Startup Storytelling by Lean Rocket Lab
Diving deep into the real, raw and often unpredictable journeys of entrepreneurs, especially those making waves right here in Jackson, Michigan.
Startup Storytelling by Lean Rocket Lab
Episode 7: The Lean Rocket Lab Team
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What does it really take to build an entrepreneurial ecosystem from the ground up? In this episode, the Lean Rocket Lab team comes together to pull back the curtain on the full scope of what LRL does, from its roots as a high-tech manufacturing incubator and accelerator to the co-working space and entrepreneurial support hub it has grown into today. The team shares the pivotal moment during 2020 that reshaped their approach, when people from every walk of life started walking through their doors trying to launch businesses to support their families through a hard time, and how that led to expanding their support well beyond their original focus. Together they talk candidly about why investing in entrepreneurs matters for a community's economic mobility, what it looks like to walk alongside a founder from idea to thriving business, and why Jackson has become fertile ground for a small business renaissance. This conversation is a look at the full picture of Lean Rocket Lab's mission: helping people build something that changes their life and their community, one business at a time.
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Welcome to Lean Rocket Lab Startup Storytelling Podcast. I am your host, Brandon Markin, with my co-hostess, with the most this, Alex Maston.
SPEAKER_00Oh, I thought you were gonna say attitude.
SPEAKER_02All the jokes you make off camera, I try to leave some of them at the door. So hey, we have an extremely exciting and special episode today. Um, kind of breaking script and bringing in the full Lean Rocket Lab team to talk a little bit about the behind the scenes of Lean Rocket Lab, what we do, how we do it, how it works. And I think it's gonna be an exciting and informative episode. And we're gonna uh allow you guys to just look behind the curtain, meet some of the team members. So before we dive in, I will introduce. So, first of all, you can't see her, she's behind stage, which is probably appropriate in terms of just her making things go around here and being super helpful. Sierra Sibson, our uh director of the lab space, is off camera. Uh got what's up, Sierra? Um, we have Zach Krobble here with us. Zach, what's happening? What's going on?
SPEAKER_00Also, the man behind the scenes.
SPEAKER_02Zach is our um man that makes it happen, uh, director of operations, really kind of focuses on our manufacturing work and and makes all the systems and processes go at Lean Rocket Lab. And then uh the guy who needs no introduction, no introduction, and his uh my co-founder and partner in all things Lean Rocket Lab and other businesses and all that stuff, and just good friend Ken Sennaf on the pod with us as well. What's up, Ken?
SPEAKER_04What's up, what's up? Kenneth Sennaf. Kenneth Sennaf.
SPEAKER_02Guys, this is gonna be wild. It's gonna be fun. Alex, what are you thinking?
SPEAKER_00I'm I'm thinking that I can't wait to talk. Uh like it I feel like we know that we know that I feel like like uh the diary of a CEO where we're all about to debate like what we're we're working on, so I'm excited about that.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, for sure. It's gonna be great. We just decided to do this episode because we just get a lot of questions. Um, you know, here normally on the pie, we interview other entrepreneurs, people come on, clients of ours, tell their story. Yeah, you know, legendary Jackson entrepreneurs. We've had all kinds of cool people on here and more to come. And I think we're gonna pick back up with that next episode. But we wanted to do a quick interlude and to talk about what we do at Lean Rocket Lab and how it works, how the uh the room where it happens to use the uh Alexander Hamilton reference. That's a good one. That song's already playing my head.
unknownThe room where it happens.
SPEAKER_02I will see that would be the death notes in everyone else's head.
SPEAKER_00That would be phenomenal.
SPEAKER_02Uh, you know, there's a lot of things I feel like I bring to the table, Alex. You do. That's not gonna be one of them. So we're not gonna do that. You should try. Don't peer brush me into that.
SPEAKER_00I mean, I think this is really good because this is kind of like an education, again, educational piece for people to maybe um who don't understand how we do what we do to understand how it works.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, I think, you know, like other service-based businesses, but a lot of what we do is invisible. You know, it's it's one-on-one meetings, it's behind the scenes, it's a lot of Zoom meetings and phone calls and connections being made, and yeah, you know, just sort of like uh in the in the you know, the nitty-gritty hard work of helping people grow their businesses, and it's not always like flashy, and sometimes people don't understand it. So we just wanted to take a second to talk about it and talk about how we do what we do, and we're gonna dive deep. So hopefully this, I think this is gonna be like a full yeah episode here where we're gonna we're gonna cover all the grounds. So uh hopefully it's informative and exciting and all that stuff.
SPEAKER_00So I think it will be. All right, get ready, buckle up for the next three hours. Yes, this will take a long time.
SPEAKER_02Okay, we won't do that. We won't do that to you. We have a gift on the on this uh podcast of keeping keeping it moving.
SPEAKER_00Yes, that was like we have a gift.
SPEAKER_02All right, so first, just at a high level, for those of you who maybe don't know what we do at Lean Rocket Lab, um, I can just give a quick overview and then we'll we'll dive in a little bit. But the lab is really um an entrepreneurial hub. It's a connection point where we bring people together and we connect them with each other with different resources, uh, with different entrepreneurial programs and kind of education designed to help them move their business forward. We connect them with mentors and coaches and technical experts uh across all different areas of their business. We help them find um capital, whether it's you know, investors or loans or uh various grants. Um we help them with really any barrier that would impede their growth and moving their business forward. And we do this across a few different verticals. We work with kind of manufacturing technology focused startups and businesses, we work with neighborhood-based businesses, other high-tech companies, uh, solopreneurs, small teams, small manufacturers, um, and we just help them move forward with like a really specific intent and a huge amount of just resources and density and collaboration. And it takes a village, so to speak, our whole team, and then a lot of partners that we have and different groups that we work with to make that all possible. I think that to kind of just really distill it down to the brass tacks, when people come in, we uh try to help them identify where they're at in terms of what we call readiness. And so these aren't our words, we didn't make these up, these are kind of industry words, but we evaluate them on their technical readiness, their commercial readiness, and their uh manufacturing readiness levels. And we say, okay, if you're at point A and you need to get to point B, what do you need to do that? So whether it's a class or a coach or a technical assistance provider or a grant to pay for some type of um technical assistance, our goal is that we help that startup um take their prototype further or get their intellectual property cemented or get a website launched or get a bookkeeper or accounting help or um get in a class with other people that are in their industry. And so we have a very quantifiable and tangible way to help people advance in their readiness to be more um to be closer to selling their product or manufacturing their product or making money or growing their business, and that's really what we're all about. And if you could just boil it all down, that's what we do all day every day.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, that's what we do all day, every day. Yes.
SPEAKER_02Is that a fair summary of it?
SPEAKER_00That was a fantastic summary of what we do. I I think it's like fair to say that we have a small but mighty team, but man, we can't do what we do unless we have our partners, right? So we are definitely an extension of this community and all the partners that help us do that too.
SPEAKER_02So yeah, I just think about it. I mean, really, we're like we in the early days, you know, we did a lot of that stuff or tried to do a lot of stuff. And I think one thing we've gotten really good at is we're like the tip of the spear to a bunch of really important resource providers. And so whether it's, you know, the the trusted network of service providers that we have access to that help people with, you know, legal matters or financial matters or engineering matters or prototyping stuff, or whether it's the financial institutions that we're partnered with, like uh American One and some of these others that can help do like Flagstar, true, or whether it's like the different funds that we work with, or the programs through the MEDC or the federal programs that we're connected to, groups like JAMA and ShopRet and our work at AMTC, there's so much stuff that we're able to bring to entrepreneurs, small businesses, and startups. And I think that um when you combine those things and you kind of mix them together, and our team has the expertise of when is the right resource, the right coach, or the right funding for that person to help them overcome that specific specific objective. I think that's why we've had just kind of a lot of success. Oh, absolutely. Helping people.
SPEAKER_00Absolutely. And I think the other thing that people don't understand is that we are a nonprofit. We are a 501c3. A lot of people don't think of us in that way because we help we hope we help uh people who want to make a profit, right? So um I think a lot of times our community doesn't view us in that way. So I'm very excited to be able to talk about how we're funded and how that works and how we're able to output this work and how we're able to help so many small businesses through those hurdles.
SPEAKER_02So yes, and it's crazy when you talk about that and think about that because seven years ago, Lean Rocket Lab didn't exist, and it was very much a labor of love. And uh Ken and I kind of launched on this initiative as well. Thank goodness, thank goodness. We we had felt the struggle and we wanted to um create a place where we could help and pay it forward. And so I don't know, Ken, I think it'd be cool before we dive into what we do today, if you talk a little bit about just yeah, how we got here, how we started, and uh why and why we did it, you know, and what we love about this work because obviously our lives have changed a lot in the last seven years. Yeah, I know this is a passion project for sure. Yeah, and so maybe you could just kind of like uh tell the story, the old story, as it's the old story, story time with Ken.
SPEAKER_00Storytime with Ken. Okay, I'm ready.
SPEAKER_04Uh before we move off the topic, I just wanted to say, I think uh for anybody's listening, if you are an entrepreneur, you know an entrepreneur that's in Jackson, greater Jackson area, or wants to be in greater Jackson area, they're starting a business, they're somewhere in their journey. Ain't no better place than Lean Rocket Lab to come get connected. Okay. Um at a minimum, just come meet some other entrepreneurs that are on the journey and that can do it with you in some regard. So that was really kind of the genesis, by the way, for starting Lean Rocket Lab. Brand and I are both entrepreneurs, we've done all kinds of stuff in our entrepreneurial journeys, you know, from you know, when we were kids doing, you know, lawn care stuff to, you know, uh tech companies uh and sort of everything in between, all kinds of adventures. In 2018, Brandon and I were both in the process of exiting our various our our businesses that we were in. Mine looked more like unemployment, but yeah, I wasn't far off. Um you know we we just sort of looked each other looked at each other and said, man, there's just like where are all the entrepreneurs at in Jackson? We know they're around. And uh you know, Brandon spent a bunch of time in Arbor Spark and going through their programs and got really inspired by that. I've been through other tech incubators and accelerator programs, and so we kind of knew what that looked like to have a community to have this resource set. And we were looking around in Jackson and was like, well, what's that look like in our community? And realized pretty quickly that didn't exist. And so we said, Well, true entrepreneurs, let's do it, let's create it, right? Um, famous last words.
SPEAKER_00No, right?
SPEAKER_04And so we just started down the path. And uh where we started, and I I encourage any entrepreneur to do the same thing. We did a ton of discovery, a ton of research. And so what that looked like for us is we said, well, what do other communities do? Okay, we obviously uh knew Annor Ann Arbor Spark, they were very gracious and spent a bunch of time with us helping them see what they do. We went all over the state and really over the Midwest, Chicago, Cincinnati, every you know, all over Detroit, and we toured all kinds of different facilities, different ecosystems. We met with all the leaders, I think, of Ned Stabler and how he spent a lot of time with us graciously over at uh Tech Town in Detroit. And we just sort of took these little pieces from all these conversations, and um, and we step sat back and said, Okay, well, what can we be good at at here in Jackson? In fact, what can we be the best at? And that's what what drove the original vision for Lean Rocket Lab. And so we launched it with this idea that uh every town in every city is built by entrepreneurs. Okay, so to look around and say, well, there's just not enough of entrepreneurial have activity happening in Jackson, this isn't Silicon Valley, is simply not true. It just looks different, right? Every on every community is built by entrepreneurs, and so we started with that, with that thinking, and then also kind of as a celebration of our heritage here in Jackson, um you know, being that uh we're a big manufacturing town, everybody knows Jackson as the prison town, right? Yep, and so we we dove into that and understood the history of of um Jackson as a manufacturing town and how cool manufacturing is. And manufacturing in Jackson, actually, I'm not gonna get into it today in this podcast me, it's a future episode. Nerd out with Jackson's history with Ken.
SPEAKER_02Um that will be the topic. Okay. After that will be the World War II episode.
SPEAKER_04But really, Jackson is the manufacturing powerhouse that it is today because of the prison. And so, anyway, we wanted to lean into all that and celebrate it. And that's what how we started Lean Rocket Lab. And obviously, it's evolved a lot over the last seven years. It's been really incredible to see how that's happened. But it came out of this desire to build this great community. Last thing I'll say is uh, you know, in our discovery, what we learned is there's uh a few models. There's co-working spaces out there in the world, okay? Think of uh think places like uh We Work, et cetera, right? There are business incubators, and typically when you say business incubator, people think about a space, you know, a physical space where businesses get you know started up, incubated. Um and then there are business accelerators. Those are kind of the three words or the three models that are most common out there. And we we went to places that were strictly co-working, strictly incubator, strictly accelerator, right? Uh and what we landed on was you know what in Jackson, uh it makes sense to kind of do all three. And so that's where Widelean Rocket Lab is this incredible co-working space, um, awesome physical place to come work. We have business incubator programs, that's where a lot of our grants and early stage coaching and all that kind of stuff comes in. And then the accelerator portion, later stage, you're starting to grow. What do you need to help you accelerate and continue your commercialization efforts? That's the accelerator piece. And so we kind of smashed all those things into one thing and called a lean rocket lab. So that's kind of the fun the fun story.
SPEAKER_02And the only thing I would add to that, and we're gonna try to thank people throughout this episode without making it too uh boring or nostalgic, but you know, part of the origin story was we met uh Tony Hearst and learned about Peter Hurst and the Aeroquip story, and obviously with what we were doing with manufacturing and startups, we were inspired by that. And you know, it takes money to do stuff like this, and we needed investment that looked like belief in us when it was much less obvious that this was going to be a good thing. And in Jackson, it was very uh uncharted, so to speak. And there's so many cool stories of people that in the beginning just kind of believed that we were um you know guys that would would see it through, that we would help people, that we would try to do a good job and be good stewards. And so, you know, I think about Tony and Karen and the Hearst Foundation in the beginning there. I think about our sort of like last second meeting with Patty Poppy and the consumers energy team, you know, sort of like hours before our first grant application was due and um their investment and belief in us and the matching funds that they got us, um which enabled us to get our first MEDC grant and got us at the table in the state's ecosystem of sort of entrepreneurship. I think about Mindy Bradish Orta, and she was at the chamber, I think, at the time. Chamber anchor or the anchor initiative, yeah. It was kind of like our first investment. And the list goes on and on. You know, I think about Bob Smith and the building, and we were like, we were gonna do this, and he was like, You're gonna do what? And we're like, and we can't pay you any rent on day one, and you know, but we will. And um, you know, I just feel like we were crazy, but also these people were sort of Jackson's like business leaders at the time, and still are many of them still are today, but they were people that were like, hey, we can pay this forward, and so we've tried to honor that, you know, as our lives have changed and the lab has grown over the last seven years. When people come into the lab, we don't look at them with this like any kind of way, other than just, man, if there's a way we can help this person who's showing some signs and has some the sort of like sparkle in their eye, we're gonna try to figure out a way to help them because that's like how this whole thing was born. And so I just would be remiss if I didn't say part of that like origin story was a bunch of people that took a chance on us when it was um you couldn't see it, you couldn't see it double the same when it was an abandoned candle shop, and we were you know a couple unemployed jokers at the time. So um all right, cool. So we've reminisced properly. We've reminisced, yeah, that's been good. Um, so I want to just from that moment of when we started and we had an idea and a pitch deck, and sort of our it was the lab was an entrepreneurial vision in and of itself. Um, we got it off the ground and we opened, and our first entrepreneur walked in the door, and I won't say who it was, but I remember it, and we were like, we got one, we have a person out, you know, and uh it was really cool to today, and I just asked Alex, you know, if you want to understand, if you're out there, whether you're a you know a foundation or a you know an investor in the lab or you're an entrepreneur and you're curious about what it looks like today. I just asked Alex to kind of walk through what's uh the Lean Rocket Lab's impact been in this last year? What's what's it look like today?
SPEAKER_00Well, I mean, if you're looking at how many people that we serve a year, that's over a hundred small businesses, entrepreneurs, solopreneurs, high-tech innovators, whatever, um, we serve over a hundred a year. And that means that whether they come through our door, they give us a call, or they go online and they fill out an intake form, every single one of them meets with me. And I meet with them for 20 to 30 minutes just to give them up to speed of what we do here at the lab and how we can help them and really honestly to dive deep into what they're working on and how we can help their story and what does success look to look like to them so that we can get them there. Um, and I I mean, I've been at the lab staff since 2024, and every single year that we put together our metrics, you know, from the previous year, because we have to do that for our state grants, for our local donors. Um, just since 2025, I mean, in 2026, we served 42% more in 2025. I'm sorry, compared to 2024, we served 42% more businesses than we did the previous year. We increased our first-time engagements, meaning people who had never walked through our door before by 9%, which is quite significant if you think about it. And then for our like underserved population, whether you you live in a rural address or you don't maybe get as much help from, you know, you know, with capitals and, you know, whatever it may be, we served 51% more of those individuals than we did the prior year. That's like, that's amazing. And then we increased our funding by like 21%. So we gave away more grant funds by 20% than we did with the previous year. So we're helping entrepreneurs understand what success looks like to them through a conversation. Then we're giving them resources to help them with that, whether that's a connection to a service provider that can help them, maybe that's a tool they can use, maybe that's a program that will really help them with whatever specifically they're working on, if it's education. And we're also having funding availability, whether that's through grants, which we have many grants that you can get through programming, or our partners through lending, through micro lending. Um I think that our team and our partners, how small we are, we do big, big, big impact for this community. And not only in Jackson, this is Tri-County. So I'm talking Hillsdale and Lunaway County as well. Um, when we're when we're looking at our impact, it's regional.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, no doubt about it. I mean, I think that the metric that has been exciting for us is that in the first quarter of 2026, we worked with more new small businesses and startups than we had worked with in all of 2025.
SPEAKER_00Yes, I think I said the wrong date. Thank you.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, you're good. No, that's okay. That's why it's at work. No, you're right. Co-host. Yeah, that's right.
SPEAKER_00Keep me on track, keep me in line.
SPEAKER_02But I mean, a hundred and a quarter or whatever it was, yeah, is pretty wild. You know, it sounds like I don't know if that number sounds big to you or not, but if you think about a hundred business owners who have an idea or a vision and they're on a various stage, whether they're a startup or a small manufacturer or a small business, whether they're brand new or they have a couple employees or they're making money or they're post-revenue, post-profit, wherever stage they're in. And we work with like a wide spectrum from you know later stage technology companies to um neighborhood businesses that are you know one person with an idea.
SPEAKER_01Yep.
SPEAKER_02You know, th there's a hundred different businesses that are trying to make impact and trying to change their you know, their community and have economic mobility, and it's just pretty exciting. And so I don't know what happened, but something in the last 18 months, I think if we as we've all analyzed it and looked at it, the number of people that are I've walked through the doors at Lean Rocket Lab has like hockey sticked upward. We're just helping more people. We're getting better at helping people. The results are better. The system's more dialed in. Um, I think about some of the really big, cool comp, you know, success stories and companies that we're seeing out there. I think about the some of the people we've had on the podcast, like Josh and Ain Bling and yeah, you know, Sean with vertical coming on uh next month.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_02Um some of the neighborhood businesses who have gotten loans and opened up brick and mortars and everywhere in between and the manufacturing tech companies and the work at AMTC. Something's changed in the last year. And uh it's probably you and Zach. I don't know in Canada. I will agree.
SPEAKER_00It's also say we also um really dialed in our marketing. I feel like our marketing has really been really focused and intentional, and that's really helped get people who we want in the door in the door because we've seen an increase in tech businesses too, which we've always struggled in Jackson to get. And man, I mean, we've gotten we've we we've had no problem now.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_00So I mean, it's really exciting to see, and I really feel like we're just getting started a little bit.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, for sure. And Ken, you can speak to this, but like we don't, I mean, we don't care about these metrics in one sense. Right. Like it doesn't matter. It just matters in the sense of like we're trying to have impact and trying to help real businesses and have real, you know, sort of impact and change, I guess. And so from us all pouring our hearts into it for a long time and it feeling slow at times, and you know, to all of a sudden see this like uptick and the businesses that we're helping are doing better and we're getting better at out. It just feels like we're on to side. I don't know, you can just jump in on that or whatever, but yeah, for sure.
SPEAKER_04I think in our community, um we need small businesses, right? And and uh if you think about economic development, um a lot of traditional economic development says, hey, we're gonna attract these big companies, these big projects, they're gonna build these big buildings and hire a thousand people to come work at this plant, which is fantastic. And that's a great component of economic development. Um but the other side and or the or the tech businesses, the rapidly expanding tech businesses. The other side of that though is you need to have a community people want to live in, right? And what think if you think about what makes up our community and why you live here, is part of that is the awesome small businesses that we have, the great restaurants and the great activities and the things that we do, all that all of that contributes, right? You need to have employers, big, small, and you need to have great local businesses. And so when we think about our community, we're thinking not just the you know high-tech Mark Zuckerbergs of the world, right? Which I don't know, I haven't checked, but I don't think Mark lives in Jackson.
SPEAKER_02So Nope, he doesn't. I'm pretty sure he actually has a bat layer in Hawaii. I think I saw actually. Oh, yeah, like his cars underground. Oh my gosh. Yeah, it's very it might be here, it might be here.
SPEAKER_04I don't know. He's like hiding from all the governments trying to watch him. Wouldn't you?
SPEAKER_02Anyway, anyway, yeah.
SPEAKER_04So, okay, we can spend all of our time trying to find the next Mark Zuckerberg, you know, to you know, hopefully raise up in our community, right? Um, and that's that's good and important. We need tech companies and we need to attract big companies that want to be part of our community. But we also need to support the small businesses because the small businesses are what make up the culture, the backbone, the reason you want to live in Jackson and not somewhere else, right? And so I think that's another thing that's shifted in our thinking is that instead of just focusing on the you know the the uh manufacturers or the manufacturers that could be hundreds of employees and the tech companies, we said, hey, let's think about our community holistically. And a great holistic economic development strategy includes a great community with great employers. And so you start to encompass that, you know, it'd be fun to have this podcast again in another six years, right? Right? Just just to kind of look back and all that.
SPEAKER_02I mean, no doubt about it, right? Because I think what we've seen is like we could probably, you know, we won't on this podcast, but we have our hands on the pulse, and we're seeing who are the manufacturing companies, the small manufacturing companies that in five and ten years will have like legitimate economic GDP moving impact in Jackson. We know who they are, we've been working with them and helping, you know, and like those take time and simultaneously, though, we're helping the person that is opening up the restaurant or the bo the boutique or you know, whatever, and everyone in between, and like seeing those play out over the last seven years and over the next seven years, it's really you know, pretty exciting.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, and last thing I'll say about that is I think the other thing that that if we've done anything right at Lean Rocket Lab is to open the door wide of our community to say, hey, if you're an entrepreneur, you're a small business, come do it here.
SPEAKER_01Right.
SPEAKER_04There, you know, we've got this great ecosystem to support you, a great community that wants to help you succeed, come do it here. Um I looked, I was looking at some stats the other day, the small business administration. 2025 was the highest year on record for new business formations.
unknownOh, yeah.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. Okay.
SPEAKER_04It was over five and a half million businesses that started in 2025. Um and so I think you know, a lot of things are at at play with that. I'm not gonna get into the macroeconomics of that, right? But we're in a zone of entrepreneurship is alive, right? People are solving real problems every day by starting businesses, and that's pretty cool.
unknownNo doubt.
SPEAKER_04And so part of that for us is saying, hey, uh, come do it here in Jackson. And it's been fun to watch the inflow of people. They're like, that what's going on over there in Jackson? That's a pretty cool spot. I kind of think I want to be a part of that, and I think I want to bring my family, my business, my network, you know, into that community. And so that's been pretty fun to watch.
SPEAKER_00I think the other thing about that that I've seen as far as like if we look at like what kind of changed is the word of mouth and the referral from from participants in our programs, they go and tell 20 people, and then I got people calling me going, I gotta find this girl, Alex. Where's Alex? I gotta talk to her about this problem. You know, they just all want to know what what is I've never heard of this place. My friend told me to come over, you know.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, and I think we also got a little bit better too. I think in the beginning, I always assumed it'd be like the person that we helped go. We we our first workshop, we literally called it napkin to NASDAQ. And I was like, Oh, that's what they're all gonna look. I remember walk in with an idea, and then we're gonna help them like exit in five years, you know. And instead, we've we're working with those companies as well, but I think we've gotten way better at like, oh, you're at a two and you want to get to a three, yeah, or you're at a seven and you want to get to an eight, and we've just gotten really dialed in helping the startup, but also helping that group our our mindset has shifted way more as to whether to less about how old you are per se, and to are you like a growth-minded early stage company? Because a lot of times, like the manufacturing companies, for example, they might be more than 18 months old, you know, they've been around for a few years, but they're early stage, they're growth-minded, they want to advance, and we've just gotten way more dialed in helping those people as well, as opposed to just only the person with a you know a napkin drawing or something, right? And so I think we've we've been figuring it out along the way too. But yeah, all right, I'm gonna keep this moving just from we're gonna run out of time reminiscing about how great we are if we don't keep going.
SPEAKER_00We've gotten too steep.
SPEAKER_02Nobody cried any tears. That's good. I mean, it's you know, if you're listening to this and you're like, what are you guys talking about? You just have to understand, you know, we care a lot about this work, we've been trying to do it well, and we've, you know, there's been times where we're like, we're the best, and times where we're like, we stuck. And then there's been times where we stuck again, you know. So we're trying to figure it out.
SPEAKER_01But um, all right.
SPEAKER_02So, Zach, I want to throw that over to you. And I just want to hear a little bit about if I'm like an early stage um, you know, manufacturing technology company, or you know, an early stage uh hardware business or whatever, and I walk in the door at Lean Rocket Lab, just talk a little bit about what the process looks like, what you're gonna experience, what we do, how we try to help, and all that kind of stuff.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, it's a good thing to like step back from, right? We talk a lot about like, hey, we're here to help businesses, we're here to help people, come talk to us, all that. But like, what do you actually do? What do you actually do? Right. That's what people always like.
SPEAKER_01Right, yeah.
SPEAKER_03People always come to us and they're like, Well, are you gonna do this for us? Um, you know, sometimes the answer is yes. Most of the time it's like probably no. Yeah. But yeah, so for anybody who's considered high-tech, if you're making a product, if you've got some new idea and it's like a widget, uh, if you're doing something in software and you're you're doing something that's not like a main street style business, brick and mortar, something like that. And you walk through our door, um, you're gonna fill out a form online, you're gonna meet with us, you're gonna meet with Alex, and you're gonna talk about where you're at, where you want to go, what you think is in front of you in the next, you know, two months, six months, a year. And we're gonna get to we're gonna understand your goals and all these things. Simultaneously, during that form that you fill out, we're gonna ask you a bunch of questions and you're gonna give us these scores. You're not gonna do anything yourself, but they're gonna, you're gonna score yourself essentially on your technology readiness, your manufacturing readiness, and your commercial readiness. And these are not like scales that we've made up or anything. We're smart, but we're not that smart. So we borrow them from NASA and the DOD. And there are scales that just tell us like how far along are you on these journeys. And so, like, if you're developing a physical product and you just have an idea, you're gonna be really early on all these. If you are developing a physical product but you have gotten a prototype to work, you're gonna be pretty far on this TRL scale where we measure, you know, the technology readiness, but you're gonna maybe be not very far along on the manufacturing scale where we're trying to figure out like, can you make 20, 50, 100 of these if you got an order? Um, and if you've you know figured out a lot of that stuff, then you're starting down this commercial path of can I actually go to market? Can I find who my customers are and can I sell that? And so we're gonna help you figure out where you're at on those scales without you having to put in much effort. So we're just gonna ask you some point of questions or talk about it when we meet with you. And what that scale really does is it helps us identify well, what do you actually need to go do next? You know, if you're if these skills are on one of ten, if you're a two on the technology readiness scale and you're trying to talk to us about where do I find my customers, well, you're probably not ready for that yet. And so we're gonna have that conversation about like, okay, well, how do we actually help you down this path of you know prototyping or whatever it is that you happen to need? And so we're gonna come alongside you and we're gonna help you identify what do you need to do now, um, and then help you do those things. And so sometimes that means we're gonna have some resources, like Alex mentioned, that we can send you, you're gonna fill them out, you're gonna go through this process and think about it, and you're gonna come out with like, okay, well, I've I've thought about it, I've I've you know progressed to the next step, and then we're gonna meet again, we're gonna go from there. Um sometimes it's gonna be we know somebody who would be awesome to come alongside you and help you out. And so we're gonna help you get connected with those people or those organizations that are really good in the things that we're not good at. Really good examples of that, or if you need to protect your I your ID with IP, well, we're none of us are lawyers or attorneys, and so but we've got some people in our network that are really good at that stuff, and so they're gonna come alongside you and help you because that's a really important part of the technology and manufacturing and software businesses. Um, and so we're gonna go through that process with you, we're gonna walk alongside you, and then uh we're also gonna help you find other ways to plug in. And so the other ways we have to serve you, other than just coaching and meeting with us, um, are we call them collectives and we call them programs. And so collectives are launching soon. We do this on the small business side, but we're gonna be doing it on the technology side as well. Are just ways where you can plug in with other people doing similar things? And so we talk a lot about this at the lab, but you need people around you that are also trying to be entrepreneurial, that are trying to experiment with stuff that you can bounce ideas off of that maybe have done before or haven't gotten as far as you, and you just get to talk with these people and essentially kind of like do life with other people that are trying to be high tech in business. Or if you're a small uh main street style business, you can do it with with those kinds of people too.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, I think we learned early on that like it was important for people to plug into what we were offering, but it was almost just as important for them to meet other people who were just trying to do the same thing. Yes. We never had like a structured or organized way to do that. Yeah, we were just it was happening organically, and so finally we sort of like gave it a name and a structure, and we're excited to bring that out. But the idea that if you're working on something, you can meet 10 or 15 other people that are working on something similar, you guys can help each other out. We decided we're not like the only important people that you can talk to other people as well. That's right. It took us a long time to figure it out.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, I think I think we should um have a future episode on collectives, you know. I'm sure we will for our um our collective champions and and dive deeper on that. But I like like at the highest level, that's the idea with for that is it's kind of more structured than like a meetup, right? Everybody's everybody's heard of meetups or whatever, or like a book club even. Um, but not quite as structured maybe as like a B and I type group. And and B and I groups are very valuable for people. This is probably somewhere in the middle um where it's a networking group, it's not just let's get together and have coffee. There's some structure to it.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, so our first one, so everyone's aware, they're probably gonna be passed by the time this airs, but we are gonna be starting our main street collective um workshops. And the first one is on mental health, and we're actually bringing in um somebody who's an expert on it to actually have a presentation on it, and then there's networking involved. So that's kind of an example of how you can tap into the ecosystem without being in a program. You can meet others at that workshop.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, it's awesome.
SPEAKER_00And it's free of charge.
SPEAKER_02And then maybe like Zach, walk through. So the collectives are really an organization of people that are working on similar things, and we're and we're bringing resources into those communities, which I think is really important. Building community is such an important part of entrepreneurship. And then the other kind of pillar of what we do is the programs. Yep. And maybe just talk quickly about like so you were talking about like commercial readiness levels, and we might identify that you're at a certain stage on the commercial readiness scale, and we might recommend that you participate in our sales and marketing accelerator. Maybe you could just walk through what that would look like. Yeah. And that's just an example of one of our programs, obviously.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, the programs are just a little bit more, let's say, formal, tangible ways than like a collective to kind of plug in. So a program is like, hey, I'm gonna sign up for something, I'm gonna go through this. So it's gonna be more like a class style thing. So I'm gonna show up to something for somewhere between six and twelve weeks, depending on which one it is, and you're gonna get trained on a bunch of stuff. And so one of the programs that we have is called the Sales Marketing Accelerator. And so for those businesses that, okay, I've I've got my technology to a spot where I can start talking to people about it. Now I need to go do customer discovery or I need to go get customers or whatever that is. So this that program specifically is designed to help businesses go through a seven-week course on crash course on sales and marketing stuff. And so you're gonna come out of that with a bunch of knowledge and then potentially some grant funding. We got other programs where we're doing similar stuff, but maybe the topics are a little bit different. Um, but they're they're mostly cohort-based. You're gonna come, you're gonna plug in, you're gonna attend something on a weekly basis, you're gonna have resources at your disposal, you're gonna meet experts in the field, uh, and you're gonna come out of it, and there's a good chance that there's gonna be some sort of funding or something sweet tied to the end of that, uh, where you can go achieve, you know, milestones or whatever things you've identified um after going through that. So though we have a couple, we got sales marketing, we have local for Main Street and neighborhood-based businesses. We have our main tech incubator, which is um programs and resources available to specifically very high-tech businesses. Um, and then we have an industry 4.0 accelerator for specifically manufacturing technology startups.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, that's great. So, Zach, I just want to double click on something you said, and maybe you can just give us some examples. So we talk about the readiness levels, and the idea is once you work with our team and you identify what the next steps are, what we try to do is connect you with uh maybe it's a technical assistance provider or a service, and then usually it requires some funding, you know, whether it's a design for manufacturability analysis or prototyping or um maybe it's the intellectual property work, and and our goal is to connect you with um a grant to actually help you accomplish that milestone. So whether it's a milestone grant through our local program, and maybe you can give an example, Alex, of one of those, or it is a business accelerator fund grant through our you know, MEDC uh gateway gateway program that we have access to. Maybe you give it an example of what a business accelerator fund, yeah, or maybe the last couple you worked on with startups and what those were for and what they looked like. Just help us understand that.
SPEAKER_03Yeah. Um business accelerator fund is one of the programs underneath that main UTEC incubator umbrella, and so it's for those very high-tech businesses. The the goal of that program is let's identify a specific uh milestone that you as an organization aren't very good at. It's not in your your normal working capacity, it's not something you want to do or have the ability to go to. Um, and so we worked with a software-based AI software-based startup um a couple months ago. They identified that they needed to work with a patent attorney to um get IP. And it was gonna be a really big deal because they're one of the first people to go to market with this specific kind of ID idea for the industry. Um but it costs us money to do that. You know, it costs $7,500 to do that, and that's that's real money. And you know, not everybody just has $7,500 laying around. And so we came alongside him and we said, we can get you funding through the business accelerator fund program to pay this attorney to get you the IP that you need so that you can go do the market validation and stuff where you're not at risk of exposing your ID, your idea. Um, we out coming out of that sales and marketing accelerator program, we had multiple businesses that were awarded grants through Lean Rocket Lab. Um, those businesses were had learned a bunch of sales and marketing focused things. Um, and a couple of them realized that, hey, I need to do ad campaigns, I need to have ad campaigns built around a message that I created after going through this program with video on my pages, but I can't afford to pay a videographer, a website designer, and somebody to launch a paid marketing campaign. And so we can fill that gap like with those companies. Okay, that's like very clear milestones and things identified that you can work with someone to execute, um, help them get connected with the right people. We've got a big network at the lab of people in this marketing space. And so we made connections and then we were able to provide them the capital they needed to go do that work, launch those campaigns, and get the data they needed to move forward to make the next step.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, and I was thinking maybe without naming names just from a confidentiality standpoint right now, but the one we're working on with uh SBDC and the MEDC right now, I think that's a good example of like a manufacturing startup that we're helping. Can you just walk through what that one looks like too?
SPEAKER_03Yeah, so that one's a physical product, and they've identified three different um upgrades to the current tech stack that they need to make. And so it's uh it's a drum company, and there's like a lot of very strict and regulated stuff related to how you take off and land and how you you know navigate in airspace and all this stuff gets way over my head for sure. Uh but when you're talking about doing that work, like it's very complicated engineering and software-based work, and so there's only a handful of people that are qualified to go do it. And so we can through that program, we've been able to help this company get connected with an organization that's qualified to do that sort of engineering work, uh, which is also extremely expensive because it's super technical and you have to be super qualified to do it. Um but for the for the drone company, if they can't figure that out at scale, you can't make a bunch of units and go sell them and go to market, and so it's a really big deal. You know, it's kind of a stop gap. And so through BAF, we are helping fund that. And it's that's you're talking like upwards of fifty thousand dollars for something like that. Yeah, that's awesome.
SPEAKER_02And Alex, I don't know if you want to give a example of some of like the neighborhood-based businesses.
SPEAKER_00Oh, yeah, yeah. Yeah, so I mean, for for my program, a local program is our neighborhood-based, service-based businesses. Um, we've been doing this program since 2022. We have a lot of successful um stories that come out of that, but uh two that I can think of. Um, one is in Lenaway County, we actually helped a um a business that was just starting up. She had actually renovated an entire dog grooming facility into a wellness spa. And what we helped her do is she went through my program. At the end of it, she got a milestone grant and she actually rebranded herself. She made all the steps to make that rebrand happen, and then we paid for the rebrand. Um, and that was working with a marketing agency to make sure that that was all done. Her signage, her website, all of her branding was spa, you know, top notch. And then, you know, some so another one we had recently in Jackson is he was a barber and he has a brick and mortar, but he wants to take it mobile. And so what we did is he used his milestone grant to purchase an enclosed trailer, which he will renovate into a mobile barber shop. And so, um, yeah, just some some of the Different ways that we can help businesses overcome barriers as far as growing.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, that's super cool.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_04So, you know, just to kind of zoom out for a quick second, uh, we said we would make this podcast move along quickly.
SPEAKER_00It's worth five minutes.
SPEAKER_04You know, whoever's listening to this right now, hope you find this riveting.
SPEAKER_00It's riveting.
SPEAKER_04But um, I think it's really I'm not aware of a lot of organizations like Lean Rocket Lab out in the world, um, where you know, we're helping high-tech manufacturing focused businesses, you know, that are building the next generation of technology in the aerospace universe to you know a local barber that's trying to trying to revolutionize his business. Right. But my example though, you know, you need great company to have a great local economy, you need great companies, right? Uh manufacturing technology companies, uh, but you also need great businesses. Um that's what makes your community. And and so it's really kind of been fun to kind of zoom out and watch how Lean Rocket Lab kind of lives in both of those universes to kind of go back to how we um, you know, started Lean Rocket Lab and what the vision for it was uh and how it's supporting our local community, I think is a pretty unique model and it's been pretty cool to see, you know.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, the amount of intelligence and wisdom we have in many different industries is insane, actually.
SPEAKER_02Well, without like going super deep on that stuff, because we do have to keep going, I guess. But I think it's worth just for the folks that are listening and trying to understand better what's available. Zach, maybe just like take a minute, talk a little bit about like the I4O accelerator, and then Alex, if you would you know, just dive in a little bit on like what the fellows program looks like, so that if you're out there and you're trying to figure out what do I do next, where do I fit in, just like maybe you could walk through what that looks like.
SPEAKER_03Yeah. Well, I mean, in today's day and age, everything is like how do I implement some new solution, so that's something that's AI or that has robotics in it or something from a manufacturing standpoint to like be a modern business, right? But if you're in reality, we talked to a lot of small and media manufacturers, and who in the world has the time to do that, let alone go and find the right company to come in and deliver a service like that. And so that's what we are trying to help solve with the Aquarelle accelerator, is we do know that our small and media manufacturers here in Michigan, and especially locally here in Jackson, Littleway, Hillsdale County, sort of south central Michigan region, there's a need for these kinds of technologies, but it's really hard to go find them, to scout them, to make sure you're talking to one that's real and has done business before and not just like posting some AI slot out on the internet and you're happening to see it. And so we have a team of experts, people that have spent 30, 40 years in manufacturing, and so they get it, and they've you know adopted solutions in the past that help us talk to these manufacturing startups from all over the globe to make sure we know who's real and also what problems these companies solve, and that they actually solve what they say they can solve. And then when we talk to the small mini manufacturers and we hear that, like, hey, I'm looking for a robot that can, you know, pick pick, do pick in place, and it can move a aluminum blank from you know location A into the machine, wait for it to you know finish running its process and then remove it so that somebody can do a quality inspection. Well, we now understand the problem statement, and so we can tell them exactly what kind of solution provider they should be talking to, and we kind of help just do some matchmaking and create connections there. It's been really fun. I mean, it's the we've been able to see the impact that it has in our small media manufacturers and um just solving a problem of they don't have to send people to trade shows or spend time searching online for these solutions, and we're not you know working for the startups or anything, we don't get paid anything to do that sort of sort of work, and so there's no risk per se for the um you know manufacturer to kind of talk to us and see if a company is worth the port, you know, circular company.
SPEAKER_00Uh, you know, for the local program or fellows program, this is for our neighborhood-based, service-based businesses, downtown, you know, brick and mortars. Um, this, you know, I I think back to COVID. And um, at that time, I was the economic developer for this county. And one of the things that we had to do during COVID was take all of the money through the state, state government, through Patty Poppy and Consumers Energy, and make sure that that money got funded to all the small businesses that were struggling. One of the things that became immediately clear to me is that all of the small businesses, probably 90% of them did not understand their finances because we specifically asked them for their financial statements so that we could see where they were. And I'm not even joking when I say 90% couldn't even give me a spreadsheet. So it became very clear, and obviously you y'all saw that with Christy Myers bringing this program, you know, to fruition in 2021, really right when that was really needed. And so this program basically teaches small businesses, solopreneurs, entrepreneurs who are in this neighborhood-based, service-based kind of industry, um, wanting to help and support others through service, um, through a business boot camp. And this boot camp is 12 weeks long, and we really dive in. It's very competitive. You have to apply, you have to go through like a Shark Tank style pitch for five minutes, you'll black out, it'll be fine. Um, and then um we only take 12. We only take 12 into the boot camp. And this is a 12-week boot camp. So, and it's in-person mandatory. Um I think that's the secret sauce of why our program is so good and we get such great feedback from it, is because they really create a network within that cohort and they support each other. And really, the ecosystem is we bring in an expert, somebody who's an expert on the topic that they're talking about. And for us, that's heavy in finances and heavy in marketing. And so we bring in experts, people who do this for a living, to come in and teach them for two hours what they know and what they do for people every day. And then they get it for free. And so we really have an ecosystem where we bring in these small businesses, we train them, we bring in an expert, we we pay them, and then sometimes they use their milestone grant to hire those experts to do the service that they need. And so it's really um a fantastic uh just program to be able to uplift our community, not only for the small businesses that we're training and also giving them milestone grants to get over that barrier of whatever it is that they're they're being stuck on, but we're also helping our small business community who are established and know what they're doing and are experts in their field. And so it's a really win-win for everyone. And um, I honestly I couldn't, I mean, the fact that the state and the mission economic development corporation believe so much in small business and entrepreneurship that they want to invest in that in these small business support hubs, huge. And then our local found, you know, Walters Family Foundation, Flagstar Bank, American One Credit Union, all of these people who believe in our small businesses and understand the importance of what Ken is saying as far as place, people, place and projects and placemaking, all that is important. And that comes down to small business.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, I feel like um when we drive around downtown and walk around in this community and we see the small businesses that have popped up and that we've been a part of and helped, it's like you have a little bit of like, man, I'm proud of that. Like most people are at the risk of fully putting to sleep anyone who's still we're gonna go over one hour.
SPEAKER_00I feel it.
SPEAKER_02No, no, no, we're gonna lane this plane. But I think people ask us this, people who are investors in the lab ask us this, people who are you know our clients and our friends, just how the heck is Lean Rocket Lab funded and how does it work, and how do we make this work? And how do we be able to not charge for almost all of our services? And and maybe Ken, you could just like walk us through that and for sure, for sure.
SPEAKER_04So is it we're always looking for new funders in disguise? So we're gonna walk you down this path and we're gonna club you at the end of it. No, so uh the how we get funded is um actually a pretty unique approach, I think. So brand and your entrepreneurs, we didn't originally think about Lean Rocket Lab as a nonprofit, right? Um, but it became uh pretty abundantly clear that it made a lot of sense because what we're able to do, uh because we're a 501c3, we're able to apply for and secure state and federal level funding. Okay. And so um one of our main funding sources is the Michigan Economic Development Corporation. Okay, so they fund uh some of the overhead staffing, uh, et cetera, on our on our um in our PL and our budget. Um also uh we leverage some of the state money to uh get grants, uh get money from the uh economic development funds and then grant those back out with a with the following the set of rules that are established, etc. Okay, so state and state and federal level grants, um, we get incredible support from our community, from foundations um that believe in the mission and that align with the idea that you can change a community through entrepreneurship. Um and so we're just uh uh thrilled and blessed to have the uh partnerships that we have. Um and then we do have uh some revenue producing things. We're not purely a charity. Um we have a uh fantastic co-working space in the right in the heart of downtown Jackson. Um by the way, you know, anyone out there listening can come and um use the space for as little as $115 a month. Uh you get a 24-7 membership access to the building.
SPEAKER_00You get to hang out with us, get to hang out with us.
SPEAKER_04Um we also have uh an awesome cafe called Cafe Fuel uh in the front of the building. And if you are a member at Lean Rocket Lab, you get to have free uh fuel coffee. So that's a good time.
SPEAKER_00And the best food. They have the best food, y'all.
SPEAKER_02And we now have ice cream, soft serve ice cream. So ice cream, let's go.
SPEAKER_00Who's gonna say that to avocado?
SPEAKER_02Avogado. Afogato. So we obviously you don't gave up with that.
SPEAKER_00Ice cream and espresso, that's what that is.
SPEAKER_04So yeah, um, so we have some revenue that comes in from our co-working space. The idea with that was you know, we're never gonna get rich running the co-working space in downtown Jackson, you know, like at least that wasn't our vision. Hopefully we do, you know, we'll see. But um it really is uh kind of a break-even endeavor. It gets it allows us to have this awesome place to do our programming. We have our education center, our our meeting rooms, etc. Um, and then we do some licensing of our programming so other communities um that have seen what we've done in Jackson sort of like uh pay us in a sense to help them do that in their communities. Um and then we've got kind of a uh a new uh funding methodology that that um or expanding funding methodology, I should say, that we're going toward. I guess I'll I'll let you speak a little bit to that too if you want to.
SPEAKER_00Talk about the smart zone? Yeah, yeah, we're working on that. Smart zone is really a designated um district of where you can actually collect tax increment financing, which is the increase in taxes from you know, whatever's happening there, a new building being put in, whatever. And that money can be put back into that district to help it with either business incubation or infrastructure or things like that. So we are working on extending our smart smart zone for Jackson County. Working with Accelerate Jackson County. Yeah, working with Accelerate Jackson County and the MEBC on the Blackman LDFA.
SPEAKER_02Yep. And then I think a thing worth mentioning that we're particularly proud of, I guess, is we've we've sort of drummed up two other revenue sorts. You know, we we always knew that Jackson was a was a small community, and most of the other smart zone or business incubators in the state of Michigan largely are connected to research universities and you know, huge foundations. And we knew it would have to look a little different here, but um, we came up with a bunch of really kind of just what we think were creative ways to fund the lab and also things that were a reflection of us doing a good job, I think. You know, like in addition to our co-working space and the cafe, which all the proceeds from the cafe go to help lean rocket labs, you know, and so like we launched the the cafe for that reason, but we've also been able to license our programming to other communities. So the local program has been really successful, and we've been able to partner with Hillsdale and Lenaway County and essentially kind of bring the local program to their communities. And we've also been able to actually leverage some of the premium services in the past from like groups that um were interested in our tech vetting capabilities to the I4O accelerators, some of the large manufacturers like Ford and GM and others, where they've actually paid um Lean Rocket Lab and some of our partner organizations to bring them technology companies and do the tech vetting for them. And so um some of that actual kind of commercially valuable work has also helped seed Lean Rocket Lab. And I want to just you know touch on the MEDC thing real fast. I mean, we we would be not where we are today without the MEDC, you know, and they get a lot of they're sort of getting a lot of flack constantly in the news or whatever. And you know, I'm not here to make political statements, but our relationship has been extremely successful with the MEDC. And it's it's worth noting, people hear the word, and I I would have been guilty of this as like a non sort of not in this universe before Lean Rocket Lab getting a grant, like it's this bag of money that somebody like drops off to you. It's really not at all how it works. It's actually in our experience, um they're they're essentially government contracts to deliver services in in an area, and they're extremely competitive, and we've applied for these different grants over the years, and we've sort of secured the right to efficiently and effectively deliver services like helping startups and helping um small businesses and helping manufacturing companies and whatever the different grant calls for that's aligned with our mission. And we have to sort of like manage those budgets and deliver those services and report on those uh kind of key performance indicators. And we find it to be a many the grants that we apply for and the grants that we've gotten through the MEDC have been very aligned with our mission and vision, and they've helped us move forward in major ways. And so we're the um gateway representative for the MEDC, which is a program that supports high-tech innovation and entrepreneurship. We're the small business support hub um for our for our region, Jackson and the surrounding areas. And um, there's other programs like uh the Trusted Connector grant, some of the others, but really the MEDC has worked very closely with us and we've and we've done a good job, I think, over the years being a good steward of those resources. And and much of them, really, much of those programs really are just designed as a way for a local feed on the ground incubator economic development organization like Lean Rocket Lab is to connect because we have like sort of our hand in the pulse of our community and the entrepreneurs here and what they need. And the MEDC says, hey, like you be our sort of conduit into your local community to get them what they need from milestone grants to resources. And so sometimes people will see in the news Lean Rocket Lab gets this, you know, million-dollar grant, and they all think we're buying boats. And really, what ends up happening is most of that money is we are sort of functioning as the the screen, the steward to get grants directly into the small businesses and the entrepreneurs in our community and helping them be successful, making sure they go to companies that are doing the right things, and and we're we're sort of like you know, being accountable that that that money is is being used properly. And so we're super proud of that work. And I'm very thankful to the MEDC, yeah, and like Ken said, all the foundations that have made the lab possible and all of the investors and you know, Walton and Hearst Foundation and we're gonna get in trouble for naming people because we're not gonna think about them all.
SPEAKER_00But I think we've done pretty good.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, the Glick Foundation, Consumers Energy Foundation, Consumers Energy Foundation, you know, and so between those like five or six different things we've come up with, we've built this organization that's pretty sustainable, and I think it's gonna live after us and bless the community for a long time, and that's something we're super proud of. Um okay, but you know, in journalism, you're supposed to like lead with the hook, and we forgot we sort of saved the most exciting new thing for last, but I don't want to not talk about it and I want to let these guys weigh in on it. So we're really excited um to announce our partnership with AMTC Manufacturing Training Training Center.
SPEAKER_00We should say it together. Advanced Manufacturing Training Center.
SPEAKER_02So this is incredible. I think it's one of the best things that's happened in Jackson in a really long time. And I just want to give a huge shout out to Olivia and the Jackson Area Manufacturers Association and Kelly and ShopRat. This was all of all of them, their vision, their like uh wherewithal, and then just like an incredible partnership and investment with the community. I know like the Glick family and the Hearst family, and all these people came alongside and built this incredible manufacturing and technology center. And so we've worked closely with those guys for a long time. They're incredible at what they do, workforce development and training. And we said, hey, there's this huge missing component at Lean Rocket Lab, and that we work with these manufacturers, these manufacturing technology companies and startups, and we have this like downtown office space. And in other communities, there's advanced manufacturing centers where they can incubate and grow and launch. And we said, is there a way that we can collaborate? And these guys were wide open to that. And so we now have an extension lean rocket lab satellite incubator inside the AMTC building, the Hearst Navigation Tower, where we already have manufacturing technology startups that are Lean Rocket Lab members and clients incubating in the space. And the win, the sort of like amazing, beautiful win-win for JAMA and ShopRat and everybody involved there, is these tech companies are also serving as uh demonstrators of technology. So for this, the manufacturers in Jackson that are looking to learn about what's possible, they're able to see the technology, the newest, latest, and greatest I-4-0 and advanced manufacturing tech being demonstrated inside of AMTC. And the startups inside of AMTC are actually making training available to the kids and to the workforce participants at AMTC. And so now if you're a student and you go to the advanced manufacturing training center, you're seeing advanced manufacturing and great stuff. And so it's just this like beautiful win-win-win partnership. We're so excited about it. We're collectively applying for other grants and things right now with ShopRat and JAMA, and we're working very closely with them. And we now have this. We've had the Lean Rocket Lab has been this like bat signal to advanced manufacturing companies from around the world. And we've brought many of them to Michigan and they land in Detroit and other places because we didn't have that like physical space for them to come and incubate and work in. So now we're bringing those some of those companies, anyways, when it makes sense. It doesn't always make sense, but some of them into uh the advanced manufacturing and training center and working with JAMA and then they're turning around and blessing our community and our manufacturers. And so we're over the moon about it. We should have talked about it way sooner than the last 30 seconds. But I don't know if you guys you guys have all been a part of that, just want to add to it. Ken, I don't know if you have anything to say about it.
SPEAKER_04No, I I think we should probably land the plane on this podcast. Um, if listen, if you're if you're on the podcast right now, whether it's on YouTube or one of the socials or Spotify or any of those uh platforms, here's what I would encourage you to do. If anything we've said interests you, um if you want to plug into the ecosystem, if you're interested in moving Jackson County, Hillsdale County, Linway County forward through entrepreneurship, you should probably come down to Lane Rocket Lab and meet the team. Okay. So that would just be what what I would say to you. Um there's certainly, as you probably figured out listening to the podcast, there's more to be said about all these topics.
SPEAKER_02I don't know if we made it more clear or less clear if this was helpful or not. 64 minutes.
SPEAKER_00What do you do? We're all gonna listen to this back and be like, hmm.
SPEAKER_04They said word.
SPEAKER_02It's all in the show notes. Yeah. Step by step.
SPEAKER_04So yeah. Um here's a so just I would encourage you again, if you are an entrepreneur, you know an entrepreneur or a small business owner, you're thinking about becoming an entrepreneur, um, uh come to the Lean Rocket Lab. Okay, you can come in person, which is great. We encourage you to do that. Hop on our website. Uh, there's an intake form, it's pretty simple. You can fill it out, uh, we'll welcome you and and get you plugged in, right? So you don't need to know, okay, I'm coming in for XYZ program. Just just come, fill out our little form, just tell us who you are, and then we'll get you plugged into the community. If you're a community member listening to this and you're you're like, man, what they do at Lean Rocket Lab kind of resonates with me. Um, come talk to us because I think uh you can participate in in collectives, so you can become a mentor for other um entrepreneurs and startups. Um there's all kinds of ways to get you plugged in. If you are a foundation and you're looking for a great place to invest, Lean Rocket Lab is a great place to invest.
SPEAKER_01It is, it is.
SPEAKER_04Um, and just you know, kind of uh now that we're you know six, seven years into this, did I just do the six, seven thing? Was that a mistake? You're not supposed to do that. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Didn't even notice as I'm not young.
SPEAKER_04Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Then Liam's on his phone, he didn't even notice.
SPEAKER_04Um, you look around every I said this earlier in the podcast. You look around every community. Every community is built by entrepreneurs. So that's especially true for Jackson. If you come to Lean Rocky Lab, you actually walk around the the hallway, so to speak. Uh we actually tell some of those stories about entrepreneurs that built Jackson. Everything you see everything was created by an entrepreneur. Somebody saw a problem, saw an opportunity, and and went and made it happen. Um and so our community, our city was built by entrepreneurs, and and I think if you had the vantage point of any of us on this podcast or anybody at Lean Rocket Lab, I think you would uh look at the world and say, man, the future is bright. It's so exciting. Um what people are working on from just you know economic mobility from leaving their you know minimum wage job and launching that business because of their passion to watching companies scale from dozens to hundreds of employees and how that's in all of it, it's impacting our community. I think you would look at that and say, man, the future's bright. And so I think entrepreneurship's alive and the future is bright in Jackson County. And uh, if you're an entrepreneur, I just want to say kudos and keep going. Let's rock and roll together. Come do it at Lean Rocket Lab with us. And if if you're fired up as a community member, want to be a part of that, come talk to us and um I think we can do some great stuff together.
SPEAKER_00So man, motivational can.
SPEAKER_02Anyone cry?
SPEAKER_00Okay, so another business.
SPEAKER_02Thank you guys for being on today, joining us as guests, and uh for being in the battle with us. So and Sierra, you two back there, wherever you're at. Awesome. I think we're up.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, all right, everybody.
SPEAKER_02You wanna have like a special sign-out or anything?
SPEAKER_00I mean, I'm gonna do it. You wanna you wanna say bye with me? But um thanks for joining us. You know what to do. You gotta get on Spotify, Apple Music, YouTube, wherever you get your podcast, because the next one is coming soon and you don't want to miss out. Come see us. Come see us at the lab. Bye.