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
From Law Student to CEO: Addison Newell's Entrepreneurial Odyssey
Curious about how a former aspiring law student became a CEO and turned a collaborative workspace into a thriving entrepreneurial hub? This week, Carly and I chat with Addison Newell, who has navigated an extraordinary journey from the corporate ladder to the dynamic world of entrepreneurship. Addison shares compelling stories of taking the reins at Refinery46 in Indianapolis, a place that buzzes with innovation and connectivity. He reveals how this unique workspace model fosters growth through diverse office options and co-working memberships, even in a post-COVID world where micro office spaces remain a hot commodity.
In our conversation, we explore how the idea of "work near home" is reshaping the traditional office landscape. These local, flexible workspaces have become game-changers for solopreneurs and small business owners looking for community and support without the commute. With Addison's background as a public school teacher, he brings a fresh perspective on building vibrant work environments. His insights on building a supportive ecosystem for entrepreneurs show how successful ventures can uplift an entire community, blending personal experiences with professional wisdom to inspire and empower.
Touching on failure, risk, and resilience, Addison shares valuable lessons from both the entrepreneurial and missionary fields. His stories about embracing challenges and making strategic choices — like selecting the perfect location for Refinery46 — highlight the importance of risk-taking and learning from setbacks. From brainstorming expansion ideas to considering food truck destinations, Addison’s bold decisions illuminate the path to growth and innovation. Join us for an inspiring discussion that champions taking action and seizing unforeseen opportunities in the entrepreneurial journey.
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.
Hello everyone. This week, carly and I have the privilege of being joined by an ONU alum with quite a unique journey to entrepreneurship Addison Newell.
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 where faith and business meet.
Speaker 1:This is the Creator Podcast. This week, Addison Newell is joining us to discuss his unconventional route to entrepreneurship. Addison Newell is joining us to discuss his unconventional route to entrepreneurship.
Speaker 2:From aspiring law student to middle school math teacher, to missionary, to even CEO and entrepreneur, addison now spends his days housing and counseling people and companies. Addison is also the father of three boys, eisen Mack and Jaira, and he's the husband to a fellow ONU alum, katrina Newell. Addison, thank you so much for being here today. We're so excited to have you on the Creator Podcast. Thanks for having me, of course. Well, addison, you know we are super excited about today's topic because, as you know, in today's business world really it's incredibly important to foster a collaborative workspace environment. So when you create spaces that promote teamwork and collaboration, it certainly enhances the outcomes of what business means in a business itself. Do you think you could share just a little bit about what inspired you to bring people together in a work environment and how you identified those needs really within others?
Speaker 3:people together in a work environment and how you identified those needs really within others. Yeah, so kind of tying this into the unconventional route into entrepreneurship really, my journey back from South Africa to the US, you know, taking a corporate job, finding that I do not resonate with the corporate space in any way, shape or form, and then, being an entrepreneur, I became a mentor who then connected me to another entrepreneur, who connected me to another entrepreneur, leading to a conversation where they're like, hey, would you take over a space like this and start doing exactly what you were mentioning, carly of like, can you create collaboration, can you foster connectivity with businesses? So I don't want to say that I'm like I'm not a founder in that way. I, more so, came in in that unconventional route and took over a business who needed somebody to take it, not from, you know, a to b, but really from b to c.
Speaker 3:So my experience with that was get in and model for a lot of other business owners in our space, um, how to run a business and what are the best practices and grow a business alongside them. And that's what a lot of people resonate with when we do the proverbial water cooler or have chats around our coffee machine. It's more so talking about business because it's very real for them and it's very real for me at the same time. So I think just going through a similar life journey with other business owners, um, it speaks volumes. When I hired a fellow onu grad, uh cam delbridge, to come in, I said the best thing you can do is have your own side hustles, have your own initiatives that get you excited, because as you learn about this, you'll relate so much more to the businesses here, which will bring more continuity and more fellowship across the board.
Speaker 1:I love that. I love that. Addison, do you want to talk maybe a little bit about what that model looks like and maybe a little bit more of the nitty gritty in terms of, like kind of the space and what that model is?
Speaker 3:Yeah, so the main space, which is the main gig, is Refinery46. So we are a 30,000 square foot facility. It used to be a grocery store distribution center. My two now business partners, former bosses, brian Shutt, jesse Cross they bought the building eight years ago and it was completely abandoned and run down. If you go to our instagram you can see some of the before and after photos. It's pretty spectacular. Uh, one of the best stories they pulled, um, like four uh, pallets of eggnog that had expired through the life cycle to where it was powder. So it wasn't even spoiled or rotten, it was fully become powder. Um, so they just like completely took this building down to its like proverbial studs. Um, and then just started building where they could build.
Speaker 3:And with the theory that if we put our business which they have, a heating and cooling company, so if we even put our business here, I bet we can make space, for other businesses would want to work here and through scale of being able to create a lot of offices, some micro office space, we could also do it affordably for these businesses. So refinery right now is constituted by 50 offices that range from 50 square feet to 3,000 square feet. So there's 50 different types. There's 50 different types. We always say people can come in here and scale in and out of our facility, hopefully going buying their own building and bettering the city of Indianapolis through that. And in addition to offices, we have about 50 co-working members. So co-working is hey, you work out of the same building, you just don't have a physical office here, but you have access to all of our shared amenities like meeting spaces, boardrooms, event spaces, the cafe, podcast studios, all that stuff. So a simple monthly membership gets you 24-7 access to the whole facility.
Speaker 1:So you have COVID happen right and people start working from home. What does Refinery46 look like post-COVID? I mean, how do you keep people coming in to be a part of co-working or even rent out some office spaces?
Speaker 3:yeah. So the funny part is I took over refinery september of 2021, so I just celebrated my three years being here. Uh, and man, the best part, yeah, people were like, hey, there's like a huge exodus in commercial office space. Well, yeah, not micro office space. We're actually kind of a pivot against the recession of like, where everybody else is getting out of really expensive leases for a thousand to ten thousand square foot spaces. Well, a lot of people can still afford and it's actually more optimal where they would downgrade to a 50 square foot space or a 500 office or or something like that.
Speaker 3:So we had to sell on uptick and a lot of people getting forced back home during COVID. Then we adopted this new phrase called like work near home. So maybe you don't want to drive to your office? So say, you live in a suburb, you don't want to drive downtown, you wouldn't drive away. Or you live in our neighborhood, like most of our do, and they don't have room for an office in their house. Or they don't want their business mail coming to their house, they don't want clients coming to their house or people unsolicited you know, salespeople coming to their home. So, hey, let's set up shop at this other place that has a favorable price and favorable term length or a lease or something like that.
Speaker 1:I think that's so cool, cause cause I know like for me, I I sometimes I just need to get out right, like in order to keep work and home separate. Sometimes that's helpful to get out. Do you feel like people are doing that? I guess if they're working near home, that's like that's kind of their pseudo office, if they're just setting up, even if they're part of the cowork-working space yeah, absolutely.
Speaker 3:And uh, for a lot of our people, solopreneurs, small business owners um, I don't know, you hear about it a lot like when, I don't know politicians talk about, like small business the backbone of our, you know, referring from any, any politician has said that and we say it in like a, in a loving way. That's like, oh, it's romanticized and it's a really lonely profession. Um, when somebody decides to go out on their own, uh, on their own and start their own business a quote from jesse cross, one of the owners. He said this maybe my first week on the job was like around his heart for the building was when you go to start your own business, maybe your own family won't even support you, but we do. And so when people come here I think the first member I onboarded in our space is called Radbot Video Productions.
Speaker 3:Sarah, she walked in and she just goes. Well, I quit my job today so because she's like she started her own company, you know, and it was like, well, let's like celebrate that and like you will get a round of applause, and not only that, but like I'm going to check in with you, you will get a round of applause and not only that, but, like, I'm going to check in with you, do you have the supports that you need? Like, if you need a CPA, do you need a lawyer? Do you need to sit down and do an ad hoc for free strategy session with a friend in the cafe? You know, so many amazing business ideas have come from just people getting coffee and catching up with one another, and that's what a lot of people really need in the space and that's where our market niches become businesses zero to five years old not in timeline, but five years old and taking their business seriously.
Speaker 3:So we just believe it's like you spent five years taking your business seriously. You're on a trajectory that not a lot of other people who incorporate an llc ever get to. A lot of people start it and start a business and then it's just a little side hustle and then it peters out because they're like, well, I don't know how to do this, I don't know how to do that, but the moment you start taking it seriously, you surround yourself with an ecosystem. Like those businesses take off and we just want to be that launchpad for a lot of these people. If they win, we win. They keep paying rent, you know, and then eventually they leave and they refer other people to us. So instead of just being a landlord, we try to be way more invested in the businesses here, knowing that if they succeed, we succeed yeah.
Speaker 2:Addison, it's just clear that you have such a strong entrepreneurial spirit and not only that, but this passion really for fostering a creative and enjoyable work environment that you've had and the different experiences you've really had already at such a young age you know how have those previous jobs and interests really influenced your current position at the refinery and in what ways would you say that those experiences have helped you articulate what a work environment should, or maybe even shouldn't, look like?
Speaker 3:Yeah. So that's a great question, because go back to being a public school middle school math teacher. One of the greatest pieces of advice I received before I started that was from a fellow teacher who said you're used to getting A's in everything that you do. You're used to success. You're about to get a lot of F's going into the classroom, especially in the classrooms we were going into classroom, especially in the classrooms we were going into, and it was this change of what is success for you. And when you come in and know okay, this is going to be bumpy, there's going to be problems I don't have to have every answer, but I can like figure this out along the way. It builds a sense of resilience that you know kind of, unfortunately, like the academic world doesn't. Every time I have an intern come on I have to tell them like hey, if you're used to red pen on a paper or something you've done is like bad, just know, whatever you submit to me for your first project is going to be terrible. Like it's not going to be good and it's okay. Like you took the ball from the zero yard line to the 10 yard line. I'm going to give you feedback to get to the 50. I'm going to give you feedback again to get to the next 20, all the way down to the end zone, right? So I think, just coming in and changing what is that definition of success? Then hop into the missionary field and it's just like an open ocean and like figure it out. You know, we didn't have a sending organization. My wife and I we just plopped down in this village in South Africa and we're like, okay, let's make an impact. There's no benchmarks, there was no community in place to like help us execute on what we did. Whatever we sowed, eventually we would maybe reap, or hopefully somebody else would reap down the road. So just being disciplined with your time and knowing that if I get on the bike and I start pedaling, a lot of stuff can happen. But I got to get on the bike and I start pedaling, a lot of stuff can happen, but I got to get on the bike and start pedaling. So I think entrepreneurship has just been a quintessential example of both of those.
Speaker 3:Some days you will have pitch meetings with people and like, oh, this could be the best client ever and then totally flop and fail and it was completely miserable.
Speaker 3:One of the members in our space, just had the opportunity to pitch a $900,000 contract, which they have only ever pitched a $60,000 contract before.
Speaker 3:And so, like they came over to my house on Friday night and we were supposed to like play games and we just sat there and like brainstorm for that pitch that they're gonna have on Saturday, and just like there's no that they're going to have on saturday, um, and just like there's no rule book on how to do that they you know how do you get the info.
Speaker 3:You need to make sure that the, the lead is real, that's not fake, you're not wasting your time. And then they have the pitch and it's like maybe it'll work out, maybe it won't, but we've now learned something we can take into the next pitch. We can now adopt this process so we're not blindsided when something like this happens, or a big confidence boost, of like we should be confident to be able to pitch a million dollar job when they never thought that was something they can do and I think their annual revenue has been $300,000, you know, in a year. So one job would have tripled their business. So there's no again. You're not studying that in a class, no mentors coming along, and just like proactively teaching you that you have to sit and be flexible with whatever the market throws at you.
Speaker 1:I would say, though, that there there's also some strategy in that, in the long run, right Like you have to have a little bit of like strategy, even if you don't necessarily know what the end game is with it. I mean there has to be a little bit of like strategy, even if you don't necessarily know what the end game is with it. I mean there has to be a little bit of knowledge, I think even maybe, about your location, right Like why, indy, and maybe you can speak into this a little bit. I mean, what strategy went into that for choosing the location or even the neighborhood that you did for this space?
Speaker 3:Yeah. So again for Refinery, you know Brian and Jesse had a very clear vision of why they picked this specific location. So both of them well, brian grew up here in the area so he was very familiar, um, for a long time. Even though he kind of moved away, he's still been familiarized with the spot, um, jesse went to church in the area as well. So they they just know and they've seen some economic development that was happening In real estate.
Speaker 3:There's a thing you look for called, like, just natural boundaries, and so when they saw the location for Refinery46, they said it is the last stop where three natural boundaries hit, and those natural boundaries like this is where all of the positive economic growth that's happening north will all stop on this spot one day. So let's just even though we're going to buy it and it's probably not going to be 10, 15 years until that happens we're just going to buy it and we're going to make this work until that growth finally gets to the spot. And what really has happened to refinery is it's been a catalyst for growth in the neighborhood. Imagine like being a run-down building that was getting graffiti done and was an eyesore and it now houses 100 companies. You know that's 100 different, like I don't know how many people that is.
Speaker 3:We only track the number of businesses that are here, but like that traffic that's coming in here, well, that's good for restaurants, that's good for retail, for anything like that, uh, for housing prices as well. So they saw that and they said, let's, let's believe in that mission. Um, and I've adopted something similar. Uh, we haven't chatted about it yet, but I do real estate investing, residential and commercial um, and I really do it on the side of the city in indianapolis that I live in, which is called the near east side, um, a typically underserved portion of our city, so, between my house and my church, which are both on that side of the city, that's where we focus all of our personal investments and where I'm trying to recruit more people to live, more businesses to come, similar to what we've done here at Refinery46.
Speaker 1:I love it. I love it. What do you feel like the future looks like for Refinery46? I mean, do you think you'd scale to other areas of the US, other areas in the city?
Speaker 3:Yeah, there's a couple of companies who are doing kind of a national expansions of like co-working. I think for us, where our niche is, I don't think any of us have ambitions to go beyond Indianapolis. We love our city. You could convince me. Somebody's like hey, here's a really cool building, come in and do this. I think for Refinery46, we just had a quarterly meeting last week actually and discussed this Should we launch it in another part of the city or should we double down on 46th street?
Speaker 3:Hence the 46 and refinery 46. So, um, and my vote is honestly, we should buy up any unused properties, uh, run down places on 46th street and we should make a village here. I mean, that's that's my preference. Um, that's where we already have, uh, whatever it's seo traffic leads that are in. We average over 95% occupancy. So there's obviously a need for what we offer in this. So to go elsewhere and do it, it could work, but we would just be, I don't know, shunning the momentum that we already have built in our spot. And there's a couple of properties right next door that I've wanted for a while and I think a food truck destination would be really cool over there.
Speaker 2:So yeah, certainly. Yeah, I think it's interesting too. You know you were talking a little bit in the capacity needs and what that looks like. You know as far as refinery itself and you know what does that need look like in the community. How do you go about from more of a business standpoint or you know organization standpoint really of keeping track of the space itself, and you know capacity really, how do you manage how many businesses you're housing really in the space?
Speaker 3:Yeah, you know there's a tension. I think when you start a business to all right, I need the right CRM, I need the right data pieces, I need to be tracking all this stuff and like, yeah, at some point you do. But like, sometimes you can just like gut, feel, you know, just have a little discernment. Like you walk in and we're like, cool, we have 50 coworking members on top of 50 offices and like it just feels like we could take on more people, right, like we could take on more people, right. So we have a theory. I think when I started running Fire, we had eight co-working members. As I've said, we now have 50. We thought when we had 50, that we would then feel attention and we got no. So we're like, okay, maybe the number's 75. You know, maybe like now we're just doing a new number, we'll throw it out there, eyeball test it. We do eyeball test it. Um, we do have some softwares for how people check into the building or how they um rooms, like a room that I'm in right now. So we track that stuff. But, um, until there's a real need for it, we don't worry too much about the data side. We're just like, hey, if we see a problem, then we sometimes go to the data and just say can you validate that there's a problem here that we should then take after.
Speaker 3:And so a couple innovations we've done within the building, whether it was building a new type of office that met a different demographic, adding a boardroom that was a different size.
Speaker 3:We're actually redefining one of our spaces in the building now based off member feedback and the leads that we get in. They come in and they and they say, hey, we need a meeting space for 20 people. Well, we have a meeting space for 80 people, we have a meeting space for 15 people. So and then we look and say, oh, we've gotten 50 leads for 20 people meeting spaces. Is there a space in the building we can convert that could capture 25 people at max, so we can now have an offering for these 20 people that continually can't fit in our 10 to 15 person space. So that data is super helpful and that makes making an investment decision like a capital expense, like really easy to go with when you just know, oh, the revenues aren't there. Let's just assume we would have booked 20% of those. It would have tripled in payments of that, you know, had we just made the investment in some drywall and some insulation.
Speaker 1:What advice would you give to aspiring entrepreneurs? A lot of the folks listening to this show are entrepreneurs wanting to maybe get started or are currently starting something You've been boots on the ground for a couple of years now. What's that look like for you? Or maybe what advice would you have to people who are looking to get into entrepreneurship in general?
Speaker 3:Yeah, so I do a decent amount of coaching on real estate investments and buying your first rental property. I'm not a real estate agent, I just teach people on it because I believe in it and it's really fun. And one of the first things I tell everyone is, like buy a property as fast as you can. That's the only way you're going to learn. It's all theoretical until you like actually gave somebody $10,000 to a property, maybe $10,000. You didn't have to just like get in and then like it's a. Back.
Speaker 3:In my teaching days we I can't remember what the model was called, but kids need a certain level of fear to like actually learn. So there has to be some kind of stakes at play. If you've ever been in a class that was like, wow, this class is easy and I don't need to pay attention to be able to pass the test or anything like that, you don't learn as much as a class. You walk in, you're like like, if I'm not locked in, I cannot make this up. You know, in reading a book or getting caught up or anything like that. So there's a little bit of fear that we need and I think for a lot of people that get stuck in analysis, paralysis, whether it is real estate or starting a business. But once you get in and somebody's like, hey, can you do this? And you say yeah, even somebody's like hey, can you do this? And you said yeah, even though you can't, you can't tell it's like great, you're gonna figure it out, you know. And then you'll find, oh my gosh, they paid me to do this thing. I just went and figured out how to do um.
Speaker 3:I remember doing my first consulting workshop, um, through the six types of working geniuses, with the company and like they didn't know, I'd never done a workshop for a company before, you know. And we did the workshop. It was four hours long, they loved it. And she goes, when's the next one? You know, I'm like, oh my gosh, there's a business here. And you tell so. Then she became a repeat client and eventually she's like, could you help us with strategic planning and doing stuff with the entrepreneurial operating system? And I'm like, yeah, of course I can. Let's book that for two months from now. And uh, like five sessions later they keep paying me, you know. And then I parlayed that into well, if I did it for her, I could do it for other people, you know.
Speaker 3:and so there's been I don't know 20 other clients since then that I've done those workshops for and I love it.
Speaker 2:but had I sat there and said, do I have a perfect product and not take an action, I would have never said yes to her and I wouldn't, I don't know, have gotten to where I'm at now, where I'm like, oh, I feel like I could do just about anything if you give me prep time, I guess to listen to you as well and see the connections that each one of your you know former career paths even have in common with one another and how you've connected it all to bring you to the point that you're currently at now, and I love that you mentioned you know that power and you know there has to be some risk taking as an entrepreneur. Of course, that's kind of part of the you know the game really, and it's important for our listeners even to understand this concept. So I appreciate your insights there. So you know time flies on this show and we are nearing the end.
Speaker 2:However, we do like to end with what we call our quirky question of the week. So I'm not sure if you've seen some of these in the past, addison, sometimes they're real stumpers. So we'll see. Spencer, do you want to take it away with the quirky question?
Speaker 1:yeah, I'm just laughing that you said stumper.
Speaker 2:It's funny uh yeah, I can ask the question here yeah, all right, addison, here we go.
Speaker 1:If you had to pick a theme for a dream office space, uh, what? What would it be? What would this whimsical workspace be? It could be anything right like a ball pit or a snack bar unlimited candy what's like?
Speaker 3:the perfect space wow, uh, yeah, I don't even, I don't even know. I uh, refinery is not the only office space that I'm involved in, so I feel like I should probably know at this point. Um, yeah, if it was going to be something quirky, the first thing that came to mind, uh, if you've ever been to the Indianapolis Pacers or Indiana Pacers stadium I remember these were my Teach for America days we did a workshop in one of the private booths and there was a game going on Like a state high school championship basketball game was happening while we were doing a workshop. A basketball game was happening while we were doing a little show, and so for me it'd be like a wraparound office space of a basketball court, um, where games could just be happening and fans could be out there. Um, but you could, yeah, you could have a prime seat for a game and also have a meeting or be working on a pitch deck or something like that I don't know if I would get any work done.
Speaker 1:That's why we don't have a golf simulator in our place.
Speaker 3:It's like just go golfing. Don't play golf here at your workspace. Yeah, I love it.
Speaker 1:I love it. Well, addison, thank you so much for just taking a couple minutes out of your day today. We really really appreciated it and it was just awesome to kind of hear a little bit, a little piece of your story and love seeing the different ways that you're just growing and developing that community around you in so many different ways, and I know we didn't even touch on all of them today, but it's really really awesome, awesome to hear some of your story, appreciate it.
Speaker 2:Absolutely. Thank you again. You know, as Spencer said, addison, it's been a real pleasure to have you on the show, and I know that our listeners are certainly going to take away a few key insights today that are really going to help them as they prepare for their entrepreneurial journeys as well. And speaking of which listeners, if you do want to connect with Addison, we are going to put his links in the description for LinkedIn and Twitter, so go check that out.
Speaker 2:And if you'd like to learn more about olivet's entrepreneurship program, you can visit olivetedu slash entrepreneurship that's right, and to learn more about the creator conference and pitch competition, you can email me, carly bird at kabird at olivetedu, or you can go to our website, creatorolivetedu. So go check that out, because Addison actually spoiler alert is going to be speaking in the 2025 conference, so don't miss out.
Speaker 1:Let's go, let's go, that's right, all right, well, hey, that's all for today. Thanks so much for listening in we're Faith in Business Meet. This is the Creator Podcast. We'll see you later, thank you.