How can you approach innovation and create new products or services when you face resource constraints?
We all have limited resources – even if you’re Apple or Google.
So how do you approach innovation and create new products or services when you have those constraints?
Davyeon Ross, co-founder of ShotTracker, has a great framework for innovating on a budget.
Davyeon also partners with RGA on Coalition Venture Studio, which aims to democratize access to capital, connections, education, and resources for underrepresented founders. Check it out and spread the word to your network.
🎬 Rather watch? Catch the video recording: https://bit.ly/36J85BR
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🗣 Have feedback? Connect with Scott Case on LinkedIn
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Scott Case 0:00
Welcome to Founders Focus, a podcast made for founders by founders. I'm Scott Case, CEO and co-founder of Upside, and we created Founders Focus to share free resources and actionable advice. Together, we're building a community for business leaders, entrepreneurs and founders to come together to tackle today's challenges. This podcast is powered by the awesome team at Upside.
Scott Case 0:20
With that I want to welcome our co-host, Davyeon Ross, who is the co-founder and president of DD Sports. And I think his product is ShotTracker. But welcome Davyeon. And why don't you tell us a little bit about yourself?
Davyeon Ross 0:34
Thank you for having me. It's really a privilege to be here. My name is Davyeon Ross. I'm originally from Trinidad Tobago, and I came to the US back in 1996 on a basketball scholarship after playing for, you know, practicing with the Trinidad national team. Didn't get to play in games because I came to the US. I studied computer science and math at Benedictine college. And, I'm an entrepreneur, love sports, love tech. And I'm just excited to be here. This is really exciting for me.
Scott Case 1:11
You talked a little bit about your background. You came here, you've got a computer science background, a degree. Tell us a little bit about how you ended up here as an entrepreneur, what are you working on now? What's your journey been like?
Davyeon Ross 1:25
Yeah, absolutely. So my journeys been, when I got out of college, I had some opportunities to go play overseas play pro, or I had an offer from Sprint to do software engineering in Kansas City, or Xerox in Rochester, New York. And, you know, it seems like Oh, go play basketball or go write code. You know, it's very, very interesting, very interesting dilemma. And some people wonder what's wrong me because I decided to go write code. And the main reason was, because Sprint offered to pay for my green card, just to be really honest with you, it was an opportunity to stay in the US. And after doing Sprint for several years, I was part of a startup consultancy, which I was the fourth employee, which later sold to a public company, and I think that was probably, you know, I had like, all these entrepreneurial initiatives when I was younger growing up in Trinidad, but when I went to evergence, that was the first time that I actually saw someone start a software related company, and over four to five years take it to the point where it was acquired. And I was like, wow, I want that, that looks like fun. They made pretty significant investment, I was an early employee, and I wanted that full experience. So after that, I went out and did a company by name of digital sports ventures, which was in the sports and tech space. We actually at one point, we'd be ranked, it was like ESPN, Yahoo, and us in regards to syndicating college sports video. And then we sold that company. And I played golf for about a year trying to work on my game, which was a ton of fun. And then started ShotTracker with my co-founder. And so for those of you who don't know, ShotTracker is a sensor based technology that tracks statistics and analytics. We're really heavy into product innovation, because we're a first of our kind type of technology. With that comes a lot of advantages, but it comes with a lot of challenges, too, because you're solving stuff that people haven't solved. I mean, we've filed almost 28 patents, of which 17 have been issued. So we're really in the innovation space. And in my spare time, I do a little bit of angel investing, mentoring entrepreneurs and also work on how do I work with companies like RGA who I partnered with and who's actually a ShotTracker investor to somewhat bridge the wealth gap for underrepresented founders.
Scott Case 2:43
There's a lot to unpack there.
Davyeon Ross 4:15
I'm not busy at all
Scott Case 4:18
Typical entrepreneur. The fact that you chose one of the most irritating sports on earth to spend a year chasing around a little white ball is truly the fascinating part. We'll have to have a separate conversation about that endeavor. But I want to talk a little bit more about ShotTracker. So who are your customers now? And certainly the 17 issued patents is really impressive, because it's hard to get one issued in any kind of reasonable time. So talk a little bit about what's the technology, who's the customer, what's the business model?
Davyeon Ross 4:52
Absolutely. So the technology is called ultra wideband. Think about it as you RTLS indoor GPS. With our technology, we're able to figure out the location of the player and ball within two to four centimeters. So if you think about like location technology from a GPS perspective, you can be on one side of building, somebody else is on the other side of the building, but it shows that you're still at the same address. The difference with our technologies is like we have to tell the difference between a two pointer and a three pointer, which is centimeters.
Davyeon Ross 5:25
And the other thing that we do is, so we have a sensor, we put a sensor on a player, it weighs about six grams, put a sensor in a ball, and it centers around the rafters. And we're able to track the location of the playing ball within that two to four centimeters. So we can tell when the ball goes in the hoop. We then have these machine learning algorithms that can tell you exactly what's going on. So we can tell you, hey, the touchdown, you know, everything that will come in a box score, we can tell you, you know, hey, your points per possession when you make two to five passes or three to four passes or when there's a pain touch. So we give you all of this analytics associated with it.
Davyeon Ross 6:02
We have multiple customers. I like to call them constituents because in our model is you know, we actually provide this technology to the actual conferences and universities. We're really focusing in college. In some places and in the pros, we have more of a licensing model where they pay Software as a Service, we call it stats as a service, a different definition of SaaS. But our traditional model is we work with colleges, like we work with them, we provide the technology, but then we have an exchange of value where they get access to the technology and we are able to commercialize the data. So we may integrate that data with a broadcaster, with anybody who wants access to sub second latency data in real time, so we're able to capture stuff, throw it to the cloud and back down in less than 100 milliseconds. A lot of times people like well how much that is, if you think about it, it takes you about 300 milliseconds just to blink three to 400. So that kind of gives a perspective, in regards to the speed of what we're doing. Traditionally, in our relationship, our partners own the data, but we actually have this exclusive commercial to be able to sell the data to all the partners. So from broadcasters, media, you know College is a little sticky when it comes to like sports betting, but at the pro level, I mean, sports betting folks want access to the data at a pro level, etc.
Scott Case 7:36
Who owns the data itself? So you put one of these at a college? Do you own the data? Do they own the data? Do they license?
Davyeon Ross 7:44
We have to originate the data, but the schools and conferences actually own the data. But as part of our partnership, we get the exclusive right to commercialize the data. Because we are bringing the technology that's helping to originate the data. And then there may be derivative products that we are able to make that we own. That's part of using the raw materials of the data, per se.
Scott Case 8:12
So the products that you sell can leverage the data or be based on the data, but they own and control the data itself.
Davyeon Ross 8:19
Yeah, that's correct.
Scott Case 8:21
So that's a hard problem to solve. There's hardware, there's software, there's cells, there's all these things you have to go through.
Scott Case 8:28
So the theme today is around kind of innovation on a budget, right? And you've had a series of experiences and put you in the position to create ShotTracker. So talk a little bit about, like, we all have limited resources, almost regardless of even if you're Apple, you've got limited resources, right? It's not infinity. So how do you think about approaching innovation and creating new products or services when you have those constraints?
Davyeon Ross 9:05
Yeah, so there's a lot of constraints that you have to think about. And I will tell you that it's very different from like hardware and software, right? Hardware just doesn't compile as fast as software when you think about it. So like hardware has a whole different level of complexities that we've had to work with because now you're looking at like prototyping and it takes four to six weeks before you can even figure out you had a problem. I mean, so hardware is like really painful. On the software side. I think that it's been it's been it's been fairly easy, not easy I should say nothing's easy, but it's been fairly, we've been able to do a good job on just the innovating, and part of it is like we try to really work closely with our customers in regards to innovation. So, a lot of times what we'll do is we'll take something Idea even if in, you know, we try not to take wireframes, because customers can't necessarily see the end result. But we'll take like visuals and then sit and work with them. Like so one of the things that I sat with Bill Self like, Hey Bill, tell me about your process, tell me about what you're doing.
Davyeon Ross 10:16
And I think if you can actually have like constant integration with your customers, the distance between two points is shortest when you go straight. And that's not necessarily what entrepreneurship is. But if you can actually have the customer and work hand in hand with the customer, I think it helps to drive innovation in a way that helps to minimize some of the extra effort that you have to put in or the extra costs associated with it.
Davyeon Ross 10:46
The other thing that we do is we really try to fail fast. So you have to have this approach of no stone unturned, but you have to fail stuff fast. So what we try to do is we try to break stuff as soon as we can, because what we don't want to do is go down a process where we're like, iterating, iterating, iterating on something, and then it fails at the end, and we just lost 6 to 8 weeks and a bunch of money. So what we try to do is like, when we have a problem to solve, we just go through an exercise of like, Hey, what are the reasons that this won't work, let's try to break it, and fail and iterate fast, which I think helps with some of the cost and somewhat innovating on a budget. As I said before, hardware makes it a little bit tough, but sometimes we go through, we go down multiple paths, I mean, it may not be the most cost effective. But someone always told me, you can either get it fast, cheap, or good quality – you got to pick two. So sometimes we have to a trade off that cheap to make sure that we were going faster. So depending on the equation and what we're trying to do, and those are the drivers that we're thinking about, to just be able to innovate around.
Scott Case 12:04
We can push on a few pieces, but I want to push on the failing piece. And you hear fail fast. But I think what you touched on was, we're often as entrepreneurs looking for signals that validate our approach. And what you've just highlighted is actually investing lots of energy trying to invalidate parts of it. Like, let's figure out why this isn't going to work and let's prove that out. Like, let's try to kill this thing. And why do you think that that's important?
Davyeon Ross 12:37
Look, I think that's important. I don't think it's either or, and I think every situation is different. So this is not like Bible, hey, you should try to invalidate versus validate. I mean, most times, we're looking for the path of least resistance, and most times, especially in hardware, we're looking for things that are non negotiable that we need to make this happen. And if you can actually identify those things that are non negotiable, then I think it's really important to go to the approach of invalidation.
Davyeon Ross 13:12
So I'll give you a perfect example. I mean, behind me, you probably see this, I didn't mean for this, but this worked out really well. This is our rechargeable ball rack behind me to my left. There were two companies that failed at this. The difference in what you're seeing here versus like an iPhone is that one is inductive charging, which is it sits, we have a sensor in the wall so we need resonant charging. So imagine the device sitting here and it's hovering three to five inches over the charger, and actually charging, right, so we have a patent around this because there were two large companies, a large device manufacturer that failed at this and couldn't bring it to fruition, and a large watch company that failed at it. From our perspective, not only do we have incredible resources, but we knew the things that were not negotiable. The reason we went down this path is because we couldn't have a ball that use inductive charging to charge and it compromises the integrity of the ball, like that was non negotiable. So for us, we had to figure out and innovate around this ball needs to balance and I need to use a ShotTracker enabled ball and a regular ball and not be able to tell the difference. That was non negotiable. I mean, I'm talking about hacking up the basketball, putting stuff in here to figure out can we really do this and what are the limits? So I think that from our perspective, and just to give some context, the reason that that was important is because a basketball lasts about 12 to 18 months, some people wear it out even more and like for instance for the NBA they use a complete leather ball so they want to play with the ball. The ball is better to them eight months down the road than the first month because it has to be broken in, it's almost like the perfect leather jacket. So we had to solve the problem to not only get that ball to work, but get it able to last, and basketballs have to be managed in weight. So we couldn't put a big battery on here to get it to last as long. I mean, right now we get about 14 to 20 hours, but we needed it to last the entire season. So you had to make it rechargeable. So for us, these non negotiable things are things that we had to solve technically. Otherwise, it didn't matter how quick or how much we got it done. If it wasn't working, then that would be a big hurdle for us. So I think it really just depends on the situation on if you go with validation versus invalidation, from a technical perspective, if it didn't work, it didn't do us any good. So we had to take that route.
Scott Case 15:49
And you blended them together, but one of the things and I want to pull them apart, you had both customer objectives, which is what you've outlined, right? The ball has to last a certain amount of time, it has to be recharged in a way where you can't change the integrity of the ball. Those are all customer demands. And you also hinted at some of your own business objectives, which is, how do you balance that? Like, that's all well and good, but you still have to figure how you're gonna make money?
Davyeon Ross 16:17
Yes, for sure.
Scott Case 16:18
So where does that compromise or where does that trade off come from? And how did you handle that side of it?
Davyeon Ross 16:24
Yeah. So from our perspective, as you can imagine, manufacturing chips for basketball that last like 30 days is not a good answer, because those chips are not cheap. So for us, when you talk about the business model, the only way to do it was to make it rechargeable, because if you put like a primary cell in there, then you're just going to be rotating basketballs every two months, and a basketball season last eight to nine months. So for us that was that balancing act of Okay, what is the least amount of time we could have a basketball. Well practice runs three days, if they run a tournament they use the full basketball for the entire day. Okay, let's figure out how we can get creative to get like 14 to 20 hours out of there, and be able to deliver and that accomplishes multiple things, right, it's easy for the end user. So they don't necessarily have to be like a coach timeout, we got to go charge the ball. They don't have to do that. Because that's not gonna fly, because it's not natural to the experience. And additionally, we don't have to be flipping new balls in every month or two. And it allows us because that's expensive for us. And we'd have to put that cost on to the customer, which would really break the business model, if they needed five different sets the ball every year. And most times in college people don't notice, but they literally practice with the balls that they're going to play in the game. So if you KU, you're a Wilson team, if you're going to play against Texas, they play with a Nike ball. So two days before you go play them, you're practicing with a Nike ball. So what that means is that every college has five to six different ball racks, depending on who they're going to play. Now you multiply that versus, hey, our balls need to be switched out every month. That breaks the business model all day. So that's some of the balancing act stuff, to the point what you're asking Scott.
Scott Case 16:51
So when you talk about part of it is focusing on the critical path – what are the things that are non negotiable, right? And those are the things for the customer. And then there's the things for your business. Are there iteration points with the customer, you talked about partnering with them and innovating with them? How do you separate out the customer's fantasies from what their real problems are?
Davyeon Ross 18:51
Yeah, so I mean, that's like a legit, legit problem that startups have. And, I mean, a long time ago, I remember I was using a solution when I was doing more software related stuff called get satisfaction. And what they did was they would actually drive the product roadmap from customers being able to vote up different projects. So that's essentially what we've done. When we start with coach sell, and we started talking to coaches, like Davyeon, I want to see ball reversal, because I want to see all these things. We documented it. And we actually picked up the phone and call another 50 to 60 coaches. And the things that drove our product roadmap was the things that rose to the top. Oh, wow, audit 50 60 coaches. 43 of them said they want to ball reversals, so that's at the top, hey, well, this one thing that coach self wanted was, you know, he was the only one so we're gonna have to move that down the list. So I mean, part of it is like working intimately with your customers to really understand what their needs are. And validating customer versus customer because you're exactly right, there's going to be a group of customer that, I mean, their role as customers is to really think about how do I streamline this process for me, and you're gonna have to take a third party approach of understanding all the inputs and having that drive your product roadmap, because you could go down a rabbit hole in a situation where they're giving you all these different requirements, but it only applies to them. So we try to really find that balance between understanding multiple customers and going from there.
Scott Case 20:24
So when you're first starting out, we have a lot of early stage startups, we have some small business owners, we have people who are considering quitting their day jobs and turning their side hustle into a job. When you're first starting out, you don't really have a customer, you might have a prospect or you might have somebody that you fantasize or think about being a customer. Like, you got this great idea to track this stuff on a basketball court, how did you find out initially that anybody cared at all? Like, what was that first conversation? How do you get that first insight or customer discovery work done? Where you can sort of talk to the prospect and say, Does any coach actually care about any of this stuff?
Davyeon Ross 21:10
Well, I think part of it actually starts with you as the individual. So for me, I think that as an entrepreneur, if you're going to solve a problem, there's a certain level of domain expertise that you should have in regards to what the problem you're trying to solve, and what the environment looks like, right? So you don't see me going to solve things in lacrosse, right, because I don't have a clue what's going on in that market, or you don't see me trying to solve stuff as it relates to HR, because that's just not my expertise. But, I hooped in college, I got a computer science degree, I understand, I've worked with coaches, I've had coaches. So I think part of it starts with the individual.
Davyeon Ross 21:53
And part of it starts in research, right? Like, before you talk to a customer, I think you can get enough information so that you can formulate what you want to do or how you want to do it, so that when you do take it to a customer, you're not starting from a blank piece of paper, you're actually starting with something that is of substance, and I think customers are not going to like give you the full solution but what my hope is that customers can do is help drive you into solving the problem in a way that's beneficial to them. And so that's how I use customers. A lot of times, you know, if we are depending on customers, we'd still be actually riding horses, right, we probably wouldn't have had cars. Because somebody had to envision that, oh, there's a better way. So I think the customer is really important, but I think that there's a balance in you as the entrepreneur really understanding the market, the dynamics and use the customer input to fine tune it, but you got to start somewhere.
Scott Case 22:51
So there's the resources you as an individual bring, there's engaging with your customers, you have been working with RGA as kind of a partner in that creation of innovation and driving innovation and creating new products and services. And so I want to start with just explain a little bit what RGA is and how you've worked with them. And then I want to talk a little bit about some of the work you've been doing around underrepresented founders.
Davyeon Ross 23:21
Absolutely. So it started off probably about six years ago when I was part of the Dodgers venture studio at ShotTracker and RGA actually invested in our company. And as we went through that process, they actually facilitated for us to do the first ever basketball game with Fox and Intel as partners, you know, paid pilot. As we were going through our relationship with Nike, they helped to really foster that relationship and made some introductions just now we just raised some capital for verizon. They facilitated that intro. So I've had a long history with them. And when everything was happening in the last 12 to 18 months in our world. And it was one of those things where we just felt, RGA reached out and say, hey, what can we do? And the thought process was like they had this idea for like a venture studio. I said, Well, I'd love to help with it, because it's something I'm passionate about how to really help underrepresented founders. And my communication was, hey, they have three components, so they have creative capital, which is where they take RGA resources that work on large projects and make them available to startups and they select people so it's not everybody, there's a select few. They also do investment capital, but you know, they have all these relationships, also relationship capital. So one of the things that we talked about is, how do we do what they did for me and democratize access to RGA customers. If you don't know RGA has the biggest customers in all fortune 1000 customers that they work for you like, you know, they work if you're sneakerhead they help bring the sneakers out to market. They've done stuff to help bring beats the market, they helped launch Nike ID. I mean, they've done like some really incredible work. And so I'm partnering them to somewhat democratize that access, and make it available to black founders and underrepresented founders to really help build that bridge that wealth gap.
Scott Case 25:24
So if somebody was interested in engaging with RGA in that way, how would you go about connecting?
Davyeon Ross 25:32
Yeah, so easily, they can go to coalitionventurestudios.com, and there's a startup page on there, you click the startup page, and you sign up, they will ask you a bunch of information about your company. We don't call it an application, we call it a registration process, because the goal is as many companies get signed up, when we go through that process of, they go through the process of vetting the companies making sure that they meet the criteria, you know, really under represented, understand where they are in the lifecycle, whether it's seed through Series B, and what they do is they're able to vet the companies, and then they start trying to find ways to drive collisions in regards to how those companies can work with, you know, RGA customers, and it's perfect, it's everybody wins, startups get access to paid projects, paid pilots, referenceable clients, some of these clients who have, you know, a lot of these corporations have made decisions that, hey, they want to do something, this gives them an opportunity to really diversify their supply chain. And then, you know, RGA is the connector of these startups and these corporations. So it's easy, you start up registering and they'll start driving some collisions for you. And hopefully, we're able to find ways that we can interject startups into what RGA is doing with all of their customers.
Scott Case 27:05
That's awesome. Well, thanks, we posted a link and we'll include it in the notes for the podcast as well.
Scott Case 27:11
You talked about sort of three kinds of capital and while I appreciate RGA's view of how they can bring that, I think every founder needs to be actively pursuing them. We talk a little bit about investment capital and so when people talk about raising capital, but the first two actually are often the lead to the investment capital, which is what I think of as relationship capital, what's the network of relationships you have around you? And then what's the creative capital, who are the kinds of problem solvers or engagement that you can get for people that can contribute to your thinking, and they're almost a subset of that relationship piece.
Scott Case 27:48
So if you can go back a little bit in your wayback machine to starting the company, what were some of the strategies that you used to create some of those early relationships around you? You talked about being a domain expert, in your case in basketball and technology, but you had to have had a set of relationships you've been cultivating for a while, and so how do you think about investing in those yourself and how did you then and how do you think about it now?
Davyeon Ross 28:20
Yeah, relationships are interesting, because I've been very fortunate to build some really, really good relationships. And I think, I don't always go into relationships, thinking, how can they help me? I tend to go into relationships, how can I be a resource, right? Because I think that, I mean, everything going on in the world, it takes a village. And a perfect example of that was, you know, I was actually volunteered my time to be a mentor at TechStars. I mean, I still do, I still lead off most of their founder talks with their different cohorts, etc. So I've gone through that process of, I was a mentor and that wasn't necessarily for me, that was like to help really bridge the gap, share what I've learned, because I don't know everything but hey, if I made these mistakes, you should definitely understand them so that you don't make them also. And it's funny, because, I was raising capital and then I started to TechStars folks, and they're like, Hey, we want to make an introduction to you to greg croft. And then I get on the phone and I talked to Greg Crawford, tell them what they're doing. And, you know, the guy said, Hey, we want you to talk to David. And I was like, David, who? He's like David Stern, our intern, and I'm like, David Stern, the late David Stern I should say, may he rest in peace. The former commissioner of the NBA, they're like, yeah, and they sent an intro. And next thing you know, I'm on the phone with David Stern. David's style is once he gets to know you tries to punch into the mouth, the first thing to see how are you react. So of course, he just started firing bullets at me, at the end, there was this awkward silence and he was like, I like you, you should come see me in New York. The next week, I'm in New York and, man, we got really close, we built like an incredible friendship. So, I mean, my point of that story is that he played like a really critical role in democratizing access and making things available for us. But I didn't necessarily go into the relationship that was built around how I got really close to David, you know, actually wanting something, I was actually volunteering my time, which led to a network relationship, which led to an introduction. And here I am, 11 o'clock at night, having a full text conversations with David Stern and talking to him probably three to five times a week for the last few years. So my point is, is that like, as you build relationships, we should really be thinking about how can we help each other and I will tell you, that comes full circle. Because if you can actually help people and make an effort, like I do these things because I hope that what I've learned, there's some nugget that somebody can take from this, that makes them better and that they can take to help somebody else. Because I'll tell you, I'm a full example of it coming full circle.
Scott Case 31:18
That's huge. And your point about it, starting with an investment that you were making in other people, right, you were providing them with value
Davyeon Ross 31:26
I got nothing out of being a mentor. You know, ut is time consuming. But that's what it's about, right? Like, Hey, I know, these couple things that like, if I can get you further along the path, you know, because you don't make the same mistakes I make, then that's a real W.
Scott Case 31:49
And to your point, you're taking the time to invest, which is something that I talk to a lot of founders who say I'm so heads down, I'm so busy, I'm like, you've got to carve off time to invest in those relationships, because you don't know where the opportunities are going to come from. And so you got to have to at least be investing a regular basis to be able to say, I gotta be contributing out here, because you can't predict it.
Davyeon Ross 32:14
Look, I'm not going to tell you that it's not time consuming and it's not taxing, especially when you're, I mean, it's to the point where sometimes you got to be like, yo, enough's enough, right, like, you got to find that balance. But I think it's really important to just pay it forward, especially as a minority, like with everything that's going on as a minority, if you get a seat at the table, like, you have to find a way to like, look back and figure out, how do I pull some other people up? How do I put some other people on, you know, because you're fortunate, like, the amount of capital that I've raised is more of an exception versus a rule. I mean, when you look at the statistics in regards to like black founders and what they've raised in the grand scheme of things. So for me, I feel like we have a responsibility, everybody has a responsibility, you know, to be able to I mean, this is the reason why you're doing this, hopefully somebody hears this, and they think about things a little bit differently.
Scott Case 33:14
You're absolutely right. And, I think, yes, it's important for women and people of color who get into that position. But I actually think it's even more important for people who look more like me to be paying attention about creating those opportunities to open those doors up, and to create those kinds of relationships. And I've been fortunate over the last really consistently over the last decade from being part of leading Startup America, where I got to meet a much wider set of entrepreneurs across the country. And that was the consistent ask was just just give us a shot, right, let us and sometimes it was driven by geography. You talked about your early opportunities to go be in Kansas City or Rochester, New York, well, those aren't hotbeds of software development or the internet market, right like that. And yet, there's brilliant people in those places. And if you just stack on your, you know, you're a black woman and congratulations, you've now you've got a whole set of challenges that I don't have, so if I can just open up a door, that's a big opportunity. And so it's just important to remember it cuts both ways.
Davyeon Ross 34:33
Yeah, no, it takes a village and like people of color, you know, we all need allies, and it's going to take the entire village for us to work together to make this stuff happen. So, it's so great to hear you position it in that manner, because I couldn't agree more.
Scott Case 34:49
And I think the thing that's most, I don't know whether it's challenging, disappointing or exciting, is that it's not that hard to do, right? It's not a big lift to say, I want to introduce you to this person that I met, they've got this thing that I think you'd be interested in.
Davyeon Ross 35:07
Like, I think part of it is, is also like you have to acknowledge that there's a problem. And I think a lot of people will probably, it's not near reality, so they don't have an appreciation for the problem. And therefore, they don't necessarily make the effort to break that barrier. And that's just the reality, right? So the more people who can acknowledge that this is a problem and I can help but it doesn't take that much, then the better we are.
Scott Case 35:38
Absolutely. All right, I got two more questions for you. One is selfish – So I would like more people to travel for business, because that's the business we're in. So tell us about your plans around business travel over the next six months to a year? Have you been on a business trip recently and do you have any that you're planning? How are you thinking about it?
Davyeon Ross 35:59
Yeah, so I was on a business trip and I want to say in March, I made like a two day trip. And it was literally like, the day after I got my second vaccine, not that it did anything, but it was almost just like a mental relief. So I'm definitely planning to travel, I tell you what, there's a lot of appreciation for being home, I have seven year old twins, and they are probably more active than, you know, their schedules are busier than mine. And I really love that part of life. And I really enjoy doing life with them. And it's helpful for my wife to have me around because it's a lot of work. And she's got an incredible career also. So it's literally teamwork makes the dream work. So my trips are going to be I've always liked the two day trips, so that I can tuck them in at night, I'll leave early in the morning, come back the next night. So I try to pack my trips in as much as possible. And I will tell you that I'm doing more on zoom now, just because like the whole society is, you know, they've embraced it a little more. But I used to be that guy, but by April, I have a companion pass on Southwest. And it's like the extreme now, I'm traveling and I want to travel, but you know, I'm trying to be like, does it really make sense for me to be there? Can I do it online? So I'm trying to be smart about it. Because it is an opportunity to kind of dig in with the fam, I'm probably more excited on my little vacation I have planned with the family, because I haven't been on vacation in a couple years. So I'm actually more looking forward to that more than anything.
Scott Case 37:43
Yeah, I hear you there. It's funny when I speak to a lot of entrepreneurs over the last 25 years, they didn't need a pandemic to be told that they hadn't taken a vacation in two years or three years. So it's kind of funny, I was like, I don't know, I just I've been home instead of being on the road.
Scott Case 37:59
Well, this is awesome. We had some questions about what are things that our audience, the Founders Focus crew, could do for you? What are ways that we could help?
Davyeon Ross 38:13
First and foremost, pay it forward, if you get the opportunity to help, it doesn't even have to be a founder of color, just founders and entrepreneurs in general. Entrepreneurship is hard. So if you could make an introduction, make their life easier, try to do so. For me personally, it's more about the founders, like if you can, if you see somebody who could benefit from coalition, tell them about it. I think that it could be really helpful to a large subset of people and I'm working hard and the RGA team is incredible to work with, they just have a great disposition in regards to what's going on and understanding their impact that they can be allies, etc. So I'm really excited about that. So I would say tell the entrepreneur, a person of color, about coalition venture studios, so hopefully we can actually help them out in some aspects. So those are the things that I would ask.
Scott Case 39:17
Well, thank you so much for being here today. Thanks for tuning into this episode of Founders Focus. We love getting feedback. So if you've got a topic for us that you want us to discuss or you've got a founder you want to hear from, hit me up on LinkedIn at T Scott Case, or you can always grab one on one time with me at foundersfocus.com. Stay awesome.