Ohio University Leader Lounge

Exploring Entrepreneurship and Teaching: An Insightful Conversation with Professor Benedict

• Alex Winnenberg

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In this episode of The Leader Lounge, Professor Benedict joins as a guest. He discusses his background, starting from growing up in Cincinnati to attending Ohio University and working in Chicago. After facing both success and challenges as an entrepreneur, he transitioned into teaching at OU and became the director of the Center for Entrepreneurship. Professor Benedict emphasizes the importance of skills like perseverance, effective communication, and assembling the right team in entrepreneurship, along with finding product-market fit and connecting with customers emotionally.

The conversation also touches on the format of the courses he teaches, including collaboration with the MSM program and the diverse mix of students from various programs. Professor Benedict highlights the value of external perspectives and constructive feedback in evaluating entrepreneurial opportunities. Overall, the episode provides insights into Professor Benedict's background, his entrepreneurial journey, and his teaching approach, emphasizing key skills and the importance of understanding customer needs.


For more information about the Ohio University MSM Program, click this link!

Check out the Robert D. Walter Center for Strategic Leadership program here.

OnBrand Podcast Studios produced this episode. Special thanks to Audio Engineer Alex Winnenberg, Producer Nick Winnenberg, and Marketing Specialist Cori Stokes.

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UNKNOWN:

Bye.

SPEAKER_02:

Welcome back to the episode three of The Leader Lounge. Today I'm excited to talk to Professor Paul Benedict. How are you doing today, Professor? I am swell. Hi, Nick. Thanks for having me. And again, as always, we have Dr. Amy Bianco.

SPEAKER_00:

Hello. Great to have you today. Hi, Amy.

SPEAKER_02:

I'm very excited to be sitting with two of my greatest mentors in the building right now, so it's fantastic to have you both here today. It's going to be a very exciting conversation, but do you want to kick it off?

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah. I've known Paul Benedict for a long time, but what I'd like to talk about at is sort of a little bit of the important background, like whatever you want to tell us about your background before you became the director of the Center for Entrepreneurship. So pivotal things, you know, maybe it was like, I don't know, lemonade stands as a kid. Born on a hot

SPEAKER_01:

and humid summer day in Cincinnati, Ohio in 1974.

SPEAKER_02:

Was it Children's Hospital? Was it Good Sam?

SPEAKER_01:

No, it was Good Sam. Okay, so it's a good hospital. Good hospital. Yep. Yeah. So how do I, how How quickly can I get to the 90s? As

SPEAKER_00:

quickly as

SPEAKER_01:

you want. So I grew up in Cincinnati, came to school here at OU for undergrad. It is not an exaggeration to say that Everything good that has happened in my life started with the decision to come here. I realize it sounds ridiculous or maybe I sound like a shill and I don't care. But my early mentors were all from here, my best friends in life I met. Yeah. And my early career was meeting mentors from here. Fast forward to graduating in 96, moved to Chicago for a few years, moved back to Athens in 2000 to be part of starting a venture fund that would invest in early stage companies here in central Appalachia. So Ohio, West Virginia, Kentucky, the western panhandle of Maryland. Did that for the better part of a decade. Had some success, learned a ton, sold a couple of companies, buried a few, set out on my own in 2010, had some combination of success and hard lessons, very hard lessons. As I was doing that and as I was putting a startup in the ground, a friend asked me if I'd be interested in teaching a grad seminar here at OU. It was a nights and weekends thing, so I could do it as a side hustle. And did it and absolutely fell in love with it. Like, this is what I should be doing at this stage of my career. And so that's been– that was 2013, I think. ish. I full-time here at OU in 2014, became the director of the Center for Entrepreneurship in 2020. Good timing by me. Yeah, I was going to say, right? Good call. Yeah, get a new job at the start of a pandemic. Didn't we all? But I say and mean it that I'm living the dream. I get to teach what I love at a place that I love. That's fantastic. Long answer, short question. Phenomenal answer. But how did I do getting from 1974 to present?

SPEAKER_00:

Really, really well.

SPEAKER_02:

And you're from Cincinnati. Yes. So being from Cincinnati, what high school did you go to? Oh, boy. It's the obligatory question. You have

SPEAKER_01:

to if you're from Cincinnati. So I went to St. Xavier, St. X.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah. And then final question for Cincinnati. What's your order from Skyline?

SPEAKER_01:

Oh, I mean, it's a five-way. Oh, really? You go all the way? Yeah. Oh, absolutely. But I should add that one of my high school gigs was running a nacho and coney stand at then Riverfront Stadium.

SPEAKER_00:

That's how old I am. Oh, that's great.

SPEAKER_01:

And we served Gold Star. Oh, God. At the ballpark. On purpose? On purpose. Yeah. I hope the Gold Star people aren't listening. But taking a bucket of Gold Star out of the fridge from overnight to warm up before the game. It's a culinary delicacy. Okay. Okay. You can go with that. Yes. Yes. Yes, it is. Yes, it is. So I haven't had Cincinnati chili in quite some time.

SPEAKER_02:

I love it. And we recently worked together and you're my professor for the business ideation course. I think that's what we just took, if not something like that. So looking at the plan for me is an amazing course. I mean, it was very experiential. It made you ask a lot of questions about yourself. And I love the formatting for it. But kind of digging into your background, you came to it with a ton of that expertise of you doing this before. So can you run me through some of the skill sets you picked up as an entrepreneur before becoming a professor?

SPEAKER_01:

That's a great question. I think the most important thing is internal. It's perseverance. It's hustle. It's the ability to communicate a vision. It's how are you as a leader in a team. The thing that has always made the difference in my career, whether I was in successful companies or not successful companies, it was the people. Right? Are they the right people in the right spots on the bus? And do they get it done or not? Is the whole greater than the sum of the parts? I'm a Springsteen fan, and he talks about the band being one plus one equals three, right? The synergy, right. Yeah, and that's true in startups to a big extent. The other thing beyond that, then, that is critical is can you find what we call product market fit? Do the dogs eat the dog food? Can you identify a problem that is meaningful to a customer, connect with them on some emotion level, like you're doing something to make their life better. You're bringing something good. You're getting rid of something bad. Do you reach them in some visceral way? And do you have a solution that addresses that, right? If you can find that, then all the rest of it, it's still important. There are still things you can get wrong. There are still things that can kill a company. But once you've figured that stuff out, the people, product market fit, it reduces the amount of risk by orders of magnitude, right? So, you know, one of the things that you find is, you know, people ask about, well, should I set up as an LLC or should I set up as a C Corp? And when should I get business cards and have a logo and all that stuff? Should we be worried about all that stuff? Sorry, go ahead. Generally, not so much. Those are not the first things you need to do, right? And, you know, The nice thing about the truth is that If the issues are people and product market fit, there's a lot that you can do before you have to march into your current boss's office and say, I quit and I'm going to go start my own thing, that you can do it as a side hustle. You can explore it. You can identify that problem for customers while you're still keeping a jobby job and supporting your family or yourself, right? And so there is a bit of a misconception that entrepreneurship is wildly risky, and it certainly has elements of risk to it. But the best entrepreneurs are managers of risk, right? They're seeking to manage risk down at all stages with the people, with the product market fit, with, you know, can you make money at it, right? And you jump and leave your jobby job and nicely, respectfully tell your boss you quit and give notice and not blow up their bridge behind you. You know, and then go all in, right? Once the customer's basically demanded of you. Yep. Can you teach those skill sets in education? Yes, you can. They are skills that can be honed. The thing that's tricky that I will totally cop to is that It is difficult to simulate the emotional stakes in the context of a class, right? The thing that is difficult, damn near impossible to get across is– or the emotional stakes of making payroll. Is this thing going to work? Frequently– We kid about the sort of emotional roller coaster of entrepreneurship and the– you have this high of, oh, this is great. This is a great idea. And then there's this crash and this trough of sorrow that might last a couple of days, a couple of months, a couple of years. Yeah, yeah. So that part is really difficult to get across in the context of a class. If I'm being totally honest, I think– I'm always trying to experiment with what can we do that gets us closer, right? And the other thing that I think that in the context of a class that is useful is If you learn the skills and you have some exposure to it in– whether it was a seven-week online class or a traditional face-to-face undergrad 15-week, twice-a-week sort of thing that we do here. The expectation isn't necessarily that you're going to take whatever you worked on in the class and that's your startup, right? But that you've got– you have some– you've learned some things. You've got some muscle memory so that when you come back to it, if you come back to it or something else, that you'll be more prepared.

SPEAKER_02:

Now, I know one of the– features of this is both the Walter Schutick Center and also the MSM program, which we're operating a lot of these courses in. So what's that format been like working with MSM? Has it provided more opportunities for your students? And are you talking to a different caliber of people? What's that certificate been like for you?

SPEAKER_01:

Well, what is exciting to me is that in my classes that are seven weeks and largely asynchronous, and I hear the chuckle in the chuckle being Seven weeks is a very short time to do a lot. And so I get that. And I don't– this wasn't necessarily the intent. The fact that it's seven weeks does simulate some of the pressure of getting to get this done. But back to the question about the MSM and the people, what– In my classes, what is exciting is that we've got a really interesting mix of people. We've got people in the Masters of Management. We've got people in the online MBA, which can be from anywhere around the country, and I think in some cases around the world. And then also folks in the professional MBA who are, by and large– working professionals, mostly in Ohio because they have residencies once a month at our Dublin campus in central Ohio. So you've got this really interesting mix of people coming together on a topic. And one of the things that I've found, and I think I should do more of it, frankly, is that in the best case, the students in the class are learning as much from each other as they are from me. Yes, absolutely. Facilitating that peer-to-peer interaction. And I think with a little bit of exposure to the principles, students can get pretty good at sniffing out what are good entrepreneurial opportunities, what aren't. Can you communicate it well? Another thing that's true about entrepreneurs is that if it's your baby– Like, you're really close to it, and it's your baby, and you love your baby. And maybe you're not always totally rational about communicating, you know, what your baby looks like. I've had some moments recently where my love for babies is... Wavering. Yeah, it's maybe wavered. We'll leave that for the folks at home to imagine what that's like. But having an external perspective... to react to how you're communicating this opportunity is wildly useful. And it's wildly useful whether you're a serial entrepreneur that's done it many times over or a student new to it exploring it for the first time, right?

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah. And I think one of the things that's both unique with your program, it also overlaps with other programs too. And one of the things I really appreciate with the MSM program is the fact that every professor approaches the task differently and one of the things I really appreciate about your course was there was about halfway through one of the courses you're like you know what I'm done talking right you talk to each other you give each other feedback and then you use what I'm calling awkward silence right you gave it like 30 seconds of you actually not talking and then everyone unmuted and started talking to each other that's unique I mean not a whole lot of professors are doing that where did you pick up that skill set

SPEAKER_01:

yeah I don't know. I'm continuing to try to get better at it. It is important to not feel the need to fill the air with sound, with the sound of your own voice, right? And, you know, if you give people time to think about what they want to say and communicate, they'll probably be willing and able to share more than you might have expected they would. So for me, it's a work in process. Occasionally I get teased for giving long answers to short questions and it's not without– I deserve it from time to time. But yeah, it's just I got to– I mean literally sometimes I bite my tongue and like, OK, I'm going to wait and this is uncomfortable and I don't like it. I'm going to resist the temptation to interject. But yeah, it's important. It's very

SPEAKER_02:

interesting. Dr. B, what kind of questions do you got?

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, I'm just thinking, one of the things that I absolutely love about you, Paul, and about your teaching and the way you lead your certificate. Oh, here we go.

SPEAKER_01:

We'll do the hates later. So remember the Cincinnati and going to a Catholic all-male high school. I'm about to get really uncomfortable with praise. I'm excited. This will be great. I can't, I don't, I can't handle this. You can't handle

SPEAKER_00:

this. I'm sweating. All right, well, let's just put it this way. So everybody who is teaching Right. That's true. um, Hey, this is really going to help me. And it's kind of different for either from you or from your certificate.

SPEAKER_01:

It's a really good question. It's a hard one to answer. It

SPEAKER_00:

is a hard, it's a

SPEAKER_01:

really hard one to answer. I, Nick?

SPEAKER_00:

I was going to say, you might have a student there. Learning style,

SPEAKER_02:

for sure. I think also pace of work and freedom are kind of what I kind of put with yours. And again, I'm doing something weird. I'm not sure if... I don't know if any other one else is doing the MSM program, but I'm doing the data analytics course and also entrepreneurship, which are polar opposite. Entrepreneurship's like, have we thought about making a business plan? And then data's like, here's every single step between here and there, right? So... That's very structured. Yours is very unstructured. So looking at that side of it, it gives you that freedom, that opportunity to really develop what you want out of it. And we talked about the MSM program before that it's exactly, you get out what you put in. And there are students I know that are taking the program, they're doing their courses, they're turning their assignments, and they're kind of going

SPEAKER_00:

flat.

SPEAKER_02:

Which is fine. Everyone pick your own adventure. But there's also students that are engaging. And then what makes you unique is you're very interactive with the students. You ask them in the beginning, how is your week? How is everything going? There's other professors that jump straight into lecture. So in my opinion, that's probably your unique learning

SPEAKER_01:

style. Well, I appreciate that very much. Your grades have already been submitted. Oh, I'm going

SPEAKER_02:

to take it back. Can I change my answer? He's all right. Subpar,

SPEAKER_01:

probably. I do appreciate that. I think it's genuine. And it's important because entrepreneurship is so intensely personal. It's personal in ways that data analytics isn't, right? That most of the time when you find not just product market fit but founder market fit is where there's a problem you're trying to address that– You have to do it. It's in your cells. You can't not address it. You're like, I can't tolerate a world where this problem still exists. It's deeply emotional. It is deeply emotional. And so trying to understand how students tick and what they've been through, their lived experience, is really important to how I teach the class. Like, you know, and giving people freedom to go where they want to go with their ideas, you know, it would be much easier for me if I put you in teams and you brainstormed in your teams on what do we want to start, and you'd do it, and it would be a good, interesting academic exercise, and I would have... You know, three or four or five business plans to grade, not 30. But, and I've been told on more than one occasion, like, why do you do that? But there is method to it, right? It is really important that... That you have a chance to do your own thing. And very few successful businesses are founded by solo operators. It's important that you find business soulmates. Your people. Yeah. The chances that you're going to find that in a class are not so good, right? So I don't want to force it to that. I appreciate you saying that very much.

SPEAKER_02:

Next question. So you already talked about entrepreneurship is deeply personal and it triggers a lot of emotions. In my experience, having a couple of companies, the biggest emotion is fear, complete and total paralyzing fear. As an entrepreneur, how do you get past that? Just do it anyway? Do it scared?

SPEAKER_01:

I mean, courage is not the absence of fear. Courage is moving forward in spite of fear, right? And I think that... That's true in entrepreneurship. And the other thing is, to the earlier question about managing risk, is manage the fear that you can handle when you can handle it, right? And don't take on too much. For me, in my career, some measure of fear has been a pretty healthy motivator. And there's no question that some people are better wired for it than others. So yeah, just grit your teeth. Do it scared. Yeah, do it scared. And know that everybody that's ever done this stuff is scared. Even people who've done it many times over and have been successful. If they're doing something new, they're scared again about the new thing. So I've had– I've been lucky to have really good conversations with lots of wildly successful people. And some of the people that you would outwardly think that person is– has to be more confident than any person I've ever met, they've been wildly successful. Maybe they've sold a company for a billion dollars or they're on track to that. Even they– have fear, have uncertainty, have doubt, need mentors, seek advice from other people. So if the most successful among us feel that, then hopefully that's liberating for the rest of us mortals.

SPEAKER_02:

Fantastic. That was a great closer right there. Is there any other questions you want to hit

SPEAKER_00:

on? I love that. Manage the fear, keep going.

SPEAKER_02:

Manage the fear, keep going. Is there anything you want to hit on that

SPEAKER_01:

you think we missed? Just that you're awesome. Oh, thanks, man. Uh, and you're awesome too, Amy.

SPEAKER_00:

But we're so lucky to have, to have Nick Winnenberg in the program and then leading the podcast. It's,

SPEAKER_01:

it's tremendous.

SPEAKER_00:

You'll have Ramey too when I'm gone. So we're just going to keep the family going. And like, I mean, it's really, you're absolutely incredible.

SPEAKER_02:

I appreciate it. So is there any shout outs or thank yous that you want to do for anyone else in the entrepreneurship program or anyone else?

SPEAKER_01:

Well, I, my, my colleagues, uh, that, that, uh, not everybody in the MSM gets a chance to meet, uh, Crystal Geyer, Paul Mass, Luke Pitaway, uh, Steve Musser, uh, I know that some of the MSM, Steve has taught in the MSM classes and is great. So I hope everyone has good experiences with all of them. And like I said, it really is the joy of my life to get to do this.