Ep. #952 - Impacting Youth with Healthy Hip Hop

Matt Watson 00:00

And we’re back for another episode of the Startup Hustle. This is your host, Matt Watson. Today, I am excited to be joined by Roy Scott, who is the CEO and founder of Healthy Hip Hop. He has been on the show. You know, we’ve done almost 1000 episodes now. And Roy was probably one of the very first ones but excited to have him back today. So this is a very special episode today. This entire week, we’re going to welcome Social Impact Founders to the show! The great people over at The Economic Development Corporation of Kansas City, Missouri, launched their first Social Venture Studios cohort this year. This week, all of our Startup Hustle Podcast hosts are sitting down with these social impact entrepreneurs to hear how their companies are doing impactful work in the community, just like Healthy Hip Hop. We’re gonna learn more about it. So let’s welcome our first founder, no stranger to the Startup Hustle family. Roy has been on our show previously, as I mentioned. So, Roy, welcome to the show, man.

Roy Scott 00:59

Oh, yeah, man. Glad to be here. And glad to see you. It’s been a while. But just so grateful for this opportunity to be back.

Matt Watson 01:04

Yeah, absolutely. So this thing that the Economic Development Corporation is doing is really cool. And, you know, they’re proud to support the dreamers and do-ers in our great city through a variety of programs, including this Social Venture Studios program. If you’re in or around the Kansas City area, learn how they can help your business by visiting EDCKC.com. You know, Roy, I know over time, you’ve actually taken advantage of a lot of different grants and things like this. I’m sure they’ve been really important to your startup.

Roy Scott 01:38

Yeah, for sure. I mean, where he’s in the capital is hyper-challenging. But whenever you can get non-dilutive grants, that’s obviously the best route because, you know, you’re not getting any equity given up in the company. And, you know, it’s been really critical for us to help us grow. So me being new, originally, when I first started new to the, you know, the venture world and raising capital, learning quite a bit really getting acclimated in the Kansas City ecosystem. You know, grants like these have been what’s helped us, like, get to these next milestones, be real, you know, venture bankable?

Matt Watson 02:14

Absolutely. Well, I want to talk a little more about that. But before we do that, I would love to learn more about Healthy Hip Hop and kind of where it originated. And actually, if you remember, I remember first seeing you because you guys were doing live shows for my kids at their school. And then Healthy Hip Hop kind of has morphed into this tech platform. And I love to hear a little bit of that background to help everybody understand what Healthy Hip Hop is, right?

Roy Scott 02:39

I mean, you were around from the very beginning. We very first started this before we even had a thought of being in the tech space and just want to always, always give props and kudos when I say that to you. Because when I really learned about you and what you have done, even back then, it was an inspiration to me. And I was like, No, I really, you know, show me that it’s possible, especially coming out of KC, because not too often are you seeing tech entrepreneurs that have had such successful exits. So I want to say you’ve been an inspiration from the very beginning. And it’s crazy how you’ve seen us performing at schools. And that’s really where we started. That was the performance, and then we realized that it wasn’t scalable. And so we made the pivot to the tech space and even took a step back. We’re Healthy Hip Hop originated was I was a kid who loved hip hop and was deep in Kansas City rapping with Tec nine many, many years ago, and I really had my lightbulb moment when I had my first son and my son when he turned around three years old, I was picking them up from school, and notice him repeat my music and that music promoted, you know, drugs, violence, you know, etc. And that was the moment I knew, you know, I had to do something different. And that’s when Healthy Hip Hop was born. And so when it first started, it was the music. We never expected education to be the route. But naturally, we found success in the education space. Teachers started using Healthy Hip Hop in the classroom. We have physical products like CDs, which we know are now phased out. That’s how long I’ve been doing CDs, board games, etc. And then started getting booked for lobby events. So we did over 1500 lobby events. We were everywhere, not only in Kansas City but just across the country, performing LeBron James Family Foundation chiefs, you name it. But the big picture, as I said, we knew that wasn’t scalable. So that’s why we said, okay, how are we going to really be in every school at one time? This created this online platform, then it evolved to how do we reach the parents and the students at home developing the mobile application? And so really, you know, as we made that transition, Kansas City was such a, you know, it was the foundation for me because I went to, you know, the Kauffman Fast Track program. We got a Digital Sandbox, lean lab education. So all of these different, you know, support mechanisms and programs and funding was really the foundation For us to kind of Springboard and, as I said, become venture bankable and understand how we’re really going to scale this company and become an iconic children’s brand like an urban Disney.

Matt Watson 05:10

Well, you have the struggle to have an entity create a technology platform, but you don’t have a background in technology. Right? You’re a non-technical founder. And that alone is its own struggle, right?

Roy Scott 05:22

Absolutely. I mean, it was huge. And again, how, you know, I will say, what, how serendipitous it was like, So here, when we first started, you’ve seen us performing live like, Okay, this is cool. This is a cool thing. And then, as we make the pivot to the tech space, here comes Full Scale, right. And so, again, Kansas City, how the ecosystem, a lot of this stuff is there, like, but sometimes we’re not aware of it. But like you all, we’re just launching Full Scale, you and DeCoursey. And I met depot, and he was like, Man, I love what you’re doing, like, you need help. On the technical side, this is what we’re doing. This is what we’re launching. So Full Scale was like a game changer for us. Because that is what built, you know, the foundation as far as the mobile app, the web app to get us that product. So we can actually go to the market. So that was just critical. So again, how do you know it came full circle as you saw it at the beginning? Yeah, dancing, you know, doing magic at all that made the pivot. And now you know, you all were the foundation for us to be able to really get the tech off the ground?

Matt Watson 06:21

Well, I’m really glad we’ve been able to help you all over all these years, build, build the technology, and excited to talk more today about how what you guys are doing and in the growth of and all that. But before we do that, tell us a little more about what’s going on with this Economic Development Corporation Social Venture studios. What tells us a little more about what social venture Studios are all about?

Roy Scott 06:44

Yeah, for sure. So really, they wanted to bring together a group of founders who obviously want to make money, want to build a business, but also who want to make a positive impact, you know, in the community and in the world. And so this is where the social venture studios, I think that was like the thesis and where, where this, you know, idea mission was born. And so they brought together some incredible founders and gave us some non-dilutive funding, which again, those grants are key for us. But they were important. They also really taught us in, in the community would like mentors, advisors in the programming, I will say is really strong. I’ve been through, you know, a couple of pre accelerator and actual accelerator, and this programming has been really strong. For example, my lead mentors, as we call him, Dan, oh, with fuel K 12. And he specializes in selling into the K-12 system. That’s huge. Yeah, so we’ve been like, totally like putting together the systems and the processes for you know, ourselves. So, though different, like, elements in the program have been a game changer for us. So and ultimately, like being able to fellowship with, you know, other people who are doing great things in the community. It’s just been a real game changer. So I think, you know, having this happen in Kansas City, is really like showing that Kansas City’s is again, like ahead of the curve, and really, making sure they’re in tune with what’s happening and providing like the resources needed to founders, you know, a lot of women founders, a lot of black founders, so into founders who historically have just been overlooked.

Matt Watson 08:23

Well, that’s awesome. I’m really glad to see this type of program in place. So for those who are listening, that are wondering, like, Okay, what is the healthy Hip Hip Hop technology platform? So tell us a little more about how that what this is evolved into? I think we can all understand that hip hop music is not necessarily the most kid friendly. But a lot of people love hip hop, and I listen to hip hop sometimes. And yeah, sometimes it’s not, it’s not, you know, I don’t want my kid to listen to it. But they do. They’re in there, you know, hey, Alexa, play whatever. And I’m like, I don’t know about this. So I love the problem you’re trying to solve. So tell us more about the problem. And what are you doing with the technology and how this has evolved? You know?

Roy Scott 09:06

Absolutely. So you’re right. That is the key problem. Same with my kids is like, we love hip hop culture. Healthy Hip Hop is not like anti hip hop. But we’re just saying, Hey, listen, we love the culture. We love music. But we love our kids. And we want hip hop that is still relevant and still the same vibe and energy. But that can be safe for children and families. And that’s where it started. So hip hop for children and families. And then as we grew it, there’s two sides of the platform. One is the website or the web app, and this is for teachers. So teachers would go to the web app, and they would live stream our content, educational resources to their smart boards. The highest use case right now is more like movement based. So kids would get up for morning energization, or at least get up and move before we start our lesson plan. Because you notice, the science shows that when kids get physically active either prior to or during learning improves, it improves focus and engagement.

Matt Watson 09:57

You got to wear them outright.

Roy Scott 10:01

All right, good, because the thing is like in the United States is one of the last like, you know, models in the school system where, you know, sedentary sit down and return information. We know our kids want to move, you know, I mean, so that was the highest use case, a lot of our music in programming is around social-emotional learning. So that’s one side of the platform is like the website, the web app that’s used in the classroom. Now, for parents and kids at home, we have developed this mobile application. And another problem we identify which isn’t just about hip hop, it was about like, this is the first generation of fully native internet and social media using kids. And so we were gonna do shows right at elementary school, like you say, we’re at your kids school, we will get second and third graders sending us messages on Instagram, saying, hey, you know, we love you, and we can’t even respond. That’s right, we got these third graders on IG. So what we wanted to do in our app is two sides of the platform. It’s like Spotify meets tick tock, but in a curated environment for children and family. So the Spotify side of it is where you can stream our music exclusively in our app. So that’s our own DSP or digital service provider. And the Tick Tock side of it is kids can create dances to the songs, but in a closed off network, so not everybody gets direct access to your kids, it’s only shared with their family, friends, and educators. And so that’s the other side of the tech that we built. Right now we’re right about 10,000 users, a little bit over 10k. That’s mostly been kind of organic, because we are still considering it a public beta, we’ve been doing a lot of customer discovery, testing it out, working out bugs, etc. But now we’re getting ready for a full launch. And really looking to scale this thing up to 100 100k users. And hopefully, they’ll be going up to a million users.

Matt Watson 11:49

So I have to ask like, so my eight year old could, you know, record some cool videos of him dancing or you know, doing whatever he wants to do and upload to the platform. But does that become a big challenge for you, and like how to censor that stuff and review it like you’d build a lot of technology to help deal with that part of it?

Roy Scott 12:07

Yeah, so it’s a couple of things. So one is, that’s what we’re building on now. So in all transparency, like when you get in the app, now, the feed right now is a little bit dry, because the feed is really only your family and friends. So let’s say your son downloads the app, your son downloads the app, and before he can add anybody to his safe circle, he has to scan that mom, one of the caregivers via a QR code, okay. And so once they scan the QR code that activates them to scan other friends, and so that’s how we kind of mitigate it, like, anybody’s have hop in the circle, they have to be either be scanned via the QR code, or you can send an encrypted text or email got it. Like if you wanted to invite like, you know, Uncle, you know, cousin, whatever, they could be in that circle. And so that’s how we kind of mitigate that. So anytime your kid posts you get a notification. So you can see if you know me, Luke, Matt, Jr. wiling out on air? Yeah. Oh, man.

Matt Watson 13:05

So is that so you have to build all this kind of censorship stuff in there somehow, right? But then your next goal is to find some really great creators that can create content that everybody can see. So it’s like, you know, everybody can view that content?

Roy Scott 13:21

Absolutely. So that’s what we’re doing now. So we’ve already secured 30, like, content creators, because you know, this whole, like, crater economy, we’ve been tapping into folks who like, you know, YouTube families, you know, there are some other young artists like rappers and stuff like that. So now, that’s where we’re actually getting prepared for this full launch. As soon as you get to the app, there’s gonna be a curated feed of content also, that’s curated by us. And so you know, okay, if my son or daughter is on the app, and they’re in the feed, you know that the feed is all clean. That’s Tik Tok. It can be home. Right?

Matt Watson 13:55

So it’s, yeah, not it’s not good sometimes.

Roy Scott 13:58

Right. So in an hour’s it’ll be actually a clean feed. And then you can invite your friends and family also to kind of participate in that. And so that’s, that the next iteration is actually coming out this fall?

Matt Watson 14:11

Well, and that’s the problem of creating a content platform like this is it’s got to have content in it for people to consume, right? Where there’s nothing to view, right. So, you know, hopefully, you can find some great content creators on places like tick tock and Instagram reels and all that and try and get them to repost their content that is safe for this audience. Right and right, for that’s optimized for this audience, and there’s got to be a lot of great content creators out there.

Roy Scott 14:35

So yeah, now there is and that’s what we’ve been leaning on. So we already have 30 already committed. So now the feed is going to continue to update but like I said, clean and positive for embodying the hip hop culture.

Matt Watson 14:47

So have you figured out how to monetize that part of it for them or like how the creators could make money and like we figured out like that, that kind of like a little economy there.

Roy Scott 14:56

Right. That’s what we’re working on right now as we speak. So Few things just depend on who it is right now. So right now we have some YouTube families who are more like micro-influencers who just love what we’re doing and want to help. Right? Then you have some of the larger influencers who have a bigger audience, and we have to pay them just to be flat out straight with you. And so we’re working on right now, what does this system look like? How do we monetize this as we grow it because as I mentioned, offline, before we hopped on the majority of our revenue right now, it’s really coming from b2b Like schools. Sure. And so now, the key for us right now is to really build the audience. So once we get more users, then we’re gonna have some additional like, in-app features were like some of our artists may have like NF T’s or some of them are different ways like that, to where we can really make it like interesting and find a way that they can make money doing this as well versus us just having to pay them out of our own pocket.

Matt Watson 15:51

Well, let’s grow Kansas City, Missouri. This is the Economic Development Corporation of Kansas, Kansas, the miseries tagline, and it represents how we all work together with businesses large, small, and just starting to locate and grow in our great city, please learn more@edckc.com. Really glad they’ve been able to help you guys in the program that you guys are doing. So there’s a lot of cool startup and entrepreneurship stuff going on in Kansas City. So actually, one of my friends owned two of the very first houses from the Startup Village. Remember this? The old startup? Yeah. Yeah. So one of my good friends actually owns the original houses over there. So Wow. Yeah.

Roy Scott 16:39

I met him and we were out there South by Southwest. We were talking about Yeah, because they started that original community here. Because Kansas City I think, was the first to get Google Fiber, right. Yep. Yep. Yeah. And then it kind of spread from there. So yeah, that’s no.

Matt Watson 16:51

Yeah. So I wanted to mention this before the show, and I know it’s kind of a sticky subject for you. But you actually applied to be on Shark Tank, but you’re not actually on Shark Tank. And curious if you wanted to talk about that for a second? Because I think it’s an interesting story. Absolutely.

Roy Scott 17:11

No, this is like a pivotal part of our entrepreneurial journey, and really was the spark to get us to pivot to the tech side. And so long story short, you know, at that point, we wanted to be on Shark Tank, because more important in the evening, the deal was like the national exposure, why did you get 7 million viewers at that time? And so fast forward? I told my business partner at the time I looked, you know, they had an open casting call in Houston at Rice University. And we had been traveling around the country performing. So I said, Look, I’m going to send an email because you can also submit via email, people don’t know you can even still do that to this day, like you can submit via email online. So I’m gonna submit this email. And even in the email, it said, like even on it on the website, we rarely respond to these but still take a shot. And I’m always one of those guys, like, as an entrepreneur, you know, you gotta shoot your shot, right? So I’m gonna send an email. And if I don’t hear anything, we’re gonna go to Rice University. So I sent the email on a Monday. At the time, I was working with our Reggie Reg, the Magic Man. We were doing a magic show, music and magic show would come out of the school, and I got a call and I recognized it was a West Coast. It was a West Coast area code. And so it was like this shark tank you know, he tells about the business model like wow, so I told him that for went through all this rigorous like, you know, this gauntlet of information, video pitch, signing off trademark, all this type crap to finally go pitch, pitch secure to deal with Mr. Wonderful Kevin O’Leary, like, again, we say hello to hip hop, you’re not thinking like Mr. Wonderful is going to be an investor. And we never mentioned him. We were thinking like Mark Cuban, maybe Daymond. John Daymond. John was not on our episode. And then you know, fast forward. Mark Cuban excuse me a Mr. Wonderful was interesting because he had been in the education space on Oregon Trail. Yeah, Oregon Trail was like one of the first computer games. That was his Carmen Sandiego. We referenced the wiggles, which is like a kid group out of Australia who did like half a billion in revenue, he knew the founders of the wiggles. So he was like, now, let’s make a deal. And so the deal was half a million for 50% of just our kids TV show. We were pitching like multifaceted. It was like, you know, the publishing of our music, our lobby, our events, our curriculum. So it was multifaceted syndication of our kids TV shows like I just want the kids TV show nothing else. And it’s contingent upon me getting this picked up by the network, but he knew like we knew that once his episode aired on you know, Shark Tank we don’t get all you know, attention. Yeah. So fast forward that it hasn’t been this has been a while. That was September 2015. Six months later, March of 2016. Got the call Hey, Roy, you guys did an incredible job but unfortunately your episode is not going to air and we like my heartfelt on my foot. I’m like, “What do you mean?” It kind of gave me some BS. All the slots got full of crap. So I emailed Alex Kenji, visa CEO Bulleri ventures, and that’s what we started our due diligence with. And he was like, Reuters got on the phone. And so we got on the phone. He’s like, Roy, you know, can I talk to you off the record? And he’s like, Well, you guys got effed. And I was like, wow, so what happened? So, long story short, ABC, the network that Shark Tank comes on, is owned by Disney, and looked at our children’s programming as competition. So they cut, you know, cut us in like, now we’re not You’re not going to have to get, like, made on our network. So Hollywood politics screwed us so sad to say, it was quite a learning experience. Because Okay, we have something special. All right, Disney sees this as a threat. But we just don’t really have a strong business model. And so that’s when I, you know, really made the pivot to the tech space and went through Kaufmann fast track so that was like a really challenging point. Like, what do we do next? You know, say like, because you talk about mountain hot valley low like we’re gonna talk about, we got to go on Shark Tank like worst case scenario, 7 million viewers, so went from that to being slammed dumped in the trash can. So ironic enough, whereas Disney originally from Kansas City, and so that’s why I said like, urban Disney. So Healthy Hip Hop, we’re going to repeat history, be an urban Disney. And it’s, you know, now I can look back and smile. So you know, it’s business not personal. So our goal is, next time, you’ll see us. Maybe it’d be a partnership with Disney, maybe it’ll be acquired from business. So we gotta keep moving. And so that’s what we did to make the pivot to the tech space. That’s all me, you connected me, you and depot around 2017 2018. And it’s just been such an incredible journey, man. So I’m just embracing every moment of it. And, you know, making the best.

Matt Watson 21:48

Well, so what kind of stuff? Is the social venture studios helping you with? Like, are they helping you open some doors, like with the Kansas City school district or anything like that? Like, I mean, is that helping as well? Yeah, absolutely.

Roy Scott 22:03

So as I mentioned, with Dan Oh, with K 12. Sales are also tied in with the philanthropic community, in Kansas City, tied in with other venture opportunities in Kansas City. They partner with the group who’s like the National, social impact, like metrics, so like, really? How do you measure the impact of your company? Just all of these things they’ve been bringing to the table has really been like, just helping us grow and helping us kind of expand and think bigger, think more innovatively. And just overall, just accept the group of people being connected with them. Just that fellowship has been like, huge for us.

Matt Watson 22:45

Now, were you also in TechStars? Was that right, Randall Lana?

Roy Scott 22:49

Yep. So we were in TechStars, right before the pandemic kicked off. So some awesome talent, we keep facing challenges. So we were accepted for the initial social impact accelerator in TechStars, out of Atlanta, that wasn’t 2020. And 2020. Wasn’t quite a year. So I mean, I remember like, we started January, I want to say like, 25th or so, all I know, it was like, just days after the, you know, the Kobe Bryant situation got arrested. So like, it was like that. And then, you know, we’re in the program, like, thinking, you know, Mamba mentality, you know, going hard and really picking up traction, making some strong connections in Atlanta, and then like, bam, you know, COVID hits, you know, basically shuts down every whole world, you know, I’m saying, so we had like a half in person have virtual program, but came out of that really strong, you know, text, the TechStars network. In fact, I just spoke yesterday, to TechStars on behalf of TechStars, where they had a panel for folks who came out of the Social Impact Program, because their applications are actually open right now. For the next cohort, so yeah, so TechStars was great for us.

Matt Watson 23:56

2021 is a crazy year, man. I think we’ll all have our own stories of how 2020 impacted us in weird ways because I got married in 2020. On February 29. Wow. And all the lockdown stuff started like two weeks later, after March. Oh, yeah, we were like one of the last people to have a wedding in Kansas City. Because then after that, like nobody would have like a large event, right. And then I had a baby. And like, you have a baby in the hospital and like, no family is allowed to come to the hospital like grandma can’t come to nothing. Like I wasn’t even technically supposed to leave the hospital. Like once I came in, but I’m like, Hey, I have other kids that aren’t allowed to be here and I gotta go take care of them. So I gotta go when I come back, like, like 2020 was a crazy year, man. I know that. I just imagined TechStars and Atlanta would have been even much more for you. If it wouldn’t have to, you know, you. curveball right there.

Roy Scott 24:54

So ya know, 100% You’re right.

Matt Watson 24:56

So how did I’m curious like how did COVID and remote learning and all that stuff affect Healthy Hip Hop, like, did that change? Like, you know, like for you, like help with Healthy Hip Hop in the middle of 2020? Like, how does this affect our business model? What are we gonna do?

Roy Scott 25:13

Yeah, I mean, it was good and bad. So the good thing was, we had just launched our app going into the program with the really early phases of it. And so the good thing was, since things did go virtual, we were able to kind of organically see a spike in our growth there. Got to about, you know, three or 4000 users pretty quickly. The challenge was, like, say, on the school side is like school was shut down. Yeah, froze their budgets, the majority of schools were homeschooled. But there were some relief funds that were open that we were able to take advantage of, to kind of help us do that. So just like we talked about earlier, I had to make the best of it. So it was good and bad. But we just, you know, found a way to kind of pivot and then during that time, it really accelerated our focus on the direct to consumer, because that was always on our roadmap, but it was just a little bit down further because we really wanted to master like the b2b, how are we going to scale this working with schools, we Securitas actually, right? It was crazy. Because right before the world shut down, just like you said, you had your wedding in February, I was in Dallas, doing a professional development. And that’s what really helped me close the Dallas deal. So it was like, got that going. And then bam, stuff just froze on us. So kind of extended our timeline quite a bit on some things. So there were some challenges, but we made the best of it and really kind of turned up on the AP side of and direct to the consumer side. And from then I would say like that summer of 2020 we really officially launched the app. Now you know that that has really helped spike our growth.

Matt Watson 26:51

So what’s next for Healthy Hip Hop? Where do you see the future of this going?

Roy Scott 26:56

So I see the future is becoming an iconic children’s brand. So I see as being a global leader in children’s, content, education, you know, programming music, you know, it’d be an urban Disney like they do quite a bit, right. So I think really focusing on the niche right now with the schools and what we’re doing, you know, for parents to provide a safe social media space for kids is our niche. But I see a big pitcher growing to be an urban Disney, and I’m excited to know, push that there and, and now we’re really working with some key stakeholders in hip hop. So when I was in Atlanta, and I got a whole bunch of key like connections in Atlanta, you know, when I went through TechStars, and beyond, we got some real heavy hitters in hip hop that are coming behind this that will be really announcing pretty soon here. So the Hanged Man is looking at really making a splash, having some things like some bar rallies, and also building up our audience on the app and becoming an iconic children’s brand. That is the big picture for us. And we’re en route to that.

Matt Watson 28:00

Well, I hope you can make like the urban Vic, an urban version of Cocomelon, can you do that?

Roy Scott 28:07

Murmuring urban coat cocoa Allah.

Matt Watson 28:10

We need a man, you but with me with my house, you know, having a one or two-year-old, as everyone here calls around cocoa melons.

Roy Scott 28:17

Right? And that’s where we’re on to, right? Because really, that’s the game has changed down because like you look at cocoa melon, you look like a Blippi I think they were you have Blippi going crazy. They were, I think, acquired by the same company as I think cocoa melons on its own, but one of the other ones, like moon bug or something like that. But as you see now, things are changing. That’s what we’re getting more active on like, YouTube, tick tock because we have our own platform, and we know this audience is live. Yeah, we gotta live there and then push them to us. So now we can be the urban Coco you feel.

Matt Watson 28:52

And most people don’t realize this, but Cocomelon is one of the top 10 streams shows on Netflix every single day. Right? So it’s crazy. But you know what kids like it and to some degree, you know, maybe there are some negatives to it, and the way that they do it keeps your attention almost too much or whatever. There are probably a bunch of negative things that come from it too. But all I know is like when I gotta go to the bathroom, and I need my kid to stay still for a minute, Cocomelon works every time. You know what, it would not bother me if it was some great music and they could do some dance and nothing cuter and a two-year-old dance, and so I’m hoping some Healthy Hip Hop will be there in the future for that. So for sure. Well, once again, today’s episode of Startup Hustle was sponsored by the Economic Development Corporation of Kansas City, Missouri. Or, if you’re in the Kansas City boundaries, you can find out who your business development officer is at eight E D, C, KC, that’s edckc.com. We encourage you to connect with these folks out there, making a big difference in our business community. I’m really excited about The Social Impact thing that they’re doing, and, you know, can you tell us a little more about some of the other companies that are in this cohort? It was like seven companies or something. Yeah, absolutely.

Roy Scott 30:09

Some incredible companies. So you got one pair, my god Jaron Thornhill, so one pair, they actually have a physical location on 55th and Truus. And they, like, are in the reseller shoe market. Because, you know, it’s a big thing for kids now, like, the years he’s come out, they’ll buy them out and then go resell them on eBay or stuff. So he actually has a physical location to where he’s teaching kids like entrepreneurial skills, you know, and stuff that they love. He has high school kids who like actually running the shop. So that’s one you got Dr. Shirley Cooper, she has her come on the new platform, which is like helping to connect like, you know, patients with like doctors are via like this app, so they can help not miss appointments. You got my guy, Max canopy with canopy markets, they’re providing fresh food, and like what they would call food deserts. They have a new term for now. But like in places where typically they would be able to get fresh foods and vegetables. So I mean, like chef Shanita with the prospect, KC. So it’s just a group of really great people. And the good thing is the first round, like mugs and all that all this is all founded out of Kansas City as well. So I mean, just some really incredible companies, really incredible people that are doing great stuff, you know, for Kansas City, and even you know, across the country.

Matt Watson 31:26

Well, thank you for highlighting a lot of the other people that are going to be on the podcast this week. So if you enjoyed this episode, you would learn more about the other companies that are helping make a social impact. Definitely check out the series this week, all the different episodes about these companies. And Roy, thank you so much for being on the show today, and I wish you the best. And I’m still hoping maybe I’ll see you and Reggie reg sometime during the live show. Is there any chance of that?

Roy Scott 31:52

Hey, you might because we are actually starting to turn up the Live Events again. So you just might

Matt Watson 31:57

I might have to have a special appearance just for my two-year-old son’s third birthday, mate. Maybe you’re the guy. We’ll see.

Roy Scott 32:04

We’ll pull up. You didn’t get the full, you know, access.

Matt Watson 32:08

All right. Well, thank you so much for being on the show today.

Roy Scott 32:12

Absolutely appreciate it.