Being a business leader isn't easy. Often, business leadership or entrepreneurship has been described as difficult and challenging but also exciting and rewarding. It also comes with a lot of power that, if not wielded with care, will cause harm to the leader and to the people he or she leads. That’s why entrepreneurs, especially newcomers, need guidance navigating the complex world of business.
Our guest today, Luke Dooley of Ocean Programs, champions the cause for building strong, kingdom-centric entrepreneurs who will lead healthy, strong, vibrant workplaces and flourishing communities. He argues that only business leaders who are healthy in mind, body, and spirit can build strong businesses. If you think massive revenue and a Fortune 500-worthy brand means the ultimate success, you better listen now and find out why reaching the peak can be cause for alarm.
Key Points From This Episode:
Links Mentioned in Today’s Episode:
Click to Find out more about our upcoming event: "Crafting Your Kingdom Investing Thesis"
About Luke Dooley
President and CEO of Ocean Programs, Luke Dooley, desires to see people understand their place in a larger story. He operates under the belief that living and leading well informs and influences the world around us. This is what motivates him to create spaces and content that compel people to live and lead in ways worth following. Specializing in relationship building, character judgment, networking, creative consulting, and coaching, Luke also enjoys leveraging network connections both locally and globally to further the Ocean Programs mission.
Being a business leader isn't easy. Often, business leadership or entrepreneurship has been described as difficult and challenging but also exciting and rewarding. It also comes with a lot of power that, if not wielded with care, will cause harm to the leader and to the people he or she leads. That’s why entrepreneurs, especially newcomers, need guidance navigating the complex world of business.
Our guest today, Luke Dooley of Ocean Programs, champions the cause for building strong, kingdom-centric entrepreneurs who will lead healthy, strong, vibrant workplaces and flourishing communities. He argues that only business leaders who are healthy in mind, body, and spirit can build strong businesses. If you think massive revenue and a Fortune 500-worthy brand means the ultimate success, you better listen now and find out why reaching the peak can be cause for alarm.
Key Points From This Episode:
Links Mentioned in Today’s Episode:
Click to Find out more about our upcoming event: "Crafting Your Kingdom Investing Thesis"
About Luke Dooley
President and CEO of Ocean Programs, Luke Dooley, desires to see people understand their place in a larger story. He operates under the belief that living and leading well informs and influences the world around us. This is what motivates him to create spaces and content that compel people to live and lead in ways worth following. Specializing in relationship building, character judgment, networking, creative consulting, and coaching, Luke also enjoys leveraging network connections both locally and globally to further the Ocean Programs mission.
EPISODE 17
[INTRODUCTION]
ANNOUNCER: Imagine taking your generosity to the next level, impacting more lives, and leaving a godly legacy for generations to come. Get ideas and strategies to do just that when you listen to these personal stories from high-level Kingdom champions.
The Kingdom Investor Podcast showcases business leaders who have moved from success to significance, sharing how they use worldly wealth for Kingdom impact. Discover how they grew in generosity, impacted more lives, and built godly legacies. You'll find motivation, inspiration, and practical steps to grow as a Kingdom Investor.
Daniel White (DW): Welcome to The Kingdom Investor Podcast. This is your host Daniel White and today we interview Luke Dooley, who is the president of Ocean Programs, which is an accelerator for entrepreneurs. Luke Dooley desires to see people understand their place in a larger story. He operates under the belief that living and leading well informs and influences the world around us. This is what motivates him to create spaces and content that compel people to live and lead in a way worth following. Let's get right into the show.
[INTERVIEW]
David Clinton (DC): Hello and welcome to The Kingdom Investor Podcast with your host, Daniel White, and co-host David Clinton. Today, our guest is Luke Dooley of Ocean Programs. Looking forward to hearing all about what he's doing to impact the kingdom. Luke, would you mind opening us in prayer praying for our listeners?
Luke Dooley (LD): I would love to.
Hey, God, thanks for this opportunity. Thanks for these guys. Thanks for this conversation in their heart on something that really matters, their heart for generosity, their heart for faith-oriented and kingdom-centric investment. And God I think for this audience and the folks that are listening to this podcast, because they're probably listening because they have an ear bent towards you, they have a heart leaning towards you, and the things that you care about in this world. And they're looking for stories and inspiration and strategies of how to better align what they have the resources, their time, their talents, their talent, their energy, with what you're up to in the world. And so we thank you for that. I look forward to this conversation. And we trust you with this time. Amen.
DC: Well, thank you, Luke. We're very interested in hearing about Ocean Programs and you. But maybe first, could you give us a little bit of background into where you came from, upbringing and how you got to where you are today?
LD: Yeah, sure. I grew up in Ohio, in southwest Ohio, in a town called Middletown. It's a blue-collar steel mill town. My dad worked at the steel mill. So I grew up in a real blue-collar family. Dad worked at the steel mill for 30 years and then worked at a paper mill for eight years, and he did all kinds of really fun and interesting jobs in those places. He retired as a stationary engineer; it's a job now that you need a master's degree to do. My dad started working there when he was 18. And, you know, right out of high school. He is, still, was for a long time. He's retired now, but he's always kind of working. He's an incredibly hardworking guy and a great dad, and ran a crane, ran a boiler, and ran the pump house, and did all these really fascinating things in the steel mill.
LD: One time, in my town, we were driving, the steel mill picture, it was sort of dominating the landscape of our small town in Middletown, Ohio, sort of an Appalachian-centric area where a lot of folks came from Kentucky for work in the steel industry to that town many years ago, generations ago. And we're driving through the town one day, and this steel mill kind of dominates the footprint of the town, big fence all the way around it for just you know, thousands of acres, right? And we're driving by this department store on the one side and kind of the strip mall and all this stuff. And then I can just picture it as a little kid, I'm in the backseat of our car, and I see the steel mill over there. And I said, “When I grow up, I'm going to work there just like dad”. And my dad stopped the car in the middle of the road. And he turned around and he looked at me and he said, “You will never step foot inside of that place. I go to work, because I go to work there every day, and I work harder than you can imagine so that you'll never have to work there or in a place like that”. It's like. I think I was eight. But, I mean, for my dad who had at that point put in 20, 20-ish years of blue-collar shift work, you know, so you're working a different shift every five days and you kind of have your long weekend, three or four days off. He was expressing to me, this is really hard and this has taken a toll on my body and all my time. And it's really hard and I want something different for you. I want something better for you and for your brother. My dad worked blue-collar his whole life.
LD: My mom was a stay-at-home mom predominantly. She always had side jobs, mostly house cleaning. She mostly did a few houses throughout our childhood that she was consistently kind of cleaning and taking care of for folks. Probably never charging enough, I always got the impression my mom kind of did it as a help to older people. And more so than the actual income stream. She charged and she made a little money but I always got the impression that she probably could have charged more. Or maybe looking back I think that yeah. And I had one brother, and an incredible family. And my parents somehow, on my Dad, I've learned later in life, one year in his professional career made over six figures. And that was the year they had a lot of maintenance, a lot of down, what they call a downturn in the nail industry. And he worked a lot of overtime. And because of all the overtime, you know, that was the year he made over six figures. Somehow it was that they put my brother and I through a Christian school, K through 10. We both decided to go to public schools the last couple of years. And then they put us both through a Christian college atmosphere, debt-free. And looking back, it's like I have no idea how they did what they did. And we're always, we never went without, we always went to vacation camp a lot. We always had fun. Went to Florida once or twice a year, we'd go to Disney. Somehow my parents were just incredibly diligent and faithful with the resources. And they were really clear about how they would leverage them. So it's very inspiring to look back on.
DC: Yeah, that's neat. And it sounds like that, that memory had an effect on you, in your viewpoint going forward to drawing from that memory at eight years old. Like wow, dad works hard. And he wants something different for me. So where did you go after college?
LD: So I went to college; I studied church ministries and biblical studies and came home to the Cincinnati area. And I planted a church with my mentor. So, a guy named Tom who's still one of my best friends. He called me my senior year and said, Hey, what are you doing after school? And I don't have a plan yet but starting to talk to some folks. And he said, well, hey, we're thinking about starting a church up here and what if he did it with me? So let's talk about that. So we began a dialogue and decided to go for it. And so super fun planted a church at the ripe age of 21. Thankfully, Tom was about 12 years older than me because no 21-year-old has any business, I think, stepping into it by themselves.
DC: We've been there. Remember that wisdom I had at 21?
LD: Yeah, right. You know, so did youth ministry and we're the only two full-time staff for a number of years and so I kind of did a little bit of everything - preached a handful of times throughout the year, but a lot of youth ministry work, did small groups kind of family ministry, assimilation kind of stuff and loved that. I learned a lot and had a ball and made some lifelong friendships and relationships through those years. So I pastored for about six years, went into the marketplace for about two years, sort of out of necessity. Church kind of went through a tough spell and had to kind of step out. We merged with another church and it sort of represented an opportunity for me to sort of exit the church leadership and let this merger kind of happened more naturally. Tom and the other guy that was part of the other church sort of kind of assumed the leadership roles and I stepped out and it was just up to me to kind of run and do some new things. And so it's a marketplace work for a little while and was tempted to kind of keep walking this path of just kind of a treated well, just go to work like a job. And it was really interesting like in hindsight, God just shut door after door after door in these really funny ways. Oftentimes, something in the moment, sometimes they felt painful.
LD: Looking back, it's like a laugh of like, man, it's hilarious how that went down. And then I ended up but still in that two years, I did some really fun jobs. I learned some really neat skills, predominantly sales, sort of habits, rhythms kind of technique around relationships, how to kind of manage a portfolio and things like that. Manage customers, call on people, you know, and just manage a team. Became a sales manager for a small organization, it was sort of a pathway to become the GM of that organization until they - this is one of the comical things - it was like, oh, I'm a sales guy, I'm a sales manager. Our GM leaves and he's moved to Chicago. They're gonna make me the GM. My first GM call with all the other nationwide GMs, they announced they were closing 24 of the 38 locations of our business and ours was one of them in Cincinnati. And so it's just like God going like, no, I don't think so. I don't think you're gonna, you're not going to have that little job. You're not going to have that thing. You're not going to do that.
LD: And so I ended up working at a place in Cincinnati, that was awesome. It’s an incredible place called City Gospel Mission. It's a recovery, homeless, substance abuse, tutoring, mentoring, that's a mission in the city. And I did fundraising and events there. This idea of events, of creating and curating experiences where people encounter transformation has been a through line in my life. I can remember the first time I did something like that; it was in youth ministry. We threw a big conference, regional conference, me and some buddies that were fellow youth pastors had been studying that topic, teach. We decided, hey, let's open this up wider instead of just our groups doing this. Let's really invite people to this. We had like 300 kids from like 30 youth groups across the region come, and we were blown away. And I can remember standing in the back of the room for the very first time, during the first service, you know, lights, you know, sound, like, band on stage, kids worshiping. And I can remember, kind of, in my heart, just feeling this real strong sense of like, I can do this for a long time. I can create these places. And this is, I think, looking back, I would say like this, create these spaces, these opportunities, these experiences where people can experience a transformational event in their life. Maybe that's a chorus, maybe that's a piece of content, maybe it's a conference, a camp, a retreat, a trip, you know, gathering, just some opportunity where people can step into a new conversation and be challenged. Walk away, at least, if not changed, with the desire to be changed and with the tools to be changed.
DC: And so making space for the Holy Spirit to do his thing, right?
LD: Yeah, yeah. So, I did this fundraising events role at City Gospel Mission. It was really fun. I told them in the interview, I said, if you want someone to do like, banquets and golf outings, I'm probably not your guy. But if you want someone to do different, fun, kind of cool things and live in like a new base of energy and support, I'd love to do this. And they hired me to do that, to create new income streams and new revenue through kind of different types of events. And it was really fun, still pretty young leader in those days.
LD: And then long story short, my path led my wife and me to Atlanta. I was working at a place called Leadercast. I was the director of events there. Leadercast was a big global leadership, sort of equipping organization. So I lead events and launch some products there. And then went to an organization called Q and Q conference, Q ideas in Nashville, Tennessee. Q is a place that gathers thoughtful Christian leaders to engage in meaningful cultural topics. And I ran an organic part of that organization called Q Commons for a while. I just loved all these experiences, did unbelievable, really cool things, met wonderful people, lifelong friends at all these places, and just experienced all the coolest things. And then for the last five and a half years, I've been back home in Cincinnati. So, I kind of had this southern tour of Atlanta and Nashville, kind of kid in each of those places. So my wife and I, we've been married 17 years.
DW: Souvenir.
LD: Yeah, yeah, exactly. So, we have a Georgia peach. We have a Tennessee volunteer, and then our son Hayes, he is, he's here on the Buckeye State. So we have three kids - seven, five, and two - two girls and a boy. And been here five and a half years and plan to be here a long, long time beyond this because I love our work, love all the things I've done in the past. And, you know, who knows, right? Like God calls and bites us and the different things and gives us opportunity. But this was an opportunity, five and a half years ago to come back to Cincinnati and do work that felt really right missionary aligned with my heart, my skills, sort of what God had prepared and equipped me for, and then also to be back near family. And that was a really important thing. We had the two little girls down there in the south with no family nearby. And although we loved it, it was kind of an ache for us to get back home.
LD: And so I stepped into this role at an organization called Ocean and for last two and a half years or so, I've been President and CEO of this organization. So sort of stepped in with the idea of assuming that leadership mantle. Ocean is eight and a half-year-old organization. I've been here five and a half years. It is an organization that equips entrepreneurs at the intersection of faith and entrepreneurship. We exist to help entrepreneurs launch new things in the world so that they can create economic wealth and opportunity in their lives and other lives and that they can be part of the renewal of all things and that they can create cultural renewal with the work that they are dreaming of whether that's the product, the service, the culture, the organization. I think there's an immediate and long-term impact to the work an entrepreneur does. And we are, at the core, a business accelerator. So we run high-tech accelerator programs for high-tech, high-growth and venture backable businesses. And then we run a variety of programming for small business entrepreneurs, lifestyle entrepreneurs, e-commerce, retail brick and mortar, service brands, etc. And that's what we're up to at Ocean.
DC: That's awesome. What percentage would you say are tech companies that you help accelerate versus like you said the other ones?
LD: Yeah, so we have about 400 alumni in our direct training programs over the eight years. We have thousands that have come through workshops or webinars or conferences, events, things like that. 400 that we've directly trained through these two core programs. We run our accelerator program once a year. So it's really competitive, highly selective. We get applications from all over the world, we do about 40 interviews every year for the program. Out of probably 200 or so applications, kind of winnow it down to about 40 or 50 interviews. We select seven to 10 companies that come through this program, once a year. It's 16 weeks, it's really closer to about 20 weeks, really immersive, it's a really deep, really high-touch program. And each of those companies receives a guaranteed investment from a capital fund of $50,000.
LD: And so there's a lot of opportunity in that program for those startups and for those founders. So we have 61 alumni. And in that category, we have 61 alumni, 60% of those companies are still active and running that's in a high-tech world where nine out of 10 high-tech startups fail in 18 months. So, we're proud of the fact that a lot of ocean companies are still you know, not just plugging away but doing really well. Our companies have raised collectively north of $130 million of follow-on capital since they left our program. We've had two exits, we have a couple more that will probably reveal themselves in the weeks, months ahead. And we have some incredible outcomes. So some great cultural stories in there, too. And so that's exciting. And then we have about three, let's see, where am I, we have about 340 alumni of the Genesis program, which is this nine-week program that we partner with that we train and sell directly to entrepreneurs. But then we also partner with schools, churches, other nonprofits, community organizations, anyone that has an entrepreneur population, that might look around and say, oh, we have so much printers or I have access to so much.
LD: But isn't this a great way to equip them with practical skill, with biblical wisdom for their life and for their leadership and with critical community? Because if there's one thing we know about entrepreneurs, it's that it's really hard, the journey is really hard. Everyone kind of knows that intuitively. And that it's really lonely as well. The loneliness sort of exacerbates a lot of other issues that entrepreneurs often face, identity issues, right? Social, relational, mental health issues. Entrepreneurs over index against general population, they suffer from suicide, anxiety, depression, divorce, at this alarming rate compared to the general population. And then on the other side of the coin, though, they're the people that make the world better. They're the people that change the world, they put the great coffee shops on our street corners. They create the products that we use every day, they create the tech and the apps and the technology that make our lives easier and more efficient. So, we need these people and they're changing the world. They create workplaces where we spend 2000 hours a year, right?
LD: People spend 2000 hours a year at work. So the workplace culture, and the leader of that workplace culture deeply matter because you can't spend 2000 hours a year in any soil and not have some kind of effect. And we all know the stories of the toxic effect of what happens when you go to work and it's toxic, right? And so, man, what's it look like to have a world where there's more healthy, strong, vibrant workplaces led by a healthy leader? So, our mission at Ocean is, we want more healthy founders launching strong businesses so that we can have more flourishing communities. So the Genesis program has about 340 alumni, and kind of always growing, we're kind of always on that program. In fact, we have a cohort going right now that's full of great, awesome young dreaming entrepreneurs.
DC: And that’s just not local to you, that's around the world.
LD: Yeah, that's happening all over. Yeah, yeah. We have in total across Ocean, we have, I think it's program alumni from I believe it's 19 countries and 24 states. And so, yeah, that the cohorts that are kind of happening all over the place.
DC: That's amazing.
DW: So what are some of the things that you really say, you said it was very selective? What are some of the criteria that you look for in companies that you want to work with?
LD: Yeah, thank you. Appreciate it, Daniel. Folks hear our story, they hear our sort of about and they assume, typically, oh, you exist to help Christian entrepreneurs. And while that is true, we don't exist to only help entrepreneurs who share our faith. We equip entrepreneurs ecumenically. So in the Genesis program, first of all, that's a fee-based program. When there's a cohort that's open, you could click by register you're signed up, and it's not selective at all. The goal of that program is we want to make, we want to democratize entrepreneurial training, we want to make access to entrepreneur training, we don't think it should be exclusive, reserved for people that have the means reserved for people that have, you know, access to a certain organization or, you know, building. So, it's online; it's really kind of self-paced. It is nine weeks and you have a cohort and you have a call you go through, but boy, you can kind of chip away at it as you're willing. And then it's really affordable. So that's just boy jump in, and you're part of it. And we also offer a scholarship program there. So, we make it even more affordable for folks that have any sort of income.
LD: And then on the accelerator side, first and foremost, it's a business accelerator. So we're looking for really good business opportunities because we have investors that are investing in these businesses that we're beholden to, that we need to steward well, the opportunity of their investment. And so, how big is the market? How good is your product service? You know, idea, sometimes as an early stage product, we have an early stage accelerator program. So it's never like, hey, I got this idea. And I'm not sure if it's going to work. But I'd like to, you know, get your programming to learn it. It's people that are further than that. But oftentimes, it's hey, we're pre-product. But then here's all the evidence. Here's the proof. This is where we're going, this is why we're going there. So what's the market size? What's your expertise? How good is your team? How equipped are you to lead this organization? And then we're looking for the kind of the softer chemistry stuff, right? Chemistry, fit coachability. Are you humble? Are you willing to listen? Especially, you know, we're not even especially about but so we're like when people don't share our faith, sometimes people come in, hey, I'm applying to Ocean because I'm a founder, that is a Christ follower. And if I'm gonna build a business, I want to build it with people like you.
LD: And, and but even that's not enough, like, we've turned away a lot of good, well-intentioned Christian people, because it's already set a very good business idea, or, Hey, it's not quite ready yet. You need to go work on A, B and C and reapply next year, right? But then we get those folks that might come to us and go, Hey, I want to be up front. I'm not a believer. I'm not a not a religious person. But I'm applying here for a reason I say, Well tell us more about that on the plane, because I want my life to matter for more than just profit. Right? I want my business to be more than about profit. I want to be about purpose, or I'm applying because my startup journey, so far, has cost me a lot. It's cost me relationships that mattered deeply in my life. And I understand you guys say you help the whole person, understand what it takes for the whole, how does a founder, not just be a startup founder on an island in isolation. But how do they bring their whole self to this journey and understand that when you have a lot of components to your life, relational, spiritual, physical health components, right? And yeah, the health of your business? And if you're not well, as a person, your business is never going to be well, right?
DC: That's awesome. I love to see how the connection, like, you were saying strong businesses that lead to flourishing communities.
LD: Yeah. Healthy founders, strong businesses, flourishing communities. Yeah. Like, what's the impact there? Like, you don't think of that? You know, it's like, we need to think intentionally about this, I think and, you know, and I think for those of us that are people of faith, it's an emerging, you know, edge. It's like an edge of the Kingdom strategy. You know, we can go places that the church can’t, we can have conversations with people that aren't in the church, aren't going to church or wouldn't bring to their pastor, if they were in church.
LD: We had an encounter in our last cohort, it was just a really sweet, special moment with our cohort. And afterward, our program manager, James, and I were talking and he made this comment, he said, man, because it's like, we're like, we're the new pastors for these folks. And to be clear, that's not what we do. I mean, I have a pastoral heart, I'm a pastor by trade. So maybe that is my subversive, you know, that's really what's going on. But it's, so interesting, right? That we get to play this role in folks' lives at a really critical, vulnerable point of their life. Oftentimes, where they just left a job, just walked away from a career, left security, left in shutter, left insurance, left stability and some assurance of their path, some clarity of what things looked like for them, right? And now they're stepping into the unknown and they were brave to take that step. And they were probably not fully aware of just how much it might cost them. And just how hard it would be.
DC: Are the things you find as a common thread that maybe our listeners could watch out for as they're starting their businesses? You know, many entrepreneurs deal with the same struggles. What have you seen?
LD: Yeah, I think the identity trap is like what first comes to mind because you're, there's this great temptation to wrap your identity around what you do already. That's kind of human nature, especially American nature, right? We are our job titles that we introduce ourselves at parties and anywhere else, right? So it's like doubly true for an entrepreneur. Because, you know, Garber wrote a book called “The E Myth”. And he kind of, you know, makes famous the cupcake lady. The woman who has the cupcake knack, and over time is convinced by her friends to open the cupcake business but quickly realizes, I know a lot about making really good cupcakes, but not a lot about doing accounting or insurance or hiring or marketing for cupcakes, or procuring ingredients en mass for cupcakes or signing a lease on a storefront for cupcakes or managing a p&l for cupcakes. This is all very different. But I'm the cupcake lady, and if I'm the cupcake lady, and that's who I am and that's what I'm about and that's how people know me and that's how I identify and relate to the world and it's where I've put all my work.
LD: And now, I've doubled down on it all. Now I've got ego, pride, financial investment in the game wrapped around this. What's the temptation there? The temptation is, I cannot not be this thing, I can't let this die and go away. And so we go deeper, deeper, deeper down the rabbit hole. And oftentimes, that's where the isolation creeps in because entrepreneurs will further immerse themselves to acquire the skills they need, and work the late night hours and burn the candle at both ends, as folks say, to ensure success. So I always say sort of, well, what happens if you fail and it goes away? Then who are you? But even worse. But that so I don't love framing it that way in our work at Ocean because then there's this propensity for folks to think like, oh, that's really nice, you’re there for folks when they fail.
LD: We want to help people succeed. That's the point of what we do. And actually, our greater fear is, what if you succeed, and you reach the pinnacles of power? What if you're the next great tech superpower - Facebook, Uber, pick your thing - and you are that new toxic leader that does not have rootedness in your identity? You're that new person that doesn't see a problem with laying off 5,000 people on a Zoom call like Uber did a few years ago. right? It's like, no one cares, right? Like, what's the impact, right? So there's even greater fear, I think, of losing your identity when you're successful, even beyond failure, because at least when you fail, you typically hit rock bottom and you're wrestled with some things. And I'm not saying it's not gonna hurt, it's probably gonna cost you a great deal. But when you keep rising, you keep taking more of your own drug, so to speak, and keep kind of compartmentalizing even more and more parts of that identity away, right?
LD: So, I think identities are a huge mistake. I think a massive entrepreneurial error that often gets made. And it's so funny because it's both really counterintuitive to everything entrepreneurship and business, but it's so intuitive like human nature. We get enamored by shiny things. We fall in love with the dream, and the idea that we want in the world versus we fall in love with the problem and the people who have the problem that we're seeking to solve. So, that's why, I think, the great entrepreneurial enterprises, and stories are the ones that solve a really specific problem inspired typically by some event by some interaction that we hear these stories all the time, right? Why are you starting that nonprofit? Oh, well, my brother-in-law got this rare form of cancer. Oh, okay. Or why are you launching that product that saves kids from choking? Because my child choked to death on a piece of food, right? You hear these stories? And it's like, that mom that invented that device was hell-bent on solving the pain of that problem so that no other mom had to experience that. There was no part of her that thought, oh, I have this shiny solution. And I'll make my shiny solution work. No, it was like, what is the way I can solve that problem? I'll try this. That doesn't work. I'll try this. That didn't work. I'll try it this way. Oh, that's interesting. It's not what I first dreamed up but it seems to be working. It seems to be sellable. It seems to have a product market fit. It seems to have the ability to grow, right?
LD: And so when entrepreneurs have a focus on the problem, and they keep the focus there, it's really healthy for the business. Because the closer you are to the problem inherently, the closer you are to the customer. And as consumers, we all know we love it when a business wants to be close to us might not always, if sometimes it might be annoying, like, I don't want to fill out your survey. I appreciate that you care, though I appreciate that you write. And it's not just about surveys and things. It's how often have we gone through some experience where you're like, why did they change this? Why did Chipotle change the rice? The rice was perfect. And they brought in this terrible rice? I don't know if that's true. So I'm not trying to disparage Chipotle. I feel like that was true with some ingredient of theirs at some point, you know, but take the brand out of it. When it's like, why did they change this? And then you always hear that, like, the company when they bring it back and equitably. What do they say? They say, we heard you. Hey, we listened to the community, we listened to the customer and we heard you. And the reason they were able to do that is because they stay close to the problem, right? The pain point.
LD: 31:15
And so, it's an interesting thing, because problems move. And if we stare at solutions, I give the silly analogy. And my Zoom is backwards. So I can't, my hands are going in different directions that I keep thinking they are, I apologize, I'll probably mess this up. I do this thing where I talked about the problem target out here. And I'll see like, I can't do it, the solution gun. So like you build a solution gun, and you're really enamored by it. Wow, look how cool this is. It really does the job, it chips away at the target. It does all the right things for the target. And you just it's fun to use and all this. And then the target’s like up and over here. And I'm trying to make it go in a different direction. But I can't because I'm I feel like I'm in a hyper warp here on your zoom. But you get the idea, right? All of a sudden you look away. But then every time you're pulling the trigger on that solution going what is that time? Money, energy, resources, capital, right? Every bullet matters when you're an entrepreneur, especially in the early stage. And if you're not paying attention to is this solution, still doing the thing that I designed it to do and solving the problem that it was created to –
DC: And the target moves.
LD: And why do targets move? Well, pandemics happen, right? Or, you know, work-from-home culture takes root, or prices change or supply chains or a ship gets stuck in a canal on the other side of the world. And it changes how we receive goods for the next 60 days. So like, man, the target moves, right?
DC: Yeah. That's a fascinating world to live in. Keeping track of all these things and helping others see it. You know, I imagine teaching is a big part of what you do.
LD: Yeah, you know, teaching. Teaching, oftentimes, things that again, feel intuitive, that it's easy to lose sight of. And it's less teaching, and it's more, it's a conversation, right? It's helping people work out on their own, what they probably already have a hunch about. But creating a system of how to work out that hunch, and spend as little time and resource doing it as possible, which at the end of the day is just really good stewardship, right? So entrepreneurs have this life hack that they bring to the world called minimum viable product. So they have this, this thing that says, I don't need to build the big grand solution right now. I need to build and test the smallest factor that I can and learn what I can. I always say, a great entrepreneur is someone who learns as much as they can as fast as they can spending as few resources as possible. And then leveraging the information that they learned in that test, and the next test it over and over and over again. And this isn't my stuff. This is agile methodology. It's lean thinking, it's the understanding of the minimum viable product, but people get that when they will work it out. And community right?
LD: It's fun to work that stuff out in the community. It's fun to design those tests and think about it's fun to watch someone have a light bulb come on on or epiphany of like, Oh man, I was thinking I needed to go like extend myself and get take out this big loan and, you know, do all this stuff to acquire my first batch of customers and what a mistake that would have been because I don't even know if that batch of customers would have been well served by the thing. I thought it was serving them. So it's just dead. I designed this really simple little survey or a really simple q&a tool, right? It's designed, I just started talking to people in gas pumps and like, just learning about the people who had the problem. And, that's just so critical. So yeah, I mean, teaching is part of it, I do a little bit of that. I set up different seats. So we have incredible program people and incredible volunteers and folks that come in and just give a lot of time to our entrepreneurs who come into programs. And yeah, they do share a lot of wisdom. And they coax out a lot of what's already inside of us as people.
DC: Are there any lessons that you've learned on this journey? Being in Ocean in particular that surprised you? Stuff that you didn't expect to learn.
LD: 35:58
Man, that's a good question. What has surprised me, I'm surprised that it's as long of a cycle for me to help others understand the long-tail impact of our work, frankly. And maybe it's like, because I just, I live it and breathe it. And so for me, there's this really clear cultural narrative that says, the church, I love the local church, I'm a pastor, the church by all accounts is waning in influence. And anyone who is on the front lines would tell you, there is a triage happening among pastors and among leaders, nationally, especially in America here, going, man, what is the church gonna look like? Folks are fleeing full-time ministry in alarming rate, a sad rate, especially post-pandemic. And so we were looking at this cultural moment where what's happening to the influence of the local church and the way communities centered around it? Certainly changing, you can't argue with that, I don't think and then what changes over the next decade? That and how then could the world look different in a decade if the Church continues to lose influence on Sunday mornings? It’s what I'm talking about specifically, right.
LD: And we don't equip and release more missionary-minded, well-armed, kingdom-oriented individuals into the marketplace, right? As entrepreneurial leaders, it's like, well, the nap now it's happening in both directions happening on Sunday, but it's also then happening Monday through Friday, by the way, all that affects Saturday, right? And so like, so so then the positive spin of that is like, Man, how much? How much different and more flourishing could the world look if in a decade, 10,000 businesses are launched, led by Kingdom-minded, Kingdom-oriented individuals who are armed with a healthy perspective of their own life and their own leadership and their identity, and really great business training, really great acumen that says, I need to go build a business that's strong and enduring and can employ people and create a culture, that's life-giving, right? And be an outpost of the kingdom here in the marketplace. That's really compelling to me. And it's funny, I look people with passion about different things. I don't fault anyone. But sometimes it's like, I wonder, man, how do I get more people excited about that? And that's my job as a leader, an agent. It’s like, we're gonna get more people excited about this because we got to resource, not just our organization, but lots of organizations like Ocean that are out there doing this kind of work that see this worldview of like, oh, man, this is a huge opportunity, a huge Kingdom opportunity.
DW: Yeah. And Billy Graham, once said that the next revival will happen in the marketplace.
DC: Where people are spending 40 or 50 hours a week instead of three or four hours on Sunday. And business owners have so much influence over their employees, their vendors, their customers, and just have the ability to touch people with the gospel at every turn.
LD: Totally. We can think about all the different relationships that a business has. A friend of mine talks about seven, you know, I'll probably mess them up but it's employees, customers, it's your neighbors where your business is located. The others in your industry, even your suppliers, your vendors, your relation with the environment, right? So, just, you know, if that's something that tugs at people's hearts, the opportunity to sort of tell a new narrative. There's some interesting conversation going on in this world right now around sort of ESG and sort of all of these kinds of conversations. And there's an article that a guy named John Coleman just wrote. John is an incredible guy that you should have on the podcast who works for Sovereigns Capital. And I actually heard him give a talk on this at an event that I was at in Colorado a few weeks ago.
And since the talk, it was this kind of a private event. And then he has published now this article that was in Christianity today, just like yesterday, I think. But in essence, it's saying like, hey, how are people of faith? Are we thinking about our influence in the marketplace, especially in corporations? and these big corporations with our investment dollars and with, like, the dollars that we have, because those dollars are votes? And right now, 80% of the votes are controlled by three big firms, Vanguard State Street, and BlackRock. And so what does it look like? Do we know what the ESG priorities of those firms are? Because you can rest assured they have them? They know what they are, they're very clear about them. They are trying to move the needle in the corporations where they hold board seats, and they wield influence, in a mighty way. And they are doing it very effectively. Is there a unique opportunity for people of faith to say, hey, what about our voting dollars? What's our common voice going to be? And how might we marshal our resources in a way that moves that needle for towards a greater Kingdom orientation? And I think the privately held entrepreneurial business is one really direct, clear, impactful way to do that.
DC: And what Ocean is doing is getting at the front of the timeline of these businesses that are going to be growing into the future, right?
LD: Yeah. Yeah. You can't have more orchards without, you know, initial seeds, right. And so yeah, we're way up the timeline. We're early stage. And we're dreaming about the folks in our programs, you know, and a couple years here going like, alright, what's it look like? We're training thousands of these folks through these programs. And in a decade, there are hundreds or thousands of flourishing businesses employing a lot of people, right? A lot of social capital, a lot of influence in communities and organizations. That's exciting. Yeah, it is.
DC: Is ocean an acronym?
LD: It's not. Ocean is, it's a funny story. I will tell you one thing, Ocean was founded by three entrepreneurs, about eight and a half years ago, in the Cincinnati area. They were high-tech entrepreneurs, are part of an entrepreneurial community that had formed out of a local church. They were really encouraged by what they were experiencing, and the discipleship process. They had sort of walked through together as individuals, entrepreneurs. And as they were looking at high-tech accelerators, they were shocked by the narrative of glorifying hustle, glorifying a lack of founder health, a lack of focus on the whole person. And they sought to bring a solution about and so they said, Well, what if there was this faith-based accelerator program that just said, what if we did things differently? And they were sort of on the fence of whether they should do it. I said, I'm not going to tell you the story and here I am telling them stories. They were on the fence like, Should we do this? Should we not do this?
LD: And one of the guys, he went to a wedding, and it was a coastal wedding, and he was sitting at the beach, kind of walked away from the reception. At the end of the night, he was sitting at the beach, and he was just sort of having a conversation with God. And he came home and said, we got to do this. This whole thing was like, we had a call notion. And they were like, whatever, we don't care what we call, it's just, let's just do it, which is a great entrepreneurial thing, right? Oftentimes, we need people's like, you asked me really like, what's the biggest mistake. One of the most practical big mistakes I can tell you is entrepreneurs spend money early, and often to acquire logos and business cards, and it's oftentimes the least important thing you could ever possibly do for fits this. Yeah, that makes sense. But it makes us feel legit. And so we do it. So there's something real to that, right? So there's something real to this thing of like, well, this is what makes it feel real, and legitimate. And so I'm gonna go get a pack of business cards and slap a logo on it from Fivrr. And sometimes maybe that's the like, maybe that's the action step. You need to keep going. Yeah, you know, so I'm not knocking it if you're here, like, there's no prescribed path. A great entrepreneur is wildly bias for action. So just take action so you’re bias for action. You're that's what we talked about earlier. You're problem-focused, and manual resilient, you just have the ability to kind of go with the punches, take a punch, get back up. You know, there's a magic word in the entrepreneur world called pivoting, you just pivot, you don't fail, you just pivot.
DW: Yeah, this has been a really good episode, Luke. I really appreciate you coming on the show. And wanted to give you a chance to give one key piece of advice or an action step. Since we just talked about taking action that our listeners can do to really make a bigger difference and make a bigger impact on either their community or people around the world, or really changing lives.
LD: 45:48
I think, the record or the awareness that every single person has a story, and that story is so distinct across each of us and so unique and there's the truth. The truth is, we all long to tell our story, we all long to share it and that only happens in the context of relationships. And so if you want to make a difference, if you're looking to have an impact on someone's life, and I'll put it back in our world, if you want to care about an entrepreneur, care about the thing they care about. So our philosophy is, we want to care deeply about your business because we think that if we care deeply about the business that you have, in your heart, the dream, the plan, the model, the desire, we think we care deeply about that, that we care deeply about you. And when we care about business plan, we get access to the business owner and the person. We get the ability to have influence in their lives.
And so, it's just so important to remember that, that idea that each person has an innate longing to put something in the world, to do something meaningful, have a story that supports that. And they're oftentimes just looking to have a platform or an ear to hear that. And then, you know, you don't know where you might be able to step into that context. And that story, the safest way to never have an impact is never to get to know people. Like, it's really great. Like, I don't have to help people if I don't know much about them. And the more you get to know someone, the dirty your hands sort of have to get to be there for them. And that deep touch life on life stuff is where that's where the good stuff happens. And then if you were asking that question, and it was more of a, how can people care about this idea that you care about more, I would say, man, look around and see if there are entrepreneurs that you support. we probably have some stuff that can help them. Or maybe we can, you know, band together a group and run a cohort together and do some fun things like that.
But I think on the practical like generosity and capital side, I would say like, what's it look like? My friend Henry, he recently gave a talk that I heard at that same event that I referenced earlier, we're just talking about like, what does it look like to take more risk, and not be so safe with your capital, that your investment capital and your philanthropic capital, we want it, we want all the impact reports, we want the safest returns possible and all this kind of stuff. And, you know, don't hear me say I don't think nonprofits should have an accountability. And I don't think you should be strategic with your investment. But, man, at some point, we got to slide a little earlier in the continuum, right? We got to take some bets on some earlier-stage founders and some organizations that don't have 30 years of legacy. And we got to, we got to put some chips behind the emerging things and leaders and ideas that that have the capacity to change the next generation.
And I think that gets easier to do. I know, a big theme in this podcast is generosity. And I think you guys already had my, my friend, James Lenhoff on, am I right? So he probably said this. So I'll just say it maybe then heard James talk recently. And he just said to all this gets easier to do when you just remember that none of the chairs anyways. It's like, you know, the master didn't come home. And the one who went from five to 10 that the servant who went from five to 10, he didn't say, hey, here's your five back master. You know, I made five more I'm gonna keep for myself. It was no illusion of that servant that, man, these gains can be mine. He knew the whole time. None of this was mine. Yeah. And so I think there's some opportunity there for all of us in our hearts, right?
DW: Absolutely. Yeah. What is one goal or project that you're working on right now?
LD: Well, we are trying to double the impact of our accelerator program. That's an exciting thing. We have already successfully 5x, sort of, the Genesis program this year. So, our impact curves sort of way up into the right. And that's really fun for us at Ocean. And we are just trying to create a sustainable flywheel economically that allows us to both continue to fund companies through the accelerator program. And then that would create some perpetual funding for the organization to sort of institutionalize the work of Ocean for hopefully a long time. I mentioned earlier, we've for a long time, we've partnered with funds that give capital that invest capital into the startups that come through the accelerator. And so the big project underway for me and us right now is that we are on the verge of launching our own version of something that probably looks like a fund that will allow our organization to invest capital, that will allow us to see and realize some of the returns of that capital, and sort of endow, if you will, the mission motion so that it can continue for a long time.
DW: All right. Last question. What's one thing God is teaching you this week or this season?
LD: God is teaching me that, my kids just went back to school, so I have a kindergartener and a second grader, and they're full of surprises. I thought that kindergartener would have a really hard time. We were really worried about her. And she's just, she's just crushed it men awesome. And so, I don't know God's God's teaching me in that I guess, just to remember to, to be patient and to savor each each little interaction with them because I guess time is flying by so. You know, I guess when I unwind all that what what am I sensing or feeling in my heart?
It kind of coincides with a book I'm rereading, for the first time in a long time a book called “Celebrations of Discipline” by Richard Foster, which is a book about spiritual disciplines. And I say this phrase all the time, in various talks I do with entrepreneurs, or Ocean or different places. But I just reread this chapter as true again, and I think about it in the context of my kids. Like, we are continually being shaped. It's not how are we being shaped there? It's not it's not are Am I being shaped? Am I being formed? It's I am, right? The question is, how intentional Am I about that? And so with my, with my daughter, my little kindergartner, I'm like, there's this temptation to think like, well, she is who she is. He's this like, she, she's stubborn. And she's gonna like, you know, she doesn't have a lot of patience and she has big energy and to get angry, big and she loves big and. And then I just am reminded like, man, no, she's being formed and shaped like every single, every single experience and encounter and it doesn't take much to like, unlock a new Chamber of her heart. So she went to kindergarten this week, and it was just she came home. I loved it. And you could just see it unlocked, like a new part of her. So I'm like, man, what does the power of affirmation, which is the power of patience for me as a father to her potentially unlock and form and shape and her so that's neat.
DW: David, do you mind praying for us as we close out?
DC: Sure. God, thank you so much for this time that we've been able to spend with Luke and learn about what you're doing in his life through him and in many, many other people's lives and lives they affect. God, bless Luke and his work and ministry to the people he's working with at Ocean and help us all to learn patience in the way he just described. In Jesus’ name, amen.
[END OF INTERVIEW]
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ANNNOUNCER 25:35
What if you could take your generosity to the next level, impacting more lives in your community and around the world, creating a godly legacy for generations to come?
Now you can. Your first step is crafting your kingdom investing thesis. Reserve your spot in our next online workshop where we guide you through the process of discovering your passions, create a strategic plan and connect you to opportunities that will help you fulfill your God-given calling as a kingdom investor. Register today by clicking the link in the show notes.
Thanks for listening. Don't forget to subscribe and we'll see you next time for another episode of The Kingdom Investor Podcast.
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