How Entrepreneur Jim Phillips's Plant-Based Brain Health Beverage Gained Seed Funding

Join me on Experienced Voices as I talk with serial entrepreneur Jim Phillips, Co-Founder and CEO of Graymatter, a cognitive wellness company leading the movement to make daily cognitive supplementation mainstream.

Jim shares his journey, driven by navigating intense entrepreneurial stress, to create Bright Mind drink mix, a plant-based brain health drink to help you achieve peak performance.

In this episode, we dive into:

• The origin story and development process of their proprietary nootropic formula.
• The strategy and key metrics of launching a consumer product online, conducting market testing, and achieving product market fit (PMF).
• Jim's insider strategy for targeting venture capital and completing a seed funding round.
• Invaluable advice for first-time entrepreneurs on avoiding common startup pitfalls.

If you're interested in cognitive function, startup fundraising strategy, or establishing and marketing a wellness venture, this episode is a must-listen. 

Learn how Jim Phillips is helping thousands of people achieve mental clarity and think clearer, naturally.

Transcript

Jim Phillips GreyMatter

Jeanne Gray: I am Jean Gray, publisher of American Entrepreneurship Today and host of the podcast series Experience Voices, where I talk with highly accomplished people who share the critical elements that led to their success.

Are you running on fumes, dealing with daily stress and mental strain? Our experienced voice guest is Jim Phillips, co-founder and CEO of Gray Matter, a cognitive wellness company, pioneering plant-based brain health. Jim shares how his experience is. A funded mid, mid-twenties entrepreneur led him to his next venture, a science-backed beverage, an alternative to stimulants that so many people rely upon.

Partnering with a PhD molecular biologist, he developed Bright Mind a Neutropic drink mix now helping thousands think clearer, feel sharper, and perform at their best. Welcome to Experience Voices. Jim. 

Jim Phillips: Thanks for having me, Jeanne. 

Jeanne Gray: Well, I'm very curious to learn more about your product. So what was your motivation in developing a a brain health drink? 

Jim Phillips: It was really a situation where I was trying to solve my own problems. I was a very young entrepreneur. When I was first VC backed, I was 26 and I was in over my head.

I didn't know what I was doing and had a lot of pressure on me to succeed and to try to compensate for. You know, , Having longer periods of, productivity. I took pharmaceutical stimulants and drank too many coffees thinking that that would help me get ahead. And it had the opposite effect. It actually made me less productive and.

It was harder for me to focus. So it got to a point where I just felt like there had to be a better way. And so I dove deep into neuroscience and trying to understand my own mind, kind of why I was feeling the way that I was. And I discovered nootropics. And you know, if you don't know what those are, they're just natural or, plant-based substances that have a functional effect on your cognition.

And there's a number of these , and kind of the best. You know, example is caffeine. Caffeine is a nootropic, but there's numerous other ones that also have a positive effect. And at a really, really, you know, successful kind of undertaking of them en abled me to have longer periods of focus.

And when I would talk about it to friends and and family. It was just very obvious that, you know, most people didn't know what Inotropic was and there was a big opportunity to help other people discover them and increase the awareness of, plant-based cognitive supplementation. 

Jeanne Gray: Well, at, at some point though, the light bulb went off and you said, I can make this a commercial product.

So , what year was that? Was it just a couple years ago or five years ago? 

Jim Phillips: Yeah, it was in 2021. And. It has a bit to do with my previous company, which is called Charm, charm.io. It's basically a database of every e-commerce brand in the world. It's kinda like a ZoomInfo, if people are familiar with that, which is a business database, but it's entirely focused on like Shopify stores, WooCommerce stores, and.

I could tell you every brand in every category and also which ones were growing the fastest and commonalities about what they were doing to grow. So it's this very rich data set in e-commerce, and it felt like I had kinda a secret weapon to understand how to build a good e-commerce brand. And so it made me want to, create one.

And so I went back to this original idea that I had as an early entrepreneur that more people could benefit from plant-based cognitive supplementation and, got together with a PhD molecular biologist, and together we started formulating what is now Bright Mind. 

Jeanne Gray: Did you bring on a co-founder or maybe advisors in early roles to get you through the first couple years?

Jim Phillips: Yeah, so we do have a co-founder. He actually was in venture capital. Now obviously he's, come full time after we've raised some money. But he spent , his early career in venture capital as an analyst. And, you know, then we also worked directly with a, PhD biologist. So it was basically US three coming up with the formula.

It was a lot of what I had used myself , and found successful, , with then their input and kind of refinement. 

Jeanne Gray: Then there was intellectual property than behind your, formula. 

Jim Phillips: Yeah, there's proprietary amounts of each ingredient that kind of make up the total formula. There's 27 ingredients in it.

Really, it's a combination of four functional groupings, Ando, tropics, adaptogens. There's plant-based energy and then also some substances for your vision called carotinoids. And the exact formula , is something that , we keep in house. Mainly it's just so we don't get copied. But what makes it different is just , it's much more comprehensive than anything else on the market.

You can objectively compare our product in terms of the number of ingredients to, you know, others that are out there. And, you know, for the most part, there's two to three times more in Bright mind than the others. 

Jeanne Gray: Was getting the taste a big challenge for you? 

Jim Phillips: Yes, yes. Specifically because of what I just said.

You know, how many ingredients are in there you know, nootropics and, , mushrooms and plants. Not all of those, tastes all that great by, by themselves. So it took a bit for us to get the flavor right. You know, really it took about a year and a half \, of r and d on the product and testing and iteration to land on what it is now.

Our first flavor was a strawberry lemon, which we still have and is a. Kinda fan favorite. Our second tangerine kind of tastes or it gives you that feeling of like a morning orange juice and we have a cacao flavor that's coming out later this year. 

Jeanne Gray: Were you and your team, I imagine the, first taste tasters, did it then extend to family then at what point did it go to people who really would be third parties who would have an unbiased opinion?

Jim Phillips: Yeah, it was mostly family friends in the beginning and a lot of them, we wanted to get a varying amount of opinions. And, from that kinda process we landed on what was our original flavor. And once we went to market with it is, is when we finally. some third party validation of people that we don't know, which is obviously very important.

You know? I would hope that my friends would've given me good feedback knowing that uh, you know, I was about to invest a lot into this, but it's always better to get it from someone that you don't know 

Jeanne Gray: now. What would you've describe the impact or the core functionality of the product that has a impact on brain health?

Jim Phillips: Yeah, so everything in it has been studied by hundreds of peer reviewed research papers, and there's different functions for each group of ingredients. The first group, and probably one of the most impactful is our nootropic group. You know, really what it's doing is. Increasing two neurotransmitters in your mind.

Dopamine and acetylcholine. Dopamine is often referred to as a focus molecule. You know, when you're in a intense period of focus or a flow state there's lots of dopamine being released into your mind. And so to facilitate, you know, longer periods of focus, you can simply give yourself precursors to dopamine and more dopamine.

And that gets you into, , better, more productive state. Acetylcholine is well known to increase the synapse connections in your brains. Kind of just the how your neurons put your nerve cells in your brain, talk to each other and communicate with different kind of brain modules, and it improves your memory and just your overall kind of fluidity of cognition.

So 

Jeanne Gray: when would someone be drinking this? Is this a breakfast drink, a mid-afternoon? Is it daily? What would someone, 

Jim Phillips: yeah. Yeah, , it's daily. We think that everyone should be and, can be strengthening their cognition through supplementation. Most people drink this in the morning either, you know, alongside a coffee or in the place of a coffee.

I drink a little in the morning, but, and still do have a coffee 'cause I love coffee. But I mainly have my kinda full dose of, of bright mind instead of a second coffee around midday. There is caffeine in it, but it's plant-based caffeine, so that comes from, matcha and guana. It is a time release caffeine because there's specific substances that bind to the caffeine molecule on those two sources that make it more slowly released into your body.

So it's a smooth uplift, but yeah, because of that, it's definitely energizing. So we have most people take it in the morning. 

Jeanne Gray: Well, that's what I was curious about. You described it as a smooth uplift. If I drink it at eight o'clock, am I starting to feel good at eight 15 or just I'm feeling a overall sense of wellness throughout the day or both.

Jim Phillips: Yeah, that's a great question. One of the main things that we wanted to do is make a nootropic product that you could feel and feel quickly. So it has a tangible effect. About 10 to 15 minutes after you take it, you know, you'll feel just more energized, more alerts, you know, more uplifted. And then that should last, three to four, you know, sometimes longer hours.

Now what's cool about this product is that it does have this very kinda immediate and intangible effect, but the more that you take it, it does have a long-term impact on the effects compounding in terms of just your overall cognitive health. So two of the things that I mentioned in terms of neurotransmitters, , they're having a, very scientific impact on your mind and what that is doing.

It's kind of neuro modulating those two neurotransmitters up. And as you continue to do that, that increases the neuroplasticity in your mind. And I'm throwing a lot of words at you, but what that means is that it enables, you know, new synapse connections to grow you know, it's kind of repeated stimuli of positive reinforcement of how to focus.

And so if you continually put your mind in that state, you're gonna get better at focusing just in general, even without the product. 

Jeanne Gray: So does Bright Mind separate itself from other wellness products that suggest that they have an impact on brain health? 

Jim Phillips: Yeah. I think the first thing is the number of ingredients.

So if you just objectively compare us to others, there's more ingredients in our product, and we did that so that you can have a tangible. Effect or, or, or feeling you can feel it working. For the most part, most people do with an 10 to 15 minute period. And then you know, the long-term effects are kind of an added benefit.

Jeanne Gray: , Are there any concerns about side effects,

Jim Phillips: no, that's what's really cool about this, you know, it's all plants. There's nothing artificial, there's no sugar. And you know, people need to kind of find their right dose. Some people don't need as much as others.

It's kind of the same thing that you would think about coffee. You know, some people are heavy coffee drinkers, some people just need half a cup or one. So, so I would just say that find the right dose and from there. You know, side effects really aren't the thing. It's kind of like drinking coffee with some extra brand nutrients in it.

Jeanne Gray: You were saying that your yourself, , your cohort and your family and friends, like the product. What feedback did you get that said we have to change something? I like to kind of always flush out that. The development of a product is not a straight line from the original idea to how the market product ends up.

Was there adaptability or changes or pivots along the way? 

Jim Phillips: Yeah, absolutely. So we were trying to induce a certain feeling and really we were our, Guinea pigs on this. Trying to give ourselves the feeling , that we wanted. Again, going back to trying to solve my own problems and, you know, as we did different iterations of the amount of each ingredient and just ingredients in general, sometimes that feeling wasn't what we were looking for.

I remember, you know, specifically. You know, we were putting some adaptogens in, and if you don't know about adaptogens, they regulate your cortisol levels and you know, that's can be known as the stress hormone. It actually is elevated in the morning when you wake up, but if you have too much of it, it can be stress inducing and.

I believe that we put too many adaptogens in this one formula and it kind of made you tired. And so that wasn't what we were going for, right? And so we had to go back to the drawing board and, and iterate on it. Definitely lots of iteration on flavor. 'cause again, it, like I said earlier, it's hard to make it taste good.

Although, you know, I think we've definitely nailed it. It takes a bit of, iteration to get there. it's lots of iteration and, and keeping, you know, your ear to the right feedback and making sure you, 

Jeanne Gray: I'm sorry, you were saying it was almost a year and a half of, trial testing. 

Jim Phillips: Mm-hmm. Yeah, it was very, long time. Well, you know, to do this, it requires a lot of, a lot of funds and funded it on our own.

It was a lot of my own money, and so I wanted to really make sure, all right, if I'm actually gonna do this, I wanna be very confident in, in what we're about to make. Because you have to pay for upfront inventory 

Jeanne Gray: because you were using someone in science, right? 

Jim Phillips: Mm-hmm. Yeah. so we did have the scientific input, but we didn't partnered with a third party manufacturer that's here in the us to actually go ahead and make the product.

Jeanne Gray: So your background with charm and on the marketing side seemed to give you a step up from a lot of other entrepreneurs trying to introduce a product. So explain to the listeners the whole aspect of go to market and product market fit. Is, are they interlinked, are they sequential? , What are the key elements that, that make those important for launching a product?

Jim Phillips: Yeah, and especially with , like a CPG product, it's obviously very important to get the user feedback and get to a point where you believe that you found product market fit. But they're very intertwined because to get product market fit, you have to have some sort of go-to-market. Motion to be able to get the product in hands.

And then also the data feedback loop to understand if it's working and, having the desired effect that you want in the market for the customer. So, you know, for us and for many, direct to consumer businesses. Meta is a great partner to run ads and find your early customers.

You know, really it's one of the best advertising platforms ever created because it, it is so targeted with what people want and understands on a customer level who might. You know, react be interested in purchasing and trying a product. So with little monetary upfront investment, you can get your product into the right hands so long as you're making ads in the content that is going to engage them to give it a try.

So that's what we did in, on the front end, is put a small amount of investment into getting our first customers. Learn as much as we can about what they thought about the product by contacting them and, obviously having an open loop for reviews and things like that. But they're connected because you have to have a go to market motion to understand if you can get product market fit.

'cause you gotta get your product in the people's hands. 

Jeanne Gray: What metrics did you look at when you first put it up on meta? 

Jim Phillips: Yeah, , from an ad standpoint, you know, you wanna look at click through rates, you wanna look at three second views and, you know, we set all of our ads most companies like us do set them on conversion.

'cause there's, lots of different, structures of an ad. You could set an ad for views, you could set an ad for collecting information. You can set an ad for buying a product, which is conversion. So all of our ads were on conversion, so. Back when we started, you also input audiences.

So you had to define who you thought your audience was and, then meta takes in and goes out and tries to find them. Now it's a bit different. It's more AI driven and meta kind of does it on its own, which is just cool 'cause. You can't really beat the algorithm. So that was the front end of getting people to, , click on your ad.

And then when they got to the site, you of course wanted to follow how they interacted with your site. You know, what they were clicking on, what they were spending more of their time looking at, and ultimately how many people you convert. So what your conversion rate was. So if you think about it, it's just this really big funnel of a digital puzzle all the way from the beginning part of serving them an ad to them landing on your website to how often they convert.

And then from there you start to measure things like retention and you know, if there are different cohorts you know, by month and what product they ordered and any sort of variation in the retention that you can tease out to try to improve how long they stay with you. 

Jeanne Gray: Now you have a, strong marketing background.

Did you use an outside firm for their specific funnel expertise or would you recommend to an entrepreneur not to play around and meta themselves and, just go to the experts? 

Jim Phillips: This is a really good question and I think that you should do both because especially for businesses like mine, If you have never done it before, I I think that you should get, in touch with an expert, whether it's an agency or someone who's done it before, hire them to. do it with you, but to teach you so that you can learn the ins and outs of it, because it's really important for you to understand what is going to be driving the vast majority of customers to your business and.

some people just outsource it and that's okay. But in my opinion, the more that I could learn about how I can acquire customers and what the inputs and outputs were to do. So it just made me better at understanding how to grow the business and, and who our customer was. 

Jeanne Gray: So what's the next step on the marketing plan, since you have this direct channel to your, drinkers, your fan base now?

Will it be in stores? How is that gonna evolve? 

Jim Phillips: Yeah, so we've got some room to grow direct to consumer. We are growing very fast, which is awesome, and we're helping thousands of people now, you know, that are consuming this every day. But we want to continue to grow direct to consumer.

We feel like we've gotten better and better at efficiently doing so, and it also gives us, direct contact information and direct connection with that customer. Now we wanna build that channel up a bit more before we go into retail because, you know, getting on a shelf. I would say probably isn't that hard, but making sure that your product comes off of it is sold is, what's actually more important.

'cause one order's fine, but we want, you know, repeated orders and we wanna be a category leader once we do get into retail so we can impact that. By having, you know, a larger existing direct to consumer customer base, understand geographically where they're at when and where they would, you know, look to buy this type of product in store.

And then hopefully incentivize them to go into the early stores that we partner with and purchase that product. 

Jeanne Gray: So who's your typical user drink? I don't wanna say drinker. Is is it the sports athlete or is this something that the general public will , latch onto as daily routine?

Jim Phillips: I think in the near future, the general public is going to supplement their mind as kind of frequently as they would be brushing their teeth. I think that everyone can do it. And there's very little downside, like I said, and it makes the quality of your mind better and the quality of your mind really dictates the quality of your life.

And so what's cool about our product is that we do have, very specific kind of pockets and niches of types of people, but it is very broad our customer base. So I'd say that. One of the most specific ones are people that have attention issues or maybe you know, on some sort of stimulants that want a more natural version.

That's a big group of people that, come and, have success with our product. There's people who are elderly that are trying to prevent cognitive decline. There are just what we look at as, as. Biohackers or, optimizers that are trying to kind of get the most out of their performance. And so they want something more just a coffee.

Right? And maybe again, side effects than a pharmaceutical. We've had people with menopause tell us that it helps 'em quite a bit. We've had people benefit from post-concussion recovery with this product. So I could kind of go on and on, which is really cool. But we hear new stories about it helping people almost every day.

Jeanne Gray: Now, as you, as you explore those. Other retail channels do you have to rethink your price point of your direct to consumer versus now having bulk sales into a distribution channel? 

Jim Phillips: Yeah, that's a great question and it's something that we are thinking about now when we, price our product, even though we don't plan on getting into retail for, , six months to a year, and because.

Of what you're mentioning, you know, there's different kind of patterns and behavior and in the type of transaction, you know, when you come to our website and purchase, we give you a deal to subscribe and then we give a nice discount to subscribers if they stick with us. About 90% of our customers are subscribers because we make it so beneficial to do so.

Now, would the the one time. Purchase rate be applicable for a target, for example, I'm not sure, but we might have to think about different forms of maybe Togo packs and making a specific skew that is much more designed for the customer that more prone to retail purchases. So I think that they ultimately become different skews in my mind and will design it for optimization in each medium.

Jeanne Gray: Well now you just had a successful seed round. How is that changing your horizon for the next 6, 12, 18 months? 

Jim Phillips: We got some help to run the business by being able to, hire people, which is great. We built out a really awesome team. Some experts in things that, you know, I'm not an expert in.

So back to media buying and just overall growth customer success and, Customer retentions. We have people in kinda each of these roles, content creation that is really helping us kinda build more of a you know, grownup mature business. Whereas before it was just kind of founder led and we were figuring it out as we go.

Having a really good product is very helpful . In those situations where, you know, I think the success of our business so far really has been because we've created a great product and now we're really trying to build some very good company structure around it so that we have the you know, core infrastructure to get as big as we want and help as many people as we can.

Jeanne Gray: In your approach of the seed round, you have a consumer product and you also have venture capital experience, so share a little bit about. How you made your first approach , is it angels or VCs that, were you specifically looking for a consumer product connection or what? 

Jim Phillips: Yeah, we wanted investors that were experienced with CPG investments, so have, given capital to companies that are somewhat like ours or similar products, but definitely in that same type of space just because.

You know, we take the approach that we can always learn if, we can partner with somebody by getting more access to capital, but also having them be strategic and help us guide kind of the direction and the operation of the business. You know, we're definitely open to that. The process is kind of like dating, to be honest with you.

There's, lots of conversations that happen. You wanna try to find the, the, the types of people and companies that fit the best with you, and you gotta talk to a lot of people do that. How the conversations happen really are lots of referrals. So once you talk to one investor, they often can refer you to a few other ones.

And you just build this kind of web of all of them and you start to kind of find that they are very interconnected. They talk to each other, right. . you gotta, you gotta convince one to, to buy in and, and take the, the leap to go with you, like be the lead on the round. And once you do that, there's a lot of fomo from the other ones that they don't wanna miss out.

Jeanne Gray: Right? 

Jim Phillips: So it is very much a kind of persuasive game of convincing someone that your idea, your metrics your business is solid and they should take a bet on you. And then once you do that the domino kinda fall from there. 

Jeanne Gray: Did you take samples of your product and send them to potential investors who did not know you personally?

Jim Phillips: Everyone that we, we talked to, I would end up sending it to because I had a lot of confidence in the product, you know, and. For many people, once they try it, they realize, oh wow. Like , this is different. , There's something here. And so our investors today absolutely love the product and have become some of our best advocates because they'd take it themselves.

But did I just cold send it out? And maybe once or twice, but it wasn't like a core strategy. 

Jeanne Gray: Mm-hmm. And so also sounds because of your confidence in the product and you've really worked on and thought it out. There were not a lot of nos , or cold rebuffs. You created a very sort of connection with some of the people who even decided we're not going to invest, but they would pass you along.

Jim Phillips: Yeah. Well, yeah, we did finally get people to say yes, but there was a long period of people telling us that we were too small. So, you know, another point that I didn't touch on is you absolutely want to have traction. If you have traction, you know, that's kind of your proof that you do have product market fit, and that your product is investible.

Your business is investible. So even to the beginning of this last year, we were much smaller than we are now. So we've been growing super fast and again. Sharing and showing that progress along the way, month over month by sending an update to the people who are your prospective investors was very helpful for us because it took us from, oh, you're too small to, oh, you're growing fast and I can see the trajectory here and we're gonna go ahead and make a bet on you.

Jeanne Gray: Yeah, I think that's a great point about traction is the repeat customer base and they see how you're accelerating. you do the standard pitch deck? 

Jim Phillips: Yeah, didn't typically go through it though. I just had it and we sent it to them. They got to take a look at it and I would pull it up if anything we were chatting about you know, would be helpful to show.

But for the most part, I just kind of had a conversation and, and told them, who I was, where the product came from, what we're trying to do, what our traction is. And you know, from there took their questions. It usually was just a conversation. 

Jeanne Gray: And having prior experience of, having been backed by a VC was one extra element that kind of gave you the credibility?

Jim Phillips: Yeah, I think so. You know, I have definitely spent my entire career in startups across many companies and, , objectively have demonstrated success and had an exit or two. And so that definitely helps, you know, a lot of the early stage. Seed, pre-seed types of investments are just betting on the founder.

At least that's what most investors say. So, you know, they want to see a good product in a kind of solid business model. But in the early stage, a lot of it comes down to can this, this founder be successful? And so I think there was a lot of you know, benefit to me being a bit more experienced than not.

Jeanne Gray: So what did you apply from your first VC or investor backed venture? That you said, I'm not going to do this a second time. 

Jim Phillips: Oh man, I was so young the first time, and, to be honest with you, I had partners that, guided and helped me. But I wanted to make sure that I maintained control of the business.

You know we started the business by funding it ourselves, grew the business to a point where we were profitable without needing, , too much outside capital. And so the reason to raise the round wasn't because we. Needed it to survive. It was mainly just to go faster. And so in my past businesses, I had given up more control than I maybe would've wanted, and that showed up later in the, process.

And so this time around, I just wanted to make sure that we had enough leverage on our side to be able to have the terms that we wanted. 

Jeanne Gray: So is there a common trap that first time funded entrepreneurs fall into? Sort of what you shared a little bit as to if you would say there is something that upon getting the, big check that changes your thinking.

Jim Phillips: I'd say the most common theme is that you've, there's tons of ideas and tons of things you can do as a very early stage business typically, and lots of founders can overextend themselves by trying to do too much, and it just ends up that you're doing many more things, but a lot of them in a mediocre way, where even though you have raised some money you should still maintain a focus on doing the best thing that you can as, as well as you can, , and have that be your, success metric.

To get as big as you can by having lots of focus on one thing. 

Jeanne Gray: So as wrap up, Jim, it seems your introduction of this product is very timely because there's a lot of things going on in the health industry, in the wellness industry. So share a little bit about how you think wellness is being embraced by people and, what are they doing right and what are they doing wrong and.

How your product is gonna be a unique entrant. 

Jim Phillips: Yeah, it's a very exciting time for us to, be in market now with Bright Mind and, the company Great Matter and the other products that we're gonna create. For us we believe that the mind and just your brain health is going to continue to gain kind of interest in market share within the overall wellness movement.

 when I think about wellness , in just my own experience with different products, is that I want it to be. Tangible. I want whatever I'm taking or doing to have a tangible impact, whether that's with feel or with my metrics that I track about myself on Whoop.

Or if somebody might have a Fitbit or whatever it is, you know, I think there's data out there, like, what are you doing? For wellness and is it having a positive impact? Whether you feel it or it shows up in the metrics day to day, so your sleep, your heart rate, your HRV, your VO two max, you know, all these different things.

I would just say for me, I'm, always very curious in the tangible effect, and that's what kind of leads me to stick with products or, find new ones. And I think that's the most exciting thing is like we're now quantifying our health in a way where we can have a biological age. And it's just great that there's tons of interest in, health, and it's the way that you show up and how you feel the world.

Jeanne Gray: Well, I'm personally am an advocate for understanding what we're eating is affecting our lives. So I think it's been a pure pleasure having you on experienced voices and you sharing both your prior experience, but I think some really key information about people who are trying to go to market and being innovative with a new product.

So thank you for coming on board. 

Jim Phillips: Thank you for having me. It's really an honor.

Jeanne Gray: You have been listening to the podcast series, experienced Voices. To hear more and subscribe, visit american entrepreneurship.com/podcast. Where you will also find a form for listener feedback.