In the Spotlight: Brian Raney

Hi friends! 👋 Logan here.

Special episode this week! Last Tuesday, we got to host a live recording at Awesome Inc, interviewing their CEO and Co-Founder, Brian Raney. Awesome Inc recently turned 15, so we wanted to put together a special collaboration with our friends at Ainc and Chase Bank to celebrate and share some stories from 15 years of building Kentucky’s startup ecosystem.

The Company: Awesome Inc

Awesome Inc exists to create and grow high tech startups through a variety of initiatives, such as hosting community events, leading technology education courses, and offering a shared workspace environment. You might know them from one of the below programs:

• Kentucky Entrepreneur Hall of Fame - Highlighting the most successful KY entrepreneurs

• 5 Across - A pitch competition for Kentucky entrepreneurs

• Team Alpha - An internship program for those interested in startups

• Fellowship Program - A mentor-driven program designed to accelerate Kentucky's startups.

• Apax Software - Creating customized software solutions that help organizations grow and thrive.

• Awesome Fund - A pre-seed and seed stage fund that will invest in tech startups primarily in and near Kentucky

• Coding Bootcamp - Program teaching web and software development

Over the years, Brian and his team observed the gaps in the startup ecosystem and have worked to fill them through those initiatives. To see a full breakdown of everything Awesome Inc is involved in, you can check out their website.

What We Discussed: Permission to Fail, Building Community, Stories from the Early Days

When Brian and his co-founders were first considering starting Awesome Inc, they met with Lee Todd (former president of UK) to get his advice. He advised them to pursue their passion for entrepreneurship, even if it meant failing. “You have permission to fail. Worst case, you get to do what you're passionate about for a year”. Lucky for us, they took that advice and set out to build a foundation for Kentucky’s startup community to begin to grow. Even if it required them to use their space to host frat parties in the early days.

What You Can Learn by Listening:

1. Failure = Learning: If we want a community of resilient founders in this state, we have to accept failure as a likely outcome, and encourage founders to get up and try again when things don’t work out. Failure is not a complete loss, so long as there was learning.

2. Create Community, Create Opportunity: Brian shares story after story of those that helped him and the company get to where they are today. I hope listeners learn something about the skill of relationship building and not being afraid to ask for what you need.

3. Startup Community Connectedness: The story of Awesome Inc intersects with my career path as well as Evan’s. A rising sea lifts all boats, and that’s what’s occurring in our startup ecosystem currently.

Events

If you missed out on our event last week, we will keep you posted on when we’re planning the next one! In the meantime, here’s what we’ve got on our schedule:

• 5 Across - Wednesday, June 19th

  Hosted at The Mane on Main from 5pm - 7pm

  5 local startups will pitch for up to $5,500. Entrepreneurship, competition, and community collide. Always a blast and a great way to meet those building in the community. $5 to attend, but you get dinner and refreshments. No brainer.

  Register here

That’s all we’ve got for you this week! Thanks for reading. Don’t forget to forward if you enjoyed this one 😁🫶 

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