From Accidental Entrepreneur to Life-Saving Mission: Tommy Martin & The Tebow Group Story

Discover how Tommy Martin, CEO of The Tebow Group, turned early business failures into nationwide success and now dedicates his life to amplifying faith, hope, and love through the Tim Tebow Foundation. In this inspiring episode of Risk and Resolve, Tommy shares:

        •        His journey from an “accidental” business owner to building billion-dollar financial firms.
        •        Lessons learned from early business failures that fueled future success.
        •        How timing, innovation, and relationships created rocket-ship growth.
        •        The mission of the Tim Tebow Foundation to serve the “real MVPs” – the most vulnerable people.
        •        Behind-the-scenes stories of anti-human trafficking, orphan care, and special needs ministries.
        •        How impact-driven investing is changing the game for business owners and communities.

Transcript

Meet Tommy Martin And His Path

SPEAKER_01 0:00

You're listening to Risk and Resolve.

SPEAKER_00 0:03

And now for your hosts, Ben Connor and Todd Hufford. Welcome to another episode of Risk and Resolve. I'm your co-host Ben Connor, along with Todd Hufford. Today, our special guest is Tommy Martin, CEO of the T Bow Group. Tommy, welcome to the show.

SPEAKER_02 0:24

Yeah, thank you, Ben. Appreciate it. Todd, so good to be with you again. Excited for our discussion today, fellas.

SPEAKER_00 0:30

Yeah, Tommy, we're really excited as well. Um, just for our listeners, obviously, Tommy is CEO, CEO of the T Bow Group. Um, but Tommy has an extensive background um as the CEO and general partner at the Mammoth Group, uh, CEO of Vestia Partners, um, has a ton of accomplishments, uh, even with his education, with uh going to Harvard Business School. Tommy has literally done it all or almost all of it. I don't know, something along those lines. But um, I've actually had the great joy of being in a at a peer group with Tommy and getting to know him as a as a person um and uh just getting to know his heart, which has been really cool to see, just the type of leader that Tommy is. So I'm really excited uh for the conversation today. So before we talk about uh the T Bow group and and the things that you're doing there, and particularly the the Tim Tebow Foundation, which I have a heart for, let's rewind the clock, Tommy, and uh let's just talk about uh your professional journey, what ended up leading you to uh leading the Tebow group. Uh let it uh take us back to kind of where you got your start and uh maybe some of those like significant jumps for you personally.

SPEAKER_03 1:49

Yeah, for sure, Ben. You know, I'm an accidental business owner, uh, truly, truly accidental business owner. I started out as a triple major in Bible youth ministry and music, and I found out I'm terrible at all three of those. So I hope someday to be good at my

Early Failures And First Lessons

SPEAKER_03 2:06

Bible. Uh, I did end up spending 20 years as a volunteer in youth ministry, and I just wish I was great at music, but I'm not. Uh, and so I ended up becoming an accidental business owner, um, doing an internship in this financial firm. I didn't even know what financial firms were, but I loved it. I fell in love with it because I found out in the financial setting and in the risk management setting, if people are willing to talk about their money, I found they were willing to talk about the rest of their life. So, what was happening in their family, what was happening in their marriage, and ultimately realized um, you know, for those in your audience that have some kind of faith perspective guiding their uh life, what I realized was I could basically be a pastor in financial advisor's clothing. I could actually come alongside of these hurting families and try to offer hope and joy for the future, uh, and do that through this role as a financial advisor. And so I spent uh over 20 years becoming a financial advisor, building financial firms, various types of firms. Uh, you're some of your audience may know RIAs, broker dealers, insurance agencies, tax firms, uh things of that nature, and then some private funds, real estate funds, um uh healthcare venture capital funds, and uh ultimately built those up to be nationwide entities. We were we were so grateful uh to have some of those companies just take off like a rocket ship. I'll leave out a lot of the story where my first three businesses were just miserable failures. Uh but uh my fourth company took off like a rocket ship. We we piggybacked a bunch of other companies on top of that, and that's really the professional background that got me started.

SPEAKER_00 3:50

What uh you mentioned the three failures that then allowed the fourth venture to be a rocket ship. Like, what were some of those key things that you learned from those first three ventures that you're like, all right, you know, this this next time, you know, what were some of those key learning lessons that you think really you really took with you from those three failures?

The Insurance Inventory Startup Story

SPEAKER_03 4:12

You know, my first company was actually insurance adjacent. So, one of the things we realized when we were doing financial work for people was gosh, they have this incredible homeowners insurance policy, they have this really important provision called replacement cost. So, you know, things that uh things that Ben and Todd make sure that all of their clients have on their policies. And um, but what we realized was if your house burns down, how do you prove what you had, or how do you even remember what you think you had? And so, what am I even trying to replace? And I got to thinking, I don't I have no clue how many pairs of socks I have, I have no clue how many at the time, how many DVDs I have, you know, all these things that have some real value that would be expensive to replace, and yet I would have no concept of how to do that. And so this was at the very beginning of digital photography, at least uh digital photography where we all had access to it. And so I decided to start a company where we would go into homes and actually take digital photos because digital video was way too big at that time, but we would take digital photos throughout someone's home of all of their home contents, and then the idea would be if something happened, we would have actual proof. We would then store those photos on a uh CD ROM. You know, we would burn them, we would burn them from the digital camera over to the CD-ROM. We would store those photos in our vault. So if something happened to one of those families, we would have proof that uh you know they had what they said they had, and we'd make the process really easy for replacement coverage. Well, we ended up only having three customers because at the time I knew nothing about sales and marketing, and but our third customer, their house ended up burning down a month after we took these photos. And so, if I had half a brain for business, I would have had the greatest testimonial of all time for a newbie startup company. Yet I just had no concept of sales, marketing, storytelling, and so I let that opportunity slip by. We ended up shutting down the business uh after doing three houses just because I didn't know sales and marketing.

SPEAKER_01 6:36

Wow, did they get a full payout?

SPEAKER_03 6:39

Oh, yeah, absolutely full payout on their replacement costs. I mean, we had everything down to the number of sweatshirts, yeah. I mean, it was just it was beautiful. So it you know, I've a practice I've now done since then, and uh um you know, I it might have even been something Ben recommended to me in one of our peer group sessions, but I've routinely kind of once a year just gone through our house and taken a digital video now with my iPhone, just documenting like, okay, what do we actually have and own because I want to make sure if something happens to our house, we actually have a record of it.

SPEAKER_00 7:17

Just need to take your iPhone out with you, all right?

SPEAKER_03 7:20

Yes, sir. A little easier today than the thousand dollar digital camera I had to buy back in the early 2000s when I had launched

Crafting A Scalable Advisory Model

SPEAKER_03 7:30

that other company.

SPEAKER_01 7:30

And it took you eight hours to burn those pictures onto that ROM.

SPEAKER_00 7:34

Yes. So so you you breezed over. You're like, oh well, I had three failures, and then we started two other companies and they went national and and screaming successes. Obviously, those um that's not that's not easy to do. So um, what was the journey like with that that company where you really saw rocket ship growth? Like what was what was that experience like? What do you uh what was the idea that really propelled it forward?

SPEAKER_03 8:03

Yeah, you know, um ultimately I personally give the credit to the Lord. I give the glory to God that we were in such an incredible position. Uh, one of the studies that's comes out come out that looks at venture capital and why were some companies successful and others were not. And what the study ultimately found was the number one difference between the companies that made it big and the companies that didn't make it big, it mostly came down to timing. And with timing being such a big factor, and that that is truly what happened to us. We were launching a financial firm. We were one of the first firms that actually started doing video conferencing with our clients. This was back in boy, probably 2007, 2008, and we were mostly meeting digitally. This was a time when you couldn't do audio and video over the computer. We literally would say, Hey, we're gonna do video on the computer, but we're gonna use our cell phone for the audio. And we adopted that really, really early. There were a lot of financial firms that didn't go into digital meetings with clients until COVID. I mean, that was 15 years later almost that these firms are are finally moving into doing digital meetings. Now, why did that matter? It allowed us to grow nationwide without having to have an office in every location. And we were one of the first financial firms that had the freedom to go do that. We didn't have some big compliance department saying, hey, you can't do video conferencing, which is what most firms had. We just were willing to experiment and try. So that was a big timing issue, another big timing factor for us. Uh, we were one of the first firms that said, you know what? Rather than a financial advisor's main job being to pick the hot investment or to pick the right insurance policy, why don't we make the financial advisor's job to be a relationship manager? And why don't we help with the product selection stuff in the background at the home office, if you will. And so we centralized how we do investment management. That made it so we could scale. We centralized how we do tax planning, we centralized how we do insurance management. That allowed us to scale much quicker than a typical financial advisor's practice, where they have to develop a reputation as a world-class investment picker. Instead, we just had to find great people that could be great relationship managers. And that was a whole different uh value proposition.

Timing, 2008 Crisis, And Rocket Growth

SPEAKER_03 10:40

We accomplished that very effectively. And so by giving these financial advisors truly a business in a box, almost a franchise, we made life very simple. So we could bring someone in right out of school. And by the end of their first year, they would often have over a hundred clients, a hundred great clients. And so that allowed us to scale very, very quickly. Had we tried to open our doors at any other moment in history, it would have been significantly more difficult. So uh I really can't take credit. You know, I got to be an architect behind a lot of it, but my architecture would not have worked at almost any other moment in history. Wow.

SPEAKER_00 11:23

So you were able to just the the idea of moving people to their strength areas, which then allows a team to operate at such a higher level than the traditional model has ever operated, because ultimately a financial advisor, uh the traditional model is they have to be good at everything the relationship, the investments, you know, tax advice, and kind of try to build their own scheme, if you will. It's probably the not a great word to use when it comes to financial advisors, but build their own uh own stack uh of success, and it's all on them.

SPEAKER_03 12:04

And you know what's interesting, Ben and Todd, is the people that are really world-class relationship managers, very rarely does that translate into also being hyper analytical and really, really good at picking out the best products, like those those two personality traits rarely mix. And so that was part of our secret sauce. We could hire that really analytical, almost engineer mindset to actually run our investment process and our insurance process, but then have an actual world-class communicator on the front lines dealing with the client, but not have to be an expert in all those things, they just had to be a translator for those engineer type experts and communicate really well for the clients. And I think we did a great job of getting people in the right seats on the bus so that they could do what they were wired to do. Uh, and it worked, and that's we went nationwide very, very quickly. Um, you know, it really felt like taking off like a rocket ship, uh, probably grew a little bit too quickly in retrospect, but uh it worked.

SPEAKER_01 13:14

And you think about that time frame, very prescient of you and your team to uh proactively lower your work comp losses because there were probably a lot of beatings from your customers wanting to be had because the markets were terrible in 08, people were taking losses, so there was some bit of uh separation to say, hey, let's talk about this on video, uh, reduce the emotion for sure.

SPEAKER_00 13:36

Well, also the fortitude the fortitude of being able to have a professional, like you know, stock team and all that kind of stuff. So it wasn't all these individual guys trying to fend for themselves. That that probably proved to be perfect timing.

SPEAKER_03 13:50

Well, and it gets even better, and again, this is why timing was so important for us at that moment in 2007-2008 when the market was tanking. You're right, Todd. It was like 40 down at one point. The market was. We only had at the time the market collapsed, we had very few clients. We only had about six million dollars under management at that time. So we're our clients were losing very little money and we were hungry, we were going out proactively to the market. Whereas most advisors, because their clients had just taken a nosedive, lost almost half of their net worth. Wow. Most advisors were burying

Exiting For Family And Leadership Transitions

SPEAKER_03 14:30

their heads in the sand, not wanting to call clients because they were getting beat over the head, and we're calling everybody because we only had a handful of clients that had lost anything. So, again, the timing could not have been different. We were hungry, we didn't have business to protect, and fast forward 10 years later, we've gone from six million dollars under management that you know maybe that dropped by 30 percent when the market was down, and I don't know the exact dollars there. Uh, but we go from six million dollars under management when we launch to 10 years later, about 1.6 billion dollars. Wow, and I mean our timing just could not have been better.

SPEAKER_01 15:12

And of course, that organization is still going today, right?

SPEAKER_03 15:15

They are, they are, they're doing phenomenally. I ended up exiting in my mid-30s. Uh, it was just a good transition point for me. I had kids going into middle school and I was traveling like an insane amount at the time, and it was really important for me to be home when my kids were in middle school. So I ended up exiting the business. Uh, they've gone on to I think more than quadruple since the point I exited. So they're doing a phenomenal job. And actually, one of my favorite stories, the president of that company now is a just incredible man. I ended up the way we met, I was flying to Florida with some friends for a vacation, and it was the day I remember this, it was the day I had gotten my very first iPad. So I don't know the exact timing, but I know it was the day I got my first iPad. And the way the plane was arranged, there's three seats over here, one seat over here, or two seats over here. Well, there's four of us, and so my wife and our two friends took the three seats. I saw a guy sitting there with an iPad. And so I sit down next to this guy, and I'm like, hey, I just got my iPad today. Let's use it. And so we spent the entire two-hour flight, and he's just like coaching me up on the iPad, showing me the ropes, showing me his favorite apps. And after we landed, about 45 minutes later, before we'd even gotten to our hotel, he had introduced me to the financial manager of the resort we were staying at, and he provided a list of like 10 different restaurant options while we were going to be in town. And I emailed him back immediately. I said, Hey, I know we just met, but if you would be half as

Calling To Integrate Work And Faith

SPEAKER_03 17:00

caring with your clients as you just were with me, a complete stranger from an airplane, you would be a dynamite financial advisor. And through that, we ended up talking. I pulled him away from his incredible corporate finance job. He ended up uh leading and growing our southeast region. And today he's president of that company that I exited, and he is absolutely crushing it. I'm so proud of him, but it's just uh it's awesome to me the times that God puts me next to someone on an airplane. I can't even begin to tell you how many times that happens. I've just learned to get out of the way and run with it.

SPEAKER_01 17:37

Yeah, I was gonna kind of dive into that a little bit. I feel the same way. A little sad that Southwest is getting rid of their open seating because sometimes you get to pick people now. It's completely in the Lord's hands to pick who's next to you. But I would agree, so some of our best clients, some of our vendor partners, some uh team members, you know, they come from sitting next to somebody on a couple, two, three hour flight, and you're like, What? What just happened? Like, how did that work out? I love it.

SPEAKER_00 18:05

So, um, so obviously you grew that organization and it it did really well. Um, so let's let's let's fast forward to to where we are today. Um, you know, what was your journey from exiting that business to uh ultimately lead you to the Tebow group and on the mission that you guys are on today?

SPEAKER_03 18:30

Yeah, thanks for asking. So when uh when I exited, you know, again, I'm in my mid-30s. I retired for two days. And by the end of the second day, my wife was pushing me out of the house saying, Oh my goodness, you need purpose. And she was so right. She was so right. Uh, and so we had decided at that time we did not need our own family foundation because we loved so much the work that the Tebow Foundation was already doing. It hit five for five, the things that we were passionate about as a couple. The Tim Tebow Foundation was already doing excellent work in all of those areas. And I had never met Tim, I didn't expect to meet Tim. Again, this was over a decade ago. We just thought from a business perspective, why would we start over and try to build our own foundation when the Tim Tebow Foundation was already doing such great work? And so uh that's really where it started over a decade ago. Um, and then fast forward, I'd continued to build some more companies along the way, uh, still involved with those companies, incredible people in all of them. Um, but a couple of years ago, uh, I was finding myself restless from a standpoint of how do I be more intentional about integrating my work and my faith? And I don't, I'm not intending to push that on any of your listeners. That's just what really motivates me. And I that was lacking in my current business environment. Uh, had working with wonderful partners and people, but not in a way that I could intentionally integrate my business and my faith into one kind of unified approach for the world. And it was at

Joining Tebow Group And Mission Fit

SPEAKER_03 20:10

that time I'd gotten to know Tim's team really well through uh some really cool God moments along the way. And they called and they said, Hey, we need somebody to run the for-profit side of the landscape, the business side, so that Tim and his wife Demi can spend more time on the nonprofit side, actually trying to bring faith, hope, and love to uh some of the most vulnerable people in the world, bringing them a brighter day in their darkest hour of need. And uh initially I thought that would be really difficult. I live in Indiana. Um, Tebow headquarters is down in Florida, and so that was a barrier. I I was running some other companies at the time, that was a barrier. But once they read me in on some of the undercover work they're doing behind the scenes with three-letter agencies and global law enforcement entities, uh, once they read me in on the work they're doing that they don't take credit for because they want law enforcement to get the credit, uh, I couldn't say no. And ended up sitting down with my family. And and I love telling this part of the story, but sat down with my family because I'd gone from not traveling a whole lot. This was going to put me on the road more than half the year. And I sat down with my family and I just said, guys, if it's not right for our family, it's not right for me. And my oldest son said, Dad, you you have to do this. This is like your dream role. And then my youngest said, said, Yeah, dad, you have to do this. Just make it count and make us proud. And to hear that from your kid, I was just like, Oh man, I am just so grateful. And actually, I keep that in my notebook now. So I'm I'm pulling it out of my pocket here. Uh, I'll I'll show your audiences watching, but um, literally, that's what I keep in my notebook. Make it count and make us proud because I I want that reminder every day that I'm away from home. Uh, I'm on a mission and I want to make it count. I want to make my family proud.

SPEAKER_00 22:11

Yeah. Uh so let's let's drill into the the part of the mission, the foundation, and some of the work that they're doing around the world, but in those those critical areas that you're talking about. Thank you so much for asking, Ben.

SPEAKER_03 22:27

So uh whether it's our for-profit side of the house or our nonprofit side of the house, our entire team, I believe, at least our entire team gets up in the morning every day to go to work to serve what we call the real MVP, not the most valuable player, but the most vulnerable people. And I think it means so much more. Tim and Demi would never say this. So I get to say it for them. I think it means so much more. Here's Tim Tebow, as arguably the greatest college football player of all time, saying,

Serving The Real MVP: The Most Vulnerable

SPEAKER_03 23:00

I'm not the MVP. And his wife, Demi, is a former Miss Universe. And she's saying, I'm not the MVP. The real MVP is the most vulnerable people around the world. And so we serve in four main areas. Uh, we serve in the area of orphan care and prevention, we serve in the area of children with profound medical needs. Uh, we serve in special needs ministry. Uh, one of my favorite nights of the year is something called Night to Shine. It's a global prom for individuals with special needs uh that we get to do in over 60 countries and all 50 states. And I have a special needs daughter, and so that's part of what drew my heart together with the mission of the Tim Tebow Foundation. And we get to celebrate Night to Shine with our daughter every year. And I've gotten to crown her as one of God's queens. It is just one of the most special days of the year for many families around the world. It's the very first time they will ever hear your child matters. And we're so proud that they get to hear that as a part of the work that we're called to do. And then last, certainly not least, we do a lot of work, probably over 50% of our kind of energy, effort, and budget we put into uh anti-human trafficking and child exploitation uh around the globe. Uh, we're active in several countries around the globe. We're active all over America. Um, and we really engage in all stages of the process in the fight against human trafficking, everything from trying to reduce demand to uh trying to identify and recover people in the midst of a trafficking experience, to then providing aftercare and support, just providing love and care and hope for these individuals for a brighter day for the future and giving them a uh pathway toward that. So we really try to engage at all stages, uh, and then working with law enforcement, local law enforcement, whether that's international or domestically, um, to help them in whatever capacity we can aid them the most, whether that's technology support or whether that's uh operational support or know-how. Uh, we're so so grateful we get to do those things. And then uh last but not least, because I as I said earlier, it overlaps with my family's five key passions. The last one is we also have a ministry campus, uh, just an incredible ministry campus where all of these things kind of come together uh and we provide love and care for uh individuals in any of those other four areas we already talked about. And so uh just kind of pulls together all of my passions into one place. And uh so that's that's the work we're doing on the foundation side, and we don't do it alone. We literally have more than 25 ministry partners that we've partnered with around the globe that are just some of the best of the best at what they do.

Night To Shine And Personal Impact

SPEAKER_03 26:00

And part of what we do is just equip and empower those partners to do more of what they're already good at and already doing. And then on the for-profit side, we mobilize to ultimately fuel and amplify faith, hope, and love. And I always like to tell everyone, Ben, it's not about us, uh, it's truly about the most vulnerable people around the globe. So uh when we say fuel, we really want to put as much gas in the tank as we can uh in all of these areas. And so we take a big chunk of the profits from our for-profit endeavors and we pump those into all of these areas of ministry support. And then uh the amplify side, we get to oversee the brand platform that we've been stewarded with uh for Tim and Demi to ultimately help amplify the voice of some of the most vulnerable people around the globe.

SPEAKER_00 26:57

You know, as as you're talking and and as I've been able to just as I gotten to know you, just a a term that a word that keeps coming to my mind is the word urgency. And um can you kind of like share like what that's I mean, obviously we've all watched you know Tim Tebow play football, and urgency is probably a good way to describe how he does what he does, but what can you explain like just what does that mean and look like with within the organization and within what you do?

SPEAKER_03 27:33

One of our non-negotiables as it as our teams is we are on a rescue mission, and I'll I'll say it the way I've heard Tim say it several times. I've never heard of a rescue mission that's supposed to happen five years from now. Like that's not how it works. There's an urgency, and what Tim and Demi have been so good at helping ingrain in our entire team is we need to not be on our timeline, we need to be on their timeline, it's about them, it's not about us. And so one of our core values is we get in the foxhole when necessary, and what we mean by that is look, even though I'm gonna be on vacation next week with my family, if there's something

Fighting Human Trafficking End To End

SPEAKER_03 28:20

that's gonna lead to the potential rescue of human lives, you know what? My family has already given me their blessing. Dad, if you need to take a break from whatever this vacation piece is to go work on that, you have our support. And that's across our whole team. We have people that uh there are times they will work at 3 a.m. in the morning because that's when efforts need to be happening somewhere else around the globe. And so they're in that foxhole when necessary. And so those two things really come together, I think, to drive that urgency. It's our non-negotiable that we're on a rescue mission, it's their timetable, not our timetable. And get in the foxhole when necessary. Yeah, be ready to uh be ready to mobilize because there are times that aren't going to be convenient to be in the fight that we're in. And I will share this. Guess who gets in the foxhole more than anybody else on the team? Tim and Demi Tebow.

SPEAKER_00 29:24

Yeah, yeah, for sure.

SPEAKER_03 29:25

Tim and Demi Tebo are in the foxhole more than anybody else. It's because this mission is very, very real for them.

SPEAKER_01 29:33

Tommy, talk about on the foundation revenue side. Um, you mentioned you got some four for-profit businesses that will send some profits that way to the foundation. You mentioned yourself as being a donor um even before working in the organization. Can you can you give us a breakdown of like the revenue sources? Like, it's I guess coming into this uh podcast, I wasn't thinking that the foundation was maybe supported by outsiders, but the more You talk the more it sounds like maybe there are a lot of people who choose to support the foundation because of what it's already doing.

SPEAKER_03 30:07

Yeah, thank you for asking that, Todd. It is confusing because it says the Tim Tebow Foundation, and so there's an accidental byproduct. A lot of people think of it as a private foundation. That's right. And it's it's not, it's actually a public 501c3 charity. So uh anybody can go to Tim Tebow Foundation.org and find the donate button. This isn't a solicitation, but if if that's somebody's passion, uh we invite you. If you're already doing incredible work in your own backyard supporting those organizations, please keep doing that. Don't change what you're doing. Um but uh but yeah, so what we try to do on the for-profit side, so we really have two main functions. Um, first is we steward and leverage the brand platform that is on loan to us from the Lord, and and that comes directly from Tim and Demi, the

Fueling The Foundation Through Business

SPEAKER_03 31:00

way they think of it. We're so grateful to have over 20 million followers across platforms. And Tim and Demi look at it and say, it's not our platforms. That's a platform on loan to us, to steward and to leverage. And so we want to meet our audiences' needs. We want to understand and meet our audience's needs, and then we also want to inspire, encourage them, and engage them to get in the fight for hopefully the things that break God's heart or the things that break their hearts. And um, so that's half of our job is to uh steward and leverage the brand platform. And that's everything from the books you see uh to the documentaries that will be coming out later this year and next year. I'm very excited. Uh, we've had a big hand in some of those. Uh, it's any of the storytelling that we do as a team uh and the social media channels uh for Tim and for Demi and for the Tim Tebow Foundation. And then the other half of what we do is we leverage and steward the investment resources we've been uh given. Uh again, we believe on loan from God. And uh we turn those investment resources, we partner with some incredible investors that we just think are doing great work that has an impact, not just in making a return on investment, but ultimately on giving a return on impact. And as I've heard Tim say, and I appreciate it, really the third ROI that we think about is especially when an investor is contributing to a rescuing of image bearers. And if we can have our ROI in all three areas, a return on investment, a return on impact, and a rescuing of image bearers, that's what we want to try to do all day long. And then as we earn profits from both sides of the house, the brand and the investments, our job then is to pour a good chunk of those profits right back into the foundation to cover as much of the overhead as we possibly can. So it's a it's an incredible charge. I don't have a profit mandate, I have a mandate for how much ministry can we fund. It's very different, and it's uh it's such an incredible purpose to wake up for every day. And um, you know, the the last thing I'd share is I appreciate so much the way that Tim and Demi see their platforms as being on loan from the Lord. You know, I've never had 90 million people Google what is John 316 because of me. Like that has never happened. Tim has had that happen twice in his college football championship game and then again in his playoff game with the Denver Broncos. Over 90 million people twice have Googled what is John 316 because of his influence, and that's part of what helps him just stay grounded and realizing man, this is not something I've done or earned,

Public Charity Model And Brand Stewardship

SPEAKER_03 34:00

this is something on loan to me from the Lord.

SPEAKER_00 34:04

How did um when it comes to like the key areas that you serve um and the the idea of the MVP of the most vulnerable people? Um, did he start with that idea of the MVP and then from there go to like, okay, so who are the most vulnerable people, and that's what he chased? Or how did how did those initiatives uh how how did how did those get crystallized? Like, these are the areas, this is what we're doing, like let's go.

SPEAKER_03 34:37

Yeah, you know, this is Tim's story, but I'll tell it uh terribly. When Tim was 15 years old, he was in the Philippines and met a boy that was born with his legs on backward. And what he saw was to his community, to his village, what Tim saw was he was seen as a throwaway. And Tim just really felt God's call in his life that that boy was not a throwaway to God, and that God didn't want Tim to let him be a throwaway to him. And it was through that that ultimately the Tim Tebow Foundation was born. And the mission of the foundation I've I've alluded to, but it's to bring faith, hope, and love to those needing a brighter day in their darkest hour of need. And so that's really where it started, Ben. Um, from there, Tim really just felt called to serve vulnerable people, and one of the things he kept hearing from you know, advisors and strategic consultants, and you know, all the people that know these things, what they said um was, wow, you're trying to do so much, you need to narrow the focus, you need to just serve one type of vulnerable population. That's how you need to be successful. And and I think Tim's response would be, that's not what God called me to do. And I appreciate that leadership that uh Tim is very consistent. If if God is calling him to do something, he's gonna do it. And so right now we've been called into these four main areas of serving vulnerable people, but I believe there will be more in the future.

SPEAKER_00 36:21

Tommy, when you um when you're looking to the future and this idea of return on impact, I love it. Obviously, as business leaders, ROI is a thing. Uh, but when you look in the future to return on impact, um what what do you see in the future for the Tebow group and uh what you guys are excited, excited for in the in the future?

SPEAKER_03 36:46

Yeah, you know, I'm so grateful we get to do some incredible storytelling. And so there's a lot of great stories out there that uh just need to be amplified. So with our mission on the for-profit side to fuel and amplify faith,

ROI, Return On Impact, And Image Bearers

SPEAKER_03 37:00

hope, and love. Uh I we're very excited later this year um or early next year, we'll have a great documentary coming out that we're part of uh about uh one of my favorite football teams in the world. I can't tell you which one today, but it's my favorite college football team. Uh, and no no fans of Tim. It's not the University of Florida. Uh obviously, we're huge fans. And uh Tim's favorite team is the Florida Gators, uh, but I have a different team being a Midwest guy. And so we've got a great documentary coming out. Uh, Tim's next book will be coming out in November of this year, and it is just an incredible way to look at life. Uh, incredible way to look at my life, an incredible lens to see other people through. So the book is called Look Again, uh, and it is just a powerful message. I'm so proud to be a part of. And then we are doubling down, tripling down on our role as a trusted resource for sourcing investments that are doing more than just having an ROI. So, you know, we just started doing it for ourselves. We were on the lookout for where we can find more investments that don't just focus on making money. We we want to make money, uh, we want to put money to work in these important areas, but where can we find investments that don't just make money, but they also make money matter? And uh we've because we've been intentional to look for them, I think we've been really blessed to have lots of great stuff come out of the woodwork. And then accidentally, we had a lot of our friends coming to us saying, Hey, can you help me? I we want investments like that. We want to make our money matter more. And can you help us find those investments, get us connected with those investments? So we've really doubled down, tripled down on uh becoming a key connector in this landscape of uh connecting people that have capital that care about impact with opportunities to invest, not just donate, but actually invest in opportunities that have the potential for a great return on their investment, but also will accomplish a whole world of good along the way. And so that's exciting for us.

SPEAKER_00 39:24

I can see how that definitely comes under that word that you've been using of amplification. But you, you know, this idea of folks building businesses, and like everyone says, like, well, if you're you got to monetize that, right? You got to sell your business or this, that, or the other, and private equity can be, you know, acquiring those businesses, and then it's it's can seem like an just a money game, right? And a way to uh propel profits. And what it sounds like is uh what you're doing with the T Bro group is allowing maybe uh folks that are looking to exit uh to not only achieve like a financial benefit, but know that it's

Origin Of The Mission And Focus Areas

SPEAKER_00 40:10

being deployed in a significant missional aspect rather than it just being all about the money. 100%.

SPEAKER_03 40:18

One of the things that just breaks my heart, Ben, is you'll see this business owner that they spend a lifetime building up this incredible company and they're using that company for so much good. Uh, they're caring for their employees, they're building incredible products, they're using their profits to just take care of uh people all over the globe or in their own backyard, and then they sell it, and pretty darn fast, those things just shut down if they just sell to normal private equity in in Wall Street, because private equity is not designed to maximize a return on impact. By definition, it's designed to maximize a return on investment. Uh, I don't think you have to choose, by the way. It's just not how traditional private equity thinks about it. And so um, one of the things we've tried to get the word out is hey, business owner, if you care about something more than just the financial part of your exit, if you actually care about how your employees are going to be treated, how your maybe if they have a faith background, how their ministry side of their business is gonna continue, yeah, we would love to be one of those first calls. Uh, because we have an army of friends that have banded together to say, we want to buy businesses like that. And we actually want to protect those cultures that have been created that care about the return on an impact just as much as they care about the return on investment.

SPEAKER_00 41:50

Um we're getting to the end of the show. Um, just a couple more questions, Tommy. Um, one, just out of curiosity, on behalf of our listeners, I suppose, what is it like to be a business partner with Tim Tebow? Tim and Deming, actually.

SPEAKER_03 42:05

Yeah, you know, it is it is awesome. So I will tell you, and uh I've I say this in front of them all the time. Tim is the most intense human I've ever met. Uh, but it's that it's one of his greatest gifts, it's that intensity that allowed him to be arguably the greatest college football player of all time, but he's also one of the most humble people I've ever met because he would never tell you any of that. Like I have to tell you that. And he married someone as intense as he is, and so it is just it is awesome to work with Tim and Demi. Uh, people ask me all the time, are they are they actually as kind as they seem? Are they actually as faith-led as they seem? Um, are they the real deal? And my answer is they're actually more than what the public gets to see. Like uh, I I arguably

Storytelling, Books, And Documentaries

SPEAKER_03 43:00

get to see them at probably close to their worst, then they're still heroes of mine, truly heroes of mine. So um it's a I I pinch myself almost every day that I get to wake up and do what I get to do. Um, but it's it's with a real weight, and one of our other core values is we embrace the joy and the burden of the call. Um, it's we deal with really heavy stuff. Children experiencing some of the greatest evils imaginable in the world. Our teams are dealing with those things, we're fighting against those things. That's heavy. That puts a big burden on the team, a really heavy burden. Imagine one of our employees, she's one of our great cinematographers, and she had to edit the video that was giving a chat of pedophiles working together to figure out how they could hurt more children. And she had to watch these transcriptions over and over and over and over. And you know, that's a burden, that's a burden that goes on our people. Um, and just magnify that across the entire team. And uh, but on the other side of it, on the other side of it, we get an alert about once a week with lots and lots of kids that have been rescued, with lots and lots of uh people that have had a surgery that went magically, and now they're no longer uh experiencing a life-threatening medical illness. Uh, so we embrace the joy and the burden of the call, and there's a balance in doing that, there's a real balance in doing that. Um, but I'm just grateful that that's what we get to do.

SPEAKER_00 44:54

Well, Tommy, I know that um, and I appreciate you sharing that. And I know Tim and Demi are fortunate to have you as a business partner as well as I've gotten to uh just see your heart and your um just true wisdom in business and uh how to navigate situations and how to ask the right questions. So I know uh you are a huge blessing to them as well. Um for our listeners,

Investments That Make Money Matter

SPEAKER_00 45:20

um, if you haven't dug deep on the Tim Tebow Foundation, I would highly recommend it. There's a lot of information out there about the success they're having in uh saving these kids and celebrating uh the MVP um in and caring for them so well. So I would uh just encourage everyone to go find the the podcast interviews of Tim and everyone and uh go go see the video on social media of the incredible work they're doing. Um but Tommy, um we end our show with with uh two questions that we like to ask our guests. So um first question being what is a risk that has changed your life?

SPEAKER_03 46:05

You know, I think uh just becoming a business owner. Uh it was again, it was accidental. I didn't set out looking for it, um, but it took us on a roller coaster as a family. I I I tell everyone, I became an overnight success after a decade of failure. That's right. I mean, truly, there were three, there was a three-year period I didn't know how to buy groceries for my family. And I'm so grateful I had mentors and people that cared about us that stepped up, not just for one week, not just for one month, but literally for three years to keep our family afloat. Well, we went from business failure to business failure to eventually hitting this timing lottery. Uh, and again, I give the credit to the Lord, but uh eventually hitting this timing that allowed our companies to go nationwide uh and never would have made it that far without incredible people coming alongside of us. So it was a huge risk to go down that path.

SPEAKER_01 47:08

And Tommy, the second question, which you could apply to your work with the Tebow Foundation, the Tebow Group, or something more personal, maybe personal ventures or even in your personal family life. And the question is this what is left yet unfinished that you have the resolve to complete?

SPEAKER_03 47:25

You know, uh there's a specific rescue operation that I, you know, my day job, I work on the for-profit side of the house. I don't have a specific role on the nonprofit side of the house. Uh, think of me more as an advisor to the foundation. Uh, and that's even a generous word. Um, I'm a friend to the foundation, but there's an actual operation, an actual rescue operation, uh, that uh we were brought in by a three-letter agency saying, hey, we need some help. Um, and I got tasked in my specific network of connections to provide some of that help. Um, it's been 18 months in the works. We're still in the midst of it, uh, but we're getting closer and closer every day to actually being able to go out and rescue kids. And if it works, uh, we may be able to rescue kids at a scale that we've not been able to do in this particular area before. Uh it it could literally 10x the rescues we've ever been able

Purpose-Driven Exits Versus Traditional PE

SPEAKER_03 48:30

to do in this area. So um that uh that motivates me, it gets me up in the morning, and I'm absolutely have the resolve to see that through. Um there's no guarantee it will work. Might be a complete bust, but just for the possibility that it might work, we're gonna finish it up and see it through.

SPEAKER_01 48:51

Do these rescues typically uh find their way to the bizwires? Will we ever hear about it? Or is this oftentimes things that get pushed to the side? And I guess more pointedly, if and when it does come to fruition, um can we can we know about it in a way that we can celebrate with you?

SPEAKER_03 49:08

I wish, but no, you'll never know I was involved, you'll never know Teba was involved, you'll never know the Tim Tiba Foundation was involved. Um, and uh, you know, you might hear from law enforcement that they had a bunch of rescues, but you'll also never hear how they did it. And that's part of the beauty. Um, I'm so grateful that you know it's not about us, and I'm so grateful God's given me that heart, that attitude. Um, but yeah, you'll never know. And uh I'll just be smiling and and hopefully, you know, my my call ultimately, I want to get to heaven and hear from the Lord. Well done, good and faithful servant. Um it's more important to me, I hear that from him than anybody else in the world.

SPEAKER_00 49:56

That's awesome, Tommy. Thanks for joining us today. And to our listeners, thanks for joining another episode of Risk and Resolve. We'll see you next time.