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SPEAKERS

Sina Khoshsokhan, Jeff York, Upslope Brewing founder Matt Cutter, Brad Werner

 

Jeff York  00:14

And we're back. Welcome to season two of creative distillation, where we distill entrepreneurship research into actionable insights. My name is Jeff York, Research Director of the Deming Center for Entrepreneurship Associate Professor of strategy and entrepreneurship at the University of Colorado in Boulder. I am here as always with my co host.

 

Brad Werner  00:37

I'm Brad Warner. And Jeff, it's nice to see you again. I also work at the Deming Center. But today I'd like to have the the role of full entrepreneur. And thank you. I really like the intro, Jeff about season two. I think that that's really exciting. We need to give a shout out to our producer Joel Davis. Joel has gotten us here. And both of us I know, I just speak for Jeff as well, Joel, thank you. This has been really just a blast looking forward to season two through who knows where this goes. So thanks a lot. Thank you.

 

Jeff York  01:07

It's awesome to be back. We season one kind of culminated in our webinar we did on entrepreneurial reactions to COVID-19. And then we just kind of went away for this summer. So Brad, what the heck Have you been up to? What were you doing all summer,

 

Brad Werner  01:25

you know, other than lockdown, which I think that all of us have been dealing with?

 

Jeff York  01:28

Not me. I've just been living life completely normally and ignoring all this.

 

Brad Werner  01:33

Yeah, I'm gonna send you a mass than being in lockdown in Boulder is actually a gift. And so I've been able to hike every day and do all those things. And otherwise just kind of hanging out with my family, which has been, we've had a blast. I do. You know, I have a lot of family in Chicago that which I have not been able to see. And that's really been tough for for our family, but otherwise personally, doing great. Happy to have the semester rolling again. And certainly happy to have this podcast back on the air.

 

Jeff York  02:01

Yeah, I mean, it's it's no small test. Brad is our teaching director for entrepreneurship. And, you know, I think I think this season could act as a bit of a chronicle of our experiences, we go through, you know, the the fits and starts of trying to run classes at a major research university. It's been an interesting scene here in Boulder,

 

Brad Werner  02:23

in a big way. And for me, the way to get through it is our local liquor store, Hazel's delivered. So that's been a really nice feature for me.

 

Jeff York  02:31

I've been buying direct from breweries, including our guests will have the day, just a few minutes I. So my store has been eaten up by by mostly mountain biking with my son, which has been awesome, have learned how to go over my handlebars and land in a tree. I'm really proud of that you don't get hurt nearly as bad if you land a tree I figured out and of course, supporting our local breweries and doing research. So I got like, three research projects going on simultaneously right now. So I'm not teaching right now. Which I'm you know, I

 

03:04

love teaching, but

 

Jeff York  03:05

it's pretty cool. I'm hoping whatever lessons we learn over the semester, I'm the benefit of in spring semester, I know we just went to a temporary remote teaching at CU. As we had a little bit of a little now a little bit outbreak on campuses, I think everyone expected, I will say I think so you've done everything they can to manage it. But man, it's a, this is no easy thing to try to find the right path during these times.

 

Brad Werner  03:31

Bottom line COVID sucks, okay, that's changed all of our all of our lives, and it's just a pain in the ass. So I am teaching a full load this semester. And I was one of the few to actually go in person. I've taken over a big field and my students have met me out there. And it's really been a blast until this lockdown. And frankly, it's interesting, though, that I was the only class that they had in person, really, students, students are dying for some sort of socialization, some sort of personal touch. I was happy that at least we had four weeks of that other week, there was a snowstorm in September for those of you that don't live in Boulder, which was pretty awesome. It actually happened during bike class days. So that was offline. But anyway, there will never be another snow day again. Well there. I mean, it's going right to zoom. I told

 

Jeff York  04:20

my kids that to make them even more depressed than they've had such a great father. It's like, you know, kids, there's never going to be snow days again. Well, it's just hubzu. Yeah, like the Grinch. Yeah, I'm just doing a wonderful job of fathering through this pandemic. We have multiple guests with us today is really exciting. So one brainstorm we had as we transition to the season two of crave distillation is like, we want to go hang out breweries. Maybe not. I don't know. I mean, it's just been hard to figure out where we could go and in fact, I really, I was on the cusp of going to our guest today and our feature a local craft beverage producer upslope Brewing Company, which is here in wonderful Boulder, Colorado and we have their founder and president Matt cutter with us today. We had this brainstorm like, Hey, you know what we don't actually have to go, we could just get people on the podcast, and we could go get large amounts of their beverages and consumed Oh, so, you know, that's something I've been doing with upslope ever since the band began. But, uh, but we're gonna be tasting some beers today. And we're also gonna be talking about a research paper. It's a working paper by one of our newest professors here at CU, Sina Khoshsokhan. I knew I was gonna mess it up. I actually got on the air, told me not to worry about it. See, now how should I properly pronounce your last name? Tell me please.

 

Sina Khoshsokhan  05:45

Jeff. It's close. So I can cuz soyka Great job. So

 

Jeff York  05:49

Oh, I did I did a horrible job. You're so nice. That's why we were so excited to get you to come work with he's the nicest guy. And one of the smartest researchers I've seen in quite some time, he's gonna be talking about paper about innovation. So I thought when going to purchase some upslope beverages, I would buy some of their more innovative ones. And we'll get right into that. So let's, uh, let's walk

 

Brad Werner  06:12

through that intro, you said something interesting to me as an entrepreneur, I don't know what you're talking about. And that is a working paper versus a published paper. Can you tell me or Sina? what the difference is?

 

Jeff York  06:24

Sure, sure. So a working paper. So the way research often works this along pipeline, as we've talked about, you know, we were talking yesterday. Now, how long does it take someone to get a PhD and I was like, on our field, at least four years. But more likely more like six years these days and what you found kind of amazing, I think. But it's because you know, these papers take a really long time to produce before you want to go out and put your name on something and publish it. You really want to make sure you're as accurate as you possibly can be, of course, you know, all sciences is somewhat fallible. I know people will be shocked to find that out. But social science maybe, arguably more so. And so you want to make sure you're as correct as you can be before you publish your findings. And so before you publish the paper, even submit it for publication, you have what we call a working paper. It's a paper in progress. And it's something where you're going out you're getting feedback, we do present that work a lot and talk about a lot because we want to get people's feedback. And so I thought, I really liked this paper that seen his workout. I think it's a really cool paper. We'll talk more about that a little while so I just thought it'd be cool to get him on here to talk about that. I appreciate you doing

 

Brad Werner  07:32

okay, so thanks for the clarification, though.

 

Jeff York  07:34

Yeah. Cool. So let's welcome Matt and Sina. Welcome, guys. It's great to have you here, Matt. I have. Well, first of all, I will mention, Matt has been a wonderful friend of the lead School Business for many years. And specifically to my classes. He was a mentor in my new venture launch class last year, upslope has hosted multiple events for my classes. They've also agreed to host my local Dungeons and Dragons group. So if you had any doubt I was a nerd. Like she probably didn't if you've ever listened to us, but yeah, so I actually run a Dungeons and Dragons group at a brewery so it's cool. And we think Brad, is that cool.

 

Upslope Brewing founder Matt Cutter  08:16

I'm gonna just with any, anything that goes on in a breweries cold brew,

 

Brad Werner  08:20

coming together brewery owner, yeah.

 

Jeff York  08:21

So anyway, so Matt, thanks for being here. I thought we'd start off just talking a little bit. I have been the beneficiary of many of upslope innovations during the pandemic. The first one was, I remember you were the first brewery that got some kind of notification was like, Hey, you know what, bring beer to you, which I was kind of amazed by like, and then, and then shortly thereafter, I you know, our listeners can't see us. But I'm holding up a really cool beer glass, which I'm gonna be filling momentarily. This came up. So I've had a partnership with a local florist for Valentine's Day where you could order this glass and it was filled with like a floral arrangement, as well as a six pack or 12 pack of your beloved's favorite beverage. And my wife's that was by far the best Valentine's gift I've ever given her. So thank you for that. Love that. And by

 

Brad Werner  09:14

the way, my wife doesn't drink. So I'm going to give myself that for Valentine's Day next year.

 

Jeff York  09:20

So tell us a little bit about you know, what's what's it been like? Running a brewery through this, this, this awful pandemic.

 

Upslope Brewing founder Matt Cutter  09:28

And when things when things started happening very quickly in March. That was, I'll call it six weeks of the most stressful time I've been through since. Well, since the first three years of the brewery. I definitely got into survival mode, assuming, as we did in the first three years of the business that we could go out of business in any given day. Things were shutting down, shutting down. Your tap room must be closed. And then probably the worst. The worst day was I think it was March 24, when Denver Mayor Hancock announced that liquor stores will be closing. So that lasted three hours. And you can actually buy glassware now that says, The Denver prohibition March 24 to march 24. It's classic. I love it. I love it. So those three hours were like, wow, this is the beginning of the end, we're going to go into business now and, and everyone will follow in the liquor stores will close for who knows, months and months. So that was that was really stressful. I'm guessing that he got a call from Governor polis saying, What are you thinking? And then they reverse that decision three hours a day for me? No more bourbon for your breath.

 

10:48

Never cut you off, dude.

 

Jeff York  10:51

Crazy, I never really understood. Even the fit. Yeah, I mean, I guess it goes without saying like, what were they thinking? Like? I

 

Upslope Brewing founder Matt Cutter  10:59

mean, yeah, they, they weren't. I mean, my, my reaction to that was, Oh, great, you you got a bunch of people that, you know, you can still buy a six pack of beer in the supermarket. So here are these people trying to feed their families. And meanwhile, that the line is wrapping around the supermarket with people wanting to buy a six pack of

 

Jeff York  11:18

beer, cram more mass of people into supermarkets like exactly what we really want right?

 

Upslope Brewing founder Matt Cutter  11:24

Now. So make it through that. And the rules kept changing, and taproom shut down. And then it's really interesting, you know, we have 55 employees, everyone reacts to this differently. And I, it took me a little bit but I realized that I just had to respect wherever anybody was coming from, the closest thing I could draw an analogy to is people dealing with death. Some people are can't get out of bed for a month when their parent has passed away. Some people get up the next day and go to work. We all try to plug everybody into the same system all the time. But guess what? We're all different. We're all individuals. So some employees that were Yeah, let's let's do it. Let's go to work. Let's do this. And some people. You know, we're very tenuous about some of the decisions we're making. So I remember getting one question. We had an all company meeting a couple months later, and somebody saying, you know, why didn't upset up close down? It's taprooms. early enough, or soon enough? And I was like, compared to what that the last pandemic? I mean, there's, there's, there's no reference point for this as we're going through it. Right. So managing managing through this was, yeah, definitely. One of the more challenging times. We started in 2008, November, Jeff, at the start of the Great Recession, right. So we've been we've been through some bumps in the road that was trying during that time, mostly because of access to capital, right? The banks were not lending money to large existing profitable companies, much less little startups, you know, that have a red bottom line. So that that was tough. But, you know, we've got my same two partners that we started with, at the beginning. We're all still here. We're going through it. And we have that entrepreneurial baggage of those first three years. And guess what a lot of that is good baggage that gets you through times like this.

 

Brad Werner  13:29

Yeah. Really interesting that?

 

13:30

Absolutely.

 

Brad Werner  13:31

So let me ask you this. I have a question for you, Matt. Through the pandemic, though, do you see Have you changed any practices at in your business that you see would maybe resonate beyond once we get to come out of a pandemic? Are there some things that you maybe you stumbled upon?

 

Upslope Brewing founder Matt Cutter  13:44

Wow, that's a good question. Um, I don't know what the new normal is gonna look like, when it comes down to it. I do think that some of our practices in the taproom, for sanitation will continue. But you know, I actually, I haven't put a lot of thought into it, to be honest. Yeah,

 

Jeff York  14:04

I think to some of the, I mean, you guys had already been doing sort of music events at the brewery. And having gotten the tap room. I mean, I'll just say like, you guys are doing an amazing job. I am definitely someone who is paranoid. And I felt perfectly comfortable with the way everything was run there. I mean, it was just meticulously done. So kudos to you, I think. And I just had you guys been coming up with all these different things you've been doing like, like before, I knew it was possible for beer to be delivered. I heard about it from you, literally. And then like just the idea of doing a Valentine's bouquet and then these socially distanced concerts. I mean, you guys have just been it from my point of view, at least from and most of the people I buy things from our breweries. You just been way ahead of the curve, at least one I've seen.

 

Upslope Brewing founder Matt Cutter  14:51

Thanks for saying that, Jeff. You know, you gotta you got to pivot. You got to adapt during times like this. And it was just getting creative and getting our team together virtually and Okay, so how can we pivot during this? And then kudos to the to the state of Colorado, before the pandemic came, we were not allowed to deliver beer. The breweries were not that there was no license for that. So they put in a temporary license, I think it went through mid April at the time, then they extended it. And now it's good until 2021, we can continue to deliver beer. And that not only helped offset the loss taproom revenue, which went to zero during that time, yeah. But it also allowed me to keep my people employed. Yes, in the taproom. So that was huge. And it was, and I'm proud to say we have laid laid off furloughed, zero people in our company, unbelievable. And yeah, it's been tough to manage. We even gave people hazard pay. You know, we have people going out there during the worst times of the pandemic in April and taproom. Folks, yeah, we have great sanitary practices, or social distancing and all that. But it's tough to get back in it. Especially come, you know, April and May. So it's been constantly evolving with the situation as it as it unraveled.

 

Brad Werner  16:13

So So Matt, I know that there are a lot of local boulder folks, the people on this call, obviously, that really are trying to support local businesses. I hats off to you for being able to fully staff through this. This is amazing. But if someone wanted to get local delivery from your brewery, what's the process

 

Upslope Brewing founder Matt Cutter  16:31

we put on hold for a little bit, we were actually waiting to get some, some software to deal with that better at this end. And we're going to be starting it up again here soon. So I think within the next couple of weeks,

 

Brad Werner  16:42

great, so just some people to visit upslope.com and they can get formed

 

Upslope Brewing founder Matt Cutter  16:48

up sobering.com. Yeah, it'll be on our website.

 

Jeff York  16:50

Perfect. One table that for tomorrow. At least there was yesterday, there's probably not one left now for tomorrow. You

 

Upslope Brewing founder Matt Cutter  16:55

should get in there. Jeff is a good time. I mean, good at time that you can do in this situation with live

 

Jeff York  17:02

music. Awesome. I really wanted to come see Kessel Run. I like those guys. And I was excited about that. And then there's Oktoberfest coming up as well. I know you guys are having a big event for that. I mean, so much with the community here in Boulder. I just think to me, I mean, I've been there for Knowles events, you events, Dungeons and Dragons events. I mean, you know, pretty wide range of things I've been at upslope for and like last time I held my finals, there just happened that the head of the chamber at Boulder Chamber of Commerce was there for something else. And he just agreed to come soon to be a judge. So it's just this amazing, like community thing that goes on there. It's an awesome place. Let's uh, let's try some of these things we got in front of us, fellas, so Okay, so Brad is not a beer guy. I am a beer guy. This is a running thing. So I wanted to get what I thought First of all, was the most innovative thing I've seen anybody in brewing do because we're talking we're gonna be talking seen this paper, it's about innovation. And I'll be honest, I'm, I've gotten the van to go see fish. I'm talking about myself way too much in this podcast, but when to go see fish last year, and the van was full of women. And my wife was there to not just me and these women, and and their husbands were there too. And so we were in this van. And there, every single one of them is drinking upslope snow melt. And we're like what is that? Like? It's the best thing ever. And then I was talking to Alan Lim, one of the founders and Chief Scientist at skratch Labs. And he was a mentor in the same class, Matt was they have a partnership and you can actually I'm sure you see the scratch labs logo on this. So this is what we have in front of us is a peach lemonade, Spike snow melt seltzer, that is part of your electrolytes series. And if I tried to explain beyond that, I'm going to get all wrong. So why don't you tell us what and by the way, we have a doctoral student who runs Ironman does Ironman. I was telling her I was gonna have cheese is the best recovery beverage ever. I believe she does. She's in like five Ironman triathlons. I was like, Wow. So tell us about this. Matt, what is it like?

 

Upslope Brewing founder Matt Cutter  19:04

Well, first of all, Jeff, I was at that same Phish show. So we we had launched spike snow melt the original spike snow melt in May of 2019. And it was something that we had been working on, since about October, the year before. And we realized that, you know, we've always marked ourselves as the craft beer for the active outdoor enthusiasts, that's always been at this. It was in my business plan from the beginning. So we've always followed that. And it's just like, you know, what about these people that might be gluten free? Or or they don't, they don't drink beer, what options do we have for them and we didn't really have anything so we started going down the path. Danny, my partner went into full chemist mode once again and you walk into his office and he had carboys and stainless steel tables and flasks and things fermenting. And it was it was awesome to see him back in that mode. And it took several iterations. And he ended up producing this very, very clean tasting alcohol frog derived from cane sugar. So it took a while to figure out that whole fermentation process in order to get it just right. And then we went, we went down the path of creating different flavors, we went all natural ingredients in ours, and launched it and started doing really well. And then we were trying to keep up. And then we have a weekly meeting. It's called new product development. And our lead Brewer over at Lee Hill, Lee Hill, is where we started. And it's essentially our r&d Brewery. very fortunate to have that to innovate. So in the meetings we're talking about, Okay, so what's next? Wait, everybody's always gonna want to ask what's next with what's next. And so we threw around the idea of putting electrolyte in it. And then sitting at the table, I was just like, Well, why don't I call Ian McGregor over at skratch Labs, it'd be great to partner up with those guys on this very much respect their product, their business, the way they're going about everything. Yeah, really, really impressive company and the best stuff out there. It's the only thing I have in my water bottle whenever I go on a bike ride. So yeah, we It took us a while to figure out they they came out with a proprietary mix of electrolytes for us with with no no flavoring in it. And then we kept doing more trials and came up with with those recipes. And we just launched that in April. And it is it's doing much better than we thought it would do. Oh yeah. For us.

 

Jeff York  21:45

Those guys are great. I mean, I knew them for their their sponsors of my son's mountain biking team. boulder high mountain biking. Oh, cool. So that got me into their products this summer. Cuz, you know, I tried to keep up my 15 year old mountain biking. You need more scratch data. And I'm like, okay, it actually does help. I was like, I was very skeptical. Yep.

 

Upslope Brewing founder Matt Cutter  22:04

He's like,

 

Brad Werner  22:05

is this your first collaboration out with a local company?

 

22:10

No, no, we've

 

Upslope Brewing founder Matt Cutter  22:11

done. We've done collaborations with Ozo coffee dragonfly coffee. We've done some. Well, our who has a pumpkin ale here.

 

22:22

We all do. Brad does

 

Upslope Brewing founder Matt Cutter  22:23

read won't drink. He says jazz. Wow, everybody. That's great. Mike Munson is an old friend of mine. And he came to me at one point, man, this is this is like in our second year. He's like, hey, let's do a pumpkin beer. And mechanic. Great. Great. He's like, I'll give you some pumpkins. We'll give you all kinds of public. I never realized how many different kinds of pumpkins here are. Cinderella pumpkins, white pumpkin pie pumpkins. You know, I think they have one called jack o' Lantern, pumpkin, all different kinds. And he gave me a bunch of them. I put them in the oven to cook them to try to get what the flavor would be. And many of them taste very very squashy. But these little baby bear pumpkins were sweet and fairy, almost pie like, and I'm like, Oh, these are the ones He's great. I'll give you a bunch of them. So we handed them out to everybody. Well, all of our employees, we had probably six employees at the time. And everybody took them home, put them in their ovens to cook them and and brought up back in the brewery. We made our first pumpkin beer and Danny, my partner. He's originally from Argentina. He's like, pumpkin beer. Why would anybody ever make a beer with a pumpkin? I couldn't even conceive of it. And we won a gold medal for it two years after that great American Beer Festival. So yeah, yeah. So we've we've texted every since I think this year's version is my favorite. And I don't say that every year. I don't say that every year but let's get this one in particular, I think it's well balanced. You definitely get the pumpkin it's not over the top on the spices doesn't give you that as any astringency. It's just a well balanced, greatly made pumpkin ale and I hope we get another medal this year and the virtual Great American Beer Festival.

 

Jeff York  24:08

All right, so the snow melt with electrolytes that thing I got this got to sound really obnoxious, but it tastes really good. I'm not a big seltzer guy and definitely not a big alcoholic seltzer guy like real beer. But I gotta say I would totally drink that especially like after like mountain biking or running or something like that. superframe It must take some more like a cocktail. Then like some kind of weird seltzer like has more flavor richness to it or something. I really like it. Yeah, pumpkin beer I know a bit about because I used to be as the Tennessee home brewer of the Year for like three years running. And we had a volunteer pumpkin patch one year that just came up after we threw our jack o' lantern in the compost heap. So I made 15 gallons of pumpkin beer. And that was awesome. We had a Halloween party, and then I took them to my family Thanksgiving and that was great. And then we still had like three cases of pumpkin beer and it was not so good anymore.

 

25:05

We're like, all right.

 

Jeff York  25:08

Pumpkin beers I started selling river guides and that's how I got rid of it, but I'm sure there's a lot there. Wow. Holy cow like the color on this. Just like perfectly clear orange.

 

Brad Werner  25:18

So my beer drinking though after a hot summer day of working outside or hiking or something I do like a nice cold Pilsner. Really something lights. And I actually think that the snow melts. I personally would if other than this podcast would have never even tried have spiked seltzer. It's much better than I anticipated.

 

Jeff York  25:39

Yep, same here. Thanks.

 

Upslope Brewing founder Matt Cutter  25:40

Thanks, Brad. And you're not alone. When you say that. Many people don't don't even know what a hard seltzer is. Right. And it's just little by little people are gravitating more toward it. And yeah, I've been surprised myself. Also there. There are times when I'm just like, like, I'm like, I don't I don't think I want to be right now. I think. So, yeah, it happens.

 

Brad Werner  26:04

Yeah, that's pretty cool.

 

Jeff York  26:05

So this is great. So you know, we're getting you introduced to you. You were saying you were gonna have I forgot what you said you're gonna have on the podcast.

 

26:10

I think you were saying you were gonna drink a Corona or something. I

 

Jeff York  26:12

was like, Oh, no.

 

26:14

Yeah, no.

 

Jeff York  26:16

Your boulder right now you have to drink like, you know, it's not. It is not adequate to buy local beer in the sense of beer from Colorado. Although there are many great breweries in Colorado, you must buy beer from Boulder and preferably within walking distance to your house, which is absolute. Lee Hill. Definitely. So

 

26:34

so so that korona thing was basically a joke. I just wanted to be a tree Coronavirus. And these days that we are Oh, that was the reason why I brought up that but

 

Jeff York  26:48

Oh, yes. Wonderful. You don't really drink Corona that good? Yeah.

 

Brad Werner  26:52

Okay. And actually, even though I'm not the beer person, my family is and when people we have guests coming from out of town to Boulder. First thing they want to do is hey, let's go to the breweries and the first place that we take them is up to the Hill to your testing room. It is that good. But it's not it's not a big commercial. It doesn't feel like a big commercial operation. It feels like you're in a your hometown brewery that has that just really makes everyone feel great. So you are always the first step of our tour that's placed a boulder

 

Jeff York  27:25

dartboard beetle kill wood backdrop and put like one like that in our basement. we copied you. Nice. Man, this pumpkin beer is great. It's not it's not overkill on the spices and stuff like a lot of them are out. A lot of them are like my wall mine. From all those years ago, I can still go get a craft brew pumpkin beer, and I'm like, Oh, so give me Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. From that time I drink all that pumpkin beer. This one like, you know, I mean, the pumpkin zero when you're looking for it, but really just tastes like a good beer.

 

Upslope Brewing founder Matt Cutter  27:52

Yeah, and that that was the plan with that beer and all our beers whenever we put some kind of adjunct in it like like pumpkins. It's it's beer first, right? You know, and we need these flavors, these spices, these pumpkins to enhance the flavor of the beer not to take it over. But it should taste like a beer.

 

Jeff York  28:12

Awesome, Matt? Well, it is. I want to say before we go like I can't sample any more absolute beers, because then we'll never get through the rest of the podcast. But I'm holding in my hand their craft lager. Amazing. Very clean, almost dramatic, like just delicious. Go to beer. And then my wife's go to beer, the citra Pale Ale, fantastic beer, they have a huge selection. If you go to Lee Hill, they've got all the experimental beers in the tap room there. They're unbelievable. And then I'm saving this this blue, Hawaiian sour. I wouldn't go buy bread and seeing one of these because they were just you know, too nice for them. But that it is awesome to catch up with you anything else we should know about? What's going on with upslope

 

Upslope Brewing founder Matt Cutter  28:54

just said I mean, we're always continuing to innovate is matter of fact, our our lead Brewer Lee Hill just poked his head in Alex Meyer, he's the he's the mad scientist over there. And we're doing all kinds of crazy things over there. Sometimes I don't even find out till later. Sometimes they keep it from me until I'm like, what's the What are you doing? Exactly? You know? And I love that. I love that. And I always tell them over there for not dumping beer. They're not pushing the edge. So, so they are our spread.

 

Brad Werner  29:26

Yeah, well, it's about the culture of creativity. And culture really is important. So that's that's a great takeaway to absolutely, yeah,

 

Upslope Brewing founder Matt Cutter  29:34

yeah. And that's been I feel very beneficial that we were able to keep Leigh Hill as we opened up flatiron Park fire and park is the is the factory. It's the production brewery. Lee Hill is our future. It is our innovation. And it's very important to separate those two, because between innovation and production, production will overcome any efforts toward innovation. It took me a little bit to figure Get that out. But that is very important. Like go run, here's your budget. We're looking forward to whatever you have coming out of there. And it's important, you know, all of us are looking forward to what's coming out there,

 

Brad Werner  30:10

too. So thank you very much. It's really been a pleasure to talk to you online, at least Matt. And hopefully I can meet you up in the, in the tap room, once we get the all clear

 

Upslope Brewing founder Matt Cutter  30:20

apps, I would enjoy that, Brad.

 

30:21

Thanks, man.

 

Jeff York  30:22

It's wonderful to see Matt, Take care, I'll be reaching out to you about classes in the spring would love to get you involved? Again?

 

Upslope Brewing founder Matt Cutter  30:27

That sounds like yeah, take care.

 

Jeff York  30:30

Pretty awesome. transition into our paper the day, you know, production versus innovation, because this paper is all about, you know, there's this interesting thing like, okay, so I remember going on the job market as an academic, and somebody asked me in a job interview, well, what's the difference between innovation and entrepreneurship? And this person who will remain nameless one to argue with me about that for 45 minutes from my job interview? I don't know why. But I think there are two sides of a coin. I think they're they're inherently intertwined. And that's what I love about this paper is it bridges the two, I think often we talk about innovation in the academic literature, as number of patents. And there's a big assumption about that. One is that a number of patents equals more innovation. And the second is that patents actually get translated into an innovation. And I think that's what you're tackling this paper. So why don't you go ahead and tell us about that, like, what's this project all about? How did it come about?

 

31:33

Sure thing, Jeff. So first of all, let me say that it's really, really hard to talk about science and papers after a nice conversation about beer. So

 

Jeff York  31:46

welcome to creative distillation. Yeah,

 

31:48

I will do my best to make it as exciting as as I can. But so yeah, you're absolutely right. We're still debating what innovation is on how to measure innovation. So one of the things that I do in this paper is that I'm I'm looking at innovation, in terms of commercialized products. So I'm looking at genes, I'm looking at diagnostic testing and trying to understand whether patents on genes help or hinder innovation in diagnostic testing industry. And what we observe is a number of novel methods of genetic testings in the diagnostic testing industry. So being able to observe the products down the road is not always an option in many sectors. But I was fortunate to end up with this with the settings that allowed me to do so and where there really hasn't helped because they are designed to help innovators. They're designed to help innovators, profit from their innovation and do more innovation. However, they can also bring some negative effects. So innovation is a cumulative process. And if you have the patent on something, you can block the access of others to that specific materials. So the big question is whether in this specific situation, patterns help or hinder innovation. And as a strategy and entrepreneurship researcher, I was also interested in learning who gets more benefits out of Hatton's, or not having patents, so established firms, entrepreneurs, and does the FAA shows itself in small markets or large markets. So I had a lot of fun, like looking at the data and present my findings in that space.

 

Jeff York  33:47

So tell us a little bit like so. So the context of this study is pretty complex. I mean, you sort of have this nice, natural experiment that occurs, and we're always looking for these things, you know, natural experiments where there's is some god, I'm trying to get away from academics, exogenous, or outside of the industry effect that occurs COVID would be I mean, God knows how many papers are going to be written using COVID as a natural experiment, probably, probably 1000s, if not hundreds of 1000s over the next, you know, 10 years. It's, it's a perfect natural experiment, because it has really nothing to do with any industry. It's just an event that occurred. And well, I think in your case, in this paper, you you have a nice natural experiment, which is a Supreme Court decision, right? So tell us a little bit about that. Sure

 

34:36

thing. So I actually need to step back a little bit and probably tell the whole story from 1980s. So, back in the 80s, Supreme Court had this ruling that live organisms could be patented, addressing Chakrabarti versus diamond case. And this was the time that biotech industry was you know, there was a huge investment in biotech industry. So These firms star that patenting different parts of the human genome of the DNA. And based on their patterns, they isolate their parts of the DNA a gene, and they patented it. And then they could exclude others from any commercialization activities as on demand, they should, they could focus on these genes and, you know, develop diagnostic test invest in gene therapies. And back in the days, it was assumed that gene therapy can solve every single health issue. So there was a lot of investment in that. But, you know, after a while, it created some problems. So for example, so one company called Myriad Genetics was considered a bit infamous with enforcing its patent rights. So they own patterns over two important genes braca, one and braca, two genes that help predict the susceptibility of breast cancer. And it was said that they do not let anybody else invest in new diagnostics and new therapies. And this is something that we know, we always want innovations, so and then our need for innovation probably has never been as obvious as today that we are in urgent need of a new test or new therapy or new vaccine.

 

Jeff York  36:28

Super pertinent right

 

36:29

now. Exactly. So anyways, there was a lawsuit against them, it went all the way to the US Supreme Court. And the US Supreme Court ruled that well, you know, genes are parts of nature, and you cannot patent them anymore. So they suddenly mandated a whole bunch of patents origins. So basically, yes, that's, that's the Supreme Court's ruling that I study. And I have data on diagnostic tests, prior to this ruling, and after this ruling, so I know what happens when patents are in place for genes, right. And when they are not, there, there's another aspect of this ruling that was interesting. So while this ruling invalidated patterns, or naturally occurring genes, it retain patent protection for non naturally occurring genes. So I could use them as a baseline as a control group over time to compare the the increase or decrease in new innovations in diagnostic testing to this baseline.

 

Jeff York  37:32

So there's a group, they're able to maintain patents for genes that those are created in the lab, I guess, genetic code that's created in the lives axes. And then I mean, definitely not my area. But I think it's awesome that you you understand this. And can you explain it? Because I always remember this when this started to happen, like I mean, I'm or I became cogs in the 90s. It just seemed always strange to me that you could patent like a naturally occurring genetic pattern, simply because you observed it. And is that was that the courts rationale, more or less not to go too far down? I just think it's really interesting. Like, was that basically how the court ruled on that? Exactly.

 

38:09

So basically, the idea for proponents of patents was that it's not just observing the chain, we invest a lot in taking out the gene from its DNA environments. And like, I think their arguments in the Supreme Court was that it's like taking out a bat at baseball bat from a tree. So it's a completely new thing. And you can actually patent that. However, the Supreme Court ruled that, well, it's not enough. You do not change anything, you just take it out and try to bet there's not much hands off men in creating anything. So that's, that's why they said it's,

 

Jeff York  38:53

it's probably more legitimate than the minor, minor, completely bogus. I said good lawyers. So okay, so we've got the Supreme Court decision that occurs. Now, the findings of the paper now you please straighten me out on this, because I want to make sure I'm representing your work well, but at the end of the day, like what I took away from it was, you know, what, when when patents don't necessarily create more innovation. And when you remove the patent, if you think of the patent and you flip it on its head from how we often think about it is like, oh, the more patents the better. I mean, I'm not trying to be unkind. I'm gonna have to have some more of our patent research colleagues, as you get Tony on here to a talk on one of our colleagues is wonderful research and patents, but I don't so they characterize Myers I think most of that literature has always been like, oh, more patents is good. And I've always been very deeply cynical about that. I'm like, I'm not sure that is and and I guess why? I love it. You're papers that confirm some of my biases in that. It's like when the patent abilities removed, we see more innovation, yes. But it actually comes from entrepreneurs, not from existing firms is am I getting that right? Like, is that

 

40:14

that we should take? Oh, yes, definitely, definitely. Although I probably need to add that it's not necessarily all the patterns. So it's something to talk about patterns, weather patterns are good or bad or have positive impact or negative impact. But I think we should be more careful about which type of patterns are we talking about. So these specific patterns are quite in the upstream of innovation lifecycle. So it the results might change. If you have like, patterns over methods of diagnostic testing, or over the diagnostic testing itself. However, there are genes and it's really hard to you know, work around genes. If you want to work on a specific genes, it's really hard to not infringe on the on the patterns without using it. So basically, my argument is that for upstream materials, defining broad patterns are hurtful to innovation, and particularly to entrepreneurial innovation. So you very eloquently put it up. So one interesting finding, I think, is that in this paper is that established firms usually find a way to, you know, either work around these patterns or settle some some ways with the, you know, the patent owner to use their patents of material to work on those genes. However, entrepreneurs for multiple reasons, do not have access to that bargaining power. So what happens at the end of the day is that patents are in place where these Austrian materials, entrepreneurs are pushed back more aggressively than established firms.

 

Brad Werner  41:56

Guys, I woke up when you said entrepreneurial innovation.

 

Jeff York  42:02

So thanks, oh, take over the discussion. No, no, I'm

 

Brad Werner  42:06

not trying to take over anything, but I just just

 

Jeff York  42:08

I agree with you.

 

Brad Werner  42:09

Okay, so this, this is a very specific field that you're looking at when you're talking about genes and technology. What I would would like to get at those seen as my when I met my entrepreneurial head on is, let's speak in a more, can you actually extrapolate any of your findings to relate to a broader sense of IP, and how IP fits in innovation? And I'm really looking more for the speaking for the entrepreneur on the street. What does that mean? Yeah, yeah.

 

42:38

So although it is very, you know, specific to two chains, and you know, diagnostic tests, one of the things that that theory helps us to do is to identify the conditions under which these things have happened. And, you know, compare them with other situations for other industries that are my findings may hold or not. So one thing that I can tell the entrepreneurs is that if you want to enter any industry, and there are patents in place for officer material, so the SOPs, Officer materials could be jeans, for example, could be molecules for drug development, could be algorithms for software, if they're copyrights, protecting them. So you should be careful. If those patents are in place, what you are gonna be dealing with in competition is a bunch of established firms that have high bargaining power, and the barriers to entry are quite high, you need to invest a lot in commercialization. And you might even consider need to consider changing your strategy. Maybe you want to cooperate with established firms, maybe you want to develop some ideas, license them to establish or do not even compete with them. However, if those upstream patents are not in place, you're able to enter the market, commercialize your products, profit from them, and conveniently compete with the other entrepreneurs or established firms in the market. So I think that's the main takeaway from this paper, and no other aspects of the paper was that I was also able to look at the size of the markets. So what I observed was that not only these entrepreneurs were pushed back because of these patches, but also they were pushed towards more smaller markets towards more, you know, diagnostic testing for disease. So niche market Exactly. After the panels were gone, they were able to, to redeploy their resources into you know, larger markets, cancer related markets, Alzheimer related markets. So you are able to actually tap into large markets when these patterns are

 

Brad Werner  44:59

so No, that's really, really interesting. Well, first of all, for for people starting businesses or even small companies, getting traction, developing a patent portfolio is extremely expensive, right? And when you're talking about an international portfolio, it goes even bigger than there. What would you say about just kind of just a general thoughts about intellectual property versus trade secrets, right? instead of applying for patents? And right everything first, once you apply, everything's public, right? Whether you get granted or not. And so how would you navigate that world and making the decisions between Hey, do we go for this IP? Because people think, first of all unsophisticated investors think, Wow, this company has IP, it's got to be worth something, which a lot of times it's not, right. And trade secrets can be just as valuable or even more valuable. So kind of what's your what's your thinking there,

 

45:46

right. So that's what awake favorite topics of research, that trade offs for in choosing trade secrets, or publishing the idea of publicly, such as patents, I think, so many parameters involved in this in this decision. One thing that we learned from some survey studies of the of the different industries is that the value of patents and patenting differ in different industries, in pharmaceuticals, in life sciences, they matter a lot, largely because there is some specific molecule that you can patent. And you can define your claims. Clearly around that. In many other industries, it's really hard to define your claims,

 

Brad Werner  46:33

clearly. So so you're speaking narrow claim sets versus very broad claim set.

 

46:37

So not just that, but also the USPTO does not give you broad claims. So in the life sciences, you can show them molecule to them. And you can get those broad claims or, or even error claims, but it is specific to that molecule, and you can work on on the molecule afterwards, for the 20 years of exclusivity that you have afterwards, it's not as easy for software, for example, other firms could change a little bit of that, and argue that this is totally a different thing. And so they can work around your patent. So not only you have published your idea, but also you cannot protect it anymore. So in that situation, trade secrets are much more beneficial. But also, you know, there are not much rules or regulations that allows you there are some but not a specific law that allows you to protect your trade secret when it is out in the public. So

 

Brad Werner  47:38

and I find it very interesting, when we were developing our patent strategy, that you have your core patents, but then there's actually a strategy to, in a sense, develop a thicket around the core patents. So you have layers and layers of IP that you need to pierce, I totally agree with, hey, go with a partnership, license this stuff, spend your time on whatever you're innovating and don't get Don't worry if somebody already owns this, don't go there, you know,

 

Jeff York  48:04

get them on board. Right. But I mean, I'm curious what you guys think too, about this idea. I mean, I always have students who are like, oh, but but professor, we have a patent, or we're going to patent this. And I'm like, okay, especially in tech, I'm like

 

Brad Werner  48:18

to say here's a pumpkin beer. Yeah.

 

Jeff York  48:21

And then I'm like, Okay, so what are you gonna do when Google violate your patent? Like, that's right, got a spare, like, you know, 5 million 10 million sitting around hire attorneys like to go up against Google. I mean, that's, I mean, I'm not saying Google's like a bad company is gonna go on and on. But just a large girl, when you're competing against large incumbents, I think you're far better off with like a trade secret that you actually can hold close to the vest. Because you know, you can't really defend the patent.

 

Brad Werner  48:47

In my experience, dealing with large companies coming in very small company that had a lot of patents, that we developed a lot of patents, we went into them. First of all, they don't believe you, right? Or one. Secondly, they look at their team of 400 or 4000. Engineers and look at them and say why the hell didn't do dipshits develop this? How could four guys in a garage, I would think you right? This is seriously what happens. Then they try to sue you. Right. So so they try, they try to sue you which which is then now once you're once you're under lawsuit, you can't raise any money. You're stuck.

 

Jeff York  49:21

Yeah, I mean, they know this like,

 

Brad Werner  49:23

right. But if you can make it through that, then they buy you. Yeah. Okay. So they try to put you out of business first, and then fall outs fails.

 

Jeff York  49:30

Okay, well, it all ends up being an acquisition play in the end anyway, it is. Why not cut to the chase and just be like, hey, let's get acquired and just be done with this. And

 

Brad Werner  49:39

initially, because of their culture, and the way they come, they think that they can design anything and nobody's smarter than them. Yes, very, very surprising. And it's actually rare for a group of startup folks to come and say, we've invented this, this will really help you. They don't believe you. They check it out. They say Holy shit, they sit, they try to sue you, and then they're done. Then Then you're in.

 

Jeff York  49:58

Well, so so and At least from from seniors research, you can help an entrepreneur by saying, look, you know, if you're going into a space where you're trying to go up against, where there are clear patents in the way of what you're trying to do, and the upstream technology, your commercialization, I always think of innovation as the translation of knowledge into a commercial product. If you're trying to do that, and you have to license that upstream patent, like, Man, that's a tough business model, like you're set, if you're if your innovation really creates value that they hadn't realized before that goes

 

Brad Werner  50:36

to you anyway. Because we're gonna see you, but but they want you. So there are, there are instances where they want you to succeed. But as a general rule, it's just a really messy world to even have to play.

 

Jeff York  50:47

Does that line up with what you're telling us from your study?

 

50:50

Absolutely, absolutely. However, I just want to say that there are exceptions to that rule, for example, they're right up there, biotechnology is basically because of some entrepreneurs came up with this idea that we can do gene therapy. And that was not something that big pharma was pursuing. However, they saw value in that. And they were able to licensing their technology, and leave the Innovation Lab coming up with new ideas to these biotech firms, and do the commercialization themselves. So it was a win win situation, where both of these industries could survive and flourish together,

 

Brad Werner  51:30

seeing how have you seen the business model change, though, in my understanding, especially when we're talking biotech than it used to be all in house, they would spend billions of dollars trying things? And that's kind of Yes, there is innovation within the big companies. But I think the new model is let the entrepreneurs figure it out. Right, they can beat each other up, and then we'll just pay up at the end and whoever wins. Right,

 

51:53

right, right. And I think again, if that is that is more evidence I did kind of division of labor works in that specific setting. So let them do their ideal parts. Let us be the commercial a commercial life.

 

Brad Werner  52:10

Right? And actually, it goes back to what Matt was saying about here's the here's our innovation brewery on the other side of town from our manufacturing, right? Let the let the creative folks Leave him alone. And don't get them let them get too bogged down in what manufacturing is. It's kind of like the same type of

 

Jeff York  52:26

nun that might be the biggest lesson we could take away today is like if you, you know, it's hard when you're doing a startup and you're small. But if you can have people who are laser focused just on execution, operational elements, day to day, getting stuff out the door delivered to customers, and you have other people are really focused on what the next innovation is. I know that's hard. But I think it helps a lot because man, I'll tell you what, like Matt was saying, just getting stuff out the door, Trump's next week, next year is innovation every single time.

 

Brad Werner  52:58

Okay, and when you're talking in the IP world, and you have a world class lab filled with engineers working on these products, yeah, if you buy them a great pizza every day and pay him about 80 grand, they will stay in that lab for the rest of their lives, and never have anything come out the door.

 

Jeff York  53:12

And everybody knows that you can bring him a case of pumpkin beer and they're like,

 

Brad Werner  53:15

Yeah, right. Hey, it's Halloween guys here, you know, just

 

Jeff York  53:17

like running a rafting company breath.

 

Brad Werner  53:19

Right? So but it goes back to culture, right? You have to you have to have this culture, where, hey, yeah, you have all of these resources to you. But we have to deliver things. It's not going to be perfect on day one. But that's what iterations are for hopefully in the medical, especially in the bio chemical field. That's a little different. But you know,

 

Jeff York  53:36

you get the general gist will see that heavy heavy misrepresented your research.

 

53:44

For you feel the

 

Jeff York  53:45

need to correct us on anything, or we get mostly Well, honestly, you'll

 

53:48

put it much, much better than I could do. So well, like supposed

 

Jeff York  53:52

to be our job. We always drink beer. And then

 

53:55

thankfully, I ended up getting a job. I wish I had this conversation before my job market. I could have presented my ideas using your

 

Jeff York  54:05

thought your presentation was awesome. And I think our students are going to be really lucky to have you in the classroom this coming semester. I echo that sentiment or on zoom or whatever we end up doing. I want to just welcome you again to the University of Colorado. And thank you so much for helping us kick off season two of creative distillation. It's nice to be back. It is awesome to be drinking this this wonderful libation while talking about research. And I'm just lucky to have colleagues like Brezina, thanks a lot boy

 

Brad Werner  54:34

and I am fortunate to have call you guys my friends. All three of you on this call. Sina. Welcome to see you. Welcome to the hot seat as well and keep up the research but we're really in my in my field and what I'm looking for is continued research that will really help people on the ground, come up with new creative ways to make our world a better place.

 

54:57

Here here,

 

54:58

Brad and Jeff Wonderful being here. I really appreciate you having me. Since February that I learned about this podcast. I've been a huge fan and it's so wonderful to be in this. This is hot seat. I really have fun and it's, again, wonderful to be in Boulder being sealable or being colleagues with you, and thanks so much.

 

Jeff York  55:23

Well, here's another one in life. Cheers, everybody. Hey, Joe. By the way, Joel is an entrepreneur as well. Oh, yeah, he is launching a new business. Tell

 

55:32

us about that, Joel? Well, guys, I've launched a new business, as you said, it's called JDs joy rides, and it is an E bike tour company. I got an E bike back in February of 2019. Totally on a whim. And it has changed my life and a lot of profound ways. I've lost 40 pounds, or t 40. I'm not going to chalk all of that up to the bike. But it had a big part and doing it and just keeping me moving. And just my outlook on life, my, my attitude is completely changed. I'm happier, I feel free and healthy. And it's just a joy to get on that bike. Pretty much every day year round. I ride in the winter, I you know, I'm undaunted, I've gotten rid of a car. And being at home through this lockdown. Being able to ride the bike has been a huge outlet. For me, it's been great to just be able to go out every day. And it feels safe and clean. And it's fun. And it just kind of frees my mind. And I found that I can ride for miles without even remembering that there's a lockdown. So it's kind of a nice escape from that. And I also realized during the lockdown that I don't like sitting at a desk all day. And that's what I've been doing a lot of podcasts editing and music editing, all things I love to do, but I just had been feeling very kind of stagnant. And like I wanted to do something that I could put my hands on. And that light of how life has changed with the lockdown also do something that's outdoors and where people can can get together safely and in a healthy way, and still have fun. And I met a guy randomly on Instagram, from St. George Utah, who has an E bike rental company. And I jumped on a zoom call with him. And after chatting with him for 90 minutes, I was like you know what, I'm going for it and I just started buying used ebikes I use rad power bikes, which is the most popular brand in the country. And in the last six weeks, I bought six rad power bikes off Craigslist. And I've got a pod downtown behind dojo for the office where I work out of 17th and Pearl. And I just created this business, and to differentiate from the other ebike tour companies in town because there are a few others. My main tour right now is the wall to wall boulder ebike mural tour, there are over 60 murals in Boulder plus other incredible street art and public art. And so I connected with the streetwise boulder mural Festival, which happened the first second week of September, over 20 murals alone went up that week. And so I have this tour, it takes two to three hours covers about 1820 miles, it's super easy on an E bike, I know 18 miles on a bike sounds like a lot. It's nothing on any bike. And it's just a great way to tap into the incredible art that's happening in this town to just cruise through the neighborhoods and see different parts of town I've had a lot of locals ride with me who comment that they've discovered parts of Boulder that they never knew existed before this tour. And it's just a great way to get people out on these bikes and to for me to sort of share the benefits that has brought to my life to share that with everyone. Because there's just an incredible sense of joy and freedom that comes from riding a bike. And that is a great thing to access in the best of times. And here we are in these very challenging times. And I think it's more important and valuable and beneficial as it's ever been.

 

Jeff York  59:16

And I mean, I think we're all finding like, yeah, in our various ways, outdoor outlets.

 

59:21

You know what, though,

 

Brad Werner  59:22

Joel just gave a great lesson for the podcast, you got to do it. You have to act, you can't sit back and think about it.

 

59:28

You have to jump out exactly. I mean, you know, I've had a lot of great ideas in my life that have all get tossed into a ban of I'll look at that later. I'll think I'll do that later. And not only does it not get done, it gets forgotten. I don't even really care. Remember most of these great ideas I've had, but this one just I just felt it in my bones that like this. This feels right. There's no reason not to do this. And so I just said To hell with it. I'm just going to do it. I'm going to start buying bikes and start booking tours and So I've basically been in business, you know, offering tours for like, three weeks now. And still a ton of work to do to get the word out about it. But the reception is it's received, the people who have taken the tour have loved it. And everyone I've talked to about the idea thinks it's a great idea, and it's something that's perfect for these times in particular. And it's just been, you know, like I said, I've got a long way to go, but every step feels like the right step. I so how did how do people find you to do this job you can find me at JDs Joy rides.com jd s Joy rides.com. I'm also under jadis joy rides on Facebook, on Instagram, I've got a wall to wall Boulder, Airbnb experience available for Boulder. And a little hint, that's the cheapest way, the cheapest way to book it. And, you know, I'm just kind of figuring it out as I go along. But I just realized, you know, I've just got to do it. I've got to like, make the LLC, open the bank account, start telling everybody I know just how to force myself out on the gangplank far enough that there's no turning back that I've just got to take the leap. If I fail, then I fail. But I went far enough that I couldn't just not do it. But I had to move forward with it. And an all signs still point till Yes. And I'm really excited about it. And so I hope you'll Oh, yeah.

 

Brad Werner  1:01:26

Can you? Can you do this all year round? Joe, are you are you going to run the business?

 

1:01:30

You're my intention. I mean, you know, it's boulder 370 days a year. And ya know, if you got closer skiing, then you got close to ride a bike in. And

 

Jeff York  1:01:41

I mean, they cleared like pass quicker in the clear the road tears,

 

1:01:44

we'll see what happens after the COVID budget cuts because that was already starting to be questionable law. What

 

Brad Werner  1:01:50

I'm thinking is Mike, my entire family's coming into town over Christmas, I want to set you up for a private tour with the probably 12 of us or something. And we could do something

 

1:02:00

right up to do it a couple groups at a time. But okay, you

 

Brad Werner  1:02:03

tell me why you want to support you.

 

1:02:06

But yeah, I would love to do that. I mean, it's just really just a great way to the murals themselves are fantastic. And I love them. And I fully support what streetwise is doing. But they basically provide just like a great route for exploring boulder seeing parts of Boulder that most people aren't going to see.

 

Brad Werner  1:02:24

Yeah, I was going to except maybe suggest a write up to upslope, but that's probably gonna put you in jail.

 

1:02:30

You know, we actually go do we do go up to Lee Hill, there's some murals up there. And I actually ride right down down your street, Brad. So as part of the route, so it's on the way and heading over to upslope figuring out a way to do a podcast recording, you know, you somehow Incorporated.

 

Jeff York  1:02:47

That's what I was gonna say is we got to figure out how to do the podcast while riding the bikes with a guest to various destiny. Yeah,

 

1:02:56

that would be awesome. Totally. We could do like something. Yeah,

 

Jeff York  1:03:01

we have our season finale there. There

 

1:03:03

we go. There you go. Yeah, totally agree.

 

Jeff York  1:03:06

The whole the whole season now will be about how can we actually pull this off?

 

1:03:10

I'll figure it out. And I know we will. And of course, you're all you know, you're invited to I would love to take you guys for a ride to show you what this is all about. And, and it's just, it's just a great time. And it's exciting for me to be doing something. You know, I've worked in the music business for 25 years, and that is was already crashing and burning before the COVID hit. And I just decided just do something completely different. And like I said that I could put my hands on and be with people and be face to face with people at a safe distance and math reports and all that it's still course Ah, it just feels great.

 

Brad Werner  1:03:49

I love a habit of producers and entrepreneur, Jeff, I think this is awesome.

 

Jeff York  1:03:52

Yeah, man. Start my start. Well, I have a lot of ideas that

 

1:03:58

I really should have. That is the that is the lesson though, is to just freakin do it. Just take that said do it.

 

Jeff York  1:04:04

Yep, that's what we tell our students every year. All right, well, I think we have once again gone over time. Oh, no. What a tragedy. Thank you for listening to creative distillation where we distill entrepreneurship research into actionable insights. And we're going back to our roots and we're going to be talking more and more to various entrepreneurs around boulder that produce tasty beverages of all kinds. We're gonna try to get out to some of these places as as we are able to coordinate it. And please, once again, if you if you can support our guest today, upslope brewing companies, a fantastic local brewery scene. Again, welcome to Colorado. So awesome to have you here. We're thrilled to have you joined the Deming center teaching faculty. Brad it's great to see you as always. And Joel, congratulations on your new business. That

 

1:04:56

is just awesome. Thank you.

 

Jeff York  1:04:57

We will see you in about two weeks.

 

1:05:00

Hopefully,

 

1:05:03

what's up next, Jeff

 

Jeff York  1:05:05

may be doing one of several things. We're gonna be talking about entrepreneurship in Africa, which is why I hope we're talking about was some alumni, the University of Colorado, or we may be just grilling a whole bunch of PhD students that we give money to about what they're doing with it and why it would matter

 

Brad Werner  1:05:21

to entrepreneurs. That sounds like sports for me.

 

Jeff York  1:05:27

We make sure we have a long whiskey tasting. Right? That's

 

1:05:29

right. Thank you,

 

Brad Werner  1:05:31

at least afterwards, because that'll drive me nuts. Oh, no.

 

Jeff York  1:05:35

All right. That's it for this lesson. Thanks, Brad, as always for being here. It's great to see you,

 

1:05:40

buddy. You too, as well. Next time. Thanks, guys.