Juggling Entrepreneurship and a Full-Time Job: A Strategy of Faith and Timing with Jeff Forgrave

Ever wondered how successful entrepreneurs manage to build their empire while juggling a full-time job? Meet Jeff Forgrave, a living testament to the power of side hustling! He not only held a full-time job in a Fortune 500 company, but also kickstarted six businesses over the course of his career, the last one being a flourishing toy business named Marble Genius. This episode is a compelling exploration of Jeff's entrepreneurial journey, his insights on the significance of timing in business, and the impact of God's faithfulness.

The entrepreneurial world is a rollercoaster ride, and Jeff beautifully narrates his ups and downs in the building of Marble Genius. The episode delivers a deep dive into the calculated risks involved, the vitality of a sturdy support system, and the essence of learning from each success or failure. If you're contemplating a side hustle or just stepping into the entrepreneurial world, Jeff's wisdom is something you wouldn't want to miss. His inspiring story is a testament to the power of faith, resilience, and strategic planning. So, gear up for this exciting journey of discovery and learning with the seasoned entrepreneur, Jeff Forgrave.

If you want to connect with Jeff, you can find him on LinkedIn @jeffforgrave.  

To connect with Olivet’s Entrepreneurship Program, contact Program Director, Chris Perez at caperez2@olivet.edu.

To learn more about other entrepreneurship opportunities and the McGraw School of Business’s very own Createur Conference and Pitch Competition, go to Createur.Olivet.edu.

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:00

What does it mean to be a Christian entrepreneur? How can I turn my ideas into an actual business? How do I navigate my path to entrepreneurship?

Speaker 2: 0:11

Welcome to Creator, the podcast brought to you by Olivet Nazarene University's McGraw School of Business to unlock the secrets to Christian entrepreneurship and fuel your path to success.

Speaker 1: 0:23

I'm your host, Carly Bird, graduate assistant of Olivet's Entrepreneurship program.

Speaker 2: 0:28

I'm your co-host, Spencer, James and Olivet undergraduate marketing management and business administration major.

Speaker 1: 0:34

Join us, fellow students, as we embark on a journey to discover the call of the entrepreneur.

Speaker 2: 0:40

This week, Jeff Forgrave is joining us to explore the art of side hustling.

Speaker 1: 0:44

Where faith and business meet. This is Creator, episode three.

Speaker 2: 0:51

Well, hello everyone. This week, Carly and I had the pleasure of welcoming an entrepreneur that has played such a large role in the success of Creator and our entrepreneurship program Jeff Fograve.

Speaker 1: 1:02

Jeff started his first business during his freshman year at Olivet and has subsequently started six different businesses, ranging from software to commercial real estate and everything in between, while at the same time working 15 years for a Fortune 500 pharmaceutical company. He is an experienced software development leader, six Sigma, black Belt and IU Kelly School of Business MBA graduate. While working in corporate America, jeff shifted his full-time focus in 2018 to a toy business. He started as a side hustle. Jeff developed 50 plus different products, had six different patents and brand this toy business for more than five years, before having a life-changing exit from the business in 2021. Jeff is now focused on helping other businesses reach their full potential through business strategy and investing. Him and his wife, sarah have two kids that are 15 and 13 and are active in their church and local community in Indianapolis. Jeff, it is so great to have you here with us today. This is so exciting, good sir.

Speaker 3: 2:07

Carly, thanks so much for having me.

Speaker 1: 2:10

All right, jeff, a huge misconception that I feel many individuals I know have is that you've got your main job right, you know your full-time job, and then there's the side hustle that a lot of people seem to think is insignificant, small or, you know, doesn't bring in much revenue. Now, jeff, you are one of the best examples I know of someone that took this static view of a side hustle and grew it into something incredible. So, just to get started, could you start by explaining to our listeners what a side hustle is exactly for those that don't know, and how you took that concept and turned it into an entrepreneurial success?

Speaker 3: 2:51

Sure. So I see a side hustle as sort of something on the side right. Whether you're a full-time student focused on learning, or a full-time worker who's focused on your job, or maybe even a stay-at-home parent focused on your kids, that side hustle is sort of something you're doing just with your extra time to either maybe get some side cash or develop a skill, start a business, something like that.

Speaker 1: 3:17

Okay, great, that's a great explanation.

Speaker 3: 3:19

I've probably had I don't know 10 different side hustles really dating back to college right. So freshman year of college was 1998. It seems like forever ago now, but the web was just starting. I was busy trying to design websites for folks and then, sophomore year, I started to do another side hustle. I had 10 different side hustles along the way and finally the last one was a product-based company that I ended up investing a lot of time and money in called Marble Genius, and so that side hustle ended up taking off after replacing a significant bet and we weren't sure sort of where it would end up, but started to dedicate a lot of my time and energy into that and the rest is history.

Speaker 1: 4:05

Wow, that's incredible. Okay, really quick too. You said you started two of these side hustles just in college. I mean, that's not common for a lot of college students to be thinking in that type of mindset? How did you start off like that? What was your inspiration or how did you come to that passion?

Speaker 3: 4:25

Yeah, I loved to code back in the day, so computer science was my major and so I loved it to just write code and so I kept doing different things like designing websites. So then the next year was a grade book software that would email parents their students grade. So it seems like second nature now, but back in 1999, that was not second nature and so I thought, okay, I'll just write the software program and then I'll just go out and sell it to schools, and so I ended up selling like 10 copies. I made a few hundred bucks from that one. So not every one of these side hustles was tremendously profitable, but they're all super great learning experiences because of the time and investment that I put into them.

Speaker 2: 5:12

Obviously, Marvel Genius has just been such a huge success for you and in my conversations with you I mean I've just learned so much from you and how you built that success and scaled that up. But how do you even find that? How did you find something that stuck and really brought out your passion, kind of, of this idea?

Speaker 3: 5:34

Yeah, so I placed a lot of different bets on goal, right, so, or shots on goal, if you will, with different things right and just not knowing exactly what would stick. Finally, about seven or eight years ago, Amazon sort of was still in its infancy with products and things like that, and so some of these ventures timing is everything and that was the case with Marvel Genius, where I was able to sort of look at the market. There was a product that recently went off-padden, you know, called the Marvel Run, and it recently came off-padden and I thought, you know what? I see all kinds of ways to innovate here and do something different, and so that ended up taking about $50,000 to sort of get the inventory and the tooling and all that stuff to sort of figure out. Okay, I need to get the inventory, get this product to market and let's just see if people are gonna buy it. It's an important combination of trying to find the right product and then try and get it in front of the customer.

Speaker 2: 6:37

If I'm looking to start a side house, I mean, where would you even encourage me to start at Right, Like, how can I, you know what resources can I use to my advantage to find that passion?

Speaker 3: 6:49

I'll tell you about some of the resources I used, and obviously there's even more. You know resources and things like that. Today, back in the day when I was sort of doing some of these side houses, I loved to read, right, and so there were different books, like Escaping Cubicle Nation or the four hour work week, like you know, things that I would read to sort of you know, draw inspiration from. You know, if I was to start a side house today, I think, first and foremost, it's important to understand what the objective is right. Are you trying to earn a little bit of side cash or are you trying to make this your full-time play, or are you just trying to develop the new skill that you think will be beneficial? So I'd start there. Right Is define your objective.

Speaker 3: 7:28

The second step that I think is important is to understand what sacrifices are gonna be necessary to achieve that right. We often underestimate that. We think it's gonna be easy, but it's gonna probably involve time and money, and that money, you know, if you don't have it, you're gonna have to figure out where to get it right. And so trying to figure out what it's gonna take to get that side hustle to something you know profitable, so that it can sort of self-sustain itself.

Speaker 3: 7:57

And then I'd start to seek out a mentor, you know, ideally someone who's done something similar before, who can sort of validate your idea and see, okay, am I crazy here with this idea? Or, you know, does this idea have same power? And then, finally, I think it's important to at least talk with family, especially if you're married, you better be talking to your wife or kids and you have kids. Or, you know, if you're a student, you know mom and dad, you know, I think you know. It's easy, though, for different folks to sort of pour water on these ideas, and so you do have to take some of that feedback. Like, man, they think it's a bad idea, what do I do? Right, there's some tension there, but those are the steps that I would take before I just say, okay, I'm ready to go head first and start out with this idea.

Speaker 1: 8:43

I love that. I love that list of steps. I think that will be so beneficial to so many of our listeners who are looking to get involved in the side hustle. You know, I think one huge thing that a lot of people struggle with when getting into side hustles is time commitment. So, as you mentioned, having a family, a full-time job you know all these different tasks we have going on our life, whether it be school work, even just keeping up with our Christian faith. You know we're a very strong believer focused group here. So how would you say you know, what recommendations do you have for maintaining that time commitment and finding the time to work on your side hustle? Because I think that this tends to be one of the areas that actually scares people off the most about getting involved in the side hustle.

Speaker 3: 9:30

Yeah, that's a great question and not one that's easily answered, right, because sometimes you know business, it's not like a straight line, right.

Speaker 3: 9:38

The reality is you know there's there's zigs and there's zags and there's things that you just don't know what are going to come up.

Speaker 3: 9:44

And so I think early on you just have to be clear with you, know what you're willing to sacrifice, right, and so you know if it for instance, you know me with a family like they were first, right, and that was, that was the most important thing. And so if for some reason something happened with the business, like I needed to make sure my family came first and so making sure you understand sort of your order of priorities and where you're going to place your time when, when things come up and and sometimes that might be firefighting mode with the business, and that's okay, like you know, once in a while but if that's an everyday thing and and it's really disrupting other areas of your life, whether it be your faith or your friendships, things like that, then then it might be time to sort of reevaluate whether or not the side hustle either needs to become your primary hustle or needs to sort of fall by the wayside until a better time.

Speaker 2: 10:34

Yeah, I think about also in sacrifice I mean so much of that is also in about living a life of faith. How, how is your faith impacted the various ventures that you've started so far in your life?

Speaker 3: 10:48

You know, I like to think that I, everything I do right, is through the lens of what God would have me do with my time and my money and my energy.

Speaker 3: 10:57

And so, obviously, just you know, staying in the word, making sure I'm in church every week, making sure I'm surrounded with believers, you know, in a small group who can provide good counsel, and I also have what's called a mastermind, a group of guys who are not only believers but are also e-commerce owners, and so they, these guys, understood my side hustle, if you will, and so they they were. They were able to pour into me in like unique ways to be able to make sure that I was not only, you know, staying true to my faith, but also, you know, with business, making sure that they could help, lead, guide and direct me. And so I think about those things. Am I in church? Am I surrounded by other believers? And then am I potentially surrounded by believers who've got a sort of unique skill sets that can help me along? And then you know, just being true to those things and making sure that I'm trying to stay in tune with God and what he would have me do each and every day.

Speaker 2: 11:56

And you know, in your intro we talked a little bit about how you shifted, you know, your full-time focus and and leaving right your day job to kind of pursue your, your marble genius venture more. I mean, did you you feel like that was, you know, very God guided and how you said, all right, like that's a big step? I mean, did you feel like that was, that was very much that you having to rely on God and in the steps that he was putting in front of you?

Speaker 3: 12:20

Yeah, looking back on it, that initial investment into the idea, right. So it sounds crazy. Okay, I'm going to spend like $50,000 on this idea. I don't know if it's going to work. If it doesn't work, I'm probably not going to place another bet like this in the future.

Speaker 3: 12:34

I just felt so strongly. We felt so strongly like the data was leading us here and just different things were leading us to that decision. So everything leading up to starting the business sort of relied on that right. And then you start to get deeper and deeper. One year in there's some things you didn't expect.

Speaker 3: 12:52

Two years in, finally, about three years into the business, we worked, we sort of plateaued, and so just me putting my part-time effort into it was not enough, and I'm sure many listeners have watched Shark Tank before. Robert from Shark Tank is famous for saying just quit the job and go for it. And then I started to look at, okay, where are we at in life? And so my wife was a state all mom at the time. I was a sole breadwinner, two young kids at the time and so we made a calculated decision like, okay, we are going to be okay either way, like we'll have each other if this doesn't work out, and who knows what's going to happen if it doesn't work out, but we had a lot of validation, sort of up and to that point. So, up to the point of me leaving my full-time job, there was a lot of market validation and the idea, but then I leave my job, and that was a big decision.

Speaker 3: 13:47

Obviously, we all, sort of collectively, made that decision my wife, my kids, myself and then, after that decision, next to you're facing other roadblocks, and so, oh man, I didn't see that coming, or I didn't see that coming, and so it's not necessarily an easy ride, even though we had three years of sales up until that point. And so one thing led to another, though, and more time investment in the business led to more products, more innovation, and then ended up selling the business just over two years after that for sort of a life-changing experience, and so I don't want to necessarily sell that as the message, right, because you just never know what's going to happen when it comes to business. You just sort of have to take it one step at a time, and some of them are going to work out, and then others are not, and I have a lot of friends who experience both, and the highs are extremely high. But just to be clear, the lows are extremely low, and so you better be grounded in something when you're in business, because it's a rollercoaster.

Speaker 1: 14:52

You know, I'm really glad that I think there's a couple big takeaways from that story as well. One having that support system and being in agreement with everyone around your family. Everybody is a big part in this decision. It's so important that everybody's on the same page. And also, I love that you did mention you know this was a calculated decision and it's important to really do your research before you decide to make that big of a decision. It's not something, as you mentioned. You know some are going to be successes and some are going to be failures.

Speaker 3: 15:28

Yeah, and I think you know society will tell us that, man, it's all about. You know if you can get rich and then you just go off and lie at a beach, play golf or, you know, do whatever you want for the rest of your life as Christians, right? I don't think that should be our objective, right? And so you know, whatever your goal is, with whatever journey you're on, you know whether it's a side hustle or trying to run your own full-time business you know this money, this life, is not ours, and so the importance of whatever you earn, whatever you're doing, hopefully it's for the glory of God and you're able to sort of give back then in unique ways and continue to reinvest your time into other endeavors.

Speaker 2: 16:10

What advice would you have for students who you know are just about to graduate, or maybe just getting into college and looking down the path of entrepreneurship?

Speaker 3: 16:21

Yeah, that's a good question. You know it's easy to read the headlines and think that you know, I don't know. The Mark Zuckerbergs of the world are the rule and not the exception, and the reality is like those stories are the exception and so a lot of businesses most businesses, in fact, that are successful are started by those, believe it or not, in their mid-40s. So I would say, if you fail, you know at first it's okay. Right, be okay with being ready to fail, because I launched like 10 different side hustles before I found my primary hustle. That ended up, you know, with a life changing event. So don't be discouraged with whatever you decide to do out of college. Use it all as a learning experience, and the more quickly you can learn and iterate and build on those learnings, the quicker you'll hopefully be able to find success.

Speaker 1: 17:16

Well, jeff, I can't believe how fast time flies, but it looks like we're actually going to have to start wrapping things up. However, I would like to just say I have thoroughly enjoyed this discussion today and we just thank you so much for being here. All right, spencer and I both know what time it is here at Creator, we always like to end with a quirky question of the week, we like to call it. So, jeff, are you ready for your question?

Speaker 3: 17:42

I'm ready.

Speaker 1: 17:43

All right. So this week your question is what is one unique or quirky skill you have that actually benefits you in the business field?

Speaker 3: 17:52

Yeah, oh man, I. You know I'd like to think I have a lot of skills, but it's probably not true. I guess. You know. If there is one thing that I think about, it's you know I can be sometimes hyper focused on efficiency, you know, trying to find the quickest route from point A to point B or trying to accomplish something in the most efficient way at home. And so that work, if you will.

Speaker 3: 18:21

You know, I admit you mentioned that I had a six sigma block belt as well. That leads me to think in differently, I guess, and I think in terms more of systems and processes than other people do so. Like, when it came to setting up my business you know whether it was, I don't know, a $1 million business, $50 million business, $100 million business I felt like the systems that I was able to put in place, like, were able to scale in a way. You know that maybe other people, when they set up their businesses, they set it up a little bit differently. So I guess that's the quirky skill. That's not all that interesting or creative, but but efficiency is sort of one of those things that I take with me everywhere. It feels like.

Speaker 2: 19:04

So that's awesome. Well, I know I can, I could resonate with that and I've always really appreciated that about you and how you are designing businesses to be scalable. Thank you very much for your insightful conversation. I think this has been a really, really great conversation and I know I really appreciate it.

Speaker 1: 19:23

Yes, absolutely. I know that. You know I've learned something new today and I'm sure our listeners would agree with me on that. And, listeners, if you want to connect with Jeff, you can find him on LinkedIn under at Jeff Forgrave, so go check that out.

Speaker 2: 19:36

And if you want to connect with all of its entrepreneurship program director, Chris Perez, or discover other entrepreneurship opportunities the program has to offer, such as the McGraw School of Business's very own Creator Conference and Pitch Competition, which Jeff was a guest speaker in, go ahead and go to all of that. Dot edu slash creator.

Speaker 1: 19:55

Thank you for listening and don't forget to tune in next time when we have Daniel Kwok with us, who will be joining us to share how God called him to entrepreneurship and some lessons he's learned along the way.

Speaker 2: 20:07

Where faith and business mean to. This is the Creator Podcast. We'll see you later.