#200: Andy Tran (Arthur Street Ventures) — A Modern Renaissance Man

Andy Tran [00:00:00]:
The world is big and all of us are little specks of dust in the universe. Like, you have to go out there and experience things. Not to brag, not to put it in a list and show people or put it in a resume. Just go out there and authentically experience them. And, hey, I mean, it makes for a good conversation. For me, it's also about being able to relate back to people no matter what their situation or livelihood is or job or anything like that. I think it allows me to relate to people a lot more. Going through all these things and going through all these different adventures and seeing the different lives that people lead for better or for worse or whatever it may be.

Andy Tran [00:00:40]:
And I've seen both extremes, you know. And so I think for myself, it just gives me that ability to know where I fall in the world rather than, hey, I'm gonna go experience in the world because I want to be on top of it. I'm like, no, I want to go experience it because I want to understand where I'm at within it.

Jeffrey Stern [00:00:59]:
Let's discover what people are building in the Greater Cleveland community. We are telling the stories of Northeast Ohio's entrepreneurs, builders, 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 Andy Tran. Andy has lived more lives than just about anybody that I know. He is a serial entrepreneur who has started multiple businesses across technology, ammunition manufacturing, defense contracting, tequila, amongst many other industries. Andy is a true modern renaissance man whose path defies convention and is a testament to his deep curiosity, creativity, ability to execute, and ultimately, his humility. He's alpine mountaineered in Patagonia and Tierra del Fuego, living out of the back of a truck, spent months in the interior of Alaska guiding caribou and moose hunting, driving jet boats for Discovery Channel. He was embedded with the special mission units and anti poaching task forces in South Africa and Kruger National Park, in addition to being embedded with the Ecuadorian special forces, tasked with hunting narco submarines in the Amazon jungle.

Jeffrey Stern [00:02:20]:
He was a professional MMA fighter, ending with an undefeated record of 6 zero, in addition to helping start and lead Beta Academy DC, an MMA gym located in Washington DC. He helped start an architectural practice with his uncle when he was just 18 and led the firm to a multimillion dollar enterprise. Recently, he joined fellow Cleveland entrepreneur and renaissance man, Nick Dadas, who we heard from on Lay of the Land back on episode 158. Andy joined Nick as chief marketing officer of SISU Lifestyle. And the list truly goes on. It is hard to designate Andy with one label or another. But to ground our conversation today, Andy is the founder of Arthur Street Ventures, a Cleveland based venture design studio and holding company focused on developing, incubating, and providing seed and early stage capital to companies operating in the media, defense, consumer packaged goods, alcohol and spirits, cannabis, and apparel sectors. Please enjoy this wide ranging and awesome conversation with Andy Tran.

Jeffrey Stern [00:03:25]:
Lay of the Land is brought to you by Impact Architects and by 90. As we share the stories of entrepreneurs building incredible organizations in Cleveland and throughout Northeast Ohio, Impact Architects has helped hundreds of those leaders, many of whom we have heard from as guests on this very podcast, realize their own visions and build these great organizations. 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 consultation or provide a free trial through 90, the software platform that helps teams build great companies. If you're interested in learning more about partnering with Impact Architects or by leveraging 90 to power your own business, please go to ia.layoftheland.fm. The link will also be in our show notes. So I was thinking about where to start our conversation today, and I found it was it was kinda particularly hard, I I think, because you you have seemingly lived many lifetimes in your your life thus far. And I was reflecting when we had kind of first met, and I heard a bit about your story.

Jeffrey Stern [00:04:44]:
How I felt coming away from it was, I mean, candidly, genuinely inspired by the humility that you exuded with all that you have accomplished. So I I kinda wanted to start with what I'd frame as, like, a call to adventure, knowing that this call seems to be quite strong within you and you, you know, a certain gumption fit for it. What comes to mind when you think about the call to adventure and how it's manifested in in your life?

Andy Tran [00:05:09]:
Sure. That's a great question, Jeff. And first of all, thank you for having me. I think it's very much a fun experience here, and I don't get out much. So this has been something very out of the ordinary for me, but I appreciate your time as always. But in terms of adventure, you know, looking back on my life, I feel like it has been an adventure in itself every single day. And I believe that how I grew up, my childhood or lack thereof in childhood has really caused me to look at life a little bit differently than some people would going into their thirties. I would say that I treat every day as such and adventure is relative.

Andy Tran [00:05:50]:
Right. Somebody that's never been out of their hometown would see driving 2 hours to the city as an adventure. Right. Or somebody that is traveling around the world. Well, maybe the adventure is going to their local coffee shop. So I think for me, it's really just cherishing everything that life has to offer, big or small. Little bit more resources or risk or might be something out of the norm. But I guess the norm can also be relative.

Andy Tran [00:06:19]:
Right. Because if I'm traveling to some part of the country or Africa or something like that, the people that live there, that's the norm to them. Right. And they might see me as, oh, well, this is an adventure. That's weird. Well, this is just my everyday life. So I think the call of adventures may just really seeking out what piqued my curiosity. And over the years, that has just really taken a path of its own.

Andy Tran [00:06:41]:
I really try to be open minded and try to explore as much as I can and really look at adventure as a way for myself to learn rather than to experience. Right. I think the learning comes first. And then once you get back and you really think about your learning, your your adventure, then I think the experience kind of comes a little bit after it's almost like you distill everything after and you're like, wow, that was truly a really great experience. I think if you go and directly say, I want to experience that, I feel like you start to build up some type of expectation in your head and then your experience might be a little bit different rather than just going there to say, hey. I'm I'm here. I have no clue what's gonna happen. And let me just experience it for the first time and then think about it later.

Andy Tran [00:07:27]:
So I I don't know if that makes sense or not.

Jeffrey Stern [00:07:29]:
Yeah. It does. I'll run with it a bit. One of the questions I I think a lot about it, specifically in the context of this podcast here, is, you know, the thread that ties a person's career together. Personally, it's very hard to, like, presciently connect all the dots in in your career and life in advance, of knowing what they are. But in retrospect, I think you can identify and and delineate this connective path that does tie it together. And when I thought about this through the context of what I've been aware in in your career, you know, across architecture, real estate, technology, alcohol, spirits, defense and munitions, media, gyms, the list goes on, and and we'll we'll talk about some of those. But I I like that framing of curiosity as as a compass as you've kinda guided yourself through it.

Jeffrey Stern [00:08:17]:
But what have you thought about that thread?

Andy Tran [00:08:20]:
I have no idea. And to this day, I feel like my curiosity kinda leads me to each and every day. I I try not to go into a month or even any type of deal or venture with a preconceived notion of what it's going to be like. I think that kind of avoids the experience of it. And also sometimes because I'm industry agnostic, it does truly help to not really know anything about it because then you truly come in and start asking a lot of hard questions that sometimes people don't want to hear. And it's not coming in and asking these questions as something that you're nitpicking or you're you're trying to challenge anybody. It's just out of genuine curiosity. And I feel like when I go into a venture or any type of opportunity and I want to learn, I feel like people are way more receptive to me being brand agnostic or me not having the experience in that industry.

Andy Tran [00:09:11]:
So I feel like that curiosity has really tied itself over from my personal life into my my professional life.

Jeffrey Stern [00:09:19]:
And maybe as a a way to paint a picture of how your curiosity has evolved, take us through a bit the kind of arc of of your career because it's it's really quite fascinating.

Andy Tran [00:09:30]:
Yeah. Absolutely. So I think really my career without even knowing it, I feel like, you know, entrepreneurship or whatever the the buzzword nowadays for somebody owning a business or starting a business. It really started when I was young. I know that kind of sounds a little cliche, but I would say that my experience began as a young boy, not in the fashion that most entrepreneurs would probably come up. Right. Childhood. It's it's a it was a tough one.

Andy Tran [00:10:04]:
But I do think that my experiences that I went through as a kid really started to inform that curiosity and the self sufficiency that I have. And because I was left to my own devices, well, as a 5, 6 year old, 7 year old with no parents around wandering around the city, you naturally just get curious and you learn to make a buck here and there. And it's just something that drew me to experiencing life in a very different manner and not really having the fear of failure. And so with that being said, in my twenties, I think that my childhood really started to inform that kind of fearlessness. Right. I really didn't fear failure or being broke or missing out on opportunities. I just kind of went to my own drum, I guess. And so in college, it was really where I started to hit my stride.

Andy Tran [00:10:57]:
And part of that survivability that I was talking about, I paid my myself through college. I worked for jobs really because I didn't have a choice. Right. I didn't couldn't take out loans, didn't really have anybody to undersign me. So it was, hey, I want to do this. I got to figure out a way. Well, I got to go work for jobs. But with that being said, it led me to really carving out work ethic for myself and just being accountable for my own destiny.

Andy Tran [00:11:25]:
And so in college, I went to school for architecture And the curriculum there, unknown to me at the time, was very conducive to the skills of entrepreneurship. You learn how to do everything yourself. You learn how to build a prototype. You learn how to pitch people. That's something that you learn from the 1st day is you tell people, hey, this is a building or this is an idea. This is what it's going to take. These are all the tangible steps. And then you have to have all the skills to do that.

Andy Tran [00:11:52]:
Right. You learn Photoshop. You learn how to edit videos. You learn how to

Jeffrey Stern [00:11:55]:
create a logo for yourself. And back

Andy Tran [00:11:55]:
then it was just school. But now I look back on it. I'm like, wow, you know, And back then it was a school. But now I look back on, I'm like, wow, that was really good that I learned all those things. And so architecture was really my first step of discovering the process of having an idea and having it come to life. And that was essentially the first few businesses I was involved in. I was very fortunate to have an uncle that's like a father to me, and he started on his own entrepreneurship journey as an architect. And we started an architecture firm in DC.

Andy Tran [00:12:28]:
And at the same time, I was fighting. I was an MMA fighter, and my head coach was also headed on his entrepreneurship journey. He had quit his job as a forensics accountant to start a gym. And to this day, it is the largest MMA gym in DC called Beta Academy. And as an 18 year old at the time, I had a front row seat on 2 fronts, the gym and the architecture firm, on what it was to start a business and have accountabilities and pay yourself something. Right. And it was me, my head coach on the gym side and then my uncle, my other uncle, and then me on the architecture side. So there really wasn't any type of hiding.

Andy Tran [00:13:07]:
Right. That really started the entrepreneurship journey. It led us to create a very successful business from an architectural standpoint as well as a general standpoint as well. But with that curiosity, I think growing those 2 businesses to a good point, I started to dabble in other things. And I had the opportunity to go on an elk hunt in Montana. And the idea for my first venture that I created, drop camp came from that elk hunt. And I had flown all the way to Montana. I planned this whole thing.

Andy Tran [00:13:41]:
I hiked 16 miles into the backcountry and I forgot my fuel canister. And so I thought to myself, sitting there with no heat, I was like, man, there has to be a way or some type of service for an urbanite like myself to just know what he or she is doing going into that country of Montana. And so when I was on my way back to DC, I had met these lawyers, and they had just come from a fly fishing trip. And we were just talking, and they said, wow. You planned that trip all by yourself? Did you use a service? Like, how did you do that? And that really got the idea going for a drop camp, which I started with no coding experience, and I was able to sell it to a company 9 9 months in. And so that really gave me the spark. That was the way somebody just paid me for 9 months of work. And this check is probably more than I would have made in a couple of years.

Andy Tran [00:14:34]:
And so that was really the first light bulb moment for startups and ventures and that reward of, wow, I went in curious about this business idea, and here it is. It came to fruition and somebody paid me for it. So that in itself is pretty much how I started my career in venture building.

Jeffrey Stern [00:14:54]:
Yeah. Well, I feel like the question that the lawyers had asked you is the perennial one that I could ask you about, you know, the whole rest of your career, which is like, wait. You did what? How did you do that? I mean, even just there in passing from the Alcon to, you know, you mentioned your time as a as a fighter. But, you know, not not just like a casual pursuit, like a trained MMA fighter, you know, with an undefeated record. I kinda wanna, like, capture the the spirit of this curiosity you have, this, call it, like, lack of fear of failure, and just kind of get at your mentality about, you know, risk generally as we approach some of the actual companies that that you've built here?

Andy Tran [00:15:35]:
You know, risk is probably a word that I use every single day, probably more times than anybody would wanna hear. But how I've looked at it in the past couple of years of my life is there's inherent risk in everything you do. Right? I could literally get off this call and walk into the hallway or walk out into the street and I get hit by a freighter or something. Or or I'm walking the dog and I slip and I hit my head and I die. Right. That there's inherent risk every single day that you wake up. And so for me, it's it's really been about accepting that risk and that fear. And there is fear and risk.

Andy Tran [00:16:11]:
There is wow. You know, there is a possibility that I'm going to fail or even when I was mountain climbing. Yeah, there's this skin slipping and falling down this mountain. But for me, the reward is something that you just have to manage against those risks. Right. And so when it comes to venture building, sure, there's inherent risk in anything. But if you're comfortable and you can mitigate that fear, the extra mile is always a little bit lonelier and less crowded. Right.

Andy Tran [00:16:36]:
So for me, it's been about, Okay, I really like this thing. And whether it's a pursuit or a hobby or a venture, you look at it from a risk perspective. And if I'm able to outweigh the risk with the reward, that's something that I definitely would go for. Now that that's changed. Now that I have a family, a wife and things like that, the risk tolerance is a little bit lower, but still pretty high. And that's just because I've had a lot of different scenarios where I've had to manage a lot of risk, and that's just something that you just get used to.

Jeffrey Stern [00:17:11]:
Well, there are many things that I'm curious about here, but one of them is identifying all these opportunities across a diverse set of industries and honing in on, you know, what is the the problem to be solved, and what you've taken as, like, extensible learnings across all the businesses that you've built and developed to each, like, subsequent undertaking, and how you've kind of viewed your entrepreneurial skill set growing in time?

Andy Tran [00:17:38]:
I think the connecting thread that I've seen across the different ventures and opportunities is what I call just the 5 p's, and this isn't my coin or I'm like, oh, it's my 5 p process. But it's just something that I always have as a checklist for myself. People, processes, patents or protection, passion and product. And I know some people might be like, wow, that is totally just a very chaotic due diligence process there. But for me, there's always time for due diligence. There's always time to look over data rooms. But those 5 piece for me, from a gut check perspective, if those 5 are checked off, you know, typically that venture will most likely succeed. You have a really good product.

Andy Tran [00:18:20]:
You have a pattern or some type of protection or moat around it. Right. It's truly unique. There's scalability, there's processes or the likelihood of them. You have the right people and then you have passion. I think those things combined together, 1 mitigate risk. Right. You mitigate that tremendously.

Andy Tran [00:18:41]:
And then alongside that, I mean, you just learned that of those 5, I mean, you could change that across many different industries. Right? But at the end of the day, it's X's and O's, right? You just have to look at it that way. Somebody selling ammo is versus somebody creating or distilling tequila. It might seem very different, but there's still somebody that has to implement some type of process. Right. There's still a product involved. There's still manufacturing. There's still logistics.

Andy Tran [00:19:11]:
There's still marketing and sales. And so I think really distilling the depth, pun intended, distilling it down to the foundations. Okay, look, regardless if we're selling water or we are building heaters, the foundational skills are all the same. Where is this water being distilled? What is the water content? How does it differ from one brand to the next? What makes it taste like that? Is it iron? Is it calcium? Where is it from? What drives the supply of ice mountain water versus aquafina? You know, is there a guy that is like a water expert? And you just have to ask those same questions. Right. With every industry. And so I think the common thread is that you just have to go in and just learn and leave no rock and turn because if you go in and you say, well, I've done this for another industry and so it must be the same, you're probably going to fail. Right? So I say the common thread is just learning and acknowledging that there are people that are subject matter experts, and chances are you're probably not the subject matter expert, and you need to go find them.

Jeffrey Stern [00:20:16]:
So by way of illustration, and maybe we take, you know, the the tequila business as an example for this one, How do you actually go about getting started? You know, like, the beginner's mindset, what did it take to understand, you know, from origin through, you know, someone pouring a shot with lime? What does it take to build this product and bring it to market with distribution and a brand at scale in an industry you've never operated in before?

Andy Tran [00:20:44]:
It's time. Time is a resource that you just can't replace. Right? And it's it's something that you can neither really speed up or slow down. It's something that you just you just can't no matter how much money you throw out or whatever. Tequila in a barrel, you can't sit there and throw dollars out and say, hey, age faster, age faster. Like it's you. Maybe you can, quote unquote, make it age faster, but you're going to do it in a disingenuous way and it's probably not going to taste as good as you would think. So time is that thing that I feel like truly is a differentiator in in that origin is like if you take the time to create the product, you take the time to learn, you take the time to build the team.

Andy Tran [00:21:29]:
You know, those are all things that truly help things come to life. And yes, you can probably rush things or raise money to expedite growth or scale or grow a team much faster. However, that might not speed things up into terms of time. It might just speed things up in terms of progress or milestones. But you don't have the right people in place or the right tools or resources or product money or people are just going to expedite your failures or expedite your your successes. Right. So I feel like time has always been that key item in everything. And even with the founders and my business partners that I work with, you know, the common thread there is they've taken their time.

Andy Tran [00:22:13]:
They've never really just rushed to get things done. You know, Drake screws my business partner on the tequila side. You know, before I got involved, he was working on this since 2014. So he's, like, almost 10 years in on this. And, the product speaks for itself and the relationships he's built over that time. And and you you just can't replace that.

Jeffrey Stern [00:22:34]:
How do you describe what you're working on today to people?

Andy Tran [00:22:40]:
One that my wife is just always shaking. And if she was when she'd shake her head because she's like she's like, I just don't know what to tell people when people ask me what to do. But at the office, we were joking that we call it a I'm a venture man and not like a superhero or anything like that. It's kind of like the oil industry has what's called the land man. Right? It's the the guy that just drives down every single dirt road in Texas and he knocks on farm doors and say, hey, I like your patch of dirt. I think there's oil under there and I just need to have you sign this lease and, you know, I'll make you deal if there's some oil. You might strike out for 99 holes. Right? Being a land man, but it just takes that one that strikes oil.

Andy Tran [00:23:21]:
And once it does, you bring in everybody. You manage everybody. And there's actually a show called Land Man by Taylor Sheridan. But it perfectly kind of describes the job. Right? You're just like, I just find the patch of dirt and I think that there's something hidden under here. I just got to bring in all the right people to to draw it up. So in essence, that's kind of what I've I've leaned into is, yeah, I'm just a venture builder. I'm a venture man.

Andy Tran [00:23:49]:
And some things don't pan out, some do, but hopefully, the name of the game is is I'm right more than I'm wrong.

Jeffrey Stern [00:23:57]:
Yeah. It's why I thought to ground the conversation in in adventure because it it just felt apt. So I know you can't get too into the weeds on, you know, some of the enterprises and work you've done pertaining to defense. But I I did wanna kinda ask about this industry because I found it quite fascinating to observe the whole national perspective shift quite drastically on it over the last few years. And I think stemming from this, call it, you know, recognition of America's national security requiring a robust industrial base, and that as we've hollowed that out after World War 2 and the time since, We're at a place where we are less readily, you know, able to produce the things that we need. You know? And it takes decades to deliver new weapon systems at scale. Our ability to service existing systems has has certainly waned, and and we have, you know, a dearth of of certain supplies and and munitions. And I think also I've come to this realization of our our dependence on, you know, who you could conceive to be, you know, adversarial in some regard for, you know, supplementing our our shortcomings on all those fronts.

Jeffrey Stern [00:25:11]:
You know, what's your take on on where the American defense industry base is today? And we'll start there and kinda explore, you know, what what you've kinda done in the space sense.

Andy Tran [00:25:21]:
Sure. Well, man, that's a super packed question. I love it because more people should be asking that question, one, out of curiosity, but also out of a genuine worry for the state of national security. Very timely because there's been all these drone sightings and everything like that. You actually another timely venture that we spun up last year. But the state of the MIC or the MIC or the military industrial complex, as we call it in the industry, is really tough. Ever since the G1 or Great War on Terror has spun down and we got out of Afghanistan, the industry is in a little bit of a limbo right now. Right.

Andy Tran [00:26:01]:
We are not directly fighting a war, but we are fueling and funding some of them. Ukraine being an example. Right. Some proxy wars or fighting the Houthis or even the psyops wars, battles that we have with China and Russia. That's a constant threat. And how we mitigate those threats throughout the military industrial complex and the geopolitical scene here, it varies. So one of our defense contracting companies is focused on counter UAS. And we have different types of solutions for for drone incursions or literally an FPV with a payload or an RPG strapped to it is flying towards somebody.

Andy Tran [00:26:45]:
Right. Which you've seen and everybody has seen unfold on the Ukrainian front. And to give you an idea, we spun up ADK applied defense kinetics last year in response to this threat. And we still have folks and I'm going to try to be very careful about what I'm saying here. But we have certain folks that are still questioning, do we really need the solution that you're providing? It's like, well, you can open any type of social media and see the 100 of lives of guys that are being blown up by a $100 Chinese drone with with a RPG strapped on it. Right. I mean, it's becoming such a threat. And the United States and the different branches and departments really don't know how to deal with it, which is on the news literally today.

Andy Tran [00:27:35]:
Right. You could probably see it on the nightly news now. The Senate hearings and, hey, what do we do about these drone incursions? Who are they? What's going on? How do we fight it? And so, that's a recurring theme, not just in drone warfare, but submarines. I mean, I think it's probably takes us 30 years to create, you know, a summary or build a summary from scratch right now. Don't quote me on the actual time. I'm just using as an example. But you could go on YouTube and hear some of these senate hearings, a recent one being a coast guard commander saying, this is unacceptable. Our readiness level as a country, it's gonna take us 10 years right now to build 1 coastal interceptor boat.

Andy Tran [00:28:12]:
One coast guard boat. 10 years. Right? So you think about that and you're like, okay. So if we needed a a 100 boats, how long is that gonna take us? Right? And a 100 boats is not a lot. It's very interesting, but I know that there's a lot of good companies and good people out there that share this charge to have our nation and our allies ready for these threats. And it's such a cool industry. Yes. You can.

Andy Tran [00:28:40]:
You have folks that will probably see, oh, you know, you guys are murderers or you guys are in this, you know, this industry of death. But we don't see it that way. You know, we really do see it as well. You know, it's it's really us protecting the interest and and the people of our country and other countries. And if you look at it that way, it's it's a little bit different.

Jeffrey Stern [00:29:00]:
Yeah. How did you find your path to this industry?

Andy Tran [00:29:04]:
Oh, that's a meandering one. Well, it actually started with media, of all things. You know, I had started with a contract to work on a show with the Discovery Channel, and I was brought in when I was an architect as a favor to work on the show to manage the logistics of a show in Alaska and just got really good at it. Had a knack for being in very interesting places with not a lot of resources and just figuring it out. So I was Probably had no business running a jet boat in the interior of Alaska, but I was running up and down rivers, delivering fuel and working with the crew and guiding and all this stuff. And when I got back to D. C, timing had it that the combat camera units in the DOD were struck from the budget. So they naturally had to find contractors to still keep up media and the advertising needs and the communication needs of the different branches.

Andy Tran [00:30:07]:
And there weren't that many people on the list of folks that they call could survive austere environments. Right? The DoD loves to hit austere. And so I got the call and they said, hey, we're working on a couple of campaigns with some of our special mission units. We don't really know who to reach out to because this is such a niche thing. We heard that you were working with the Discovery Channel near one of our Air Force bases. Would love for you to kind of take a look at this. And so I had some connections in the defense contracting world that taught me how to go down that route. Write proposals, RFPs, talk to contracting officers and started to develop a knack on marketing and developing these contracts for weapon systems.

Andy Tran [00:30:57]:
And I worked on some really, really fun ones, some fire control systems, some boats, you know, just some general weapons and munitions. And that really led me to finding and kind of developing a formula on how to win contracts. And so naturally, when I had the opportunity to be in the ammunition industry, I said, well, I don't really know anything about ammunition, but I do know how to win contracts. So this could be similar. And that's that's just how I got into the industry. But I do have a love for it. You know, I think as a kid, I've always loved the military, loved guns, loved tanks and boats and all of that. So this is a I would say 10 year old Andy is is definitely in awe of of what what I'm doing today.

Andy Tran [00:31:47]:
That's for sure.

Jeffrey Stern [00:31:48]:
Yeah. Well, with all that context for this work, I'm specifically interested in understanding how you've brought what I would call the, you know, velocity of startups to deliver at scale in an industry that I think is somewhat notoriously known for how slow and encumbered it moves, at least in the wake of this kind of hollowing out of the industrial base.

Andy Tran [00:32:13]:
Mhmm. It's interesting because the velocity has really come from from us developing kind of a back of napkin formula to getting to market very quickly. And for us, it's it's all about playing offense. Right? You can control your velocity much better when you're on offense because when you're on defense, you're trying to react and you're trying to really play at the speed of other variables. So for us, if we identify a thesis or some inkling of a product need, we go in and we kick down the door. Right. And if we're wrong, we slowly back out of that door and we're like, okay, wrong door to kick down. Let's go take it down.

Andy Tran [00:32:53]:
And so, you know, the fear of us being wrong is, you know, we typically try to mitigate that risk. But typically it's when we feel strongly about it and it checks out from a gut perspective and a due diligence perspective. Time to market is within 6 months. Right. So for us, we definitely jumped we feel like for what works for us, typically we're able to develop a much better product because we engage the customers for feedback way, way faster instead of, hey, let's spend 2, 3 years developing a product that we think is going to be awesome. And then you get it to market and they're like, this is not awesome. This is 2, 3 years back in technology. So for us, it's, hey, reach out to so and so and this think tank and these potential customers and these users.

Andy Tran [00:33:42]:
Let's give them the, you know, the most crude prototype possible. Let's build that MVP within 2, 3 months and just just get it in their hands. Have them grip it, grip it. And within 6 to 9 months, we have the next iteration, next iteration. And I think the progress of that with those early adopters, they become your first customers very easily because they know for a fact that their feedback was incorporated along this journey. Right. And you do that within a year. Well, that's much better result than developing something for 2, 3 years and then handing something off for feedback for the first time.

Andy Tran [00:34:20]:
And then you have to have another year of feedback. Right. So it's us just getting things to a state where people are very curious and you lean on curiosity and you you welcome them in. And their curiosity then starts to fuel your development.

Jeffrey Stern [00:34:37]:
What have you learned about building and curating and cultivating brands? What what's your brand philosophy?

Andy Tran [00:34:47]:
People. 100%. People. People. People. People. You know, people. And your brand is a brand, but it has to have people behind it because people attach themselves to other people and the aspirations of of others.

Andy Tran [00:35:00]:
Right. A brand is just a brand and a product. But unless it's out there living in the world or has a use case or is out there being used, it's just a logo. Right? So I think the brand is really the community and the people that use your product and what they eventually say about your your company, which then turns into your brand. Right? I think for us, it's always been about finding those individuals that will fly that brand flag, so to speak. And the sales come a lot easier. The product development comes a lot easier because people trust you. They know that you want to develop products for them, for their communities.

Andy Tran [00:35:37]:
And I think when you're building a successful brand, it's all about identifying who those people are and genuinely building around them rather than building around yourself or building around a product and trying to stuff it down their throat. Right. And say, hey, here's my brand, here's my product. You have to love it. You take, for example, Yeti. Right. Multiple different industries. But their thing is built for the wild.

Andy Tran [00:36:01]:
That's their slogan. And so they really start to unify that core individual, regardless of pursuit on this love of the outdoors or love of just the wild itself. It doesn't have to be the outdoors. And so that's their brand. And as you can see, they're publicly traded companies, so they're probably one of the case studies of great brand building. But at the end of the day, that brand started with a problem, which was Roy and Ryan trying to just find something to fish on. And they built it around the feedback and the community of of of those people as well. Right.

Andy Tran [00:36:36]:
They they opened up to those folks, the whole hook and bullet crowd. And naturally, that's how they formed that brand. So for me, the brand building should and is always about people.

Jeffrey Stern [00:36:48]:
How do you articulate what your ambition is? What are you seeking to accomplish?

Andy Tran [00:36:56]:
Oh, man. That's a $1,000,000 question right there. I ask myself that every day in the mirror. I think for myself, ambition and success and all those words really has a different meaning for me. I wouldn't say I'm an ambitious person. I am a curious person and I'm a person that loves to learn and loves to build. The movement that I generate from that love can possibly be seen as ambition. But I don't wake up every day and say, man, I am just super ambitious about creating a $1,000,000,000 company.

Andy Tran [00:37:27]:
Right? I think my curiosity in what I'm doing, hey, if it leads that one day, that's that's awesome. You know, but I don't have many ambitions to do something that I can write down in a journal and say, I need to get to this or I need to get to that. I think if I'm authentic, if I'm myself, if I'm building the right things with the right people, those ambitions just kinda naturally formulate and come true. And I try to live every day to and be very, happy with with what I succeed in that day. And those days add up into weeks and those weeks add up into years. And so for me, it's really about cherishing everything I'm doing in the current moment. There's somebody that I spoke to and has functioned as a mentor to a group, group, but he said, don't drive the Ferrari in your head. Just enjoy the ride in the car that you have now.

Andy Tran [00:38:15]:
And that should be something that you're really glad about. Like, stop thinking about tomorrow because you can't live in tomorrow. You can try to plan it and you can try to make some plans or whatever it may be. But if you're not living in the present, that future might not happen. I guess if there was an ambition, it's to be happy and be just glad that I have another day to pursue what I wanna pursue.

Jeffrey Stern [00:38:39]:
Yeah. Yeah. It certainly resonates. I'll double click on that one a bit and kind of ask how you balance your curiosity about, you know, the world and how it works and your desire to to learn more about it with the vision that is in place, for example, you know, Arthur Street Ventures and the the impact that you are hoping to drive with these organizations that you're building. And, again, tying in the 5 p's, if you will, from earlier, you know, like, what is the vision that you have painted for what you would like to accomplish with these organizations? And how do you balance it against your, ever changing curiosity about things?

Andy Tran [00:39:21]:
To be quite honest, I can't credit myself with Arthur Street Ventures or even the formality of the process. I have to credit and I'll shout them out. UBG Law, Elmer and Bernie, I guess, Elmer and Bernie and Greensfeld are now. But our corporate attorney, Lear there actually had like an intervention with me. Right. And my business partner, Drake, and he sat us down and said, okay, what you guys are doing is cool. It's fun. You guys are kind of just going and doing these things as you please.

Andy Tran [00:39:53]:
And it's clearly successful. But you guys should really start to formalize some of this stuff and start to come up with a process and not just from an administrative standpoint, but from a legality perspective, liability, accounting principles, things like that. So I would say that that curiosity has been backed by a very good structure. And so for us, it's, you know, I'm very fortunate that we have great teams that have the patience to deal with me and my meandering crazy ideas. However, that curiosity should always be backed by execution and actionable items because as as you know, you know, working in venture, Jeffrey, ideas are a dime a dozen. Right? Everybody says, oh, I had that idea 10 years ago. I had the idea for a computer called Pear, not Apple and shoulda, woulda, coulda, or, oh, yeah. I had the idea to invest in the Bitcoin, you know, back in 2013.

Andy Tran [00:40:48]:
It's like, okay, well, did you do it? You did it. Right. So, ideas are are great, but learning how to execute and bring them to life is a whole different story. So the balance of curiosity with me is, can it be achieved? And is there some actionable task or actionable next step to seeing this idea to fruition? And, hey, trust me, I've got a whole moleskin notebook full of stupid ideas next to my bed. But do most of them get or see the light of day? No. Because some of them are great ideas. And then I go to see if it can come to life. And it's like, okay, yeah, this can't come to life or this just isn't possible, which is okay.

Andy Tran [00:41:29]:
You know? But I think the process of always generating these ideas and going through that exercise of, okay, curiosity generated an idea. Okay. Does this idea can work? Does it have some life? Yes. Okay. Boom. It goes to the next

Jeffrey Stern [00:41:43]:
phase. How do you test if it has life?

Andy Tran [00:41:46]:
For me, it's about seeking out some subject subject matter experts in relatively the the same sphere as that idea. So let's let's just use water. Right. I have an idea for, I don't know, some type of new bottle or water bottle system. Well, you know, for me, maybe I don't really know how the manufacturing of water bottles is or even how what that entails. But I can start to look at, okay, well, what kind of plastics or metals or materials are used in a plastic bottle? You know, I'll go out to Walmart or wherever and buy all all the bottles I can, cut them up, you know, see if there is some opportunity there. And then I look and say, okay. Well, what's in these bottles? Water.

Andy Tran [00:42:34]:
Okay, well, what do I know about water? You know, what types of things go into this thing? So for me, it usually starts with this. Just me just literally going in and seeing what's out in the market and identifying if there are some gaps. And if there is a gap, then no matter how small or how big, I try to squeeze through it. And if there is an opportunity to move it forward from there, that's when we really bring some formality to it. But I would say 9 times out of 10, I kill my own ideas. That's probably for the better because I feel like I'd I'd go down a total rabbit hole if I did it.

Jeffrey Stern [00:43:08]:
What's peaked your curiosity most recently? What are you most excited about?

Andy Tran [00:43:15]:
Nothing and everything. I I I'm genuinely someone that, you know, Jeffrey, if you came to me and said, hey, I I'm building a venture and I'm creating a new table salt. Like, I'm going to go home that night and learn everything there is about table salt. Right. And where the mines are and how salt is extracted and what the differences are between Celtic salt, Himalayan pink sea salt and regular Martins. For me, there really is no industry or product that I would say, wow, I'm super curious about it. I think myself, I'm just genuinely curious in everything. So are there other industries that are quote unquote more fun? Sure.

Andy Tran [00:44:00]:
But there's there's fun in a lot of things that people find boring too, like table salt. I don't know if that's the answer to your question, but I I wish I had an answer for it.

Jeffrey Stern [00:44:11]:
No. I'd I'd that's the answer. That's fine. Now let's talk about Cleveland, I guess, for for a bit here. You know? What what was your path to Cleveland? What what has it meant to you in in your journey thus far? Just thoughts, reflections on where we are.

Andy Tran [00:44:24]:
I love Cleveland. I will say that first. I am not a native Clevelander. I'm not quite sure if I have my Clevelander card yet because I still have to, like, GPS everywhere I I go. We've been, like, within 5 minutes of my house. And I still don't know what the good restaurants are in the city. But I moved here at the end of 2018. My wife is a lifelong Clevelander.

Andy Tran [00:44:47]:
Her family has built a few successful businesses here in Cleveland proper. They were in the steel and aluminum business for many years, and they had a big hand in building the city. And so for them, it was like Cleveland was always home. And me being from DC, growing up in DC all my life, I never really understood, like, why do people love Cleveland so much? You know, like, what's going on in Cleveland? But when I moved here, I was like, wow, this is amazing. Like, people are so nice. The Midwest nice is a thing. And people are so genuinely interested. And, you know, in DC, I felt like everybody always had an agenda, even if they said hi.

Andy Tran [00:45:27]:
But here, I think the relationships and the people are amazing. You know, to bring it back to your original question, my wife and her family or our family brought us here. And we had the opportunity, when we exited the architecture industry and and sold our first business, I always made the promise to her that she could be a stay at home mom. And, you know, I guess as a 26 year old then she said, okay, let's do it. Like, I'm super pregnant. We're about to have our first kid. It's now or never. So moving from D.

Andy Tran [00:46:02]:
C. To Cleveland with an 8 month old pregnant wife is ill advised, but it brought us here. It truly actually helped my curiosity a little bit because I, I landed in Cleveland and I said, okay, I have no clue what to do now as a career. Right. And I I don't want to get back into real estate. I don't want to do architecture again. The 9 months I spent in tech, I am not a tech guy. So this was the perfect place to start fresh.

Andy Tran [00:46:32]:
And ever since then, I just have come to know the people, the ventures, the companies, everything going on in the city. And I just really fell in love with it. So I hope that Cleveland can adopt me here pretty soon. But I'm very bullish on the city and everybody building here, such as yourself. And I'm I'm extremely inspired by by the ecosystem that's being built here on the venture side. So it's something that I want to, truly and genuinely help help grow, you know, in whatever fashion. But, Cleveland has been something that it's, it's very near and dear to my heart now. Whereas, if you ask me that 6 years ago living in DC, I was like, I don't even know what to do in Cleveland.

Andy Tran [00:47:13]:
But now I'm just like, this is the best decision I've ever made in my life.

Jeffrey Stern [00:47:17]:
That's certainly how I feel about it. It also resonates a lot. Yeah. You know, and I don't even know that I fully feel like, an adopted Clevelander yet. Okay. But we can at least remedy the the restaurant situation. You know, we have 200 hidden gems here of, often restaurants that that folks have called out as as their favorite. So we'll get that your way.

Andy Tran [00:47:37]:
Love

Jeffrey Stern [00:47:38]:
that. We'll bookend here with a few ideas. The thing that came to mind, and I don't know the right way to phrase this question, but the semblance of of your experience in the modern era, to me, feels like what the the modern renaissance, you know, man would would aspire to to be like. And and I I mean that truly as a compliment. But, like, what's your perspective on the renaissance man I idea and that whole ideology and and kinda just the breadth of interest that that you have? Yeah. I'm just curious how that would resonate.

Andy Tran [00:48:09]:
You know, I think the term Renaissance man or, you know, like the the Dos Equis guy. Right? Or even a film called Walter Mitty back in the day. Right. With Ben Stiller. Or he's like going and doing all these adventures and writing it down on his resume. I think all of my experiences and everything that I've done and I'm very cognizant that they're very different. I don't think I ever went and did them because I wanted to put it on a resume or be that guy at a party. That's like, well, this is what I did.

Andy Tran [00:48:40]:
And I climbed Everest and I did all these awesome things because I'm super cool. Right. I think for me, it

Jeffrey Stern [00:48:46]:
was just did you climb Everest, by the way?

Andy Tran [00:48:48]:
No. No. I did not. I wish.

Jeffrey Stern [00:48:50]:
Because I would have believed it.

Andy Tran [00:48:51]:
Yeah. I'm just using that as an example. You know, climbing in Patagonia was amazing. It's probably the closest I'll get to climbing something like an Everest. But I really went through those experiences and enjoyed them because I felt like I needed to do it to really tell myself that I am using my blessings every day that I'm alive to experience the world and, to experience everybody in it. Right? And for me, I've just been super blessed to have those experiences come out as things that are out of the norm. I'm very cognizant of that. But I don't think I see things or adventures or things to that nature to be a Renaissance man.

Andy Tran [00:49:34]:
For me, it's it's just about how much can I soak in before I leave and just adding them to my my little treasure trove of memories? I have awesome ones. I think for myself, you know, those stories and my friends joke about it's called, I'm working on my dad lore. Right? Like the dad lore that I can tell my kids. But at the end of the day, I want to be able to tell my kids that I truly got out there. And I I tried to experience everything I could, not just for myself, but for my children, for their children, because I want them to say, like, hey, look, the world is big and you're you're all of us are little specks of dust in the universe. Like, you have to go out there and experience things. Not to brag, not to put it in a list and show people or put it in a resume. Just go out there and authentically experience them.

Andy Tran [00:50:24]:
And, hey, I mean, it makes for a good conversation. For me, it's also about being able to relate back to people no matter what their situation or, you know, livelihood is or job or or anything like that. I think it it allows me to relate to people a lot more. Going through all these things and going through all these different adventures and seeing the different lives that people lead for better or for worse or whatever it may be. And I've seen both extremes, you know, and so I think for myself, it it just gives me that ability to know where I fall in the world rather than, hey, I'm gonna go experience in the world because I wanna be on top of it. I'm like, no. I wanna go experience it because I wanna understand where I'm at within it.

Jeffrey Stern [00:51:08]:
It's a beautiful mentality. It really is. Is there something unsaid that you would like to express in reflection on any of this?

Andy Tran [00:51:16]:
You know, I I think maybe for myself, I didn't talk more about the amazing people and team members that I have every day. And I think for them, you know, being on this podcast feels much more alien or undeserved to me because they're really the reason why I get to do what I do. And my partners, you know, they're they've become my best friends and and people that I I cherish every day. And so if anything, I'd love to just say thank you to them. The team that works with me every day, all the clients, customers across different companies, that's something that I think think that I could have talked more about because they they deserve much more recognition than than I would. But again, I don't even know if I answered your question about any other question that I may have had. But here

Jeffrey Stern [00:52:05]:
we are.

Andy Tran [00:52:05]:
It's perfect.

Jeffrey Stern [00:52:07]:
Well, I I know, you know, at the onset, you mentioned it's this is not something that that you're accustomed to doing often. And so I'm just appreciative of your willingness to to come on and and share a bit of your your story and and thoughts on the journey and, you know, how all this stuff works.

Andy Tran [00:52:21]:
I love it. Well, Jeffrey, I I appreciate the time, and, I really appreciate the the really hard and awesome questions because sometimes I should ask myself more of those questions. But, thank you for the time, the platform that you're building and also just thanking you for doing what you do for for Ohio and the ventures and the startup ecosystem here. We definitely need more folks just just like yourselves asking these these amazing questions to other people outside of myself. So thank you for doing everything you do for Cleveland.

Jeffrey Stern [00:52:53]:
Well, it's it truly is my pleasure, but I appreciate that. We'll wrap it here with, with it, hopefully, an easy question.

Andy Tran [00:52:59]:
Okay.

Jeffrey Stern [00:53:00]:
But for a hidden gem in Cleveland, in in your time here, what what would you, wanna highlight as something that other folks may not know about, but perhaps they should?

Andy Tran [00:53:10]:
Oh, man. The team is gonna laugh at this. But Asiatown, missing my my mom's cooking from home. There's so many good pot shops. Like I love pho in Vietnamese. So the hidden gems of Asia town are awesome. Sometimes a little sketchy. You know, you go down and you're like, okay, this is am I really want to find good food here? But, no, it's it's a phenomenal food.

Andy Tran [00:53:31]:
And for me, it's when I walk through the door and they seem to be like, woah. Hey. It's it's another Asian guy. Like, who's lost? And I get to really talk to them about their stories and how they ended up in Cleveland, such as myself and and the food and everything. So the hidden gems are pretty much all over Asia town and funny enough, our office is right on the border of it. So a lot of hidden gems there for sure.

Jeffrey Stern [00:53:56]:
Awesome. I just wanna thank you again, Andy. Really appreciate you taking the time. It's it's my pleasure. Thanks, Jeffrey. 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 email to Jeffrey at layoftheland.fm, or find us on Twitter at podlayoftheland or @sternjefe, j e f e.

Jeffrey Stern [00:54:20]:
If you or someone you know would make a good guest 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.