing taken to the next level of, Hey, why should I do something different and take a big risk because I might fail?

And they, at least a large percentage, haven't had that failure in their life before.

Building The Impossible Jeff Reid: I think, I mean, I don't, I love young people and I don't wanna criticize, but I do. I have teenagers, young people, so do you In my house. You know, in your house. And it's just an interesting kind of thing. I see so many people who are like, I really wanna go into consulting or law. And I'm like, why? You know, like, I think that's cool.

in the entrepreneurial side [: 00:28:00

Jeff Reid: Yeah. Some of the, the greatest periods of innovation come in the darkest times. Economically.

Building The Impossible Jeff Reid: Right.

Jeff Reid: the opportunity. Cost is very different. You know, if you, and, and, and I should be honest, right? Well, a couple of things, right? First, not every young person is gonna be the same. So I don't wanna paint too big of a

Building The Impossible Jeff Reid: Yeah, yeah, yeah. I don't like that. ~Yeah. Yeah.~

Jeff Reid: ~But, ~but the other thing I would say is, you know, the, the, the reality of student loan debt is an

Building The Impossible Jeff Reid: No, it's a crusher.

Jeff Reid: there's a reality of how much money they'll, these students will have to pay back. Then there's also the reality of the, anxiety it creates,

Building The Impossible Jeff Reid: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Jeff Reid: are not as high as the student imagines.

tudents pay their loan after [: 00:29:00

Building The Impossible Jeff Reid: it's all of it. ~Yeah.~

Jeff Reid: ~real. Uh, but I, ~but I agree.

Like, yeah, when, when those six figure or plus whatever jobs are no longer coming to campus, hiring you out of the career center, you've gotta find something else to do. And, uh,

Building The Impossible Jeff Reid: Yeah.

Jeff Reid: there's a, a, hopefully we'll see a great explosion of new innovation coming

Building The Impossible Jeff Reid: Yeah, I mean, I believe that will happen. Um, definitely. Um, well, you know, one of the things, and I didn't prepare you for this in our pre-conversation so we can skip it if you want, is, um, you know, I always think it's so helpful to have some like case studies of students who have gone through this, your program or, um, even like, or maybe parts of the organization that have benefited by partnering with you.

Um, let's just take a couple of examples and I'll prompt you so you can have some time to think. But

Jeff Reid: Oh yeah.

what's an example of someone [: 00:30:00

Jeff Reid: Um, you know, the, just, just the example that comes to mind initially is, is a woman named Vinnie Fernando, I think you may have been in my class with her before. She's a, uh, she's also a frequent guest speaker, so thanks to you and her. Uh, she. She came to the US because of a health condition. She came, she went through graduate school.

She invented a device, all not trying to become an entrepreneur.

Building The Impossible Jeff Reid: Mm-hmm.

Jeff Reid: got a prop here. You know, her device is called XI wear. It's an yeah.

Building The Impossible Jeff Reid: I do remember her.

Jeff Reid: Ear wearable pulse ox meter, right? So measures blood, oxygen on the ear. And uh, and, and you know, partly because it's an actual device, right? It's hard to build these things.

r. Uh, she actually tried to [: 00:31:00

She basically said, you guys should do this. Why don't you do it?

Building The Impossible Jeff Reid: Mm-hmm.

Jeff Reid: And they all basically, basically said, go away, little girl. Uh, like, leave us alone. We're doing fine without you and your little toy. Um, may be paraphrasing. I don't know exactly what they said, but, uh, but the point is she became an entrepreneur, not because she decided one day she wanted to be an entrepreneur.

She became an entrepreneur because she saw that this thing should exist and she knew that there were millions of people like her that needed it. so anyways, so I think she kind of developed that entrepreneurial, mindset. She's now several years into it, she has FDA approval. It's taken a long time to get to where she is now, but she's well positioned and, and I think one of the things that I've seen, uh, in her is the ability to overcome obstacles,

Building The Impossible Jeff Reid: Mm-hmm.

at's something that's helped [: 00:32:00

She's learned along the

Building The Impossible Jeff Reid: Hmm.

Jeff Reid: become not just an inventor of a cool device, um, but a real entrepreneurial leader. And, uh, hopefully that'll continue to, to, to pan out as her company grows.

Building The Impossible Jeff Reid: That is a really cool story, and I'm glad that she's still, um, you know, out there building that company because, um, that's a great example of someone who just has a passion, a, a serious idea. And has, has to talk to a lot of people about it. Um, and in the medical world, you can't change your idea. For every customer feedback you have to have a deep belief.

know, entrepreneurs who are [: 00:33:00

You know, these things are publicized, but they're not like widely publicized. You don't have a big marketing budget and neither do any of the big universities. Uh, but they all run. Really great events that are like highly humanized. It's very easy to be in a room of 20 people and meet a couple of interesting, uh, you know, connections.

So, um, you know, people, you know, like this woman are available to you, but you have to show up.

Jeff Reid: Yeah. Yeah. You know, she's, she's definitely getting a lot of press and attention. She's got a great personal story. Um, but yeah, to meet those kind of folks, you gotta, that's right. That's one of the reasons I'm going to several events this week, is to see who the next entrepreneurs might be that are kind of like her, you know?

Building The Impossible Jeff Reid: Of course we're the worst. We, you and I feel like you, and I'll just go to like the opening up an envelope we're like, yep.

law firm, and we worked with [: 00:34:00

Building The Impossible Jeff Reid: Right.

Jeff Reid: not everybody's there the day that person begins to show those signs. And so you need to have that referral network. You need to be able to get out and find people, go to the events, you know, and kind of see who they are. ~Uh, and, and, ~and once everybody else knows about it, it's too late if you're like an early stage investor necessarily, or things like that.

Right. So, so yeah, it's fun to, it's, and it's also fun. That's one of the things that I've learned over the years. I take, I don't take it for granted, like an entrepreneurial community. It's way more interesting than just about any other community that I can

Building The Impossible Jeff Reid: Yeah.

Jeff Reid: Maybe if

Building The Impossible Jeff Reid: Yeah,

Jeff Reid: out with a bunch of comedians or, I don't know, something like that, it might be more fun. But entrepreneurs by nature are interesting. They're inventing, they're, they've got a growth mindset,

Building The Impossible Jeff Reid: right.

Jeff Reid: things that make it

Building The Impossible Jeff Reid: I.

Jeff Reid: fun and different to be around and, uh, and so, yeah, so showing up and being a part of that community is, is actually really enjoyable.

and you wanna like, create a [: 00:35:00

Jeff Reid: Well, you know, one that Georgetown supports but isn't, is by no means responsible for is the DC startup and Tech Week.

Building The Impossible Jeff Reid: Mm,

Jeff Reid: DC Startup and Tech Week has grown really big over the years

Building The Impossible Jeff Reid: it has

Jeff Reid: it's one of the only like, and maybe the best kind of way to bring everybody together and it's, you know, it's several, it's over several

Building The Impossible Jeff Reid: and it's real. I've been there before. It's not just a bunch of people selling services to entrepreneurs. They do real

Jeff Reid: Yeah.

Building The Impossible Jeff Reid: and have really good, um, good social events that, that are really well balanced.

Jeff Reid: That's a big one. I think it's in October. I don't have the dates, but we can Google that one. ~Uh.~

Building The Impossible Jeff Reid: ~in the show notes. ~I'll do it.

the device I showed, she was [: 00:36:00

Building The Impossible Jeff Reid: Hmm.

Jeff Reid: Entrepreneurship Summit. And so we're gonna have some of our star entrepreneurial alumni coming in. Um, and, uh, we'll give awards to the best alumni in our entrepreneurial community. So a lot of

Building The Impossible Jeff Reid: That's cool.

Jeff Reid: The Entrepreneurship Summit over a couple of days with Bark Tank included in that November 5th and sixth

Building The Impossible Jeff Reid: Yeah, I think that's really cool. That's an opportunity for a, a lot of folks. Uh, and, um, you know, I. No shade, but you know, it's always good to get the word out early.

Jeff Reid: Yeah. and, and one of the ones that's really grown over the years is we call venture in the capital. That one is, has been in February and January timeframe for the last three years. That one's become a really big conference where it's the intersection of entrepreneurs, venture capital, and public policy.

And,

Building The Impossible Jeff Reid: Oh yeah.

Jeff Reid: so that, that's another one to keep an eye out for venture in the capital.

by then. It's just changing [: 00:37:00

Jeff Reid: Yeah.

Building The Impossible Jeff Reid: an important one.

Jeff Reid: We've had some interesting folks, uh, and I, and yes, and I I suspect it'll be interesting again this coming year.

Building The Impossible Jeff Reid: Yeah. Um, that's really cool. So, um, those are good to know about. You know, one of the things I like to just wrap up with, um, is, you know, just right now, I mean, I know it always is changing, but right now, what are some of the resources that you are using to, um, you know, build out your ecosystem, stay knowledgeable about what's kind of going on in the innovation world, ~um, or, you know, well, let me, uh, stop there.~

~Like ~what is something, a podcast article. Movie, anything that you've been consuming lately that you think would be helpful and wanted to share?

Jeff Reid: There's always the new tech, uh, and trying to stay on top of the latest things. But I just finished reading the Alexander Hamilton biography

Building The Impossible Jeff Reid: Ah.

orld. Uh, you know, the, the [: 00:38:00

Building The Impossible Jeff Reid: I

Jeff Reid: the

Building The Impossible Jeff Reid: think you should definitely read that if you're interested in crypto.

Jeff Reid: Uh, yes, that's right. Like, I mean, there's so much of it that, you know, it's 200 and what, 40 years ago or 50 years ago for so many of these actions or these, these historical events, but it's very relevant to today. So I've been enjoying that. Plus you can listen to the, the music alongside reading the book.

Um. So that's

Building The Impossible Jeff Reid: That's right.

Jeff Reid: been great. Uh, I'm, I'm actually leading a

Building The Impossible Jeff Reid: I.

Jeff Reid: students to, uh, to go to Africa in a couple of weeks. So I've been trying to learn all I can about that, you know, the entrepreneurial ecosystems and, and Rwanda and other parts of the continent there. I think that's a huge part of the future that a lot of Americans and a lot of entrepreneurs don't think of that, you know, tremendous entrepreneurial opportunity and already things happening on that continent that I'm excited to learn

Building The Impossible Jeff Reid: Yeah, people are excited about it. I mean, you read, hear about it and then goes away for a little while. But, um, you know, there's some countries with like really educated populations and more venture flowing in than ever before. So, ~um, well look at you. You're ahead of the trend. I like it. Um.~

inue to learn new things, so [: 00:39:00

Building The Impossible Jeff Reid: Yes. What a, what an amazing, um, way to spend part of your summer. Uh, I love it. Um, would love to have you come back on the show and maybe talk a little bit about what you learned there, um, because it's just been a pleasure catching up with you, Jeff. Thanks for letting us understand a little bit about the ecosystem and the, uh, entrepreneurial mindset.

Jeff Reid: It's my pleasure. Thanks for the work you're doing here. Take care, Jocelyn.