#128: Mitch Kroll (Findaway — Acquired by Spotify)

Jeffrey Stern [00:00:49]:

Let's discover what people are building in the greater Cleveland community. We are telling the stories of northeast Ohio's entrepreneurs, builders, and those supporting them. Welcome to the lay of the land podcast, where we are exploring what people are building in Cleveland and throughout Northeast Ohio. I am your host, Jeffrey Stern, and today, I had the absolute pleasure of speaking with Mitch Kroll, the cofounder and CEO of Findaway. Mitch started Findaway in 2004, a time when audio books were only available on CD ROM and cassette in order to revolutionize this business of audio books, connecting storytellers with listeners at scale. With this vision of audiobook democratization in mind, Mitch led the company over the next 17 years to sell over 6 million units of its play away audio book device, and through a honed focus on innovation, became the global leader in digital audiobook distribution and trust itself publishing platform for independent authors around the world. From this solidified position at the center of the audiobook industry, find a way earned the attention of the world's largest audio streaming subscription service, and it was ultimately acquired by Spotify for nearly $120,000,000 announced at the end of 2021. Still operating out of their stolen headquarters here in Northeast Ohio, Mitch led find a way through this acquisition where the team continues their work at Spotify to push the proliferation of audio book adoption, leveraging the same innovation and platform that Spotify used to disrupt music, and then to disrupt podcasts to power content distribution to 100 of millions of users across the world. Mitch is a shrewd builder deep thinker and really just a ton of fun to learn from. I learned a great deal from our conversation today which spans everything from the history and future of audiobooks to how Mitch thinks about culture, to professional, and life lessons, to the Cleveland startup ecosystem. So please enjoy my conversation with Mitch Kroll after a brief message from our sponsor.

Jeffrey Stern [00:03:03]:

Lay of the land brought to you by Impact Architects And By Ninety. As we share the stories of entrepreneurs building incredible organizations in Cleveland and throughout Northeast Ohio, Impact Architects has helped 100 of those leaders, many of whom we have heard from as guests on this very podcast, realize their own visions and build these great organization I believe in Impact Architects and the people behind it so much that I have actually joined them personally in their mission to help leaders gain focus, align together, and thrive by doing what they love. If you 2 are trying to build great, Impact Architects is offering to sit down with you for a free console station or provide a free trial through 90, the software platform that helps teams build great companies. You're interested in learning more about partnering with architects or by leveraging 90 to power your own business, please go to i a.layofland.fm The link will also be in our show notes.

Jeffrey Stern [00:04:03]:

I imagine there's a a good proportion of folks tuning in today who will be doing so via Spotify. Perhaps, you know, cycling from music to audio books to podcasts, seamlessly navigating from from one form of audio to it to another, which I think makes the the impact of the work that that you've you've done it, find a way quite salient. And perhaps it's a little premature, cart before the horse in in the conversation, and we'll get to that later. But but to start, you know, I wanted to acknowledge that, and thank you for for coming on to to share your story.

Mitch Kroll (Findaway) [00:04:36]:

Yeah. I appreciate it. It's it's interesting that you know, I'm so prideful about being born and raised in Cleveland, and the Spotify acquisition, which was June of 2022, has been very newsworthy, interesting, inspiring for the community, for the region, for the startup group that's that's really trying to break through. So I'm really happy and inspired to share the story so that Others can follow in our footsteps and make even bigger deals than we did.

Jeffrey Stern [00:05:12]:

I hope so. So to start, can you, you know, take us back to to the beginning, if you will, and and help us understand, you know, over the the arc of your career, what inspired you to co found find a way and venture into this this realm of of audiobooks.

Mitch Kroll (Findaway) [00:05:29]:

Earliest in my career, I thought I wanted to be a corporate guy, working at Big Corporations. And I'm born and raised in Cleveland. I love it here, but I left and spent about 5 years in Boston, working at a company called Raytheon. which was a big at the time, Fortune Fifty company. And while I'm doing that, I wind up going to school at night to get my MBA at a place called Batson, an amazing college that actually has been, you know, number 1, 30 years in a row for entrepreneurship studies And it's there that I caught that buck. It's there that I realized wait a minute. I have a different career arc than being in a corporate environment, and I learned a ton at Raytheon, and it was as valuable as anything I've done. And right around the time I'm I'm graduating with my MBA, I have another thought, which is I'm thinking about starting a family, and I wanna come home. So I'm one of those guys that, you know, you hear about, came back to Cleveland to raise a family, and I started on this entrepreneurial journey. I initially went to a company called Matrix Essentials, one of the greatest success stories in Cleveland Business, mid eighties to mid nineties, That company was eventually sold to Bristol Myers. I then did my first first business. I bought a small food service distribution company. Sorta had my playbook. I knew exactly how I wanted to do things and what I wanted to do, but it was the wrong industry. And I sold that, and then I was ready to go all in on what I thought would be my next and potentially last. because I'm going all in and I'm ready. I've got the playbook. I've got the experience. I was so motivated and inspired in that was the moment in 2004 when me and some other brilliant entrepreneurs found it, find a way.

Jeffrey Stern [00:07:36]:

So you have the motivation, the experience, the playbook, you know, the the drive. What what was the vision at the time for for what find a way would become?

Mitch Kroll (Findaway) [00:07:46]:

So we real the the coolest part of the story is we literally had a blank piece of paper. the product side was that we were universally interested in something new at the time, which was portable digital audio. We loved what Apple was doing with the iPad. And we thought that if Apple could put a 1000 songs in your pocket, on their iPad, where else could you give that experiential product offering to the masses? and we came up inspired by the iPod with this idea to carry a book in your pocket and we invented a product called Playaway, and Playaway was a single use audio book on a device again that you could carry in your pocket. And the coolest part is we had never met a publisher before. We were not avid audio files we were just looking to disrupt an industry and through some very classic blue sky, brainstorming, And, again, a lot of it is the brilliance of my co founders, Blake Squires and Christopher Celeste, the 3 of us, came up with this idea for a product called the Playaway, and we were often running with many highs and many lows in the earliest days of the business. So that was the inspiration, which was how do you provide the idea of carrying a book in your pocket, which had never been done before?

Jeffrey Stern [00:09:29]:

Right. And and at that time, audiobooks, maybe not even colloquially, called that at that point. I don't I don't even know. But we're only available

Mitch Kroll (Findaway) [00:09:38]:

They were called books on tape. Books on tape. -- old school it was. It'd be right. They were books on tape, and the only way to listen was cassette, which was the tape part, or CDs, and streaming was just in its earliest infancy, but it was really, you know, 99% of the market with CDs and cassettes.

Jeffrey Stern [00:10:04]:

So when you kinda formalize it and galvanize that that vision, do people think that's a crazy idea you know, what is their resistance? Is there excitement? What was the kind of reception to painting the the vision that you have?

Mitch Kroll (Findaway) [00:10:19]:

Of course, it's a crazy idea. Are you kidding me? It's like it was it was almost like, you know, are you guys no one's ever done this. You're not book people. You're not necessarily even technologists. What are you doing And there were it's here, I'll give you a funny story. Early in the journey, a lot of people said, what you what we're talking about. You're crazy. You're nuts. Why are you even doing a start up? This is, you know, start ups fail blah blah blah blah blah. So in my own infamous way, I put a giant posted piece of poster paper on my wall of our office. and I titled it, the I was wrong party list. And we put every name on this list of everyone who told us, we were wrong. and this was never gonna work. And we did it as a bit of funny, hubris, and inspiration because every time someone told us no and this is will be very historical throughout this discussion. we got more inspired and more determined, and we worked even harder and it really is it's gonna go back to being from Cleveland. Everything earned nothing given. That's who we are. And every time you tell us, no. Come on. Game on. Let's go. Let's go. And we actually built an entire team. of a couple hundred folks and then find the wayers and and strategy and everything always came back to how crazy we were. and how the crazier the idea, the better it was because it gave you a a greater chance for success.

Jeffrey Stern [00:12:07]:

So we'll run with the crazy idea. It's it's not just that, you know, any start up is hard, but I think it's really interesting in retrospect that, you know, the first endeavor that you had at Findaway was a was a physical product. Right? This built for circulation loaded audiobook player that in retrospect, you got to millions sold worldwide. And

Mitch Kroll (Findaway) [00:12:31]:

I think --

Mitch Kroll (Findaway) [00:12:32]:

7,000,000

Mitch Kroll (Findaway) [00:12:33]:

units sold worldwide. Life to date at the time Jeffrey, at the time we exited, that product and its product extension? because that business is still live. We became the world's largest digital audio book distributor. So that's where we really built the business. But if we're back to our earliest days in our founding, that's our flagship, and we generated life to date almost $300,000,000 of revenue out of that product.

Jeffrey Stern [00:13:07]:

Wow. So I think the thread to pull on from there then is as you have seen and contributed to the evolution of the audiobook industry, you know, at what point in that journey, from find a ways perspective, do you think that it makes sense to become a multiproduct, multi brand organization you know, in the transition to to digital with a demonstrated demand for, you know, the kind of the work that that you're putting out.

Mitch Kroll (Findaway) [00:13:33]:

The find a way journey, essentially so remember, this is 18 years. Right? We were founded in 2004 We launched in 05, and our first full year of revenue is 06, but we exited in 2022. So over 18 years, there were 3 phases of the business side. You know, forget team, culture, all that I love talking about the other things that are much more interested in the how than the what. But the what had 3 phases. Right? The 1st phase was you know, Christopher Blake, and then there were 2 other partners, Lawrence Bilman and Steve Spellman, who were also brilliant supporters and advocates and invest it was the 5 of us building a team around the Playaway product. And we did that for 4 or 5 years and we built that into a really nice little business, $20,000,000 business, tens of thousands of schools and libraries in the US military, That was the beginning phase 1. And then Christopher and Blake had decided to move on and go back to their startup roots. And me and Lauren and Steve were ready for more. We we wanted to keep going, and phase 2 kicked in around the smartphone revolution, where we love the Playaway business, and we're gonna keep it going, and it was awesome. but it wasn't the end game in the home run, and we needed a tipping point to truly scale the business as the world was moving from physical to digital. I saw that as the moment around the smartphone where we are gonna pivot from being a physical product to a digital company, and we start grinding one foot in front of the other in phase 2, which is building a digital platform. Now The challenge for that for every startup entrepreneur is not only did we decide to enter that market, but there was a market leader with over 90% market share and an essential monopoly. and that was Audible owned by Amazon. So now you go, okay, how many companies are ready to take Amazon on? How many companies in Cleveland self funded are ready to take on Amazon? And it goes back to where we started where I'm like, hey, man. If someone's gonna do it, why isn't it us? And we actually this is great folklore. We printed this huge piece of art and put it in the building, and we said, we are going to break the monopoly by powering the world. That's what we said, and we put that out there for every everybody on our team to see, and we had a mission. And the strategy was that we are gonna aggregate every audio book retailer in the world, and we are gonna be the Command Central, the operations hub so that anybody in the world could deliver audio books, and they could compete with this market leader, this dominant force of Audible, and that's what we did. And before, you know, before you know it, 2, 3 years go by and all of a sudden, Apple signs up, and Google signs up, and Barnes And Noble, and every audiobook retailer in the world and every publisher in the world wound up working with Find Away and we became, to your point, one of the drivers of success in this industry. So that was phase 2, becoming the world's largest distributor of audiobooks. And by the end, we were delivering over a 100000000 hours of audio a year. But you thought it was coming from Apple or Google, but find a way how to roll how to roll in that. Then we move into quickly into phase 3, And phase 3 was now that we dominate distribution, play away has remained strong. We need to finish out our strategic imperative by becoming the world's most strategically integrated audiobook company in what that meant was we are gonna leverage distribution by becoming a publisher. So we became a publisher. We are gonna start producing audio books So we became an audio producer, and we are gonna build a premier independent author plat form so that every independent author in the world could have their audiobooks distributed globally. The combination of play away digital publishing, audio production, and our independent author platform all work together synergistically so that we became a really important influence on the industry and then come knocking on the door is Spotify, who says we're gonna launch audio books, and why wouldn't we just bring find a way into the fold because they have built everything we're gonna need, and that became the essence of that deal. So sorry to be long winded, but those are the 3 phases of of our journey.

Jeffrey Stern [00:18:54]:

I do wanna double click on on phase 3, but before we get there just to keep the chronology right. In phase 2, and as you're beginning to think through strategy and and what kinda manifests in in phase 3. One of the things that I I think is always really interesting is particularly in a in a market like audiobooks where there's a lot of you know, disparate players, and there's there's, you know, a lot of tension potentially between them. How you thought about holistically balancing the needs of content producers, publishers, authors with, you know, curators of audio like retailers and libraries and the ones you mentioned with ultimately, the consumers, the the readers or or maybe the the listeners rather of this content. where historically, I think there's always been a fair amount of tension between all those parties.

Mitch Kroll (Findaway) [00:19:41]:

We very uniquely positioned our business where publishers and authors believed accurately that we were an extension of their business. And we took the responsibility to the copyright, the authors, the creators, the IP holders very seriously. It's art. We have the responsibility to ensure your art and your creation is distributed is broadly under fair economic terms for you. That's the the one side you're referring to. The other side was that we would manage all that what we call the heavy lifting. So if you were a retailer your best at merchandising, marketing, payments, talking to your customer, understanding your brand, and if you could focus on that and have a partner manage the entire operational side of your business really being true to what we're all doing, which is delivering audio books, we carved out a place that no one had ever thought of before, and we always had really strong balance. Like, Jeffrey, we believe that our publishing partners were equal to our customers. It was they were both at the top of the mountain for us And, you know, this whole customer is king and well, listen. First off, our employees are king because we always if you read about us, Everything was about team and culture and and I love talking about all that, so we'll spend some time on how we did this with this just amazing talented group of of of Clevelanders and find a wayers. But we believe that our customers and our publishers both together set at the top of the mountain, we never forgot that.

Jeffrey Stern [00:21:39]:

So when you think about the the growth of Findaway, you know, specifically from this shift as a startup to a company with global reach, you know, access and distribution to to millions of of people How do you manage that transition? And and how do you maintain that startup culture in spite of the company's growth?

Mitch Kroll (Findaway) [00:22:00]:

That may be the number one question I have been asked over and over and over because if you ever went to our website or you met us or you saw the awards we win for best workplace, it's always intriguing to how did we do that. And have so many thoughts on on the topic. I'll start at the at the highest level. When you're building a culture, if the culture is not stronger at a 150 to 200 than it was at 10 to 20, then you haven't built the real sustainable culture. The power is the team. And if you build power, in the culture that you're building and authenticity, and I'll talk about how we did that for us. If you do that, it just becomes more powerful as you scale it not less. So when we exited We had a more vibrant, trusting, emotionally charged culture than we did when there were 20 to 30 of us, and my belief system is if you build something authentic and real and sustainable, the team will always make it more powerful and grow it exponentially than leadership ever can.

Jeffrey Stern [00:23:25]:

And how do you think about this regional local piece to the the puzzle. You know, being in Soland and Greater Northeast Ohio, this this chip on the shoulder, how how has that impacted find a ways you know, journey your journey and and the culture of of the company.

Mitch Kroll (Findaway) [00:23:41]:

So pre COVID, for the most part, and and most part, probably 95% of our team was in town. Right? Immediately when when COVID began, we immediately went remote. We are probably the first company I could think of in the region who immediately went remote, and we wound up hiring around the country and around the world and probably 25% of our team was remote by the time we exited. So For the majority of my answer, it's focused on this Cleveland team, right, this Cleveland team. What we believed is it the single most important thing to building a successful company and culture, but but go higher. Go company, not like culture, To build a successful company, you need a trusting environment. Period. Your team must trust you at the highest level because what we're doing is really hard. Forget the fact we're taking on Amazon every day. Forget that. that we're trying to break a a a a semi, you know, a monopoly. That under itself is hard. We're doing it in Cleveland. We're not on the coast. We don't have access to things that may be more common in other areas. So we believe the superpower was the team and trust. And my belief was that you build this trusting environment by making

Mitch Kroll (Findaway) [00:25:12]:

2 things,

Mitch Kroll (Findaway) [00:25:14]:

by making emotional connections with your team. at the highest level, and the theory behind that is if you look for moments that are around you every day. and your ability as a leader, as a manager, is to see those moments, and to act upon them to build depth in your relationships with your team. Now there's big moments like marriages and having kids and and death of parents and the reality of life. But then there's a spouse being laid off. There's a a child getting hurt. there is a tough time for your kid at school. I mean, those are the moments that you have an opportunity to ensure your team knows. Listen. Your family's first. Find a way is not 1st. Your family is 1st. Everything in life comes after that, and go take care of those things. because we have you covered. We've got you and when you do that again and again and again and again and you never stop and you do it for every single person in the organization, you build this center of trust that is unbreakable. And when you have that, your team is doing it for themselves, not for you. They are pivoting. They are changing. They are open minded. They are believing, and all of that became foundational to every single thing that we did. because our team took care of us, and our team took care of each other, and it all starts with this center of saying, okay, we trust you. We trust you. We trust you enough to tell you the truth about everything And when you really do that and no BS and no positioning and no. I'm not sure. I wanna share this when you really trust your team enough. They will take themselves and each other to wherever you can lead them, and I think that's part of this whole Cleveland work ethic, pride, And it was we have this thing, Jeffrey, when you'd walk in the the superpower was come see us. Like like, come to come to Cleveland. Come see us. And when they walk in the building, they would go they would almost, like, smell the vibe and go, there's something really interesting going on. here, and I always love talking about it. I'm like, you know, I'll talk about it, but don't talk to me. You go talk to my team. I guess, them what they think. And they're like, we got each other's back. And we have this mantra that once you come, you never leave, And over the last maybe 10 years or so, almost universally, every find a wayer, it was the longest job they had in their career. which is the truest testament that it took us a while to get it right, but over the last 10 years or so, we got it right. And it took a lot of learning, a lot of evolving from me, a lot of listening, evolving my own skills, and that's probably the the legacy thing I'm most -- Yeah. On a parallel

Jeffrey Stern [00:28:45]:

and related note, I I had heard you speak on on growth in in culture before. And one of the, I think, really powerful points that you made that stuck with me personally senses that when you think about all the growth that manifests in your company, in your business, it doesn't predominantly come from the things that you may think it comes from, technology or product or strategy or sales or or earnings or whatever else it may be. But in instead, that it it comes from you know, directly from you, you know, personally and and your your personal growth through throughout that journey. And it sounds like that's something you are able to instill within the culture of the company overall.

Mitch Kroll (Findaway) [00:29:26]:

Well, so let's make it tangible and real. Nearly, I think there was maybe one exception every manager would find a way. Every 1, 20, I think, 28 managers by the time we exited, other than maybe one exception, every single one was promoted from within. I love mentoring and coaching and I always thought that if you take great talent and put them in a position maybe a little before they're ready, there's always room for the best, and the best will figure it out on their own with your support and then that manifested throughout the organization where we're like, okay. That's really working. We really have an inspired group of managers, and you know how hard it is to go from know, being in the trenches to managing your peers that was happening every day. And then we felt so strongly about that that we wound up throughout the entire organization saying this isn't a managerial thing. Everybody whose great needs more responsibility than they have today. So your responsibility because you as a manager, were elevated maybe before you were ready. You have the same responsibility to your team, and everyone needs at all times to be given additional increasing levels of responsibility with the coaching that you just mentioned, that if you're committed to personal growth, that's where the evolution comes from. not from other parts of pushing and driving and no. It comes from how committed are you to your own growth. And if you are, you know, in a in a place like Find Away, there is room for you to keep growing and evolving and being appreciated and being respected and getting freedom and responsibility at levels you probably didn't imagine you would get as a

Jeffrey Stern [00:31:31]:

20 something, 30 something. Yeah. Early my point is earlier in your career. No. That that that all resonates quite a lot. And and I think it also applies you know, somewhat equally to companies overall. You know, the idea that what got you here won't get you there and that the company overall asked him by this growth mindset. I'll pull us back to to phase 3 maybe from from that perspective. You know, ultimately, you're you're able to find a new home for find a way in in Spotify. Can you take us through, you know, the thinking behind that that process and and acquisitions? What were the things that you were considering as you think about, you know, what comes next and and the impact that you're you're hoping to have.

Mitch Kroll (Findaway) [00:32:14]:

We had significant interest. at a really high level for the last 5 or 6 years, as we had grown to be a really about market leader in digital distribution, there was a lot of interest in find a way from an acquisition standpoint. And then it elevated even further as we started expanding into publishing and audio production and so on. And while I would listen and have conversations with, you know, my CFO, which is also for every startup critical to have a partner. Pat Hofford was my CFO and a brilliant entrepreneurial CFO that that, you know, I I I think I think my lucky stars, let's say, that that I have a guy like that in my world. And I'm gonna depart for one second. One other part, one other thing that's interesting. that I think of when I think about Pat. The other part of our cultural story, which is so unique and different, the senior management team had find a way was together for 10 years, and no one left. That stability with the evolution, the evolution, the growth, the grow all of the things I talk about was so powerful and impactful and it limited nobody within the organization, but it also speaks to, again, you know, how strong we were as a team. So so I I I wanted to make that point. So we have this team that's in place. We have these businesses that are all growing and evolving and you know, really big, big, big growth numbers over the last half 1000 years, and people are coming at us and the best one without even a question became Spotify. because what Spotify wanted to do was have find a way be the center of their audiobook aspirations. They did it with podcasts when they acquired Anchoring Gibma. and they had great success with that. And they wanted to do the same thing. So there was a history. There was a historical part that gave us confidence. and I was not exiting under any circumstances until we had a partner that believed in our team, that I believed and that our team believed would be a place for them all to continue their career journeys in interesting and inspiring ways. So the fact that Spotify forget the deal terms. It had nothing to do with that. Well, that's always nice that it was a great deal. This was about them being explicitly clear that find a way was gonna be the center of their ambition. And as we were going through due diligence, When that became real, it became a no brainer. Then it became okay. These guys are the right partners. They trust us. They believe in us They respect us. They love the team. Okay. Let's go. Now let's negotiate what's a fair deal for everyone. Let's negotiate transitions for our team, and then it became a pretty simple decision that we had found the right partner.

Jeffrey Stern [00:35:50]:

How has find a ways mission and operation changed if at all since the acquisition?

Mitch Kroll (Findaway) [00:35:58]:

Oh, it's changed massively. I mean, we are I go back to remember where we started when I said, how much I learned at Raytheon? So, you know, I had I understood that world and the changes in managing 1000 or tens of 1000 of employees versus 100. Right? So I got it. When I was at Matrix with Lauren and Steve Filman, you know, my other cofounders, that was a about a thousand person company, and it exited to Bristol Myers, which is, you know, 100,000. I don't know. Very big. I'm confused organization. So I had experience understanding what we were in for. You be I have I have one really, I think, consistent theme, which is you become part of the bigger machine, and that unto itself has positives, salaries, benefits, don't know if you know about these these benefits from these European Swedish companies, the benefits of Spotify may be the best in the world. literally may be the best in the world. Their culture has has been, you know, heralded as as amazing in terms of respect so similar to us. So you join that, and you lose you absolutely lose your identity a bit because They're Spotify employees. They're not find the wayers anymore. So you are not there is no more find a way team. You are part of Spotify with some people going into different parts of the org, but still being centered on audiobooks. Right? So the belief that I had and the the the coaching I would give any any founder is that your responsibility And I like that word rather than your job is. I never think I always think of it as my responsibility was to provide an opportunity in a path for everyone on our team to carve out the next part of their career. And I believe that Spotify was a great place to do that and it's been almost a year and that's turned out to be true. So it's been massive change for everybody, but I do feel proud that our team has been given the opportunity to carve out the next path in their careers And so far, it's going really well. As a matter of fact, many on our team are in Sweden right now. what they do is every single employee in their company goes to Sweden at I think it's for a week within their 1st year of employment, and you start learning about Spotify and culture and team and strategy and like, how many companies are flying 10,000 employees around the world to the headquarters, and that speaks to their commitment to team And I keep getting pictures and, you know, all these cool little notes about how the team is, you know, crushing it in Sweden right now as we speak.

Jeffrey Stern [00:39:07]:

it it is very fun. Well, I think it it also speaks, you know, obviously, to the the scale of Spotify, And so I'd love to ask, you know, with that scale and their ability to drive just much more creation investment technology in this audiobook market with find a way as the engine for that, you know, what what are the implications of this for both creators, consumers in the world of audiobooks You know, where where are audiobooks going?

Mitch Kroll (Findaway) [00:39:35]:

They entered music second, and they won. They're the market leader. They entered podcasts second, and they are the market leader. They are running entering audio books not only second, but distant in the hierarchy of of market entry, and we believe that they will win again because they have never done anything but win by leveraging their masterful product offering as well as their innovation, as well as scale. So there are some things that will be announced soon, little early to share, but soon that will allow Spotify to grow the audiobook market. I didn't say their business. The market for all, because that's what they do. They come up with innovative, disruptive products, business models, and strategies and the exact same thing is gonna happen in audiobooks, which is gonna be great for the consumer, great for authors, and great for publishers, which was another one of those linchpin foundational beliefs that that only reinforced that they were the right exit partner for Findaway. Mhmm. It's exciting. It's exciting exciting times ahead for the audio book world. And I just like, I love things when you go, like, I love the little things more than the holy, you know, holy shits and holy cow. I like the Like, whenever I'm looking at creative or design, I just wanna, like, have a little nod. That's what this is gonna be. When they get in full go mode, the world's gonna go, where did that come from? And I know the answer is gonna be in part in small part, it's a very small part because I get spotify all the credit in the world in a very small part I know that this this team in Cleveland, Ohio was responsible for evolving an entire industry. with the work that they did, and that's the that's that's the sense of pride

Jeffrey Stern [00:41:57]:

that cleavanders that we have. I I I love that very much.

Mitch Kroll (Findaway) [00:42:02]:

Don't get better now. For an entrepreneur,

Jeffrey Stern [00:42:05]:

it does not get better than that ever. Well, then, you know, maybe I have a an intuition for what your answer to this might be. But I I think at a surface level for a lot of people looking you know, into entrepreneurship from the outside, I think you could say that it's somewhat common to see acquisition as you know, the the ends to all the means and a and a mark of success achieved. But I don't know, to me, in our conversation, it it feels pretty clear that, you know, the work and drive and ambition and elevation of people around you persist, you know, long long afterwards. So you know, with that and with the mark of of some success, you know, being acquired by one of the the leading companies in the world. what what does success mean to you and and how has it changed if at all?

Mitch Kroll (Findaway) [00:42:52]:

It's it's great timing to ask because I'm almost a year removed. Right? And for the 1st 6 months after the acquisition, I was fully engaged. Then over the last 6 months, I've been working less and less as an adviser. some of the adviser to Spotify now. When I think back to my for me, my find a way journey, and I and I think I think I can say confidently when the entire team looks back I I don't I think you know what I'm gonna say. I don't think about the product. I don't think about profit. I don't think about the exit price. I don't I don't think about any of that. I think about what we did together. That's all I think about. I think about what we accomplished and our ability together to impact each other's lives. That's all. And we did some go back to where we start. We did some crazy stuff. I mean, forget the product. Like like, we we did things that were true to us, and we didn't care what anyone thought. We didn't care that you're supposed to do it this way or that way, and we never compromised. we built the business the way we thought was best, and that's the legacy. It's it's nothing else. And we laughed, and we had fun, and You know, the the last I'll tell you one one quick thing. The last we have this thing called find a way or fest, which was our employee appreciation day every year. and we would do some really wacky things. And it was just a couple days to get out of the the grind. The last one we did, we had a 100 and maybe 70 on the team. We rented out Cleveland Brown's stadium. The stadium for a 170 us, 17070 of us, because I thought it would be fun for our names to be on the scoreboard. to be in the stadium celebrating and at the same time for us to be awarding find a way or of the year with Hello. Hello. Hello. Hello. Just the echo of the whole thing and just this amazing kind of experience ago. who rents out Brown Stadium for a 170 people? Well, find a way it does because that's what we do to give experiences and memories that last a lifetime. So that's that's the legacy. And then listen. You have to sell product. You need oxygen. You have to make money. You have to have great strategy. You have to work harder than you ever imagined. We did all that. We did all that every single day for all those years. but that's not what defined us. What defined us was our ability to do this with people. We cared about and loved and appreciated and respected. And then we look back and go, wow. Look what we did. That's all. And it sounds you told the Internet. It sounds so It is not silly. I'm telling you, I think all founders think about that more than they remember, you know, sales goals or objectives or you know, I don't I don't think a lot about that. And we had Jeffrey enormous success with that. But I I convinced myself years ago the reason why and that became the center, the reason why. Not you know, the the how we did it, not what we did. Mhmm.

Jeffrey Stern [00:46:46]:

when I asked you about, you know, how you manage the transition from start up to to scale while maintaining the the culture of of startups and innovation, you mentioned, you know, is one of the more common questions that you get. And I'm curious you know, in reflection on the journey and and building the companies and achieving the the success that you that you have through it. What what are the questions? And maybe this is an unfair question. But what are the questions that you wish people ask you that you don't get to talk about so much as part of this journey that you think is important to to highlight and and shed some light on?

Mitch Kroll (Findaway) [00:47:22]:

The interesting thing about it is once you exit I think you you asked this in a in a little bit of a different way. for the last year, once the exit occurred. And because it was, I'll say, an anomaly or unique And, you know, it was unique for Cleveland. You know, how many Cleveland companies exit to Apple, Google, Microsoft, Spotify, Facebook? Like, not many. So it's unique to the region. Right? So let's just it's unique to the region. That became the center of conversations, which is people wanna talk about the exit, and I get it. It you know, I get it. It's you're curious. You wanna duplicate it. You wanna learn from it. Like, I I totally get it, but I'm built to say, it's the other things that I'd rather talk about, which is differentiated strategy. which is how how did you build your strategy? How did you differentiate from the marketplace? How did you manage during COVID? Our best years ever were the COVID years, and a part of our business was shut down because schools and libraries were closed and we couldn't ship. But, like, let's talk about what your strategies were during COVID. Let's talk about your economic models. Let's talk about with more depth. When I appreciate you allowing me time to talk about team and culture and building teams and the like, that to me is more interesting because exiting was just the result not, like, how we got there. I'd rather teach, coach, mentor, what we did, how important strategy was then talking exclusively about the exit, which is why I knew this was gonna be a fun conversation because I sensed you were interested in those other things. So that that's my my short answer to that, which is when you get the chance to meet with a successful entrepreneur who exited, I would just encourage talking about all the reasons how, not the actual end result because to me, like, that's nice, but that's not the essence of what was accomplished. the accomplishment is not selling. The accomplishment is growing a business. That's the accomplishment. And if As hard as that is if you can grow a business, that's what's really interesting to be growth.

Jeffrey Stern [00:50:06]:

How do you think about for yourself what what comes next?

Mitch Kroll (Findaway) [00:50:11]:

I'll I'll call that a work in progress. I'm figuring that out every day. I'm trying not to dwell on it, and I'm trying to embrace the moment which I'm finding honestly to be a little difficult. Mhmm. And I have 2 or 3 pillars of what's next. I loved working with, you know, the find a way team, and it was a fairly young team. So I know I enjoyed that part of my role. So I'm doing some of that now. So I'm working with a number of startup entrepreneurs in town, and I'm really enjoying that time and I plan to continue to do that. The bigger question is, do I have another one in me? Like, that's the bigger question, and that's That's an answer. I think the answer is yes, but I'm allowing myself enough room to breathe to answer that in the right way, which is do I have another one in me in terms of being an operator or not? while I'm doing a fair amount of writing, a fair amount of speaking, and you said you heard me do something. So I'm doing that. So I'll be coaching and speaking and investing and advising, and I get great joy from that. at the same time, the biggest lurking question, which it's a little too early to answer, is Alright. Let's go do it again because it was so fun the first time.

Jeffrey Stern [00:51:41]:

Yeah. Or not. Or or not. Egg exactly. It's one of the the toughest questions to answer maybe.

Mitch Kroll (Findaway) [00:51:47]:

Yeah. I I if I don't do another start up, then I know that the emotional energy and the emotional side of me will be fulfilled by working with others. So my kids and I are starting the Crawl family foundation. We know we wanna do that. There you know, there's all kinds of things I wanna do. But what I do in my entire adult life has really been in two places only. my family and my kids and my career. I don't have a lot of other things. I'm not interested in a lot of other things. I'm not interested in traveling the world. I'm not I'm not interested in a bunch of other hobbies. I like growing things. I like building businesses. I like being told we can't do something. So, you know, I have tons of time for my family, and then I'm I'm really thinking seriously about doing this one more time because I get great energy from it. I like failure. Like, the entrepreneur's I wanna fail again. Like, I wanna screw stuff up and fix it. Like, come on. That's what we do. We make decisions, and more of them are right than wrong, but all the ones that are wrong, you get the chance to fix it. And you get to jump from the top of a mountain and jump from a cliff and take a shot. And I all those elements of growing a business I'll need to come to peace with and do that in some way.

Jeffrey Stern [00:53:27]:

With all of that, if you were to offer up advice for others, perhaps maybe in a similar situation, you know, gauging whether or not to to try and and build something from from scratch. you know, to to flex this entrepreneurial muscle. What what would that advice be?

Mitch Kroll (Findaway) [00:53:45]:

I think the most the most important thing is having self awareness to what your purpose is. Like like who are you and who do you wanna be? I mean, go back to the personal growth comment. Don't stop growing. Don't stop evolving. Embrace the blank page. I love the blank I love the blank page. I love everything about a blank piece of paper and the ability to craft your own journey and be in control of your own destiny But when you're faced with these and and I'll bring it back to find a way because most things do are parenting. that when you're challenged with a decision, COVID COVID how we manage you? COVID's a great example. go back to your core and who are you and find your center and stay true to that. Stay true. I knew that COVID was gonna be horrible for the world, great for business. because the best among us, we're gonna win. When companies who were not great and strong were gonna struggle, And I knew that we were going to endure that. And we elevated our game even more And what we did was we went right back and stayed true to our center, our purpose, our self. Right? Purpose is the soul of your journey. I believe that. So when you're making these challenging decisions that I'm making now, I think about my purpose and who I am and who do I wanna be, and it's the same when I was 25, 35, 45, 55, it doesn't matter. Find that and let's go. embrace the blank page. And if you stay there, you will be guided in the right direction is what I believe. And I shared that with our team over and over and over, and they it's this thing as a as you're related to parenting? You know how you your kids think they're learning everything from you, but you realize you're learning more from your kids than they are ever learning from you. you are learning more about yourself from parenting. And while running a business do not be anyone's parent. You need to embrace freedom. you wind up learning more about yourself as a leader than your team ever, then you can ever give and impart wisdom to your team. And I think it's the same thing now. I'm I've learned from them over and over and over, and I'm soaking that all up and trying to figure out How could I be impactful again? And I'm coming up with that answer every day I'm getting closer to it.

Jeffrey Stern [00:56:36]:

If you were to embark on this journey again, knowing what you know now, what are some of the mistakes that you made building find a way that you would be trying to, you know, avoid another go at it.

Mitch Kroll (Findaway) [00:56:51]:

Sometimes, you have to go through the experience to learn from it. Right? That that sounds obvious, but When I was in my forties, I remember creating this false timeline in my head that said, I'm in my prime, and I gotta do this right now because the clock is ticking. And if I don't do it, whatever it is, business wise, I'm gonna be past my prime, and that turned out to be total bullshit. because I believe 10 years later, I was a better leader than I was 10 years earlier. So I think the mistakes came from not creating false sense and false beliefs They just weren't always true, that it took time and experience to understand How would embrace failure? How to be a better listener? How to become more empathetic and compassionate? while holding others accountable at the same like, all the things, and I think the failures came from having this belief system that wasn't always true and the older I got, the more evolved I got, and the more open minded I got. And I think that anyone should go into this really believing that you gotta work hard. You gotta work harder than you ever thought you would but you also have to be really open really open to what's about to come at you because you're not gonna be ready for it. and the more open you are about accepting it and managing it and dealing with the emotional highs and even more so the lows, I think the better you'll be. I definitely feel more evolved in my life now, and I never woulda guessed I would be that way. If if my thirty year old self was thinking about myself at this point, I will go, I'm over the hill. No. I'm not. I am so alive and so mentally

Jeffrey Stern [00:59:11]:

on my cane that I'm I'm more inspired than I've ever been. Yep. That's awesome insight and and reflection. It makes a lot of sense to me. Yeah. You you in an ideal, you know, situation, you accumulate wisdom over time.

Mitch Kroll (Findaway) [00:59:25]:

from experience. I do this story all the time. It's like, you know, when I and I did this recently in a in a video I just shot for someone, which has been so true. We've done this at findaway almost every year. We said think but we do it with new new employees, new findaways. Think back 10 years. Where was your life? Where were you today 10 years ago, and your life was so different in so many ways And that's easy. But when you think forward 10 years, you don't realize it's gonna be the exact same thing, and that is not a twenty, thirty, forty year old thing. it is never changing. So if your life is always evolving and growing and moving, How are you taking control of guiding it to where you want it to be as opposed to it occurring because you don't have a plan. Like, have a plan. Like, you know, it's okay not to to sorta get off track and get but have a plan or, you know, you won't achieve the highest level of success however you wanna define that. And I you know, I've always been pretty self aware of that. It's become more powerful as time went on. And then when it comes to the business, build great economic models, and build great strategies, and, you know, build the right culture. Like, do all the x's and o's and blocking and tackling, but, you know, keep evolving, and your team your team will follow. Every organization is a reflection of its leader, period. Unequivocal. Your team and your department is a reflection of you, Your company is a reflection of you. Everything is a reflection. So embrace that and understand the responsibility you have for that. and be great for you. And if you're great for you, your team will understand that, and they will be great for themselves as well.

Jeffrey Stern [01:01:27]:

Well, I I think we've covered a a lot of ground here, and I I really appreciate the the the breadth and and diversity of of you know, your your reflections as well. I think there's a a lot to to glean from this. No. This was fun. This was this was very fun, and

Mitch Kroll (Findaway) [01:01:46]:

again, I whenever I do this or have similar conversations, I try with great intention to have the Cleveland community view success through the lens of positivity. It is an advantage to be here. It is not a disadvantage. There is no woe is me. There is no difficulty raising capital, finding talent, look through it with the other lens, which is what we did, which is because we were in Cleveland, 100 percent unchanging because we were based here. It was fundamental to our success, and I would encourage all in the region to have that lens through which they view their business, not the other side because, you know, excuses are easy. doing the works hard, and we believed in doing the work. And, again, I just I I tried to bring that sense of positivity and optimism and passion to the conversation because I believe in the deepest part of my heart that being from Cleveland is an advantage, not a disadvantage.

Jeffrey Stern [01:03:12]:

On that, how do you feel we can collectively kind of overcome what seems to be a a deeper rooted, you know, risk aversion maybe even pessimism around, you know, where we are and and the the trajectory going forward. because I I share that optimism. and I I'm curious how how you think we can begin to change the the hearts and minds.

Mitch Kroll (Findaway) [01:03:36]:

So let let me ask you this because I mean, you've you've done so many interviews Do you get the sense from some on the sense of pessimism and the uncertainty and the, you know, the the alternate to the positivity and the advantage of being from here, do you hear that, or is that a false narrative?

Jeffrey Stern [01:03:56]:

I I think it's a false narrative. As individuals, everyone seems to have this optimism and points to, you know, the the somewhat ephemeral, you know, hard to identify challenge of of of what we're doing in the area. I think there are real real challenges that that we do have and that that we can get better at. But I I think from at least the perspective of people who are going on this journey and trying to build something, I also think it it's somewhat requisite as a as an entrepreneur to have optimism or it doesn't really work out.

Mitch Kroll (Findaway) [01:04:30]:

Yeah. I'll call it realistic optimism. Yes. You have to be willing to see things as they are because if you have blind faith, then it doesn't allow you to get to the heart of change when change is good. You know? So I I look at his realistic optimism. I would say this. So there are 22 thoughts as it relates to the region. 1, for all the bad that COVID was to the world, COVID made workforces nonregional. you know, we were spending a $1,000,000 a year in travel. Like, you know, barring a few necessary times to get together to talk strategy, embassy customers. You know, the world has changed, and, you know, the world is essentially remote whether you like it or not. you can fight it, or you can embrace it. And you can make a decision of of how you wanna manage it. So I think the fact that that we are no longer regionalized as companies is a huge advantage. Huge advantage. We could where we always had a hard time finding a a supply of tech talent in town that immediately washed the weight. Now on the other side, the talent on your team could go wherever they want. So if you're not taking good care of them, Right? You have the flip side of that. So that's one thing. I think the higher order answer is that The most important part of a business, and you've now heard from me for, I don't know, what have we been chatting a little over an hour, is the team. Like, period. Like like, I don't wanna hear about all this other infrastructure. I'm like, okay. I get it. You need infrastructure. You need access to capital. Like, I get it. But stop it already. because nothing means more than building a great team. And if you have a great team, 3 things. You have a great team, You have great strategy, and you have a great economic model, a way to make money. You win. I don't care where you are. Great team, great strategy, great great economic model, you win. And first is great team. This group of people in this region are the greatest. And if you don't see that or you haven't been able to harness that, That's on you. That's not on them. That's on you as a leader. So, I mean, come on. I came back home because I wanted to be here. I wanted my kids to be raised here. Like, I love. I have such pride. Cleveland is a prideful bunch. I know I I know you have to believe that. And when we go on the road, people are like, man, this man, you guys really are prideful in what you do. So if it starts with team, as more important than all of the other reasons, they're right here. So stop with the excuses and the bullshit. and the reasons why you can't think about all the reasons why you can is how we approached it. and then we tried to provide the best leadership we could, and I said this earlier, there is always room for the best. If you are a great company, the world will find you. They do not care where you are. They will find you. So go build a great company with the amazing people in this region and stop with any other why you can and why you can't and Anybody wants to debate me on that, like, let's go because we did it. For 18 years, we did it. and we did it in digital media in tech against the monopoly like, come on. Like, we we did exactly what I'm saying, and that's you asked me earlier, that's what I think about. when I think about what we're doing. I don't think about Spotify or the exit or that's what I think about. So that's why I'm so strong minded about this because we actually did it in the face of can't be done. Yeah. Okay. Whatever. Can't be done. Let's go. can be it can be done, and we're gonna do it.

Jeffrey Stern [01:09:02]:

And and at every stage of evolution throughout that journey, if you ask the question, you know, what could go wrong in you know, to your point, it's like everything. Everything can go wrong. It's not the right question. It's more about what what can go right.

Mitch Kroll (Findaway) [01:09:18]:

No. I'm actually prepping a little a little speech I have to give coming up And my thoughts went maybe it's a good place to end, but but I'm I'm finding my my thoughts went to this. Mhmm. When I think about find a way, I think about how others described us, not how we described ourselves. And a couple stories that that I always think about where we were in Cupertino with Apple, one of our biggest customers, and we were sharing a new product launch, and we're meeting with the global head of books, a very senior position and maybe maybe one of the the the most intelligent, strategically minded people I've ever met. And after explaining what we are doing, he's He sits, and he reflects for a minute, and he says to me, and I was with Ralph Lazaro, our chief digital officer. and he says, find a way. Always playing offense. Never playing defense. So of course, we go back to the team, And we're like, guys, here's how we were described by Apple and how prideful is that. Okay? So you wanna get out of your head in the region, go play offense. Another time we were pitching again, this was Ralph and I again, and I believe Suzanne Galvez, our our head of content. we were pitching Harper Collins, one of the world's biggest publishers, and we're announcing a different product, the new product we're launching, And she's listening very intently, and she says, let me let me think about this. This is let me get that. And we hang up the phone about 20 minutes later an email comes in. Says, this is the reason I love you guys. You are crazy crazy like foxes. So I'm like, okay, that's cool. Crazy like fox and we had t shirts made. We're crazy like boxes. And then the last one was the was someone was introducing us to another customer prospect. And they introduced us as you must meet this team. They are an obtain fueled company from Cleveland, Ohio. So we're like, okay. Go supercharge your team. So now you go okay. What is what's the point of those three stories? Play offense. Be crazy in supercharger team with belief. Do that and tell me you can't make it in Cleveland, Ohio, and I say you're full of shit. That's what I believe. And those are the way others talked about us that sort of prove everything you and I have been talking about, which is, oh, wow. You guys, you made this real. and that's how how we became inspired by sharing those stories over the years.

Jeffrey Stern [01:12:11]:

Wow. That that is fantastic. And I I do think maybe a a perfect place to to book it. Well, I'll ask you our traditional closing question, which is is is related to Cleveland. And it is for your favorite hidden gem for for something that other folks may not know about, but perhaps they should.

Mitch Kroll (Findaway) [01:12:31]:

This is something I started doing. My kids are in their twenties and thirties. So this is something I started doing when my kids were like, you know, five years old was Maybe my favorite hidden gem of Cleveland is Patterson's Food Farm. Mhmm. Picking apples, going in a wagon, or a tractor, and going to Paterson's to pick apples, does it get more Midwest, Cleveland, Ohio? And now when my kids come back in town, first thing they wanna do is, hey. Can we go to Patterson? Patterson's. On the east side in Chesterland Gates Mills area. If you haven't done it, it should be required parenting for every parent in Cleveland with with small kids or adult kids. Yeah. Apple picking, it it it works at at all ages. Yeah. And come on. You have there's oh my god. Tens of 1000 of trees out there. It's always been one of our favorite fan. I love fall. It's a great fall activity to do with your kids.

Jeffrey Stern [01:13:33]:

a perfect hidden gem there. Mitch, I just wanna thank you again. This was an awesome conversation, and I I really appreciate you taking the time. Yeah. This was fun. Thanks. I I I had a lot of fun, and good luck. I love what you're doing

Mitch Kroll (Findaway) [01:13:47]:

with the podcast and keep up the great work. Thank you. If if people had anything they wanted to follow-up with you about, what would be the the best way for them to do so? Best way to get me nowadays is on LinkedIn. that's probably from a business standpoint. It's LinkedIn. You know, hit me up there, and then we could go offline and, you know, connect or somehow get involved and and talk to each other. Let's start there. Right on. Well, thank you again, Mitch. Great. Thanks, Jeffrey. This is awesome.

Jeffrey Stern [01:14:16]:

That's all for this week. Thank you for listening. We'd love to hear your thoughts on today's show. So if you have any feedback, please send over an mail to jeffrey@lay of the land dot f m, or find us on Twitter at podlay of the land or at sternjefe, jefe. If you or someone you know would make good guess for our show, please reach out as well and let us know. And if you enjoy the podcast, please subscribe and leave a review on iTunes or on your preferred podcast player. Your support goes a long way to help us spread the word and continue to bring the Cleveland Founders and Builders we love having on the show. We'll be back here next week at the same time to map more of the land.