I'm Not Building Wienermobiles My Whole Life

hello everyone welcome to the 21 hats podcast I'm your host Lauren Feldman this week special guest Travis Lefever shares the unusual Journey he and his co-founder wife Amanda have taken to build Mission Mobile Medical which makes mobile health clinics in Greensboro North Carolina that Journey started with Travis partnering in a construction business by taking out 39 credit cards to borrow $250,000 the business did well and he eventually bought out his partner but when Travis's father died unexpectedly he was moved to sell the construction business and look for something more meaningful to do with his life that extended search led him somewhat improbably to overseeing sales for a company that manufactured specialty Vehicles including the Oscar Meyer Wiener mobile it was there that Travis had another life-changing experience when a nurse with a Federal grant asked if he could build a mobile clinic to reach patients in underserved communities that was the spark that led Travis and Amanda to cash in their insurance policies and start Mission Mobile Medical in 2020 the company whose remanufacturing process allows it to create clinics in less time and for less money than its competitors expects to hit $60 million in Revenue this year even in Good Times owning and running a business can be a lonely Pursuit our hope is that these weekly conversations will let owners know they are not alone in facing challenges in fact that's the whole idea behind the 21 hats Community engaging with other owners to get the kinds of insights only another owner can offer if you're interested in learning more step one is to sign up for a free trial of the Morning Report which highlights the most important news of the day for business owners so you don't have to go looking for it step two is to get on our slack Channel where you can ask questions get Bender recommendations and tap the wisdom of a very impressive crowd just search the 21 hats Morning Report to subscribe joining me this week on the podcast is Travis LEF CEO of mission Mobile Medical which makes mobile clinics in Greensboro North Carolina the episode is titled I'm not building wiener mobiles my whole life Welcome Travis our special guest today it's great to have you here Travis I I learned a long time ago that pretty much every business owner has an interesting story about how they came to start their business and you're no exception tell us about your background what did you do before you started Mission Mobile Medical yeah uh thanks Lauren I appreciate having me and uh you're right it is an interesting story and I love to share it because what I've learned is that uh even though I don't know uh the folks who are listening personally it uh it seems like that we're all fellow Travelers on the same road that uh even though we can't see each other and maybe not be connected that we're traveling the same path and connected in ways we we can't really see absolutely in uh 2012 my wife and I owned a construction company believe it or not and uh the the start of that company is also interesting I uh I borrowed $252,000 on 39 credit cards to uh to buy into that one wow at 22 I'll have to tell you that one sometime and you know wait you you're G have to tell me a little bit about that this time you you were 22 when you did that yeah yeah 22 my boss uh quit uh I was working at another Construction Company my vice president who hired me came in one afternoon and said hey uh I gotta go U I'm gonna start my own company and I was like all right see you later but uh it turns out he was driving a lot of the revenue and things started to get pretty shaky pretty fast there and uh took about you know 12 months or so and I was calling him looking for a job and uh he said 'well I don't need like any employees but I have been looking for a partner you come up with $250,000 I'll sell you half the business and uh so I call my dad you know when you're 22 you call your dad and uh I go hey I got this opportunity what do you think and uh do you have $250,000 and he goes if I had $250,000 you'd be the last person that I gave it to you're crazy uh but then he he uh you know in a moment of seriousness he said look you know if if you really want something in life you'll find a way to get it so go see if you can get it and I got on the internet that night and I'm sitting in the Floor of our spare bedroom there in uh I was in Fort Meers Florida I had a one-year-old and uh I don't know if you remember back in kind of the you know 2000 or so 99 2000 but the internet was the Wild Wild West and you would get like all these popups for credit card offers you remember this right I do remember it and what I learned uh was that they they didn't talk to each other and so over the next week or so I applied for as many credit cards as I could apply for and uh they started showing up in the mail 6,000 2,000 10,000 12,000 whatever it was and I amassed my stack right of of credit cards and ended up $252,000 39 credit cards and that what I Ed to to buy into that business and uh my claim to fame Lauren to this day is that you know in all the years that it took me to pay off those credit cards I never missed a payment and uh so you know I was really like super cognizant of that and I don't recommend that as a as an entrepreneu that's not a secret hack of any sort to to uh to get into business for yourself but uh but it worked for me so there you go how did you make the first payment that's the one I'm curious about oh yeah so minimum payments I mean if you know anything about credit cards $21 on however many thousand and uh we were okay there right like I I took a salary we made minimum payments for a while and then I'd rotate them right like with so to keep the interest off you get these new offers no interest and I had a whole system man it was they're spread out on my dining room table I remember seeing you know I can see it on my head uh you know like the dining room table covered with statements and I had them lined up by due date right and I pinned the checks to them and figure out the days so took a lot of my time managing my finance and you were married at this time oh yeah what what did your wife think of this oh she of course thought that this was the craziest thing in the world and what had she gotten herself into so how many years did it take you to pay it off completely um I say 2003 I bought the rest of the business in 2003 so probably four or five five years yeah four or five years not bad wow so it worked out you actually you say you bought the rest of the business from your partner it did yep and I didn't use credit cards course I have any extra credit cards I'm surprised you've ever been able to get a credit card since then it's crazy I got the I got Immaculate credit my friend there you go so we ended up we we had this construction company uh 2012 and uh my dad passed away right and uh is in April 2012 and it was unexpected and uh you know it it's real quiet after you know a loss like that I was close with my dad and with the funeral and the family and and kind of the silence I had to face facts right that I really you know building my own business uh hadn't grown up to be the man my dad raised me to be and um what do you mean by that well I'll tell you at the funeral uh I just stood there with my mother and my brother and my kids and uh I don't know if you've ever been to a funeral of a community leader before but the line was out the room out the door out the building around the block and I stood in line and I listened to hundreds uh of stories about my dad and and almost all of them followed the same you know kind of structure of your dad uh used to stop and check on me every Friday on his way home from work just to make sure I had food for the weekend or you know he noticed that my porch was falling down so he came back on Saturday with a group of men from the church and they rebuilt my porch or he cut my hair for free or he worked on my computer and didn't charge me anything like story after story after Story and uh you can't ignore um that and uh that example I think of servant leadership really personified and he wasn't Successful by the world standards for sure but he was significant in the lives of a lot of people and really that was the contrast I think that was painted for me through that experience is that I was successful but I was far far from significant and I'd been working to do well for myself and had sort of forgotten about doing well uh for others and uh so you know just just had a change of heart I guess is the is the the word I made some decisions 6 months or so closed the construction company sold to one of my partners and went on kind of a search for second mountain right like what else what what am I going to do what am I supposed to do you said the construction business was successful yeah we were probably $7 million business we had uh 75 folks we uh worked all over the country I had business in 29 States I worked for every branch of the uh government the US military including the architect to the capital we were doing good so so no small thing to walk away from I don't think so it just it it wasn't um like I said it wasn't what I was supposed to do and I I I knew it um didn't think it I knew it so it made it a little easier did you know what you wanted to do next no no no no I didn't uh so we uh Amanda and I went back to school finished our degrees we uh I taught I taught for this Association they sent me to nine countries taught all over the world what were you teaching I was teaching this uh quality control and oil and gas so sort of an offshoot of our construction work but uh went all over South Korea Saudi Alaska Hawaii uh China uh Trinidad Tobago like South America like all over and uh and learned a lot about people you know in in that space taught college for a couple years business in college for a couple years uh did some Consulting work and really that's I I think you know was kind of the the the ramp onto this business I got a Consulting gig to do a turnaround Project A friend of mine was was working with a specialty Vehicles company and they uh built things like the Oscar Meer Wier mobiles or the planners nut mobiles they were super cool you know special vehicles uh mainly for marketing and they they were having some trouble in sales and of course you know turn around you come in big sales marketing effort VP sales and uh and we started Landing clients lock heed Martin caterpillar the Navy um Facebook Proctor and Gamble you name it and we you know turned it around second year I was there I think was their best year in 46 years so uh we we we were doing good and then in uh summer of 2019 we uh had a nurse from our local hospital come in and uh she uh asked if we could build a mobile clinic and uh we never built a mobile clinic uh we done a few healthc care Jason things but our tagline was if you can dream it we can build it and so it was very much like sure and so we sat down we put together this proposal uh a pitch for you know this really complex custom 40 foot long coach uh biggest generator you could buy all the bells and whistles and uh and I took it to her and I said hey look look at this right sit with me look at this and she laughed at me she said you uh you really don't understand what we're trying to do do you and she began to educate me for lack of a better term on uh the the number of underserved people in our community and how scarce funding was to to care for them and uh she said she had a grant for $250,000 she had till Christmas to spend it and really what could we do for that and so went back to to that organization and you know met a little bit of resistance really didn't want to do a a low margin job really didn't want to do anything you know outside of building custom vehic vehicles but uh finally got them to say that if she would take a uh a remanufactured RV which is you know an RV that you take all the consumer stuff out of and rebuild it with commercial stuff that they thought they could do it for 250 so you know went and ask and she said what is in what was in hindsight really the magic words which is doesn't matter right like it needs to be out of the Sun out of the rain and run every day and I think it'll it'll help these people and that took us to to the day that changed my life forever uh which is when I invited her over to sign the contract now you can imagine my experience signing contracts with folks like LED Martin in the Navy you know it's a very business-like Affair there's a lot of terms and conditions and box checking and uh and then when it's over there's a lot of really firm handshakes and claps on the back and but she was different she came around the table and I stuck out my hand to get the handshake and you know she she pushes it away she gives me this really big hug and and I remember in the in the moment thinking I've never gotten a hug at work before like this is is weird like we don't hug where I come from and you know construction and uh but then here's kind of the moment I don't know if you've ever experienced this but maybe you're spouse or your mom or your grandma or somebody like talk to you while they're hugging you like you really it's a very intimate thing you you don't really have any place to go you kind of have to pay attention to them and and she starts telling me that I'll never know what it's going to mean to the people she's going to go go go see wow that she's going to take it up into the mountains Appalachia mountains here in North Carolina and see people who don't trust the doctors or won't drive uh the hour it takes to get into town and and my stomach just went knot uh because uh she was so wrong like I didn't know what it's going to mean to those people because those were my people like I grew up an hour north of town in the Appalachia mountains my mom big farm family one of 13 kids uh dirt floor poor they slept four to a bed my six uncles are chicken Farmers I had cow pastures on three sides of my house we drove 10 miles on a dirt road to get to church and so all I can think about right is how I'd heard growing up that you can't trust the doctor don't go to the doctor they'll find something wrong with you uh you can't afford to be sick uh the hospitals where you go to die and and because of those attitudes beliefs right core beliefs you know both of my parents struggle L with their health their whole lives like obesity heart disease diabetes and and then you know like I said when my dad was 66 uh getting ready to retire um at at work in a storage room by himself uh has a massive heart attack dies um cold dirty lenium floor right and scared to death I'm sure the the whole time and and that's not fair you know like he he raised me and my brother right he he took care of what he's supposed to take care of he worked hard he saved he did all the right things he's a veteran and and so when she's standing there she's telling me this all I can think about is what if someone with her heart had headed up into our little town and you know like treated my dad like a patient instead of a profit margin like a human and uh would he have maybe listened to the doctors adhered to the medication whatever was uh took the heart meds uh would we have gotten 10 or you know 15 20 more Christmases with him would he have met his granddaughters would he you know maybe finish raising me and so in that moment like I got on fire really for this work and I thought well this is what I'm going to do I'm going to help people like her help take care of people like my dad and uh and so I I go to work right like I'm VP sales I'm going to do marketing I'm going to figure out this market and so I go and I look and turns out it's a real Market it's a big thing there's lots of people out there there's academic research centers there's uh hospitals there's Health Systems there's health centers that serve the underserved I was like this could be a big deal and really it didn't resonate with the the owners there uh I didn't resonate with what I was saying and uh January uh 10th I think it was Friday afternoon 2020 the owner comes in my office and he says hey we don't need you here anymore and um and I got this got a box packed up my stuff said goodbye to my team and and went home were you fired for some kind of cause was the uh was the idea that you had been devoting too much energy to this side project that they weren't interested in and not doing what you were supposed to be doing or how was that explained no uh well it wasn't explained to to be uh transparent but I mark it down to Vision right like small family own business has a vision of what it is wants to be it has been for for nearly 50 years and I have a vision for what I want to do with with my life and what I what impact I can make uh in this world and if they're not the same like I'm not building wiener mobiles my whole life that's not it for me and and the the very definition of the vision is two visions and and I think that the further apart they are the more tension there is in a relationship and to be honest it's okay like there's absolutely they need to go be who they are and I need to go be who I am that's what makes the world such a beautiful place is we're all different and we're going to do different things but then we came here and you know so we incorporated the first week of March uh 2020 uh it took us about three months we cash our life insurance we uh you know designed my first website it was awesome and turn the marketing machine on when you say we you and my wife and I yeah so Amanda are my co-founder uh our our current president and CFO she's the the brains behind the operation for sure what what had she been doing before this oh we were we were still Consulting and and doing whatever we could to uh to kind of make a living we uh still did a little bit of work for one of our construction clients we we uh had four people working in a chicken plant in Georgia uh trying to to make ends meet so uh she's keeping all the books there and keeping kids afloat and all the all the things that uh that I wasn't able to do before you tell us uh about how you guys built the business you've already said that you sold the construction business because you realized that wasn't how you wanted to spend your time you wanted to do something more meaningful that would have more of an impact did you feel that you were on that path during those years when you were teaching and then Consulting leading up to the wiener mobile company that's a great question uh the the teaching uh felt like it I love to teach I I think I'm a teacher at heart I was a whenever I was in high school I would coach right like other teams and I coached when I was in college College I coached high school wrestling and football and you know like I've always been I was almost a math teacher until they started talking about like invisible numbers and imaginary numbers I was like I'm not gonna be a math teacher like little lost here and uh so I thought teaching was it but then I got like into college teaching because I don't have a teaching degree so I can't go and teach elementary or high school or any of that but I can be an adjunct professor and uh so I did that for a while and it it just it wasn't it um and so it was like on to the next thing on onto the next opportunity and and this honestly we didn't know if this was it uh we we thought it was felt it was felt you know put in place to to do this work I knew I was really good at this type of work but uh I I don't think I realized how desperate our country was for for this help and uh and and what a role we could play in it before you tell us about that where did your business knowledge or business instincts come from because you've described the circumstances under which you grew up there's nothing in there that suggests you were going to necessarily be an entrepreneur and build a business you did that with the construction business did you learn from your partner did you figure it out yourself why was that business successful oh man it's been a Litany of mentors I'll tell you so you know really the uh my mom is a big farm family right my dad was a city boy and uh he was a barber first and so he owned his own business and my grandfather was a barber so that he owned his own business and and then my dad uh he got carpal tunnel syndrome Health right again and oh gosh and and he like opened a little computer store in the mall and so he's always and he's always looking for for something to do so he was uh so you did have that entrepreneurial Spirit built in oh yeah definitely from my dad definitely from my dad like uh we always talk about how like our risk uh our our risk tolerance just turned way up and our caution tolerance has turned way like our our knobs are are turned full it's uh yeah I get that from him I think so what accounted for the success of the construction business great question again uh haven't thought about the answers to a lot of these questions lawren so uh so you're getting fresh uh fresh thoughts here I like it I can't say that it was me by by much because um I have mentors all the way so like I said the guy that that I bought half the business from was an incredible Mentor a teacher uh he uh we we had values alignment he took me under his wing uh to be honest and he was brilliant and so a lot of the technical parts of running the business uh I I think he he taught me the the creativity that you had to have in in pricing and operations to you know not gloss over it though there was a lot of long nights that I've spent learning QuickBooks and and I'm a reader so I'm I'm constantly reading and uh one of the the authors that I found who really spoke to me and my style I guess was John Maxwell and so you know I'm learning about leadership and as you know leadership is is a a lever to to helping others reach their full potential and so I I think brought people around me was was lucky in a lot of ways to have people around me who were high potential and uh and somehow saw a path through our business to to do better for themselves and their family and so I put people in you know the right position helped them grow and if I have been successful at all it's only because of those people all right so now I want to hear how you started and built Mission mobile obviously your willingness to take a risk comes into play here tell me about cashing in your insurance policies did you see that as being uh a risk of a similar nature to taking out all those credit cards so I mean I I always thought about ever since the credit cards um that worst case I could always get a job I wasn't going to starve right and and bankruptcy it only stays on your record for seven years and like you're you're going to be okay and so for right or wrong I I wasn't you know maybe uh that's not the prudent thing to think especially when you got some kids but I mean it's always kind of looked at like what's the worst that could happen but what I learned over time and I think probably you know a little bit of this foundational stuff from Zig Ziggler too is like imagine the worst that could happen if you can live with that you should do it and and and what I learned over time was the worst thing I could imagine happening never happened and uh you know didn't lose all the money the clients didn't fire me you know I always managed to get another contract uh the I couldn't negotiate uh at some level even when the you know things weren't going my direction like people wanted to support me I had uh Champions that I didn't even know I had come out and and support me I had a insurance agent that um wrote our first shity Bond when probably I had no business with a shity bond I had Banker who gave me a lot of credit when I had no business with a lot of credit I had you know uh tons of folks who wanted to help and and I think that's an overlooked asset in a lot of uh situations I think a person may be listening to this who goes you know I just don't think I can well you're you're right but you're not alone there's there's people around you even though you can't see them yet you haven't made those contacts yet you haven't developed those relationships yet doesn't mean they're not there give me an example if you would Travis who who did you reach out to how did you find somebody who provided needed help um oh my gosh like that's almost a daily occurrence uh at this point so uh we read a book called the great game of Business by the legendary Jack Stack I bought the rest of the books as there's three or four of them I like that one so much and uh and then I found out there was an organization that would help us with our operating system to run the great game of business inside of our organization we went to the webinar we called up there and and uh they said hey we'll we'll give you a coach and his name is Rich Armstrong and he used to be president in the great game of business I was like fantastic we'll do it they they didn't give you that coach right we had to tell them like we'd like the best you got and they gave us Ridge Armstrong so it was it was awesome but you had to pay him we we did have to to pay him but you know uh like John uh John Maxwell always says like who's going to invest in you if you don't invest first sure and so there's the to to me that's a foregone conclusion like you have to invest in yourself who you got to take a chance on yourself nobody else is going to believe in you until you believe in yourself so anyway you know Rich introduced us to you know tons of other folks and and John's introduced us to tons of other folks there's just because you don't know people like in your bubble Uh current uh Social Circle that will help you doesn't mean that there's no one out there that will help you rich introduce me to you Lauren right like I didn't know you rich just help me he didn't have to help me he's not doing it for the money he he wants to help people rich is a good guy did you have some savings uh in addition to the insurance money and that you invested in this business and what were the first steps we did have have a little but not a lot I mean we quite literally put it kind of all on the line for this we uh Incorporated like I said the first week of March and and got you know ability to to do work uh technical ability the bank accounts all those things and then the fortunately or unfortunately the second week of March of 2020 was uh was little National event called the pandemic shutdown and uh again this is the second time uh that I I've done something that I wouldn't recommend doing to others it's not a great time to start a business midle of the pandemic but uh but it worked out for us I mean we we had a big pause there for four or six weeks the world's turned upside down really nobody knows what's going on uh we we uh but you know came back up right the US economy is a mammoth thing and when it did write uh itself uh our marketing machine was running and we began to get calls uh asking if we could deliver mobile clinics and and help people start the programs because now they needed to get outside the four walls of their Health Center or their hospital and deliver care to the people and uh we start started seeing demand I mean we've averaged between 75 and 100 uh inbound leads a week for the past four and a half years and uh and and we've caught a lot of balls and uh and ran with them uh delivering uh equipment and services all over the country even into Canada uh that first year we stood up a 50,000 foot manufacturing plant we hired 55 people delivered about 35 uh pieces of equipment the one you did initially was a repurposed RV were you building these from scratch now uh no actually so interesting story so we felt like that this remanufacturing thing was a competitive Advantage uh we didn't really have being brand new like a supply chain uh we had knowledge we knew how to build build uh from from scratch brand new fiberglass shells but the supply chains M and so we began to just look around for where can we find components and Chassis and it became kind of obvious kind of fast that hey that remanufacturing thing was very useful in a pandemic and so that that was why we were able to deliver and and one of the reasons we were able to deliver so fast uh the majority of our Market was in a year or 18 months before they could anything uh delivery wise their you know factories were full and we were remanufacturing and so we were able to deliver in you know 90 120 days uh whereas other folks were taking two years and it was wild to be kind of counterposed like that and experienced so much success so early what were you remanufacturing what was the input so uh we would take an RV uh chassis with 10 15,00 ,000 miles on it and we would uh remove all the consumer uh materials consumer quality materials from that chassis and fiberglass shell and then we would just rebuild uh a new health clinic inside of that fiberglass and the the key to the to the whole thing is that what a lot of people didn't understand is that steel and fiberglass they don't know or care how old they are like it's really about functionality and uh and that's really what we were trying to deliver to the world was was functionality it didn't need to be fancy to to work and that goes all the way back to to kind of the the story the original story out of the Sun out of the rain it's got to run every day and then the second year we realized how important reliability was and how we were providing a product that was Uber reliable rather than being customized where no one could work on it anywhere in the country except for that Specialty Vehicle Manufacturer we were producing a product that had 400 aftermarket suppliers and that any RV technician or RV uh dealer scattered all over the country and in Canada could work on and so all of a sudden we had a product that was twice three times more reliable and easily repaired than anyone else in the industry and so you know that story began to take hold we also developed a national service network through those folks some strategic Partnerships and now we had service footprint on a national basis the third year we started hearing how Staffing was a problem to deliver care to underserved folks in in Satellite clinics and uh and so we stood up a staffing model and then we we heard about uh planning like no one really understood the framework of how to get one of these programs started in their community and we began to develop program planning capacity and and this year uh we're we're on the cusp I think of being awarded some some government some supporting government contracts uh that are just going to revolutionize the whole space with EVs and uh some really cool diagnostic equipment that's made for rule America and it's just going to change the game so we've came a long way in in five years and you know one of the key points that that I try to mention uh is traction so not only are we working for health systems and and hospitals and academic medical centers scattered all over the country and even internationally we delivered to Alaska and Hawaii um but $100 million in revenue and and we're turning out tremendous margins yesterday just yesterday we delivered the largest gain share uh to our team uh playing great game of business we're open book management we delivered the largest gain share in the company's history and we're looking for uh to to beat that even again in the fourth quarter and I don't say that to impress you with how cool our operating systems are how slick our people are how strong their capacity their heart but to impress upon you the depth of desperation for health care in America like there is a gap and and there is um uh a tremendous number of people trying to fill the Gap but they're trying to fill it with digital products and new software and Ai and and none of that increases convenience for for the American patient uh much less someone who has a physical disability is an hourly worker single mom elderly lives in a frontier community and this method of delivering Health Care does all those things and we're excited to see where it takes us and you you hit a $100 million in Revenue in your fourth year so that's total over four years oh I see so we went from six to 12 to 20 to 29 I think we'll be 60 this year so wow and you say you did it with with healthy margins uh margins as good as that company that fired you way better really way better my friend way better yep and and not just that like the margins aren't the point right we're profit with purpose and and our our mission really uh and some people might look sideways at it but our mission is to build the world's greatest place to work uh we we have a vision of serving 100 million Americans with mobile Healthcare delivering Health Care to every corner of our country we have a vision for that we're going to do it but our missions build a place that's sustainable stable safe where people can grow and really reach their full personal and professional potential whatever's in them we want them to to let it out here and uh and to Blossom I I think I'm hearing you say that you grew as quickly as you did in part because there was such a demand for what you had to offer it sounds like you did have competitors There Was An established Market did you have to do a lot of marketing to get the word out well let let me be clear about two things there's market demand and then there's like solution demand I think maybe and I mean I'm probably going to get some purist like arguing with me but I don't know if there's demand for for this thing we do or or how we do it because the thing we do has been around for a hundred years right like doctor on horseback like there's nothing new about what we do but there is absolutely something new about who we are and why we're doing it and that to me is what people are starved for products are table Stakes you have to produce a worldclass product you have to add value to either help businesses make money or save money to stay in business with this long have to have competitive advantages that create durable and sustain able differential margin you have to have a path to power in a significant Market but also you do it with heart and uh and that's where the second piece is like we're for-profit but we operate like a nonprofit uh we're we're in the middle of our borp certification and what that really means is that we leave money in the business to for stakeholders it's not just shareholders and uh stakeholders are our customers so we're building we build reserves we've built reserves we use it to to provide below Market financing for for folks who need it we we donate a lot of money and uh and and we're just we're we're here for a different reason than most folks are here for so why are your margins so good if if that's your philosophy you're more concerned about people than profits well we added tremendous amount of value and and we operate very uh efficiently and effectively and we're able to uh to to make those decisions to help the people that need help what is one of your vehicles cost that's a great question so price points depending on size and and obviously uh what's inside uh anywhere from 200,000 to top end kind of 500,000 that's like with a ton of dental equipment that's very expensive uh but you can imagine a small van that's more for outreach and education it's on the lower end but large coach that's going to be driving thousands of miles through the Pacific Northwest or or out west uh is going to be a little more expensive how many employees do you have we uh 75 full-time this week and another 25 or 30 between contract and uh advisory Consulting and I'm guessing you're attracting people who are very much caught up in your mission oh my gosh you you wouldn't believe it that's the part I'm most proud of how do you find them they find me yeah it's the wildest thing LinkedIn they email me like all my information public they text me they go hey uh I see what you're doing uh do you think that there's any place for me or if you ever need someone with this Talent set or my talent set please call me first and that Lauren is the part I'm most proud of is like I can't believe that the work that you know I chose to do do and the industry we chose to serve um well it's really but it's it's it's America right like it's not me and I chose it's like these people want to help our most vulnerable neighbors all of us they want to fix some of the things that they see wrong in our country they want to reweave some of the fabric that they see as threadbear in our communities and they see this as a path really to to to fulfilling that type of life's work and they work hard at it and and we have a great time have you had an impact on the market are there others trying to do something similar to what you're doing of course of course we've seen our competitors uh uh across the entire Spectrum so we're vertically integrated and all that means is that we will provide a health system with any product service through the whole value chain uh up to an including turn key uh providing Community Health Care through satellite clinics like we'll just come do that if a county or a reservation he said hey we've got a neighborhood here that needs health care we don't know what to do with it we'll come do it you you supply the the doctors top to bottom I'll do it and so anywhere in there of course there's other people who do pieces and parts of that there's people there's providers there's uh staffing companies there's equipment maintenance companies there's equipment manufacturers and and we see up and down that value chain other people in those spaces uh coming right behind us they're fast followers God bless them they don't want to be first but they're fast followers and that's a perfectly fine strategy but we're moving fast they better get up early and pack a lunch because we are innovating so fast so fast with new products new Services new bundles new Finance models new payment methods new flexibilities new geographies new Partnerships so where do you go from here what's your vision going forward every corner of the country what what would it take to get there do you need to raise more money would you need to build more factories what does every corner of the country mean for you that's a great question there's 307 counties uh in America some of them have no people some of them have a tremendous amount of people a national network of satellite clinics that are sharing infrastructure and and data uh is not it's not unreasonable we've done things far more complex than that in our country and so uh some of it is just a matter of time I believe and and continued effort continued discipline we have to be ready when the opportunity comes but it's just a foregone conclusion that we're going to see extraordinary results we are going to change the face of Healthcare in this country and we're going to do it KNE to knee belly to belly uh treating people like people instead of prophets and uh it it's going to be completely different in 10 years mark my words so when you think back now on the way you felt after your father passed away and you decided that you weren't spending your life the way you want wanted to and that you weren't having the impact that you wanted to how do you think about that now oh well I had thought about that one I think I'm I'm I'm on my way this is the closest the closest uh path that I've found uh but the work's not done um I want to be able to look back when I retire and put my grandkids on on my knee and you know go to a a a company alumni sort of event and and look back and say we did it and uh I can't say that yet so uh still work to do well Travis thank you so much for taking the time [Music] today one thing before you go everything we do at 21 hats is created by entrepreneurs for entrepreneurs to help us all learn together if you get something out of listening to these podcast episodes consider joining the conversation you can do that by joining the 21 hats sounding board a slack Channel where you you can tap the wisdom of a very smart crowd or by becoming a founding member and joining our monthly Zoom Forum where you can be part of conversations much like the ones we have on the podcast you can sign up for both by subscribing to the morning report if you have any questions you can email me at Lauren at21 hats.com and if you get something out of this podcast or out of the morning report please tell a friend tell an enemy tell every business owner you know your word of mouth owner to owner will always be the most effective Ive way to build this community for all of us thank you it means a lot this episode was produced by another entrepreneur Jess steron founder of blank word Productions thanks for listening everyone [Music]