S9 Ep34: From Garage to Global: Spilling the Beans on Startup Success with Jon Lambert
“You can run the best business in the world, but if you as an individual, fail, the entire thing falls to pieces.” —Jon Lambert
Founders Series
“You can run the best business in the world, but if you as an individual, fail, the entire thing falls to pieces.” —Jon Lambert
In the world of startups, your network can be as valuable, if not more, than your net worth. A strong community can provide the resources, mentorship, and support needed to navigate the turbulent waters of entrepreneurship. By fostering meaningful connections and collaborations, founders can unlock opportunities that money alone can't buy, turning their vision into a thriving reality.
Jon Lambert is the CEO of The Cannon, a community-driven organization dedicated to empowering entrepreneurs and startups. With a background in tech, startups, and corporate venture capital, Jon has made it his mission to democratize access to resources and support for founders at every stage of their journey.
Tune in as Justine and Jon explore the essential ingredients for startup success, including community building, pandemic resilience, digital networking, global expansion strategies, funding challenges, and the power of founder-to-founder support in this insightful conversation about nurturing the next generation of business innovators.
Connect with Jon:
Jon Lambert is the CEO of The Cannon, a company dedicated to supporting entrepreneurs and startups. Under his leadership, The Cannon has expanded from its initial focus on mobilizing people and conversations to establishing nine physical locations in Houston, while also developing a robust digital platform to connect members globally.
With a vision for global expansion, Jon is guiding The Cannon toward an international network that transcends geographical boundaries, providing resources and support to innovators and entrepreneurs worldwide.
Jon's expertise in fundraising, community building, and providing comprehensive support to businesses at various stages has positioned him as a respected figure in the entrepreneurial ecosystem.
Episode Highlights:
02:00 The Initial Focus of The Cannon in Houston
08:00 How the Pandemic Impacted The Cannon’s Community
15:00 Join the “Founder’s Confessions” Event
22:00 Accelerator Services
28:00 Global Reach and International Support StartUps
Tweets:
Startup success isn't just about having a great idea—it's about building a resilient community around it. Tune in to learn how fostering connections can be your secret weapon in the entrepreneurial journey with @jreichman and The Cannon CEO, Jon Lambert. #podcast #entrepreneurship #socialgood #inspiration #impactmatters #NextGenChef #EssentialIngredients #Season9 #StartupCommunity #EntrepreneurialSuccess #InnovationHub #FounderSupport #NetworkingForStartups #StartupAccelerator #CommunityBuilding
Inspirational Quotes:
02:18 “We're not about the physical space, we're about the community in that space and meeting the needs of that community on a daily basis.” —Jon Lambert
04:38 “As a small business, everyone needs to surround themselves with those resources: legal, accounting, strategic thinkers…” —Justine Reichman
05:48 “You can run the best business in the world, but if you as an individual, fail, the entire thing falls to pieces.” —Jon Lambert
06:34 “Sometimes, the founders forget about their needs; how they take care of themselves.” —Justine Reichman
08:17 “If we're a true community, then everybody has an opportunity to contribute.” —Jon Lambert
10:55 “People need people, and people need that interaction.” —Jon Lambert
23:42 “Nobody else is going to tell your story, you need to tell your story. If you're not reciting that three-minute pitch to yourself and your phone on a daily basis, you're not investing the time that is necessary to prepare you for the opportunity when you're standing in front of a potential investor.” —Jon Lambert
27:02 “A lot of great ideas have died on the vine because an individual on their own doesn't have the ability to execute.” —Jon Lambert
27:34 “Talent starts with the right team to take this idea forward, and that starts with the co-founder.” —Jon Lambert
Transcription:
Justine Reichman: Jon, good morning and welcome to Essential Ingredients. I'm your host, Justine Reichman. With me today is Jon Lambert. He is the CEO of Cannon. Welcome, Jon.
Jon Lambert: Thank you very much, Justine. Great to be here.
Justine Reichman: Great to have you here. And many times, we have a lot of founders and people that are building better for you food businesses. We also like to focus on those resources available to founders and people building the businesses. Because oftentimes, it's really the network and the community that they have around them to support their ventures. So for those listening and those watching that are not familiar with Cannon, would you please give us your 32nd pitch on what Cannon is?
Jon Lambert: So the Cannon was created essentially, and fundamentally, to support the startup and entrepreneurial community in Houston, Texas. There were limited resources back in 2017, 2018. Lots of people were picking up and leaving, and feeling like they needed to go to Austin or elsewhere to start their business. And we didn't agree with that. All the resources are here, and so we essentially mobilized Cannon and the community here to get that whole process started.
Justine Reichman: Awesome. Thank you. So when I think of a community to this, it's reminiscent and reminds me of many co-working spaces and the community, and the content that they provide. How are you guys different?
“We're not about the physical space, we're about the community in that space and meeting the needs of that community on a daily basis.”
Jon Lambert: So we didn't start with the idea of physical space. It was really, how do we mobilize people together? And it didn't really matter what the physical space was at that point in time just to get people together to start conversations around, what are the synergies? What opportunity do we have? What do people need? And how do we meet those needs? One of the things that happened out of that process was as that community grew, physical space was one of the primary needs. And so we started down the path of creating space. We now have nine physical locations in the Houston market that meet the needs of all the different kinds of boroughs, if you will, across Houston. And really, the differentiation is we're not about the physical space, we're about the community in that space, and meeting the needs of that community on a daily basis.
Justine Reichman: That's great. I like the idea that you built this community prior to creating a space so that you had this foundation of resources and community that were looking to share their minded visions, and share vetted resources.
Jon Lambert: The pandemic actually validated who we were as an organization. As you can remember when the pandemic hit, my peers in the co working space emptied out. People weren't comfortable using space, and everybody was working from home. Our community didn't go anywhere so we kind of bottomed out at 70%. The message was, there's more to this than you providing me in office space.
Justine Reichman: I heard that you maintain 70% of membership, so talk to me what do you attribute that to? Because COVID was a really challenging time. There was a lot going on.
Jon Lambert: At that point in time, we kind of sat back and scratched our heads and said, okay, so how's this going to go? We weren't sure. But the message was, if you look back at what we spent our time doing in pre pandemic, during pandemic and post pandemic, we proactively go to work with the companies within our community to figure out what we can do to help them. The pandemic virtually, every day during that period of time, we would sit down with an individual company and get in a room with legal counsel, an accountant, a finance person and potentially a Minister, depending on how serious the problem was, and just talk through, hey, what do we do with this? How do we help you pivot, partner or do something different to survive? And that's when you ask about differentiation. That is really what differentiates us. When people come to our space, we kind of warn them, hey, if you want to be left alone, there's probably better places to go to the office because our team is going to pursue you. And if you don't have a need today, you're going to have a need tomorrow or the next day, and we're going to be there asking you, how can we help with that? And what kind of resources can we help provide?
Justine Reichman: I want to just dig into something that you said because I'm curious. I think as a small business, everyone needs to surround themselves with those resources, legal accounting, strategic thinkers, but you also mentioned the minister. Is that specific to a specific, is that specific to a niche, or is that all around? What role does that Minister play?
“As a small business, everyone needs to surround themselves with those resources: legal, accounting, strategic thinkers…”
Jon Lambert: Again, now you're going to dive into me from a cultural perspective and how I drive from the leadership level. So my approach to building and growing community really starts with being as sappy as it sounds to some people, loving people first. So if your spirit of support and engagement is around truly caring for other people, then that transcends the business piece of things. And when you're talking about the evolution of a startup and growing a startup organization, the challenges that come with that, a lot of times, we get focused on business plans and raising funds. And those things are clearly important. But if you lose sight of you, the person, the founder, and that transcends into wellness and how you take care of yourself and where your priorities are, you can run the best business in the world. But if YOU as an individual fail, the entire thing falls to pieces. And so what we try to do is address every element of the organizations and provide support at every level. And that a lot of times turns into conversations that don't have anything to do with the business and have more to do with, hey, I have other challenges that are stopping me from growing my business. Can you help me with those things? And so we provide whatever resource we can on that front as well.
“You can run the best business in the world, but if you as an individual fail, the entire thing falls to pieces.”
Justine Reichman: I think one of the things that we try to do as a platform is provide these vetted resources for people to be inspired by and make more informed choices. And that's many times for the companies. But we also focus on the founders. Because sometimes the founders forget about their needs, how they take care of themselves. I think that really ties in quite well there.
Jon Lambert: Regular thing. It's really neat. We do a thing called founder confessions, and it's a monthly event. I'm blessed to have a member on my staff, and he's also a certified counselor who's kind of our emcee for that event. And essentially, what we do is we bring in founders and entrepreneurs that have had a journey and have stories to tell, and really get down to the nitty gritty around, okay, what's this really about? Let's not mince words around. I don't want the Facebook version of your world. I want the real story about what you've been through. And so the community is really gravitated toward, wow, there are people out there that are going through the same kind of things that I'm going through, and it's okay to talk about it. I don't have to shield this for people to think that I'm bigger or stronger than I am. I can actually talk about these things and help resolve them.
Justine Reichman: So with all these resources, are these people part of your membership? Or are they part of your staff and on-staff there at will to just be available when anybody should need them?
Jon Lambert: And that's a fantastic question. I think it's another differentiation point in my answer. So obviously, we're a startup as well. And so as much as I would love to have a team of a thousand that can meet those needs, what we've really tapped into is the true definition and meaning of community. And so instead of the Cannon having to employ an entire staff of counselors, service providers and those kinds of things, what we've done is said, hey, if we're a true community, then everybody has an opportunity to contribute. And so we have now 60 advisors at all levels. I tell everyone, if you ask me a question and need an expert, I've got at least one and probably two advisors in our advisor community that are ready to support you in answering questions that you have. In that regard, we have partners that are service providers that are on a regular basis. Part of the conversation around we need help with this, can you provide education on the front end? Ultimately. Can you provide services to support these things? And so we've really tapped into this concept of, when you're part of a community, yes, we understand there will be needs that we can help satisfy.
“If we're a true community, then everybody has an opportunity to contribute.”
But you also have an opportunity to give back. And so we ask people to just contribute at that level anywhere where they have the opportunity. And a lot of that, the delivery of that comes down to our methodology in terms of digital and physical space management. How do we create that collision opportunity? And so if you walk through any one of our spaces, it's really designed to encourage people to connect with each other and have conversations. So we can do more good. We program a lot of great things. It's the stuff that happens that, just because we put people in proximity, that gets really cool in terms of meeting needs.
Justine Reichman: So before you opened these nine spaces, you were mostly online as a community. So what does that look like? And how do people connect? Are you the connector? What does that look like for somebody joining this community?
Jon Lambert: When we started the Cannon, the Digital play actually didn't evolve shortly after we opened our physical space and realized, hey, we can't build these spaces fast enough to meet the needs of this community. And so we realize very quickly that we have a digital solution. We have to find a way to virtually bring this community together, and so we have made a number of investments, and we just ultimately acquired our technology partner firm at the end of last year. We now have our own digital community platform that works in conjunction with our physical spaces, but opens up the access to who we are, and what we do in that entire community to anyone, anywhere. And so as we go into new places and new markets, we'll actually go in first to say, hey, let's connect your people first and understand what the community needs. And then we could talk about creating a physical hub, because everybody wants to be together physically regardless of what anybody says. Not everybody's going home to work forever. People need people, and people need that interaction. And so there always will be that physical element, but the digital is really helping us reach a lot more people and draw them in, and then provide support to them without necessarily being there inside of our physical wall.
Justine Reichman: If I was a part of your community and I'm looking for somebody, am I going to somebody specific to try to get a recommendation, am I going online? Is there a list, a glossary of people? How does one connect?
Jon Lambert: Okay. So within our digital community platform, it is essentially a repository of everyone in the community. Some people from a personality perspective are very self service driven. So you can go into that directory. You can search that directory for other founders or companies. Of those other founders that align with what you're looking for, you can reach out as part of the community to one of my folks who can help you get connected to the folks you're looking for. We're just rolling out a matching, it's almost like a dating type of functionality. If I have a specific need, I will actually match you with the appropriate advisor so you don't have to actually go out and look for that in terms of shortening the period of time it takes for you to find what you're looking for. And we're getting ready to roll out new features within the platform. That when you join, it's going to go out and use AI to go say, hey, who are the top five people in the community that you need to speak to based on who you are? Your profile, so that you're not fishing around trying to find the right thing. We can do the work on the front end to quickly get you connected to people of interest to you within the community.
Justine Reichman: That's amazing. So it sounds like it's a very people focused business.
Jon Lambert: Absolutely. The center of our universe is the people.
Justine Reichman: It's the people. But everybody could be in a different niche or area, so how do you manage that network for the clients that you have to make sure that you can address all those different niches? Because there's a ton.
Jon Lambert: It's a challenge. We want to be everything to everyone. And ultimately, maybe we will be, but we really focus on, as we evolve new communities, what I will call nodes. Our bigger picture vision is because our footprint expands, we quickly found out that the challenge that we were solving for is not a Houston challenge. It's not a Texas challenge, it's a global challenge, right? The needs are everywhere. So the real opportunity is, how do we draw people into one community? Create nodes that are localized that allow people to interact physically and digitally, but then connect those nodes to other nodes? So that if there's somebody that's sitting in, pick a city, Atlanta, Georgia who's working on an entrepreneurial initiative or project and has no visibility into Houston, Texas, but via our platform, can connect to those folks, we can actually remove the borders from that innovation process and create an environment that doesn't exist anywhere else. So what we're trying to do is kind of systematically go through and understand what the community needs the most, and then make our investments in how we deliver value so that that community is getting more from what we provide.
Justine Reichman: Is this a membership that anybody can join? Do you have to be invited? Do you need to be sponsored?
Jon Lambert: We have a freemium layer membership that anybody can, if you go through our website, you can join forever for free, and that will give you exposure, access to the community. You'll see what's going on and what some of the opportunities are. And then we are for profit business, and we don't apologize to that because we're helping a whole bunch of other for profit businesses. It really puts the onus on us. Profit businesses don't survive unless they're delivering value. So it's what wakes me up every morning going, what new value can we bring to this community so that they keep coming back and it keeps growing? But yes, there are premium offerings for additional services and support for things like high level accelerator service. So we've got programs that are specific for companies that have reached a specific level within their journey, and potentially need high level support in order to continue to grow, and those kinds of things. And so there are premium offerings in there as well.
Justine Reichman: When you say accelerator services, what comes to mind is Techstars and these other kinds of accelerators. How do you compare to them? And what do you offer that's different?
Jon Lambert: Accelerators for us are a resource for the community that we support. We have not gone out and said, well, we're going to develop one of those and compete with the Techstars, or a generator, or a lot of the other plug and play, or others that are operating those programs out there. What we have done is looked at the life cycle of the organization, of a new organization, and an accelerator is going to deliver value in a finite period, critical value. But there are needs during, and there are needs after. And so what we try to do is help organizations understand, what am I going to get out of an accelerator program? Potentially help them qualify to do what they need to do to get into that program, Help them while they're in there. And then when they graduate from the accelerator program, what's next? That's often the big challenge of, okay, I just finished the accelerator. Now what? There's plenty more to do in that regard so we look at those as partnership opportunities in terms of aligning with, and that's value add to the community. And like I was trying to say earlier from my perspective, all of this is about bringing value to that community. The community comes first. There could be 50 more organizations like mine out there, and we would still not be delivering to the demand in the marketplace. And so it's really all about, how can we align, come together, align and make sure we're doing the right thing for the folks that are out there trying to build their businesses?
Justine Reichman: Thank you for that. Are there any examples that you can give us of individuals that have joined the Cannon, leveraged the resources and had an exponential growth, or built something because of the community? Maybe you could share one or two of those?
Jon Lambert: Sure, absolutely. So a couple of really good examples. I'll preface this by saying, in no way will we take full credit for the success. The success goes with the organizations. What I will say is the Cannon has played a key role in the success of the organizations that I'll share with you. There's an organization called Corva that has been part of back in the very early days in 2017. The Cannon was part of what we call the waiting room, which was a nondescript one story building, kind of next door where the whole thing started, where everything was kind of scrappy. And there may have been a straight cockroach here and there, but we survived and worked together. Corva started in that environment as a handful of folks. And as we grew into our own physical space, their business took off. They're in what I would say, that kind of the oil and gas energy data and analytics space, a very specialized kind of data management. And then even technology management that fits in there, inside of there for the oil industry. And so now, they actually are still on our property. Have their own 35,000 square foot space.
Our global company has, I think, close to 500 between 500, 600 employees, last number I heard. And have just had tremendous success. They're still part of our community, so there are people in and out. We leverage them as a resource where we can to help organizations earlier in their business phase. A big part of what we do is our companies have success. They're the best ones to help the earlier stage businesses. And that's again, that feeds back to the community. So they're one great example, Cart.com who's now a unicorn. I can't even remember. I think they're 1.7, 1.8 billion dollar valuation. Their first employee was my chief revenue officer.
So basically, he stepped out of his role with us to go work with the founders and partners that started Cart.com. Their headquarters is here. It was moved to Austin for a period of time. They're actually back here now, and they're going crazy. They have over 1000 employees globally. Just a couple of examples. Those are the ones that everybody wants to hear. But I always call out that, that for us, and I think, hope, this kind of speaks to who we are and what we do. Those are great stories. We want as many of those as we can, because that's what gets everyone excited. I get equally excited about being able to help a single mom who's decided, she's gotten laid off from her current job, and she wants to do her own thing, whatever that is. And in order to maybe hire a couple of her neighbors and create, it might be a lifestyle business, it might be a business that has an opportunity to grow, that is of value to me. If we talk about valuation, we can talk about billions of dollars valuation in terms of the quality of life for people who are leveraging this kind of entrepreneurial journey to build something. I get as excited about that end of the spectrum as well. And so that's really kind of who we are where we don't say, you've got to be a tech business, or you got to be in the energy business. We're completely agnostic to that. And what we're trying to do is just democratize access to the resources for anybody that wants to go on this journey.
Justine Reichman: My question is, do you need to be a Texas business? What percentage of your community is from Texas right now?
Jon Lambert: Probably 98%, so that's kind of where we cut our teeth. We've expanded from a digital perspective in Texas saying that we have opportunities for expansion from a physical hub perspective in Huntsville, Alabama. In Atlanta, we're working on projects now. And so our goal is to take what we're doing into the markets that want, need us the most. The cool part about where we're at is because we're a startup too, and the pandemic was kind of a reset for us as well in terms of focus and trajectory. We're experiencing the same thing that a lot of the companies that we're helping. I'm out raising funds right now, and so I know what the environment looks like because I'm out there doing it, and I'm helping. We've got a thousand companies in our community, probably 10 to 15% of them are in the process of raising money. So not only am I providing counsel in that regard, but I'm living it, and I'm hearing the stories and the feedback from the investment community. It's a neat dynamic between who we are, and what we're doing and trying to grow. But our vision is to get into at least five new markets by the end of 2025. I hope to be in two new ones by the end of this year, and then be in a total of five markets as a starting point. Then a lot of our growth from there just comes down to kind of, what kind of resources can we put into this to grow more exponentially?
Justine Reichman: If we could just go back for a minute to raise funds, because I know that this is a really big challenge for so many people if it's their first time doing it, or they're just intimidated by it. I know that you guys, you're doing this right now. What are some of the biggest mistakes that you found that you've made initially, that you've learned from to help you move forward in this?
“Nobody else is going to tell your story, you need to tell your story. If you're not reciting that three-minute pitch to yourself and your phone on a daily basis, you're not investing the time that is necessary to prepare you for the opportunity when you're standing in front of a potential investor.”
Jon Lambert: It's being prepared to tell your story and understanding the period of time at which you have to hook the conversation. You hear a lot about elevator pitch and those kinds of things, and it is very true that we all have a very limited time with potential investors to generate enough interest for them to put more coins in the meter and say, okay, he's got a little bit more time. And so what happens is companies, a lot of earlier stage startups are so focused on their product and their perspective of their product. They don't get their head turned around, my product is not enough of a story for an investor. I have to tell the story of how my product is going to meet a need in the marketplace, how big is that marketplace? And then, how am I going to get to that marketplace? And who are my competitors? And so really, it's just honing in on being able to tell your own story. And there's early stage organizations that don't spend enough time doing that. Twice a year, we hosted a large event with Dell. And last week was their pitch showcase. And they had six companies that pitched it as part of that showcase here at our facility in Houston. And ultimately my message back to them was, nobody else is going to tell your story. You need to tell your story. And they had the opportunity, and this example was a three minute pitch. And my message to them was, if you're not reciting that three minute pitch to yourself and your phone on a daily basis, you're not investing the time that is necessary to prepare you for the opportunity when you're standing in front of a potential investor. It's really about that comfort level with understanding what that story needs to be to hook the conversation, and then being really, really good at telling that story.
Justine Reichman: Awesome. I think that's a great tip for those in this process, so I really appreciate you sharing that. And I'm curious, I know that you worked before at KPMG, but have you been an entrepreneur? Have you started your own business in the past?
Jon Lambert: It's interesting, and this is a conversation I have a lot with. We do a lot of entrepreneurial education so we're investing at all levels of academia, from universities, all the way down to third graders around what entrepreneurship is, what role does it play? What are the opportunities? And I always tell those groups it is, so I'm not the visionary entrepreneur. I'm not the dreamer that all of a sudden comes up with this great idea and says, hey, this is what we're gonna do. I'm the guy that comes along the visionary entrepreneur and says, okay, here's how we're actually going to do this. And both of those are entrepreneurial roles. There's this frustration around, wait a minute. I don't have any good ideas. Well, find somebody with a good idea and help them execute it. You're an entrepreneur as you do that. That's the role that I've played in probably five, six different startup organizations that have, fortunately, had the opportunity to grow to very large organizations and be acquired by other organizations.
I actually joined KPMG through acquisition of a startup that we started in 2003. That acquisition was in 2011, so a nine year growth period of a company from zero to about 500 people globally, 120 $5 million a year entity that was acquired and became part of a large global, you know, multinational partnership at KPMG. I've really had the opportunity to see entrepreneurship at all different levels. And then on the corporate venture side, I kind of flipped sides of the table. So in that scenario, I had the opportunity to go out and help organizations that we had acquired assimilate into large corporations. And large corporate organizations don't have an appreciation for how quickly you can kill a startup if you don't treat them the right way. I can't remember that exact quote, but I've done a lot of things. I'm not an expert in any one area, but I've touched so many different things that I think it's been advantageous as I've stepped into this role, and to be able to share experiences that I can bring to the table that are essentially helping others.
Justine Reichman: I would also say that with your experience as an entrepreneur, not being that visionary, but being that person that helps take that vision and makes it possible for that to come to fruition and run with it, I think that also talks to how people can look for a co-founder.
“Talent starts with the right team to take this idea forward, and that starts with the co-founder.”
Jon Lambert: Absolutely yes, no doubt. Great ideas have died on the vine because that individual on their own doesn't have the ability to execute. And it really comes down to that execution piece. And a lot of times, the idea through the execution phase is actually improved and perfected as part of that process. For us, the three pillars are in terms of supporting our funding. As we've already talked about, sales and business development, how do you actually sell this product? And in the middle one, we kind of bundle under talent. Talent starts with what's the right team to actually take this idea forward, and that starts with the co-founder.
Justine Reichman: I'm curious, because you get people, it sounds at all different levels from moms that have been laid off or quit, to people that become unicorns. Have you worked with organizations? Or do you have organizations within your community looking to go public?
Jon Lambert: The answer is yes. We've had companies that have matured to the level where they're looking for, and I'll quantify that as an exit. So whether that's a public offering or an acquisition, right? Obviously, the market conditions have kind of created challenges for public offerings. A lot of that is dictated by what the market's looking for in that regard. But yes, we have had companies that have matured to that point, and are either currently evaluating or have evaluated a public offering as an exit plan or next phase plan, if you will.
Justine Reichman: Part of your infrastructure to help them with that exit or with that is the idea of becoming part of a larger entity, and going hub or going public?
Jon Lambert: Yeah. The accelerator program that I mentioned is through a business partnership with an organization called next stage trajectory. What I would call a later stage accelerator, and their entire focus is for supporting companies that have reached a certain threshold of revenue. So these aren't new companies. They've got 2 to $3 million a year in annual revenue. Potentially, they've stalled a little bit, and their founder group has a vision for, hey, we want to grow this significantly so that we can look for an exit opportunity. Their accelerator program is a very clear and concise 48 month program that takes those companies through that on an active support basis. So it's not just, hey, here's a methodology. We're going to spend three weeks with you, and good luck. We're going to stay with you through that entire period and help you not only raise the additional funds that you need, but help you go to market and sell to increase that revenue base, to increase your valuation, and then ultimately identify where our exit possibilities, and who are possible partners that would be interested in acquiring the business and helping with that process. And then also as an extension, again, back to the personal element, somebody that's going through that exit process. There's a personal component from a financial perspective on doing that the right way. A lot of folks that have gone through that have lost a lot of money with not understanding how to manage through that process. So we're also managing that at the founder level. Except now, it's not founder as an entry point, its founder at the exit point. So yeah, equally as important.
Justine Reichman: Yeah, I think so. And I think that's a whole conversation in itself because I think that there's so much to that, right? When somebody wants to go public, or take on larger institutional investors, or get acquired by another company, there's always the concern about, how will my mission and vision be maintained?
Jon Lambert: Absolutely.
Justine Reichman: Every founder's worst nightmare, right? It's a double edged sword. Here's $30 billion, but we're gonna change the mission.
Jon Lambert: Yes, you're exactly right. You at least have the opportunity to think through and understand, and preferably have acceptance around where that goes, versus not understanding what you're getting yourself into. The same is true of your piece of the pie as it relates to the financial returns. We talk about that from the very beginning of, don't give away your equity. This is a process that you need to understand all the way through. And so we try to help all of our founders and new businesses to understand that here's how this process is going to work, and don't compromise yourself unknowingly at any point in that process.
Justine Reichman: Awesome, and thank you. I just want to go back as we wrap this all up, because I know that you offer membership to everyone all over. We did talk about accountants and lawyers, but some of these things are very state specific, right? You need to have an attorney in California or Delaware so I just wanted to drill down on that a little bit so that our listeners know, are they global resources? So that regardless of what state you're in, you can access support and help.
Jon Lambert: Yes, absolutely. And we may not have the matrix all the way filled out, but I'll use the legal example. Our partnership is with an organization called Dickinson on the legal front. And from a services perspective, we selected them because of their focus on the entrepreneurial space, also their focus on the international space. One of the things we haven't talked about that we're working through is creating an international soft landing for startups and small businesses. So businesses that have been created in Asia and Europe that want to come into the US market. There are resources for large organizations to make that leap. There aren't really resources for small organizations. And Houston, just as its nature across the board, is a very compelling place to come. And so Dickinson has expertise in that space as well. What we attempt to do, and if we have a member that comes in that specific need, then it's our job to go out there and help them find that resource, versus them having to go do it on their own with the goal of, if we bring that resource in for one, we can then leverage it for the entire community.
Justine Reichman: Wonderful. Well, I know there's so much more that we can talk about, and I really appreciate this because I think that so often, we are focused on the product or the brand and their mission to build a better for your business to create greater access to healthy foods. And here, we have the opportunity to really support the founders through your community on a local and on a global level, giving them the resources, the vetted resources in particular that they need to be able to move forward. So Jon, thank you so much for joining me today. And before we go, before we wrap this up, can you just tell us, what can we expect to see with the growth of Cannon in the next three to five years?
Jon Lambert: Absolutely. Well, I alluded a little bit earlier that our big picture vision is that there is a lot of what I'll call white space. Meaning, there are pockets of innovation and startup community in different places. All of them, virtually, are kind of inward facing and focused. So Silicon Valley, a lot of Silicon Valley is about Silicon Valley. And New York's a great place. There's a lot of entrepreneurial activity going on there, but it's really about New York. And Boston, similar in Chicago and other places around the world. Beyond those cities, there is demand and opportunity, it's just that the resources haven't reached them yet. And so our goal is however we can, whether it's physical, virtual or a combination of both, try to fill up those white spaces to create a much larger community that transcends geography, if you will.
And so as I mentioned, from a physical hub perspective, we want to be at least in five new markets by the end of next year. From a digital community perspective, we're working with economic development organizations and that kind of thing. We're not limited from a geography perspective. We are having conversations, so I think our brand will show up in support of initiatives across the country as it relates to entrepreneurial support. That's a differentiator for us that it's not about planning our flag and brand recognition, really, it's about getting support to the community. And so we're okay with powered by the Cannon extension to a local initiative if that brings more folks to the table and gets more folks support. So hopefully, there'll be an obvious presence. And then while the obvious presence shows up, we're going to sneak up around you. And before you know it, you're going to see our little tagline all over the place where we're able to support that one giant community that can achieve great things when we get it together.
Justine Reichman: Awesome. Jon, thank you so much for joining us. I want to thank our listeners and viewers for tuning in today. These episodes are available on iTunes and Spotify, or wherever you listen to podcasts. Each week, new episodes come out on Tuesday mornings, so thanks for tuning in.
