How Marcus Wade Built Smart Recycling Tech Through Faith and Innovation

In this episode of the Beyond Normal Podcast, Kenny Groom sits down with Marcus Wade, founder of Genesis 1 Technologies and co-founder of Waste Wise Innovation, to discuss how faith, technology, and sustainability can come together to solve real-world problems.

Marcus shares the story behind the Topper Stopper, a smart recycling system that uses barcode verification, AI, and rewards-based engagement to reduce recycling contamination and improve sustainability outcomes for universities, venues, and businesses.

The conversation explores startup culture in Charlotte, the role of analytics in product innovation, and how purpose-driven entrepreneurship can create meaningful impact across industries and communities.

If you’re interested in sustainability, AI, entrepreneurship, or founder journeys rooted in purpose, this episode delivers valuable insights and inspiration.

Transcript

Kenny 0:50

Welcome. Welcome to another great episode of the Beyond Normal Podcast. I'm your host, Kenny Groom. I'm excited to be bringing to you all an incredible, incredible founder here in my very backyard of Charlotte, North Carolina. Uh, our guest today is, uh, Marcus Wade. He is the founder at Genesis One Technologies, LLC, which is the parent company for some incredible tech that's being, uh, put into a lot of the venues that you all are Going to today. In terms of the Topper Stopper, there's some incredible innovation going on at this company. I wanna make sure I'm highlighting this, this fellow founder, business owner in the Charlotte market. So without it going, sir? Going great. I see Charlotte Yes, indeed. And you know what? Uh, uh. I'm glad that you brought that up. because when I initially started this journey, uh, for normal media, I did not necessarily connect the founder journey, tech founder, you know, the tech space in general to our, our home market of Charlotte, North Carolina. But here we are five, six years later and I know you have some incredible, uh, uh, insights to add when it comes

Marcus Wade 2:06

Well, let me tell you the reason why years ago was like that because it, it really wasn't, um, tech forward. But now, uh, through companies or organizations like Innovate Charlotte, um, there is a really big push in technology and startup culture here in the Charlotte region itself. Um, they actually call Charlotte Silicon South. So, uh, you got Silicon Valley over there. We're Silicon South and it's growing. Um, in Charlotte there's a whole technology corridor that goes from, uh, UNC Charlotte all the way through uptown and, um, forward, up to, or down to towards, uh, south

Kenny 2:49

south Bend. now. we're, we're in the right spot at the right time. Yeah. I love that. Uh, you, you threw my alma mater out there. Um, so I appreciate you, uh, throwing them in there. Uh, the, the, the campus and just the, the, the, amount of funding that has gone into the university, um, it, it is really incredible to see and I'm glad that you're tapped in there. But I, I wanna make sure that we, we, we set the stage for this conversation. I want folks to learn, learn a little bit about before you were at this point, right? Where Genesis one, the Topper Stopper,

Marcus Wade 3:29

So my passion is in, in life is completely different from what we're doing now. Um, and you can, you can have a passion and still have a business that's, um, related, but my passion in life is to reach this at-risk generation through radical Christian music. Um, I am. A, uh, international DJ and music producer based area in Charlotte, North Carolina. Um, I've been producing music since 2010. Um, and my whole purpose is just that what I said, so I, my music style is deep house dance music and you're just like, hold up. You say you wanna reach people with. Radical Christian music. How are you gonna do that with dance music? That is the actual reason. Now we go and we perform, um, abroad. We perform in, uh, venues in Ibiza, in, um, Amsterdam, yearly, um, Switzerland, um, um, Paris, France, uh, London, England. Anywhere where the Lord would have me to go to reach a soul, uh, play a, a stage, uh, big venue, small venue, doesn't matter. I would say I'll play the same for one person versus if it's a crowd of 10,000, doesn't matter. So that's my and the business helps me to

Kenny 4:48

fund my, my, mission, that's is here. Mm. I love that. That is, Yeah. You touching on that. It, it makes so much sense to say, you know, the technology can learn a lot from, from faith and the way that it connects. Uh, like you mentioned, people really across the world, uh, across different boundaries, a different,

Marcus Wade 5:13

Yeah.

Kenny 5:14

whatever, whatever is there to separate us, right, The, the, the aspects of faith really are there to like kind of remove those barriers. And so it makes sense for tech to be at this point now where someone such as yourself can really take that experience and you apply it in the tech space. I

Marcus Wade 5:36

Well, background of it. Um, so the idea to do and create the topper stopper, uh, really wasn't my idea. Let, just, lemme just set that level plane there. Um, it wasn't a divine idea. Um, the, the short story is that I met with my daughter's, uh, professor, um, her. Sixth grade professor, no, I'm sorry, eighth grade professor. And we were talking about AI and, and, uh, he asked me to do something for him. I did it for him. And then it came back with a problem that he was having. And, and the problem was that they were helping a, um, large beverage company here in the cities. If you know anything about large beverage companies, you know that Coca-Cola's here, they were helping to do things in a stadium and they, uh, wanted to get the recyclables back. And the way they were doing it didn't really, um, land with me like, well, and the way you're doing it is it's a lot of manual labor. You gotta go and of that. I was like, that's gotta be a better way. So didn't think anything of it came home and the next morning I was doing my devotional and the devotional was about. A, a guy that reinvented or restructured, uh, a bow and arrow and now the way that we see bow and arrows today is his invention years ago. Um, so I asked God to give me an idea to help him. Then I said, wait a minute, not just help him, not just help Coca-Cola. Give me an idea that would change the way people look at recycling worldwide. I went to bed, woke up the next morning, the idea was

Kenny 7:18

head, that's where the top stop

Marcus Wade 7:21

came from.

Kenny 7:22

Mm. That's dope, man. That's this is one of those things where when somebody certain topics, right, they aren't. They're not sexy, like you said, like waste management for a big, a big beverage brand is like, there's, that's not, are not clearing to talk

Marcus Wade 7:47

no. no.

Kenny 7:49

but that is Exactly. But can imagine like when you start to uncover, oh, there's this much, like there's this much. Involved in it, you start to see some of the opportunities that sexy and they're

Marcus Wade 8:11

yes, yes, Exactly. And you, you're right. The, the idea of we, the, here's, the big thing. can you impact recycling in the us? This is like a daunting task. You know, there's, there's there's plastic bottles in streams and oceans all around. and and here's a, here's an interesting ta, interesting uh, fact, every 17.9 seconds. We, north Carolinians throw away enough plastic reach the height of the Bank of America Tower. So think, just think about that every literally every 18 seconds. So how do you impact that? How do you do that? And this is where divine inspiration and divine the idea comes because. My, the, what I got was create this device that would eliminate re uh, contamination in the trash streams. So when people, so when people are recycling in a recycling bin. What do you normally see there? You normally see all kind of stuff inside there other than recycling. So what the Topper Stopper does, it inhibits that. You can't put anything inside the bin unless you scan the items and when you scan the item with the barcode, it opens up. You could put it in there. It keeps the recycling trash bin clean. I was like, God, that is an amazing idea. If you look at way it came about, it was a very crew. Cardboard box and, uh, uh, a little small little toy motor that would, that would, open and close if I scanned a little basic little QR code thing. And it, it, it worked. I was like, wow. So from there, it came into this right here, and it goes back to this why I called my company Genesis One Technologies, because in the beginning, God did what, first thing he did was he created. That's the very first thing we find out about God. Not that he's, he loves us, Not that he's a healer, not that he's a provider, that he's a creator. So if we are made in the image of God, then we are creators. So that's how I say, you know what, I'm gonna lean on that. And that, and what you're doing, you're living in your, your, divine, um, um, aspect of being like God by being a creator. So that's what it is. So this is God's creation. Literally, um, brought forth. I know, I, I know that's that's not what you normally hear on a type thing and talking business,

Kenny 10:45

it. No, I love it. I love it to you real So I'm curious. Do you, you still have that cardboard box, I hope. Yeah, yeah, I was about to say, like, that sounds, that. sounds like, uh, as you were just talking, I. I could see like that being like the thing that's like auctioned off. Like when this like thing becomes like, what I, I truly believe it's going to become, and then

Marcus Wade 11:14

Right, exactly.

Kenny 11:16

amazing.

Marcus Wade 11:16

I keep it as li and it literally still works too. It still works. And I, I have every, we're in our sixth version of the Topper Stopper and I have every version of that, of the Topper Stopper from it's most crude. I wouldn't even call that MVP, that was like, um, I don't even know what to call that. That was a prototype, a rough prototype at that, all the way up

Kenny 11:38

to the more polished version that we see now. That's dope. And, and I'll be honest, as you were sitting there telling that story, you actually invoked some stories in my head. I grew up in Connecticut to go to the recycling center Yes. With my dad. Um, Yes. And I think, I don't know if he was punishing us, but he was like trying to, I think he was like, here's how much output. All have, like, you're gonna understand like each of these bottles, you gonna put in this machine and you gonna get a, a nickel back. Or nothing. Or nothing, right? Because it couldn't scan the code. Um, That's just

Marcus Wade 12:19

to do the same thing. My

Kenny 12:22

so this

Marcus Wade 12:23

would take

Kenny 12:23

take

Marcus Wade 12:23

to a store and with glass bottles, and we would take those glass

Kenny 12:27

bottles and

Marcus Wade 12:28

us back the same thing when I was a little kid. And, uh, uh, But, you know, but that are, you know, that's in Virginia and Connecticut, which is two of the five states that still do that type of um, uh,

Kenny 12:40

buyback type

Marcus Wade 12:42

but the vast majority don't. So what happens in

Kenny 12:45

in North Carolina and South all the other states. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Okay. So let, let's talk a little bit about going from that, that box, which is the prototype. Um, like you said, it worked, proof of concept, check the box, right? But let's talk a little bit about, all right, going from that, that, that cardboard box to getting the invention off the ground and then potentially going from like. A prototype that looks a

Marcus Wade 13:17

Yes. Yes. Yes. So process happened. Um, a few months prior to, um, let's, let's go back to that story. A few months prior to meeting, um, my daughter's professor at that time, years ago, I started, uh, going to a local, um. reserve. Um. Or local park, as you would call it, Saturday mornings. Um, and what I call, um, TWG Time of God. And Tho that, that t that TWG time is time that I spend with him to get downloads for business only. This is literally just business only. Um. And after meeting with him and, and doing the prototype, I continued that even to this, this, this, every single, this day now, every Saturday. Um, and throughout those sessions and times, I am literally getting information on. How to do this process from the, in the very beginning, earlier stages, this was all about creating and crafting and designing the item, how to even code the item, how to, uh, bring the item together. Um, I have a, a book that I, Or I have books rather, that I have, that I do when I go there. I take notes. This is my fifth one of these, right? And inside of there I'm getting downloads of data and information and structure or, or design, design changes that needs to happen inside of the units or, um, how to strategically, um, um, do certain things in the business structure like that. So I am literally getting informational download of what to do. Every single week, every single day, and how to maneuver throughout this, this journey, right? Because if it's his idea that he gave me, then I'm leaning on him to give me the literal, exact Instructions Instructions on how to do everything. I know that sounds kind of different and kind of taboo, Um, but sometimes when we are, when we recognize that we are in a position and in a place for a certain reason. Um, and it's beyond us. My thought is, okay, an electric vehicle, and if I knew Elon Musk, I would go to Elon the instructions on how to do that vehicle, correct? Right. So if God gave me the idea to create this business, to create this product and associated services, then I'm gonna lean on. That, that source to give me all the instructions. So that's what I've done. And. What we see today, every aspect is literally from the, that those Saturday morning times from 7:00 AM till 11, 12:00 PM of just sitting there in my car, uh, or sitting on the side of the, um, the little lake there, um, uh, at, um, Mount Island Lake and getting information. That is literally how we've trans transformed through there. it's not only to just recently, within the last, um, eight to eight months or so that I've started to really dive deep into the startup stuff here in Charlotte. The, um, the programs like Innovate Charlotte and um, the Boost Pad and really now started digging into, um, um,

Kenny 17:05

these

Marcus Wade 17:06

resources

Kenny 17:07

that didn't even know existed Mm-hmm. I, I think appreciate you breaking it down that way. I think the, the journey for a founder, you have to have some of those, like you said, you have to sit down with your thoughts and let, like you said, like you have to let these things manifest, a lot of times the, your inner circle, those around you, they're not necessarily equipped to even give you, That direction. A lot of times, like a lot of us, we don't know, like you said, mentioned like if we knew Elon Musk, right, I would just say, Hey man, I wanna have a car brand, what do I do? But then there's always that, there's that, that gap at times, right? Where we don't have that versus in your case, you have that faith from day one, definitely leveraging that through this process.

Marcus Wade 18:03

yes. I. Yeah, and you, you, you and and spot on. That right there is the key That is the foundation there. Regardless if, if, if, um, if we're, if I'm just working a regular job and, and didn't have a startup business in, in place, or if, um, going and creating a new electric vehicle like that, it's that basis of my faith, it's my, that basis of understanding and know, knowing who I am. Why I exist and then why it matters that I exist. And understanding that where my source comes from as well. You know, if I understand and know that my source is God and that he has access to everything, there's no, I mean, there's nothing that he doesn't know. So if there is ever a problem that I run into, I ask him for that solution. Real world example. Um, I used to, when I went to college, I was a, uh, computer science major, and now this is back. Okay. I'm putting, I'm going back a little bit. I went to college in, um, in 1989. Right. Um, this, it is back a little bit, so back a little bit there, probably before you were born. Um, the

Kenny 19:17

the programming language

Marcus Wade 19:18

was out then was called Pascal Programming. Most people don't even even remember that. And Pascal programmer whipped my behind. Uh, so I changed from computer science to So I, I'm, I'm an engineer. I haven't been coding like that since 1990. So um, when I came into this, I knew that I'm gonna have to code in c plus. C plus plus or Arduino and then, and, um, and Python. This is three years ago. So I, I asked God, I was like, literally, Hey, look, I, I'm rusty, beyond Rusty. I need you to give me the knowledge so that I can do this. And just like that. I began to code. It just literally is like everything just like made sense. I can't explain it. It just made sense. It was almost like, uh, A plus B equal C. I thought, oh, I'll do this right here, YouTube a little bit. Okay. Boom, boom, boom, and like that. And for a year, I coded the first iterations of the Topper Stopper utilizing a micro uh, processor called the SP 32.

Kenny 20:28

Now since

Marcus Wade 20:30

AI has been cooking. So now as with most developers, we don't code like we used to code back then. Now we are prompters. We are, we are giving instructions to the LLMs to code force because they're faster, they're more precise, they're quicker. And um, so now it's now utilizing the the speed to which I'm able to bring in new features, um. Is is literally night and day. Um, certain things that took me months, um, uh, literally a year and a half ago now takes me maybe a days to do or sometimes

Kenny 21:07

sometimes even less than days, times, hours.

Marcus Wade 21:09

Uh, so, it's

Kenny 21:12

it's getting scary. It's getting scary. Marcus.

Marcus Wade 21:15

it is.

Kenny 21:16

the robots are. doing a lot. Um, I'm so glad, uh, so far, um, they don't, uh, they haven't figured out how to do a podcast, uh, podcast here, but.

Marcus Wade 21:31

have you been looking at Google?

Kenny 21:32

there's some tools out there. Right. But I think the challenge is, um, still having your authentic voice through that is where the machines it, but then making it your own Yes, Is still Everybody can't go to Google and say, make my podcast. Correct. Right. Not yet, at least, but it, the, the robots are definitely coming. I wanna shift a little bit and, and, and allow you to break down,'cause you talked about the physical aspect of the tool, but then you just dove into you having to reignite the programmer in you. Um, right. Um, after college, which I, I. completely understand, it feels like every five to 10 years, right? There's a shift in a new language, a new kind of style of programming. Now we're vibe coding, right? With the prompting, the prompting and things like that. Talk a little bit about, now you have the physical product and you're trying to marry that with the analytics, with and how that differentiates. The Topper Stopper from, say, other sustainability tools that are out there? Like how are

Marcus Wade 22:46

Perfect. Absolutely. So, um, my, um. I've been a senior developer for 20 years, uh, specifically focused on business in business insights, utilizing tools like Power bi. So the data I, I, I live, eat, sleep data all along, even prior to this. So having an understanding of the data was always, has always been there. Um. Now, what makes the topper stopper different from all the other tools? Uh, All the other, uh, uh, recycling units that are out there. A couple things. Number one size. It's compact. Okay. And number two, it's smart. Uh, we utilize, uh, raspberry pi, fives and compute modules in there. So the processing is absolutely amazing and fast. Here's one of the biggest things, or two things. So the biggest things there, um, number three is we utilize barcodes instead of mic, uh, of, um, vision. And here's why. Most of the other items. Um, recycle things. We'll use to recognize that this is what, a plastic bottle, But that's all they can tell you. They can tell you what plastic bottle is. They can't tell you what the size is. They can't tell you the manufacturer. Because why? It just seized the plastic bottle they would have to do so many, um, iterations and building out the model on that to, to train it, to be able to recognize the actual product itself. So we utilize the barcode because barcode already resident has 30 or 40 different points of, of data source in the barcode. That's universal, right? So how do we use that? We scan. Um, it recognizes it, um, that it's, we, we recognize the barcode and we then, um, use machine learning in the cloud with AWS as one of our partners to then classify that as plastic bottle aluminum, McCann, glass bottle, et cetera. Um, when it's classified, we store it in our own repository and send back a message to this specific device saying, Hey, that what you scan is a plastic bottle. Open up, allow the user to deposit, and then we take all of that data, store it and visualize it back to our clients. Say, um, uh, university for example. This, um, this person, or, or, rather a plastic bottle will scan at this unit. At this time, it had, it's this size. Um, this is how much plastic that you recovered. This is how much carbon footprint you just reduced. This is how much water you just saved. This is how much energy you just saved as well. Based upon that, we provide all that data back through the university, and they have a live dashboard they could pull at any given time to meet their sustainability goals. What's, What's, different between our units and all the others is that the barcode, the size, and then the fact that it can, it can connect to existing recycling bins, so They don't have to build in, bring in new infrastructure. They don't have to go out and buy

Kenny 25:55

buy new.

Marcus Wade 25:55

new. The Topper Stopper just fits on unique in itself.

Kenny 26:02

I love it. I love that. Um. And I think it, what's, what's really cool, you're leveraging, like you said, the, uh, I don't think people understand, like there's, there, there's systems, there's some really cool data around, like things in place already. Like

Marcus Wade 26:20

Yep.

Kenny 26:20

not like just this one, this one number, Right, This one number has different segments, and those segments mean something. And so it's a system in and of itself. Um, and it's a smart system that that definitely grows with the amount of products that we put out into the world. you're leveraging that, like, like you said, versus, uh, the, the approach that a lot of companies use now is I'll take, I'll try to take a million

Marcus Wade 26:45

Yeah. Now, now, kitty, though all of this, even though all, all of, all, of us in space with the Topper Stopper and all of the Even all of that that we're doing, there's still something missing just because it's, we got it there and just because it's uh, the topper stopper keeps it clean and just because the other guys keep their stuff clean, there's still something's missing. it's, it's it's the ability to, um, change the way that people, um. React and, um, um, think about recycling. That's the problem. So that's the problem to solve. So here's how we're solving that problem, right? So let's use the University of South Carolinas, where we have our pilot programs. Right now they have five units six one deployed soon. Um. We started in November of 2025 and all the way up until the January one, the students, uh, recycle 609 items throughout that time, and that's Thanksgiving, holidays, and Christmas holidays and the breaks and all that right there, which is pretty good. It's about somewhere 23, 24 items per, uh, per day. So of goodwill of students wanting to do the right thing, that's what they accomplish. 609 items, right? It's like something like almost 1400 gallons of water saved there. Uh, like, I think it's like 400 kilowatt hours of energy, which could run three houses for like seven days or something like that. that. That in that, aspect Now. That's off of people doing the right thing just because they want to. Here's where we change it. In the end of this month, we launched our Ts Rewards app. So when you recycle. You also would get rewarded as well. So every time you recycle a a plastic bottle, for example, you get five points. If you recycle aluminum, can, you'll get 10 points. Now it goes into your app. Now those points accumulate in your app. If you're on campus, you can then redeem those points on campus for food at the calf, uh, free. Um. Uh, t-shirts and swag at the bookstore, uh, associated businesses we'll be bringing together in that they can go off campus and say, Hey, I can get a free pizza for 500 points, or I could take 300 points and go get me a, a Starbucks coffee, or I can, um, to use 50 points and use that for my bus pass to go uptown, Spartanburg, whatever. The thing that we're changing is now we are making recycling a economy. Versus something just to do to save the save, save the environment, which is still good, but now we're trying to making it to an economy as well. That is where we are changing the aspect. That's what makes our Topper stopper and our Associated Ts rewards application. Different'cause we wanted to actually impact that. And now we don't have to worry about just being in a deposit state like we were, we were kids. Now this is a across every state, everywhere, because now you can take those points and redeem them everywhere. So our, our, our goal right now is we're on college campuses, so there'll be closed ecosystems, but in the future, the goal is to be able to have top or stopper units set up around different areas of cities. And you're able to go and do that in the city and then in the city. We'll have different partners or different, uh, redemption locations at Ulta Beauty or Starbucks or Dunking Donuts,

Kenny 30:23

or

Marcus Wade 30:23

even heck, the city of Charlotte. Pay your Pay your gas bill with it, you know, whatever like that, whatever way we look in ways. And another thing is you. Often we'll see, um, the homeless, a homeless population gathering bottles and stuff like that. Now imagine if, if they're able to gather bottle stuff and go and then redeem that to get something to eat or go and be able to get some clothing of, of food or something like that. Shelter go to um, uh, maybe CBS and buy some toiletries, sink store nature. We are looking at every aspect of, okay, let's take. take our mind out of it. How can we number one, make our, our, state and our city and our our country, um, impact recycling over, um, holistically change people's minds of recycling and incentivize them, and Then also have a great positive social impact as well. So we are

Kenny 31:20

we

Marcus Wade 31:22

Stopper

Kenny 31:24

I love that. I love that. Um, the idea in, in there, that you explained in there. One. Uh, there was one consistent thread around this idea that certain areas of our, our economy or just our, our normal way of life are They're call centers. They're only looked at as call centers. And so there's ways now that we have the robots coming, the robots are gonna be doing all the heavy lifting and we see all the, the videos and everything like that. Now that of those things that are at least on the horizon. There's opportunity in a lot, a lot of these spaces where it was just a call center before, but now once you tap into that data, giving someone such as yourself with a business insight, insight mindset, now there's revenue there, there's opportunities to unlock, and it seems unlimited. Like I'm pretty sure you could have went on with just even more ideas just now around this space, cool to see. Again, non-sexy. Uh, areas of our, of our daily life, there is. so much value, uh, to unlock and a big focus for me, the listeners know, has been, uh, B B2B, business to business, business to government. Uh, we, we all see the news. Uh, it seems like that's where a lot of the funding is going right now. Right? Um, and so there's a. There's a concerted effort away from B2C businesses. Um, I'm excited to see it. Um, I definitely think it's gonna be some growing pains in terms of the next generation of founders, but B2B is so much, so much, there's just so much opportunity out there and I appreciate you really,

Marcus Wade 33:10

Yeah, just in the US alone for, um, and, and our, like our, um, initial target market colleges and universities, um, these colleges and universities already have mandates, uh, that they have to meet certain sustainability goals and metrics across their campus. And think about it, they're basically small cities. You they're Small little ecosystem. So, um. The, in the us uh, these colleges yearly spend$1.8 billion just on sustainability type of programs. And even with that spend, they're not getting any data, know stuff is still going to recycling, um, still going to

Kenny 33:55

landfills,

Marcus Wade 33:56

and the

Kenny 33:56

and the students are still not being engaged at Right? And they're

Marcus Wade 34:01

what. Exactly. they're getting cut. They're getting cut like that throughout and like different, different, um, political, um, um, uh, seasons happen where there's more money, there's less money, there's definitely less money now there's less grants and things of that certain nature. So they're looking for ways to be able to meet these goals. And that's where we come in to place and say, Hey, look, here's a solution that. It's not expensive, it's cheaper than all the other things out there, but you're getting, the value that it brings is beyond, beyond, uh, uh, everything that you can actually, uh, uh, look at on a competitive nature. So, uh, it's just, it's just, just, it's just really trying to tap in and,

Kenny 34:43

and lock in with those universe across the nation. I love that. Um, and, and I want just circle back to Charlotte. I know we, we talked a little bit about the city at the beginning of the call. For you specifically, I guess, like what are you seeing. Uh. like there's, we, we definitely have talked about faith, entrepreneurship like the local impact of a tool like top or stopper. Like when you think about all three of those things, like what, what does Charlotte do for you? Maybe are there opportunities

Marcus Wade 35:13

Wow. Well, first and foremost, so like I said earlier, I didn't know that we even had a startup, uh, uh, community here in Charlotte years ago. It's just honestly been in the last year that I've locked in and the, like, for example, I'm standing right now in the collab space with the UNC Charlottes Collab space. Uh, and this is, um, I have access this for a year and. Um, in the next few months, I will be building out a, our own, uh, office space here in this, in this building, which is fantastic. So the Charlotte region and the resources that we have here are critical and we gotta get, getting locked in and understanding where to look, up the entirety door. When I came across. Um, the organization called Innovate Charlotte. Um, they are literally a, um, their purpose is to grow the startup community here in the Charlotte um, it's run by a gentleman named Juan Garza I think it's his last name and or Garone. And they connect any startup in business here in the Charlotte region to a wealth of other things. so for like example, one of the things that they connected me to was a cohort called the Boost Pad. Um, and a Boost Pad was amazing. The Boost Pad helped me to get a good understanding of my business. And structure helped me to get it financially in order, and then also prepare for, uh, funding as well. So they literally started from the basis of what your idea is and get you all the way up into where you're actually able to go out and do pitches to investors and to get funding for that 14 week process. Uh, an amazing thing there. So. The, the, the region of Charlotte, um, and these Innovate Charlotte and different organizations, startup communities are absolutely a wealth of, um, information and, um, I'm, I'm still reaching out to do more things and even get more in our area and region. So,

Kenny 37:28

yeah. Yeah. I love that. Shout out to the city. So, next up, you know, we're, we're, we're definitely wrapping up towards the end, but just give us a glimpse into. You know, what, what are you thinking in terms of the vision of the company, the growth? Uh, you obviously have Genesis one, which is like the parent company all the way down to waist wise, which is like your distribution arm. Talk a little bit about where the company is headed and, you know, maybe five years out, you know, if you think, if you're thinking that far out. Uh,

Marcus Wade 38:03

Well, our, our first goal over the next three years is to really, um, uh, reach out to these, colleges first and um, and get the topper stoppers on these college campuses. There's 7,200. Some changed colleges here in the us Um, we, we, are connected to some that are very eco-friendly, um, that we know that they are looking for ideas and things of, for example, university of South Carolina, upstate. They are very forward thinking. University of, of, um, North Carolina here in Charlotte is very forward thinking as well. So we are looking to connect to those type of universities that are already forward thinking, thinking about ways of how they can, uh, impact. Uh, the recycling rates on their camp campuses and how they can also, um, engage with their students. Those are the universities that we're looking to, uh, reach out to and help. Secondarily, there are a whole nother aspect of business, uh, businesses as well that are eco-friendly. They're looking for. um. Ways of engaging with their employees on their, in, on their campuses as well. So we are looking to grow our businesses in those two sectors. Um, expand our product line. We have the Topper Stopper here. Uh, we have TS rewards. This is the application that we spoke about before. And then we also have TS Media where every single. Uh, Topper Stopper is a digital billboard in essence, so we're able to sell advertising to advertising partners there on a quarterly basis. So really our goal is to really get our foothold into the higher educational space and then, um, merge off into, uh, the, uh, eco-friendly business space there and get the Topper Stopper into every, every, sector that we possibly can that is looking to do something and, and

Kenny 40:00

population. I love that. Um, so I just wanna say thank you so much, Marcus, for sharing your story. It's been in Incre. Incredible. Just to hear it. I already did, I did my research obviously before the conversation, but to hear you really articulate how you've gone from. Your, your, your, your journey in faith to now you're taking that faith with you and becoming a tech founder. Amazing to hear this, like, I'm going to be telling everybody once this episode comes out, but even before then, that they definitely need to be tapping in with you. What's the easiest way for folks

Marcus Wade 40:40

Sure. Um, you can always reach out to us, to me, on my website, uh, at Genesis, the number one tech, or LinkedIn. LinkedIn is the platform that, uh, I am, um, trying to engage more. On these, this upcoming years. So always reach out to me on LinkedIn or UH, or dm and then also say as well, thank you as well for how you are focusing on businesses and focusing on the journeys of solopreneurs and startups and how you're exposing that to the market as a whole. You know, so. I want to thank you for you and your network and the podcast and pray that you could continue to get blessings and that your expand explode. And I want to see, oh, this is at, um, this is, uh, on the, uh, the Apple Top or Spotify's Top five business podcast. There we go. I said, I, I I

Kenny 41:31

I remember back in

Marcus Wade 41:32

when Kenny did this and that, I said, yeah, so, so continue to continue to do what you're doing because you have a voice and you're giving voice to other startup and, uh, other businesses that

Kenny 41:42

that don't

Marcus Wade 41:42

necessarily have.

Kenny 41:44

voice in connection. Appreciate that. Appreciate that so much. I'm gonna keep doing this for as long as I can. Lord willing, I want to, I want to pass it to you. One last, last time for the final word. I wanna phrase it this way though. You've built an incredible movement from an idea that nobody else really spent the time on. Right. What's a hard truth that you think folks need to hear about innovation, innovative businesses, right. This, like, they may

Marcus Wade 42:22

So here's, here's, what I say, that each of us are placed here. on this earth to do something. We all have our own mission. We all have a, a certain path that is already pre-designed and predestined for us. Okay, so what my, my suggestion, my my prayer is that you, each person would get an It's not even about business. Get an understanding of who you are and of God in your life and allow him to first, first thing he'll do once you, you make one step to God who'll make two steps to you. And when you ask him about giving you your understanding of who you are, he will display that and give you that information freely. And then once you know that, then help me. It can now help you to get to where you need to go. He will guide you and direct you, uh, along the path. And if he's guiding you, then you're not gonna sway off the path. You're not gonna fall off the cliff because he's giving you that direction. My, my suggestion, my prayer is that everyone gets an understanding of the creator in their life and then the

Kenny 43:43

Hmm. Thank you so much, Marcus, and for everyone tuning in, Thank you. for