The Remarkable thing about Ray Zinn is he is a walking library. In this Tough Things First Podcast Ray takes your questions. Watch Now!
Rob Artigo: This is a special edition of the Tough Things First podcast where we are also on video. If you want to watch instead of just listen, you can navigate to toughthingsfirst.com. On the pull down menu, find this podcast. Under podcasts, there is a Watch Now link. You just click that and you go to Ray’s YouTube channel and you’re all set. This is also an extra special edition of the Tough Things First podcast since we have actual questions from college entrepreneurs.
Student 1: Hi, Ray Zinn. I’m Ruby Jackson with A&T Outlet here from WVU. We just wanted to say thank you for all of your support of student entrepreneurs. We couldn’t do this without you, and we’re really happy that we got to participate in the ZinnStarter Pitch Competition, and thank you for the Tough Things First. I can’t wait to learn more about entrepreneurship from you, and I like there’s a handstand here. Thank you.
Rob Artigo: Ray, some of these students have offered their thanks and a question. Ray, tell me about who these kids are and what it means to have them participate in this podcast?
Ray Zinn: Okay. These are students at West Virginia University, and they’re part of the ZinnStarter Entrepreneur Program that’s available to students full-time at the university. Kind of the Shark Tank for a university where these students are allowed to present their ideas to a board of students, and then those students are selected by the board to get funding from ZinnStarter to implement their ideas.
Rob Artigo: All right. Let’s get to the first question here.
Student 2: Hey, Ray Zinn. Nice to meet you. My name’s Carlton Perry. First, I just wanted to say thank you so much for supporting West Virginia University, and on top of that, the LaunchLab, your contributions and just your advice really helps us entrepreneurs here and it really shows. On top of that, I’m actually really looking forward to reading your book. I heard it’s a great book. I heard that you’re a great author on top of that, so I’m ready to see what it’s about and get into that. But my question to you is that in the world of AI, how would you encourage leaders to not let AI get in the way of it clouding human judgment and decision making?
Ray Zinn: That’s a tough one because AI is so pervasive or will be even more pervasive. You can almost have AI be the managers as you would, or bots be the managers. The more the leader lets the bot be the leader or give direction, the less human reaction you’re going to have between the true manager, the human manager of the department as he interacts with his subordinates. The only way that we can prevent AI from actually taking over the role of a supervisor is by having that personal interaction, making sure that there is a personal interaction between the supervisor and the subordinate as opposed to just letting a bot direct the activity.
Rob Artigo: All right. Let’s check out question number two.
Student 3: Hey, Mr. Zinn. I’m Ethan Weaver, and I wanted to thank you for all you’ve done for the Morris L. Hayhurst LaunchLab and for this book especially. I have one question for you. What stands out in the students that you choose to put your time into and invest your money into? What the qualities that stand out for you as an entrepreneur? [inaudible 00:03:42]-
Ray Zinn: Investors, of course, are looking at what kind of return they’re going to get on their investment, and so they’re going to be looking at the market that the idea is being promoted and also the team that’s promoting the idea and also how much longevity there is in the product itself or idea. They’re pretty adept at doing this. I mean, if you look at the statistics, they’re only successful… Like one out of 10 investments actually make them real money, but they do put a lot of effort in understanding the markets. Generally, they are technically experts in those markets, and they know and understand them.
If it looks like that idea has legroom or a runway, then they’ll go ahead and support it. There are various stages. There’s all the way from seed money, all the way to end-of-life money that investors put money into ideas. You can be at early stage or you can be at late stage. It depends, again, what kind of investor you’re looking for. If you’re looking for an early-stage investor, they’re very much focused on the runway or the legroom of the idea. Whereas the later stage, they’re looking at the history and the performance of the company if they intend to invest at a later stage of the company.
Rob Artigo: The other part of that question was for you personally, when you have somebody talking to you about what their project they’re working on, do you look at their idea… The person who’s presenting it first? I mean, are you investing in the person or the idea first?
Ray Zinn: Well, we’re looking at both. We’re looking at the student because they’re the ones that are going to be implementing the idea, and then of course the idea itself. But I’ve seen great ideas, but not particularly students that have that energy and that passion to see it through. I can tell by the way they make the presentation whether or not they’re going to be a successful entrepreneur. The idea in the ZinnStarter is not so much so important, it is in training or developing the student. The purpose of ZinnStarter is for an educational promise as you would or projection as opposed to… We don’t make any money. ZinnStarter doesn’t have any ownership in the idea. It’s strictly a way to educate the students, and that’s the purpose of ZinnStarter is it’s really an educational tool.
Rob Artigo: Let’s move on to question number three.
Student 4: Hey, Ray Zinn, thanks for the book and for funding opportunities here at West Virginia University and the LaunchLab and helping to uplift companies like ours. Our question for you is you ran Micrel for 37 years as the CEO, 36 years were profitable. If you could go back and give yourself one piece of advice at the very beginning, what would that be? Thank you.
Ray Zinn: Well, my piece of advice was always the same as you just got to have a can-do attitude. Don’t give up. My advice is not so much making a lot of money. My advice is to have a good culture at the company because it’s the people and the culture that has the company be successful as opposed to just some kind of great idea. I don’t have any regrets because any problems that I encountered along the way, I always fixed them and repaired those problems, so I don’t really have any regrets.
Rob Artigo: Okay. Let’s go on to the next question.
Student 5: Hey, there. My name’s Tyler. I recently pitched Rock Shop at the ZinnStarter Pitch Competition this past month. I just want to say thank you for the book and supporting West Virginia’s entrepreneurial ecosystem, specifically the LaunchLab. I have a question for you. What can a leader do at no cost that makes their team feel more valued? Thanks for your time.
Ray Zinn: Well, I’d like to correct something in the beginning here, and that is I don’t really choose the students. It’s the school that chooses them. It’s a very selective program, just like an interview. You’re interviewed. I’m dealing with like seven schools, so obviously I don’t pick all the students. We have hundreds of students that are involved in the ZinnStarter program across the United States, and so it’s not me picking the students. It’s more the student boards or the professor that’s in charge of the ZinnStarter educational program that actually selects the students for the program. We get on average about one out of three students or one third of the ones that actually interview are selected.
Rob Artigo: Maybe we could rephrase this for the purposes of this particular student’s question and just say, what is it that you see is special in the students that… You get to-
Ray Zinn: Okay.
Rob Artigo: … listen to these questions and you get to see these presentations and who these people are. What stands out to you about them that makes them sort of these more… I don’t want to call them unicorns because nobody’s that, but being special in their ability to dive right into being entrepreneurs?
Ray Zinn: I’d say it’s the passion and drive that they have is the primary determining factor.
Rob Artigo: Fantastic, Ray. Gage your reaction to what this experience we had here? We haven’t done this before, which is have these video clips of these young people, young entrepreneurs, and it must be pretty exciting to see that feedback. They all had very nice things to say about you, about ZinnStarter. They each had a book in their hands that said, “Tough Things First,” and one of them pointed out that you got the handstand in the pictures behind me here, and that you’ve got your famous handstand there from your athleticism. But they all appreciated what you were doing with ZinnStarter, but also appreciated you. It must be pretty cool to hear some of that feedback.
Ray Zinn: Yeah. I was 65 when I did that handstand.
Rob Artigo: Well, probably more special to her now that you said that. Yeah. All right, Ray. Let’s wrap this up now. Thank you to all those entrepreneur or young people who joined in and helped us out with this podcast. I’d like to say please check us out at toughthingsfirst.com. All those Zinn stars are really cool people to have on the show. If you haven’t watched it yet, you can watch it by going to toughthingsfirst.com, and there is a video link there when you find this podcast. Listeners can check out Ray’s books, Tough Things First, of course, The Essential Leader, and the Zen of Zinn series is out there, including Zen of Zinn Daily, which is the newest one. If you’ve enjoyed this podcast, subscribe, leave a review and share it with a leader who needs it. Until next time, do the tough things first, right, Ray?
Ray Zinn: Right. Do the tough things first daily.
Rob Artigo: Daily.
