The Createur Podcast
Welcome to The Createur Podcast, an energizing Christian entrepreneurship series inspiring young professionals and college students. Hosts Spencer James and Karli Byrd explore the intersection of faith and business, drawing from the expertise of successful entrepreneurs. Our program is proudly affiliated with the McGraw School of Business at Olivet Nazarene University, renowned for its groundbreaking Entrepreneurship degree program.
This student-produced podcast is a gateway to understanding the relationship between Christian faith and the entrepreneurial journey. Experience captivating stories, valuable insights, and strategies that unveil God's design for business. "The Createur Podcast" is your guide to the intersection of innovation, growth, and personal development within the context of faith and business.
Embark on a transformative journey with us—explore the annual Createur Conference and Pitch Competition. This Free Event is happening April 15-16, 2024. Participate in a Shark Tank style pitch competition with $15K in prizes, world-class keynotes, and networking. Open to high school and college students, as well as Olivet alumni. Learn more at Createur.Olivet.edu.
The Createur Podcast
Faith-Fueled Business Innovation: Jared Fulks' Impactful Journey in East Africa
Unlock the secret to combining faith and business with insights from Jared Fulks, managing partner at Pureflow. Learn how Jared's journey from coaching basketball in the UK to transforming the lives of boda boda drivers in Uganda reveals the power of innovative financing solutions. This episode promises to inspire as we explore Pureflow's unique model that integrates financial empowerment with spiritual growth, creating opportunities for motorcycle ownership that uplift communities and families alike.
Discover the art of scaling a business rooted in community engagement, where over 75% of new customers come from personal referrals. Jared shares the strategies behind creating exceptional customer experiences and building strong community ties, emphasizing the importance of slow, intentional growth. We delve into how Pureflow's practices, like in-home background checks, foster accountability while maintaining a God-honoring culture inspired by Christ's example, highlighting the value of foundational relationships over rapid expansion.
Navigate the complexities of operating a business in East Africa as we uncover both the challenges and possibilities of this emerging market. Jared offers valuable advice for aspiring global entrepreneurs, touching on government inconsistencies, tax compliance, and cultural differences. He shares a vision for high-speed trains that could revolutionize transportation. Tune in for a conversation filled with insights, passion, and actionable advice for anyone looking to make a meaningful impact in international business.
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.
This week, Jared Foulkes will be joining us to discuss what it means to create a God-honoring company culture.
Speaker 2:Where faith and business meet. This is Creator.
Speaker 1:Welcome to the Creator Podcast. Join us as we dive deep into conversations with visionaries, innovators and doers.
Speaker 2:Whether you're building your brand, launching your next big project or simply seeking inspiration, this is the space where ideas come to life.
Speaker 1:I'm Spencer James.
Speaker 2:And I'm Carly Bird when faith and business meet.
Speaker 1:This is the Creator Podcast. Hello everyone, this week, Carly and I have the pleasure of being joined by someone who has great experience in global business, Jared Folt.
Speaker 2:That's right. Jared is a managing partner of Pureflow, a faith-driven business in East Africa serving thousands of people with access to affordable financing. He lives in Atlanta, georgia, with his wife, megan, son Weller and Nala, their golden retriever. He attended Liberty University where he first met his business partner, colin. After spending time coaching semi-pro basketball in the UK and working for early stage companies in sales and marketing, the Lord led him to Pure Flow. He loves seeing how business can truly be the vehicle where faith and work can come together to accomplish a singular mission. Jared, thank you so much for being here today. It's so great to have you on the show.
Speaker 3:Awesome, I'm pumped to be here. Carly and Spencer, thanks for having me.
Speaker 2:I think it would be great to really quick Jared also. You know, just for our listeners, could you describe PureFlow just a little? You know basic blurb of what PureFlow is for our listeners.
Speaker 3:Absolutely so. You hit on transportation being a key thing, and, quite honestly, in the US and the Western world, we take it for granted. There is a way to get almost everywhere. Most of us have cars, if we can drive, and then we can take trains. If we're in a city, we can take an Uber, we can get on a public bus, we can get on a plane, we can get where we need to go, and so in a lot of the world, though, people get around on the back of motorcycles, and this is kind of due to crowded roads, poor infrastructure and the just access to a lower cost asset for people to be able to get around on.
Speaker 3:So consider this in Uganda, there's 50 million people the country is the size of the state of Oregon and there's a million people that wake up every single day and they get on a motorcycle, and they are the taxi drivers that move the world around there, from point A to point B. So if you want to send your kids to school and we have people on our team three-year-old needs to go to school they call their boda. Boda is what the name of the taxi drivers are means border to border and they put their kid on the bike with the taxi driver and then the taxi driver drives them to school. There's no helmets for those that are listening. There are helmets, but these kids don't wear helmets. It's kind of crazy, but this is how you get around. If you want to move your eggs from your farm to the market, you put them on the back of a boda boda, and so this is how people get around, which is a very foreign concept for probably most people listening here and if you haven't seen it before, just go look up a video. But they are everywhere. And so this group of people that wakes up and does this every day, they're running into a problem, and the problem is this that they don't have access to own that motorcycle themselves. It is the main asset in their business, right? They wake up every day consider just like an Uber driver would and they're going to serve people all day long, giving 20, 30, 40, 50 rides a day to people and goods moving around town. But they're caught. They're stuck. They can't own that motorcycle because the banks won't loan them, give them a loan for that motorcycle and they don't have enough cash to go buy it outright. But they get stuck in this cycle where they're renting indefinitely from a few people that own a lot of bikes and with no path to ownership Again, a foreign idea for us, because most of us listening here have access to affordable financing.
Speaker 3:Right, I financed my first car. I got to pay it down. I financed my college education and I paid it down, financed my home. Paying it down financed our business. You know we have access to finance things and they the majority don't have access to that, and so Pureflow steps in to fill that gap.
Speaker 3:And so PureFlow was built on that idea that we want to be affordable financing for people ages 18 to 80 who do not have access to affordable financing. And so that's how the business was started was identifying the few with the resource that Colin had at the time. So it started with six people and there was kind of two commitments that he made these individuals make. One was you got to pay on time for two years and then in two years the bike is yours, you own it outright, and can you only imagine these people double their income when they moved to ownership, so they were taking home, you know, 70, 80 bucks a month after paying rent. Now they're taking home 150 bucks a month, and that dramatically changes them and their family and their family's family's future. And so when I heard this story, I was like I'm all in.
Speaker 3:But the second commitment that he made them make was really what got me, and this goes back to what I said earlier. Not only do they pay every week on time, but he did much like what Jesus does in the Gospels over and over again is he opened up his table at his home for people and so when they make a payment, they also were sharing in a meal with Colin. He was literally fixing them a meal and opening up scripture with them and discipling these first six customers. And so most people would say, well, that doesn't scale, to which I would probably agree with them. Four and a half years ago when I first heard the story, because it had gone from six to 80.
Speaker 3:And then when I got involved, I was just wondering could it scale? And by God's grace it has. So we get to serve now 45. I think we just passed 4,500 active customers we call them members across 11 locations. So these are actual physical branches, think like a bank across Uganda, and we still invite them to the table every single week, and so they're making a payment, they're sharing a meal and we have people on our team that are serving them, opening up the Bible with them and journeying with them for two years, and so not only are they moving towards financial freedom but, by the power of the Holy Spirit and us, creating an environment at the table, their lives are being changed, changed spiritually, and their eternities are being changed. They're being set free. So that's kind of a little bit of the backstory of Pure Flow. And then what we do now is that we finance motorcycles for people so they can move to ownership, and we do it by creating a place at the table so they can hear the gospel of Jesus.
Speaker 1:That's so powerful. I love that. I love that model.
Speaker 2:So, to kick things off today on the show, I think it would be great and we would really love it if you could just share a little bit more about your journey and what that looks like meeting the needs of others while listening to God's guidance and how that's impacted you both in your life and business.
Speaker 3:Yeah, so you guys. You guys hinted at it in the intro, but I had an interesting path to Uganda. Hinted at it in the intro, but I had an interesting path to Uganda. It wasn't on a motorcycle, because you can't get there on a motorcycle from Atlanta, but it was a little bit diverted.
Speaker 3:Interestingly enough, I grew up as a pastor's kid and had an interesting perspective when I got into the marketplace after college about 10 years ago with this idea that either I was going to go into full-time vocational ministry which is kind of what I had heard it been called or I was going to go make money in the marketplace to fund the other things.
Speaker 3:And about four and a half five years ago I met, re-met, my now business partner, colin, and I heard what God had been doing in his life while he had been living in Uganda for five years since he left college, and found out that there's a different way and it's not something that I had been really aware of and that is that we can work in the marketplace and honor God in it in the way that we hire and treat our team and the way that we treat our members, the way that we structure our business model and can be a part of this redemptive story in our business model, and so that really was Pure Flow. For me was actually a career trajectory changing story. I mean, the story inspired me what Colin had started in 2017, I had heard about at the beginning of 2020. And now, as partners, we have seen God do tremendous things through this financing company. That's awesome.
Speaker 1:But I do have a question. I mean, what is that scaling process look like for you? I mean 4,500, that's a lot of a lot of people, a lot of members, excuse me, to manage right. So I mean, are they like coming to you and signing up and kind of trying to get some financing to own, or is that something you're, you're going out into the communities to to see you know if people qualify for that?
Speaker 3:Yeah, it's a good, good question. So it's it's a balance of, like any business, any healthy business is going to desire to create raving fans who come to them through word of mouth referral, as a friend of mine calls it the holy grail of marketing. And so we actually, still to this day, are probably above 75% of word of mouth referral. So that means somebody comes to us, has a great experience. They love the hospitality and care that our team provides, um, and the service that we provide. And then they go tell their friends because boda boda drivers hang out with other boda boda drivers at these things called boda boda stages. So these are like every street corner you'll see 10 to 20 lined up and that's kind of where they go, that's kind of their home office. Every day they show up there because their people know to find them there for rides, um, and so they create these little micro communities.
Speaker 3:And so when we move into new markets that's part of our market research is to identify who's leading these.
Speaker 3:How do we gather them together, tell them about what we're doing, because there are other people doing similar businesses to ours without that second commitment, and really I call it a second opportunity, which is to join people at the table, find community, find love, find care, be invited in, and so, yeah, that's a good question.
Speaker 3:And then we vet them. So we're getting people coming in all the time applying to our 11 locations, and then we have a part of our team at every branch. Their job is to go, and we actually do in-home background checks on every single one of our customers, and so we're going to meet the family from the get-go, which helps with two things. It helps with compliance for long-term because there's accountability, and so that's one of the challenges with any microfinance is there's a lack of accountability, and so then you start getting higher default rates. So that's one of the things. But the second thing is just to let them know that we're actually here to build a relationship, and so now we get to serve them and their family, and so we're inviting them all into this physical and metaphorical table that is PureFlow.
Speaker 1:I love that.
Speaker 2:Thank you, jared. Yeah, that's really impressive and I kind of want to go back for a quick second. You know you touched on so many great things about Pure Flow a second ago and I think it's interesting as well. You know you were mentioning how you really go into those homes and your partner and getting to connect with these individuals. Do you think you could share just a little bit more about how you've created that sense of a God-honoring culture and what are some of those little details that go into the company that really reflect Christ's spirit in general, just being that strong example, for you know your customer base as well as your company as a whole.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and I'll answer that with a perspective or a context of scale, because I think scale is such an interesting thing. It seems to be what every entrepreneur is going after. For those listening, if you're thinking about starting a business or getting into one, now we jump to scale, and I've got to be honest, I'm guilty of doing that too, because it just seems more exciting and it seems like what the world is pulling us into. So don't hear me and say that scale is bad. But also, I don't think scale is necessarily the goal, and so I think the goal is creating remarkable experiences for customers with whatever service or product that you sell, and then creating a place that people want to come back to, which we define as our hospitality model being, and then creating a place that people want to come back to, which we define as our hospitality model being a person, and creating a place that people want to come back to. We think that's how Jesus would run a business and that's how we want to run a business. So, with that, I think, too, that healthy scale comes on the backs of the leaders early on, embodying what they want to see at scale. And so you know it goes back to Colin, having six people around his personal dinner table and in his personal home in this small town in Western Uganda, and so you do that.
Speaker 3:And then you, you know we went from. It was a very slow growth. There was no outside capital infusing the business from 2017 till 2021. So four years, and this is where, again, not wrong, but I think a lot of people jump the scale from the get-go and don't do the things that are unscalable before they try to scale. And so don't expect, I think, to do things at scale that you're not willing to do when you can't scale, because Colin and one of the great many things I've learned from him, but that was one of them that he was willing to do what he believed in the vision long-term could happen potentially at scale. He was willing to do without scale, with what he was entrusted, with, what God had for him.
Speaker 3:By the way, I let this out the six first customers. It cost $6,000 to buy those bikes and that was the last $6,000 that he had to his name as a young 20-some and living in Western Uganda, and so there's a lot of credit owed to him for the faith that he had. But I think that from the get-go. We hired a few people early on that had to do all the things that we're now asking other people to do as we've grown. So go into homes, go repossess a bike at two in the morning when somebody steals it, go and sit around the table and lead a fellowship. All of our first team members, they all did that every day, and so now those are people leading other people who are doing that and they have a lot of, I think, empathy for understanding what those roles entail.
Speaker 1:That's good. I like what you just said there. You talked maybe a little bit about the challenges. I mean, what are the challenges that come with this? Obviously, it's typical, right With just the model as it is, for some issues to happen. I mean, what? What are some things that maybe happened that you're not expecting or you didn't expect when you first started doing this?
Speaker 3:Yeah, I'll speak to somebody who has never considered starting or operating or being a part of a business on another continent, specifically in an emerging frontier market like East Africa. I would encourage these people to consider that there's huge market opportunity Just by nature of a lot of things, but there's just big market opportunity With that. There's big challenges, different challenges than you might face in the US. So practically you have potential government challenges. There's inconsistencies that we wouldn't maybe find here in the US. That can feed down to a lot of things. It can feed down to tax, can feed down to compliance things, just structurally for your business. And then you also have seasonality for specifically our, the customer base that we serve.
Speaker 3:And I'll give you an example A few years ago, like if the farming season is not great, then it actually decreases the amount of people that will come to take a motorcycle because they don't have the type of capital to put down as a down payment towards this loan, whereas recently it was a really great season and so we had an increase in people coming in.
Speaker 3:And then I think one of the biggest things around culture that we have seen is that in certain markets, individuals, young professionals and really older professionals have less exposure to the level of excellence that most people listening here have grown up around in the US, because I can walk into a Chick-fil-A or Ritz-Carlton or I can experience things that are done well, tech driven people, first caring cultures I can go experience that every day and I can tell the difference between bad and good culture because I have so much exposure. In other places there's just not as much exposure to that kind of excellence and so, as two American dudes working on a team and serving alongside over 100 Ugandans, we get to learn a lot and we get to partner with our team to go and see what it looks like to be excellent and not just tell what it should look like.
Speaker 2:Absolutely. Yeah, you know, Jared, that's interesting too. I'm so glad that you brought up just as a fun fact.
Speaker 2:I'm pretty sure that you are the first guest that we've had on the show working in a global market, so this is such a fun new topic for our listeners to experience, and I know that we have quite a few student listeners even that are studying global business and have that desire to go into a field of that nature. With that being said, do you think you could share maybe just a piece of advice or, you know, maybe a couple key pieces of advice you have for some of those listeners out there that are looking to enter the foreign market?
Speaker 3:So, as you're considering, you know, I think we a lot of times think about global businesses joining a large enterprise that already has a footprint across the globe and the challenges that you might face there are different than probably what we faced. And the challenges that you might face there are different than probably what we faced. Probably some are similar at the ground level, but things like understanding cultural context time change is a fun one that you get to deal with. Travel, like just all these elements of learning other people's culture and then finding your place in it, not just assuming the invitation. So I think that's probably more on a global business. And then there's obviously all the regulations and such but large businesses have figured that out or they probably wouldn't still have a global footprint. On our experience, or in our experience it's been, you know, more at the ground level of building and starting and trying to figure some of these things out ourselves, and so I think the tendency for most entrepreneurs is that we like to hold on to things and then when challenges come, we typically will clench our fists tighter. That's our flesh that wants to do that. The opportunity I think that's been cool, especially with a partner is for us to encourage one another, to open our hands. To open our hands because we have to keep realizing, because the challenges are real and they're they. They blindside you more than even as I worked in startups in the U S. Internationally. They, the challenges, blindside you a lot more. So it's like real big right Hooks, not just jab, jab jab that you're expecting. The jabs come, those are natural, those are every day running a business. The right hooks are what get you and in those moments it's really easy to try to grab hold tighter. But what we've learned is that we almost have to open up wider because it's not our business which is a shocking thing to say because we like to put titles around ourselves, we like to put our name on things, we like to change our LinkedIn status, which are all good things, but at the end of the day it's not our business and we can say that. But when we get punched in the side of the head by an audit or something big that was unexpected, or theft within the business or different things that are challenging, we have members that get killed far too often in this space. So there's just a lot of tough things and we have tried to learn, colin and I to encourage one another to open our hands in those moments.
Speaker 3:So that's the one thing, and then the second thing I'll just briefly share. We read this in Philippians 1. Paul's talking to the church of Philippi and he uses the word partnership very directly and he's thanking God for their partnership in the gospel and because he's understanding that we all have roles to play. And so from the get-go we have really been about partnership, both Colin and I, as well as with our investors, who are called partners, and others that have come alongside us to help us. So finding people that have gone ahead of you will help you go further faster if you're in a foreign market. So those are two pieces of advice Open our hands up and find good people to be around you.
Speaker 1:So awesome. What great truth, even just in our everyday life. Right? Just be full of surrender. I've been thinking about that a lot lately. All right, jared. Well, we're kind of wrapping up today, but I do have another question that's business related, and then Carly is going to wrap up with something fun that we like to do on the show, but I always like to hear, like, what's next for Pureflow? Right, like you guys are killing it and transportation doesn't really seem to be going away anytime soon. I'm not a fortune teller, right, but people are always going to need to move around. So what does that kind of long-term sustainability or goal look like for PureFlow?
Speaker 3:Yeah, this is probably not the answer that you want, but when we figure it out we'll get back on the show with you.
Speaker 3:Right now we are.
Speaker 3:I'll say this, I don't know to answer your question directly Right now we are growing into new markets, finding more people to serve with motorcycle loans, potentially diversifying the asset that we lend on in the mobility space.
Speaker 3:But we've In the midst of trying to figure that out. It kind of goes back to our original mission, and the founding of PureFlow, which is around the table, is that we want to make sure we're making decisions now to ensure that there's always a seat at the table for somebody in these communities that we feel God has called us to, and so that means we have to make a profit, so we have to pay attention to the oxygen of the business, which is money, but we can't be distracted fully by that. We have to ensure that we are creating a place and becoming people that others want to come back to, so it's a balance of culture and profit, and making sure that our purpose remains, so that we have a table set and there's actually a chair there for somebody to come back to, because if the second, we either fill up our seats and we don't create a new one or we get rid of the table. We've drifted really far away from what we believe God's called us to.
Speaker 2:Thank you, Jared. Yeah, that is such a profound explanation for your next steps and really, and how you see your company. You know this has been such a powerful conversation today and just gaining these new insights that I know that many of our listeners have very little experience in this topic, in this area, in this topic in this area, but it's certainly a huge need that you are filling. So we appreciate you taking the time to be with us today and share these insights. Now I know Spencer kind of preluded, I guess you could say, to your final question here. So here at Creator, we like to end with what we call the quirky question of the week. So we have your quirky question here. Are you ready, Jared, for your quirky question?
Speaker 3:I think so, I think so.
Speaker 2:All right, jared, if you could choose any mode of transportation, what would be your dream ride? And you can go as crazy as flying cars to luxury submarines. Whatever you're thinking, what comes to the top of your mind.
Speaker 3:Submarines scare me out. The claustrophobia definitely. It would not be submarine.
Speaker 2:I would not pick that either.
Speaker 3:That would be cool though it would be.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I just don't want to go that deep in the ocean, although it would seem, effectively, that that would be the way that you could get more places faster.
Speaker 3:I actually think it's a hint at it in the intro, but I spent a year in England and I fell in love with trains, which we unfortunately don't have many of in the US, at least where I live in Atlanta not good trains that you want to actually ride on, and so I think it would be a very, very fast, direct, high speed train to wherever I want to go above ground, not underground, because I like I fly a lot, but I like having my feet closer to the ground, and trains just seem to be safer, in my opinion, than cars or planes or any of these other modes of transportation, than cars or planes or any of these other modes of transportation, and I love just getting to look outside. And, yes, I think that would be if I could just build my own rail station, my rail tracks, anywhere I want, with high speed, above ground trains with good food on it. That would be my mode of transportation. That's a good answer that's unique.
Speaker 2:I like that and I like the part about you know the scenery as well and being able to look out and you know kind of see the landscape around you.
Speaker 1:Enjoy it. Enjoy it Well, jared. Thanks so much for your time today. Again, we're super appreciative of you letting us sit at your table even for just a couple of minutes today. Listeners, if you want to learn a little bit more about Jared, you can just find him on LinkedIn or Twitter.
Speaker 2:And to learn more, of course, about Olivet's entrepreneurship program, you can visit Olivetedu slash entrepreneurship. And, of course, to learn more about the Creator Conference and Pitch Competition, you can email me, Carly Bird at kabird at Olivetedu, or visit our website, creatorolivetedu. Where faith and business meet. This is the Creator Podcast. Thank you.