Getting Out of Your Own Way with Serial Entrepreneur and NIL Expert Jake Kovalcik

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This episode is about so much, so many important things. The biggest takeaway I had from this interview with my friend Jake Kovalcik, we went to Gettysburg together and played lacrosse together. Biggest takeaway was about getting out of your own way. Jake shares his story of how many mistakes he made and very dark times he went through, specifically when he went through a divorce and dealing with taking ownership of his own decisions and taking full accountability, but also always wanting to be perfect. And he calls it OCD, that drive for perfectionism and balancing that with taking action and getting out of your own way.

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He's been in the corporate world. He's also started three different companies, and his latest venture, which is really taking off, is focused on college athletes and the whole world of nil. This is a very relatable episode. He gets a little emotional in the middle of it. A lot of takeaways for the entrepreneur and founder, a lot of takeaways for the former athlete and that whole identity crisis that a lot of us have gone through when all of a sudden your career is over and now what?

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And so there's something in this episode for everyone.

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It's very, very powerful. You're gonna love it. Welcome to the from adversity to From Adversity to Abundance Podcast podcast. Are you an entrepreneur or aspiring entrepreneur? Then this show is for you.

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Each week, we bring you impactful stories of real people who have overcome painful human adversity to create a life of From Adversity to Abundance Podcast.

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00:02:32
Welcome, everybody, to another episode of the from Adversity to From Adversity to Abundance Podcast podcast. I am your host, Jamie Bateman, and I'm thrilled today to have with us Jake Kovalcik. Jake is an old friend of mine. We played lacrosse together at Gettysburg College. I'm sure we're going to reminisce a little bit.

00:02:46
Jake, how are you doing today? I'm doing great, Jamie, thank you so much for having me. Really appreciate it, man. Absolutely. I know we're going to dive into what you're up to today.

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I know you're a co founder of top star athletic club. Tell us, tell us a little bit about that before we jump into your backstory. Yeah, sure. So top star basically exists to make nil work better. We're trying to take the sort, sort of.

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Of the whole system is in chaos. We're trying to put standards around it and really make it better for student athletes, better for brands, better for the future. And we're really trying to take what is concentrated at the top of nil and bring it down to actually more kids like you and I that don't necessarily have that huge following, aren't playing a, quite frankly, revenue generating sport and really trying to just help spread the nil wealth down and then at the same time, give these kids something that I really needed when I graduated, which was some experience with work, because, as you know, you know, we were one of the best teams in the nation, so we didn't have a whole lot of time for internships or jobs or things like that. So you really kind of go into the professional world a little bit unequipped. So we're trying to help kids in that regard as well.

00:03:55
So, like, better for student athletes, better for brands, better for the future. Love it. So, for the listener who's unfamiliar with nil, can you just define that for us? Yeah. So, uh, in 2021, the NCAA finally allowed student athletes to be who they are, right.

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They can monetize themselves. So Nil stands for name, image, and likeness. Got it. Awesome. And I know, and we're going to get into some of this, but you've started a few businesses along the way, is that right?

00:04:22
Yeah. This is, I guess, the third business that I've started officially. This is the first one that I've sort of gone out on my own with and done everything, sort of souped the nuts and then brought a co founder. And usually it's been like, me and a co founder move things forward, and then we raise capital and do things like that. But this was the first one that I defined my own taxes with, which was interesting.

00:04:48
No, that's really good, because our listeners are largely entrepreneurs and budding entrepreneurs. So we'll talk about that. Let's jump back. So, as I mentioned, you and I played lacrosse together. You were one of the best goalies in the country, and we had, as you said, we had a very good team at Gettysburg.

00:05:11
A lot of great memories. And I don't think the listener wants us to just reminisce about every goal I scored and every save you made. But they should. They really should. They're missing out.

00:05:24
I agree. But let's talk about college and kind of, I know we're gonna get into some, you know, some difficult topics, especially pertaining to emotional health and mental health. Which. Which I think is really relevant, unfortunately, very relevant in today's world. But what was your.

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What was your college life like? Talk about that for us. Oh, geez. So college life was, as I've learned, pretty similar to most other student athletes, um, you know, in season three a days, uh, out of season two a days. So not a whole lot of time for.

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For much else from, like, a, uh, I guess, professional development perspective, from a social life perspective. I mean, we. We had training rules. We had all these things that we had to adhere to. We had practices, like I said, 06:00 a.m.

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Practice after, uh, classes and then, you know, study hall at night. So I. I don't know that I. I mean, I thought it was sort of typical for college students, but learning with my daughters is very not typical. So it was pretty much, I was at school to play lacrosse, you know.

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Yeah. Like, the grades were secondary. It was just sort of to an end. No. And I can.

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I can fully relate. It was. Man, I transferred in. I went to Johns Hopkins for a year and a half. And the reason I bring that up is you might think, oh, Hopkins lacrosse, that's obviously way more demanding than some division three school.

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They were both extremely demanding. There's just. There wasn't a whole lot else we could have done time wise at Gettysburg. I mean, it was for lacrosse. That's why I was there as well.

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I mean, it was number one, and so it was not a secondary thing. It was everything. And you and I were talking before we hit record about how your identity, for better or for worse, gets wrapped up in. In being a lacrosse players. Talk.

00:07:21
Talk about that a little bit. Yeah, that, you know, like, we. We actually talked about that, and I'm glad you brought it up, because that was one of the things that I found to be the most challenging after graduating. It was like. And I put a lot of this deliberately into Topstar, and I'll talk about that later.

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But, like, that loss of team, you know, that loss of just like, this. This group of people that, like, you go to war with, and suddenly it just turns off. I mean, it's like, you know, for you. For you, it was a lot of the same way as it was for me. Right?

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Like, we went up to Rochester, we played Nazareth, you lost to Nazareth. And it's like you came back home, and now what, you know, it's like, you know, and then September rolls around, or, you know, late August rolls around, and you're. You're not going back to school, and you're not playing lacrosse again. And that transition, for me was particularly difficult because I. Everything I did was.

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Was for lacrosse. Everything I did was. Was as a. As an athlete, to be competitive, to be the best I possibly could. And I focused so much of my energy on that.

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Once that was over, I mean, I was completely lost. And it wasn't for, like, a short amount of time either. I mean, it was a solid decade that I just didn't know what to do with myself. Yeah, absolutely. And again, I'm not going to make the episode about me, but I just can relate so much.

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I was sharing, actually, last night with my wife that I joined the military after, eventually, after college, and I got deployed, was on a ten man team overseas in Iraq, and literally went to war with these guys. And I feel a closer bond to my lacrosse teammates than I do to those guys, for whatever reason. I don't know if it's because we put four years of blood, sweat, and two years into this, and we had a very defined goal of a national championship. Yeah. And my entire background was.

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Was becoming, you know, men. You know, it was all about lacrosse. Right. Whereas the military thing for me was like, oh, it was to serve that need that you just mentioned, to be plugged into a team and be a part of something bigger than myself. Um, so, absolutely, there's a huge void, and I felt that 100% like you did.

00:09:35
So. So talk about that just from an emotional standpoint. What. What did that look like that decade after. After college?

00:09:42
I mean, to be totally truthful, it's like, I. I'm still sort of looking for it because one thing you really learn, it's like, you know, when you are playing as high level of sport as we played, and we were, you know, we were the best team in the nation. You know, my three years of starting there, there weren't many times that we fell out of that number one spot or number two spot. Like, we were always there. When you have this group of guys around you that are all laser focused on the same goal and everybody's moving in the same direction, you have one thing to your point.

00:10:13
You're trying to get to that national championship. It just doesn't exist in corporate America. Like, it really doesn't. It's like the team concept is. Has been sort of co opted by corporate America, and they aren't teams.

00:10:25
Call them teams, because I just don't think saying a group of people generally pointing in the same direction. You say co opted, I'll say bastardized. Sure. Say bad words. Bastardized by corporate America.

00:10:39
I mean, honestly, like, it just to say the word team is easier than to say, like I said, like, you know, it's basically a group of people generally going in the same direction, like a flock of geese. And that's sort of the way I've been describing it because that's what it is. It's like you've got everybody. They're kind of in a triangle. They're kind of going the same direction.

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Then there's, like four, and they're like, why are they going west? You know? And then it's like, that's like the guy in the, you know, in the back of the room that's sitting there trying not to be noticed, and then there's, you know, this other person who's, like, trying to figure out how they can take your job or whatever. It's just not all lines. You.

00:11:12
And I've talked to lots of student athletes, like former NFL guys, former NBA guys, like, across the spectrum, MLB guys, and they all say the same thing. It's like that loss of team is like, it hurts. Like, it feels physically. So trying to find that in corporate America, I mean, it is difficult because it just doesn't exist. Because everybody, you know, even on lacrosse, like, everybody wants to score goals.

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Everybody wants to strip people. Everybody wants to win. Pay us off. But everybody also wants to win. You are there to win.

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It is not the same in corporate America. Like, some people just don't want to lose their job, and some people are just like, I'm going to do exactly what the guy before me did so I can get my 3% raise and. And go back home and do whatever. So did you go in? Did you get a job after school?

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Did you start a business right away? What did that look like? I didn't know what to do. I went home and I was like, you know, this. This was what?

00:12:09
This was, like, the biggest shock in my life because, you know, I was two time all american goalie at gettysburg. We were team captain. And I'm like, who's not gonna want to hire me? I mean, honestly, like, I have all these intangibles that I know businesses want. Who's not gonna hire me?

00:12:22
Short answer, uh, pretty much everybody, because I had no experience. You know, it's like, you come out of college and, like, you're charged with, you know, as a goalie, especially. Right. As a goalie, you are the heart of the team. Like, everything in the defense resonates from you.

00:12:35
It goes, yeah, you're the. You're the quarterback. Of the defense. It's such a critical position for sure. The only time that you can actually not pay attention is when the ball is with you, attack folks down on the other end and like then it's like, okay, cool, but like what's coming back up?

00:12:50
But it's like you just, it's, yeah. So, okay, so you had trouble getting a job, it sounds like. Yeah, all right. Yeah, yeah. I didn't know what to do.

00:13:06
I had no idea what to do and like I said, like no one wanted to hire me so I didn't have any idea. So I just sort of started doing like landscaping. Like thats what I did. And I did landscaping for a year and then I finally got a corporate job and then I got another corporate job and then I did the corporate thing for, I dont know, almost a decade ago, more than maybe 15 years until I ran into my first startup and at that point it was 2003 and I had no idea what a startup was. They werent cool yet, small companies.

00:13:41
They were just literally, we're a company of twelve people, we do pretty good job of making payroll. Sometimes the CEO has to go into her own bank account to pay you, which happened on more than one case. And that was the biggest learning experience for me because the first time that somebody actually gave me the reins to be like, you have to do more now you're not just doing media, you're not just doing whatever you're doing, you have to do all these things and oh, by the way, we're going to teach you to do all these things so that you're not just okay at them. Like, you're pretty good at them. So getting exposed to that, I guess, you know, you know, early enough in my career really sort of changed the trajectory of my life because all of a sudden it's like I found this path where like I never fit in boxes.

00:14:27
As a goalie, you definitely. Yeah. Every goalie has a few screws loosed and I say that as a compliment. I mean, yeah, thank you. Yeah, it's uh.

00:14:40
Yeah, for sure. You know, like, and I mean me in particular. Right. Like I was all over the field, I was not a mo, I was not a stationary goalie. I.

00:14:49
You're mobile. Yeah, I had the unfortunate, like we're fortunate depending on your perspective. Luck of seeing Matty Palem play for Syracuse and watching him come all over the place. I was like, I want to be like that. I want to be him.

00:15:03
Yeah. Yeah. So, you know, I'm running, I'm scoring goals, I'm throwing assists, I'm throwing behind the back passes as a goalie, and. You know, yeah, you're a very good athlete. You know, you were very mobile, but, yeah, and so, yeah, go ahead.

00:15:16
Yeah, so I, it's, it's, you know, like, I just learned that you can do these other things. There's a net. Net there and then. So it changed me trajectory of my life. And then I started looking for jobs that would give me those opportunities.

00:15:32
Gotcha. So when the previous ten to 15 years in a corporate setting, what, what industry was that? And what, what did that look like? Oh, gosh. I worked for Anheuser Busch for a while, worked for Under Armour for a spell, and then most recently worked for Allstate for about five years, where we were building the largest telematics database, which is risk data.

00:15:54
Driving risk data. Gotcha. So lots of different. Yeah, no, I'm like you. I bounced around a little bit.

00:16:02
I'll be honest. I wasn't sure what, you know, and worked for a title company and then a mortgage company. Then I joined the military and just trying to, obviously make, make some money, have a paycheck, but also figure out my purpose. Right. And the direction I call it.

00:16:19
Calling purpose, whatever you want to call it. But just what, what am I supposed to be doing? So, you know, and I think nowadays it's, it's way more common to. People change jobs all the time, so. Okay.

00:16:34
What did the, I guess your personal life look like? I know you went through some personal challenges during that 15 year span, we'll call it. What would talk about that a little bit. Yeah. You know, went through a divorce, which, which is never easy for anybody, especially when there's kids involved.

00:16:53
Had to come to terms with a lot of things, you know, like, it. If it's never easy, it's. Divorce is terrible. The thing that I think I took most from that entire experience, and really, it's. I guess it's like something I learned on the field, which is odd.

00:17:13
I never really thought about it, but really, like, owning everything, you know, being. I love that. Accountable to every single mistake I made and not trying to blame somebody else for the decisions I made. Not, not like pointing fingers, because at the end of the day, like, it was nobody's fault but mine. Like, I made the bad choices I made the bad decisions I made.

00:17:37
It was me, you know, like, I reacted to the problem the way I reacted to it, and trying to blame on somebody else for that. Even my ex wife is stupid. Like, it wasn't her fault. It was the way I did it. So, you know, being absolutely, brutally accountable to myself and to my kids, um, you know, was the thing that ultimately kind of helped me get through that, because it is not an easy path.

00:18:04
I have yet to find anybody who, like, has a wonderful experience going through a divorce. Right. But, you know. Yeah. So it's difficult, man.

00:18:13
You know, like, there's. For sure. No, I think. Thank you for sharing. I know it's not an easy, easy topic to talk about.

00:18:19
The ownership piece is something that comes up over and over and over on our show. Much easier for me to sit here and talk about than for me to actually do. So. I'm not sitting here judging anybody for taking, but it's. You're absolutely right.

00:18:34
There's so much power in that, though. It's not easy to do, but there's so much power in taking ownership and taking accountability for your own decisions. And it sounds like. I'm sure there were things that went wrong in your life that weren't a result of your choices directly. Right.

00:18:50
It sounds like maybe some problems were there and then you would make decisions and then you would compound the problem. Yes. Again, not. I don't. I'm just.

00:18:59
I mean, that applies to, I mean, everybody, right? Yeah. I mean, look, I'm an open book when it comes to this. I mean, obviously, like, I'm not going to get into very nitty details of things, but when it comes to, like, my personal accountability to things, when it comes to, like, you know, how I handled the things that I handled, like. Yeah, I made mistakes.

00:19:17
Like, I made a lot of them. I mean, look, there was, like, a two year span. I couldn't even look in a mirror and look at myself because I just couldn't get out of my own way. I couldn't figure it out. And then, you know, I mean, you'll probably know who he is.

00:19:30
Jocko Willink. You know who that guy is. Yeah, absolutely. Extreme ownership is one book I. Yeah.

00:19:35
I have, you know. Yeah. So I happen to hear good. Yeah, right. And maybe I get emotional talking about I was.

00:19:47
It was bad. And, you know, I'm like, I hear this, this, you know, good, and it's like, you know, basically to take away. It's like, you know, if you can get breath into your lungs, you can still move and, like, you can still going forward. And I finally, like, whatever. Whatever that tapped into, it's like, it was this dark hole that I was in it, like, for the first time in a long time, like, I finally saw a crack of light.

00:20:13
And I was like, oh, God damn, like, I can get out of this. And it sure didn't happen overnight, but it was like, oh, my God, like, there is a chance, man. And so I just became ruthlessly, like, ruthlessly accountable to everything. And I just stopped with, quite frankly, with the b's and just was like, okay, it's enough. And so it was just.

00:20:42
Is just this little thing. It seems so insignificant, but, like, just word, it's like, good, you know? Yeah, good. Like, still gotta fight. Yeah.

00:20:53
So. And there was, there were still. You were hearing that there was good in you, right. And so it sounds like that sliver of light provided hope. Yeah.

00:21:03
That you didn't have before. No. I appreciate you sharing that. So was this, like, at what point in your life was that two year period that we're talking about? Oh, God, that was during a divorce.

00:21:14
Yeah. I mean, it was complete disaster. Gotcha. Yeah, it's, it's, you know, I can kind of, like, laugh about it now because it's like, I've come to terms with it. I've come to terms with my mistakes.

00:21:26
I've come to terms with the things I made, I did wrong, like, I did them. Like, it's silly. So. And I'll just. The point is not to pick you apart and put you down and make.

00:21:38
It's just, you know, unfortunately, divorce is, is pretty common and it's a relatable thing for a lot of people. And, you know, so if your message of hope can get to the person who's in that storm right now, that's the goal of the podcast, you know, that's, that's what we're trying to do. I hope so. Like, honestly, like, I've, I've offered up to talk to a bunch of different people in my life that have gone through it because quite frankly, I had nobody. Like, I literally had no one I could talk to.

00:22:05
And, like, you know, you're married, right? So you understand your wife's friends and family become your friends and family. And when fractures, it destroys your world. I mean, it just utterly shatters your world. And you don't know, like, for me in particular, I had no idea where to go, I had no idea what to do, and I broke, you know, and then over the course of that two years, trying to, like, figure out how do I do anything, you know, and fix that.

00:22:34
Uh, right. I didn't have anybody, so, you know, like, there's been a few people in my life where I'm like, listen, man, like, I understand this you know, I've made mistakes. Like, trust me when I tell you I've made all these mistakes. It's terrible. It sucks to go through, but just keep going, just not to make just the same mistakes again.

00:22:58
You know, you're gonna make them. It's just. You're going to. Absolutely. And again, yeah, it's, it's.

00:23:04
And we're all. That's part of the show. We're. We're all guaranteed to go through. You're going to go through additional adversity.

00:23:09
I hope you never go through anything like that again. I am as well. Right. We're all. It's.

00:23:14
It's going to happen. I mean, and so if we can. It sounds like, you know, just being able to just like, like you're doing now, reach out to people who may be in a similar situation. Just, you know, that element of community is. Is so important.

00:23:27
It's so important on my side. I think. I think my. I think my siblings like my wife more than they like me, so I really. I'm kind of screwed there.

00:23:35
But my kid 100% like Michelle more than me, man. I get it. But let's fast forward. So. So I'm sure you have, you know that the accountability piece is huge, and I think that probably you've been hope applying that through the rest of your life.

00:23:54
So, first startup. What did that first startup look like for you? And let's take it from there. Oh, gosh. The first one was, we were so far ahead of our time, it was crazy.

00:24:02
We were trying to do. It was me and one of my buddies actually, that I worked with at Allstate who brought me in there to help him. We were trying to build this wi Fi advertising network, and we were so far ahead of the curve, nobody even knew what to do with it. So we eventually had to shut that down. But now it's super commonplace where there's companies called intersection that have this Wi Fi product.

00:24:24
There's Wi Fi in airports. What we were trying to do, we were focused mainly on like, stadiums and bars and delivering content to there for, you know, in exchange for advertising. But we were so far out ahead of the curve. Like, people couldn't even wrap their head what we were doing. Gotcha.

00:24:37
Interesting, that one.

00:24:41
The next one that I personally was involved in was called sports locker. We were this sort of mix between season long fantasy and daily fantasy. We had the very. We had a great product. There's market need for this product.

00:24:56
It doesn't exist because, like, we were sort of doing fan engagement on you know, in the. In the venue and off the venue and on the couch. So, like, we were bringing everybody together and we had the really unfortunate, um, luck, if you will, of having gambling become legal while we were building that product out. So, effectively, what happens is, um, everything just dies, you know, like, people are like, well, no, we're going to go with draftkings and Fanduel now. And that, that was.

00:25:22
So, that was the end of that one. And unfortunately, like, it's just dead. So that was a tough one because we really had, we had buy in from, like, some of the big sports organizations, we had buy in from advertisers, and we had buy in from other partners, and just as soon as it all happened, like, that was it. It was just gone. So interesting.

00:25:44
Yeah, I'd love to pick your brain after, because I'll dabble in that stuff a little bit and it's fun. I mean, just the season long stuff versus DF's, and I know they do have some other kind of hybrid formats out there like you're talking about, so. Yeah, both of those ideas, in hindsight, we're genius. Right. But it sounds like the timing and some external circumstances that are out of your control.

00:26:13
Right. So with those two ventures, how much, approximately, like, how much time and how much capital, if you don't mind, like, just, you know, I know that's a negative approach, but most businesses fail. So I think, you know, on this show, I don't present entrepreneurship like it's this rainbow butterflies. Yeah. Don't tell everybody.

00:26:38
Absolutely. Unless you, you are a glut punishment or you happen to have a really rich father, uncle, family member, loves backstop money and light on fire. Don't do it.

00:26:52
It's so funny you say that, because it's tough, man, and we're going to get into just the emotional drain. I mean, it's tough, and if you have a family, I mean, that can. That spreads.

00:27:08
It's not like having a job, nine to five job and going home. Um, so what was the toll on you, like, just for looking at those two startups? The first one wasn't as. Wasn't terrible because, you know, like, we were sort of building it on the side. Like, the startup that I was actually working for at that point was in the process of being sold for, I think, the first time.

00:27:29
I don't know if it was the first time, I guess. So we, we didn't really, like, everyone was kind of just, you know, we were doing it on the side. So the first one wasn't terrible. We, we didn't raise any capital. We definitely spent a lot of capital.

00:27:42
I mean, I spent, I don't know if I spent 20 grand total. It was a lot. Gotcha. And just trying to like, put together partnerships and things like that and have wasn't terrible. Um, that one, we relatively unscathed.

00:27:56
Uh, sports locker, not so much. Raised some money for that. Um, lost it all, you know, like, lost everything. Lost my, my money, lost my investor's money. Um, it sucks.

00:28:10
I mean, the accountability on that one is awful. It still hurts because people trust you, they bind to you, and they're you. So having that personal accountability, it hurts. And then when you can't even like get, get them back to even and it's just gone. I don't know how people do it.

00:28:30
I mean, it still terrible. So looking at those two, those two startups, and I know they're very different models. And what were one or two lessons learned from that as far as it could be about partnerships, partnering with the wrong people, or raising capital? Any lessons learned that you would apply? Yeah, yeah, yeah.

00:28:53
Two big ones actually, right off the top. I know these because I applied them to top star. First things first, if you're going to be in the sports industry, find a business savvy former pro at some, you know, across a major sport that has, it has a recognizable name. You absolutely need champions at the professional level to get you to those next level conversations. It's an absolute must.

00:29:18
Second thing is, you know, at least for us, I was determined to build a business first. So I took a business first approach as opposed to a tech first approach, because the last thing that I wanted to do was put a whole bunch of money into technology and then get stuck in a situation like I got stuck in last time, where we had this technology, but we didn't have the business fully baked, and we thought we business fully baked because we had these emerging partnerships which, like I mentioned with the fanduel and draftking thing, just fell apart. So what I wanted to do this time was not do that. So we run this business. I mean, yeah, obviously we use tech, but we have not any custom anything yet whatsoever.

00:30:01
I went out and I was just recklessly going after a, breaking our model, and b, making sure that we had a business before I went out and spoke to a single investor about this at all.

00:30:17
I have my own little startup incubator, if you will, that I stick ideas into, and then I play around with them and I try to, you know, I build the models and whatever most of them die because I break them. I've tried to break top star over and over and over again. Like, because if. If I can break it, somebody else can break it again. Back to the accountability thing.

00:30:39
It's like, I don't want to go talk to people about something that I don't have confidence in, something that I won't put my name on. So if I break it, that's it. You know, I've tried to break Topstar over and over again because if I do break it, like, basically, I have my motto now, after all this OCD stuff is now fail fast, fix faster. Right? So if I break it now, it's little things that break.

00:31:08
It's not the business model that breaks. It's like, oh, shoot, we have to pivot from doing this to this and we just do it. So it's not the world, but those were the biggest things that I took away from it. Yeah, that's good. And when you say business first, just to drill down a little bit, because I think I have some similar experience, but essentially you're saying the actual fundamentals of the business and also making sure that the demand is actually there for this product or service versus building out some massive infrastructure and then build it, and they will come.

00:31:42
Because honestly, I. I've made this mistake myself. And we have a loan servicing company, and it's doing really, it's doing well now. But the mistake we made was just, we got all these licenses and we did all this work upfront and all this capital and, you know, and it's like. And then it was crickets and it's like, we didn't do any market testing.

00:32:05
We didn't know, you know, if people would actually show up. Right. And so I think we had the cart before the horse there. So you're saying market testing, making, you know, talking to potential clients or making sure that the. The business model is sound before you go and.

00:32:23
And, you know, make it more efficient or. Or add bells and whistles to it. Right. Yeah, that's exactly what I'm saying. Um, you know, like we.

00:32:31
We have the unfortunate or fortunate now, uh, luxury or luck, depending on how you look at it, of working in a two sided marketplace. Right. So we're building a team of student athletes, and then we are also going out to get brands. So we have this marketplace where it's like a chicken or the egg type thing. Like, how do you get the brands if you don't have the student athletes and if you don't have any way to sort of incentivize the student athletes to stay on the team.

00:32:56
Like, how are you gonna get student athletes? So that was one of the biggest questions that we had going into it was like, okay, like, can we build this marketplace? Like, is it even? Will people actually buy into what we're doing? So before we did anything, I mean, I went, I must.

00:33:12
I've talked to 50 plus brands and agencies, you know, dozens, hundreds of people and parents and athletes and every single possible person that I could speak to before we made a call to understand, like, is the way that we're trying to do this, does it provide value? Now, obviously, I took a whole bunch of what I experienced and what you experienced as student athletes and put it into this because that, from a credibility, credibility standpoint, when you're talking to parents is huge. But, you know, just my work at Anheuser Busch, right, my understanding of how important local media is and how the local side really drives revenue or who even to talk to on the local side from that perspective. Or my second, my first real startup with, you know, the one out of Georgia Prime Point media that I mentioned where it was twelve people that I went to in 23. We aggregated all these little tiny things that individually were relatively insignificant, but when you networked them together and had this massive sort of network effect, it became magical.

00:34:13
So all the things that I've learned over the course of my career coupled with, like, you know, my own experience with, you know, this kid that I know that went to Stanford, that got drafted by the reds, like, talking to him, I'm like, how do you not have any nal deals? This makes no sense to me. It's like, you're going to the pros. You have a 375 GPA from Stanford and no one's talking to you. Or even, like, with my own kids, like, what would I need to see as a parent to come out and to trust somebody, like, with my kid?

00:34:40
Because that's what you're talking to parents. And you're like, hey, like, I know you don't know me and I know we came in on a good reference, but it's still my kid. So dozens of these conversations and spoke to dozens of brands and like, I mean, literally like 50 brands. 50, I don't even know anymore. So many.

00:34:59
So many brands that we finally honed in on the fact that, okay, the way we're doing this actually does make sense. And then you take a look at the nil name, image, likeness market in general, and it's like, it's complete chaos, you know, like Billy Carter. I don't know if you know Billy. Billy's a Gettysburg program on LinkedIn. Yeah, yeah.

00:35:20
Very big name in nil. He hates when you say the Wild west. He's like, oh, my God. So I'm not gonna say Wild west. We won't say Wild west, Billy.

00:35:28
It's chaos, Bill. So it's still complete chaos. There's no product, there's no standards. Like, the NCAA just continues to just, like, look ridiculous in the way they're managing this whole thing. And I'm like, as a brand, that.

00:35:44
Smells like opportunity to me. Right, yeah, opportunity, yeah, exactly. As a guy that. That understand that knows what brands want and need and knows how they buy and knows what they need to see, I'm like, just not providing it. It just doesn't exist.

00:35:59
So that's how, like, the entirety of, like, pop star comes to get, right. We take that and shake it in and put it in and try to break things and throw things out, bring things back in and. Yeah, here we are. One of the topics, actually, crazy. How many too many years.

00:36:17
Gotcha. Yeah, two too many. No, I'm kidding. Sometimes. Yeah, it takes a lot.

00:36:22
Takes a lot of work. I mean, it's in a lot of time to build something, something great, and. But what I love about what you're saying is, yes, you are relying on your experience and your. Your own passion, but it's not only about that. I mean, I love that that's a factor.

00:36:37
But one of the things that comes up on the show is, you know, some people say, follow your. Follow your heart, follow your passion, and you never work a day in your life. That's great. And I hope that you enjoy what you're doing, everyone, you know, but you're not out there. You're not.

00:36:53
Right? Yeah, certain things might be enjoyable. You should probably not do them. But you're out there listening. You know, you're listening to people and talking to people, and you're taking feedback from the marketplace, in the industry as.

00:37:10
Because you want to add value. That's what you were talking about. It's not just what does Jake want to do all day? I love sports, so I'm going to do something in sport. No, it's like, no, I understand this industry because I was a student athlete.

00:37:21
I worked in, you know, similar. In different industries in a similar way, taking that experience, but then going out and listening about what is the need. Right. That's the. That's the thing that people miss sometimes.

00:37:33
Like, that's why I think you're going to be successful with this because you're actually listening many times over to where the need actually is. So, okay, so high level, what. What is top star athletic club? And I know you touched on it, but what is it exactly? So top star takes a team approach, right?

00:37:55
We look at the entire student athlete population much differently than anybody else. Our sort of standards are not predicated on the number of followers that kids have. We equally look at academics and athletics, and we only really focus on the top 50, you know, large universities and liberal arts colleges. So per us news and world report, that's like our quote unquote Bible. So any schools that fall into that hundred subset, those are the types of student athletes that we want on Topstar.

00:38:22
Because first and foremost, like, these kids are killers. Like, from a athletics perspective, from an academics perspective, just take lacrosse, all right? Like, which is what we know and kind of where we started, all the Ivy leagues. Like, I think there's four or five of the ivies in the top 20 right now. Like, pretty much.

00:38:41
I don't. There aren't many schools in the top 20 from a lacrosse perspective that aren't in the top 50 from an academic perspective, which is crazy. It's insane. Like, that's our target, right? Because we want these kids who are super well balanced, that are.

00:38:58
That have high integrity, that understand that the work that they're putting in on the field, like, means something, right? And we also take a look. You know, we have. We have a GPA requirement that we have. We have social and digital integrity requirements.

00:39:11
We have, like, you have to represent yourself in your school with good character. Like, we are really trying to help these kids. Like, you know, like, we act as a second set of coaches. So we're really trying to help these kids, like, stay the path, right? Show them that there is a sort of way that you can move forward with academics and athletics.

00:39:30
We also don't necessarily focus on the revenue generating sports like football and basketball. So our niche doesn't really fall in there because quite frankly, like, when you're talking about that level of people, when you're talking about, like, the Bronnie James is, you're talking about the man and you're talking about the Sanders is of the world. Like, we can't compete, and I don't want to compete there because there's plenty of people going after that and there's a great market there and they'll do just fine. But again, back to, like, our experience, right? This is where we differ in that the kids that we bring in, like, we sign them as employees.

00:40:02
So they are all employees of Topstar. So as they continue to meet our standards, as they continue to go through our system. Right. They get valuable work experience. So some of these kids now, when they finally sort of spit out on the professional world, will have three or five years of experience working for cops.

00:40:20
They can put that on their resume. And then something you didn't have. Right. So, okay, two things then. What's the.

00:40:28
Where are you in the sort of life cycle of top star? Like, did you sign your first client last week? Or, you know, where are we with the business itself? And then secondly, walk us through just high level, sort of the client journey. So, yeah, if you could answer those two, that'd be great.

00:40:47
Yeah. So we, again, this is like one of those things that I was going to talk about where we sort of went out of the. Out of, out of off script about me, like, just trying to get out of my own way because, like, yeah, talk about that. Well, it's too late now. We did the other thing.

00:41:06
No, we'll bring you back. No, it's fine. I'm a perfectionist. And just because of the nature of what goalies do, we live in this weird world where, like, fractions of seconds and fractions of inches is the difference between a save and a goal. So it's like, have to be obsessed with that razor sharp precision, and it makes you a perfectionist and makes you OCD, and you sort of apply everything in your world to that.

00:41:31
And that doesn't work for startups. So now this gets back to what you just asked me, which is, tell us about the team. Right? Like, so we started interviewing folks well over a year ago at this point, and we formally sort of launched the team last August. Where we started finally, like, where I finally got out of my own way, thanks.

00:41:53
Huge part to my wife, Michelle. And just, she was like, why aren't you doing this? Like, just do it. I'm like, well, I'm waiting to have. Have more.

00:42:00
Like, why? You know? And the brands told me very clearly, like, what they needed. And I was like, I don't care. Like, I want to, like, suck the air out of the room because that's just sort of the way, like, when I stepped on the field, I was like, yeah, you know what?

00:42:12
Went to the wrong high school from the wrong state for lacrosse. Too bad I'm here. Deal with me. You know? And that's kind of the way I looked at it with top star.

00:42:19
I'm like, too bad we're here, deal with us. Except that doesn't work because you don't always get what you want when you're in a, when you're in a startup. And sometimes good is good enough. So we went out and started talking to kids. We signed the right amount of kids and we started paying them last August.

00:42:33
So as of right now, like, we're what? August, September, October, August, September, October, November, December, January, February, March, April 8 was nine months into, you know, paying the kids. So as soon as we got all the kids on board, then we started talking to the brands. And the brands came quickly because basically, you know, what we would tell them is like, you know, we have this process that we call authenticity as a service where we actually lay eyes on all these kids, right? We talk and we interview them.

00:43:02
And I mentioned it earlier, like, with the parents and kids and everything, we actually talk to them. We look at their social profiles, we make sure they fit us. So we talk to them, and then we like, you know, make sure that they understand what it's all about. And then after we go through the process and after they do go through the application process, which is on our website, it's not easy. It's a little bit extensive.

00:43:21
If that's people out that way too, we sign them. So when we put all that together with, for the brands which need something simple to understand, they need a single point of contact. They need guaranteed delivery, which doesn't exist in influencer marketing, by the way. It's really odd. Um, and they also need to understand that these kids, these guys are brand safe.

00:43:41
You know, like, that is a huge problem. Ad fraud. And just, you know, half the Instagram accounts are fake right now, 49.2% or something crazy like, you have no idea. And now throw AI into the mix, like, all of a sudden, the world of influencers gets really weird. We take all that away for brands.

00:43:57
So when we start talking to them about, you know, our brand safety guarantee and our authenticity as a service, they're like, oh, wait, tell me more. So that's sort of like, what the brand journey is. And since then, we have done seven brand campaigns. I guess we started in November. So we've had, you know, a couple, one or two every month that we're talking to.

00:44:17
We have got a bunch that want to do business with us. And then, you know, we have a couple brands out there that want to do long term partnerships. And then we also have, you know, agencies from boutique to massive holding companies, that are like, what you're doing is interesting. Tell me more so interesting. It's been since I.

00:44:36
Again, since I was able to get out of my own way, it's been fantastic, which is. It's really difficult for me because I am, to a very large degree, perfectionist. Yeah. Yeah. And I think that, I mean, everyone's situation is different, but you need to have high standards.

00:44:52
Right. You can't just like, oh, just whatever works, because your business will be terrible. I mean, you've got to be able to deliver on what you say you're going to do. You got to have attention to detail, you know? So leaning toward perfectionism is not necessarily a bad thing because you need high quality.

00:45:09
Right. And. But the flip side is, you're never going to get anything done, especially in the startup world. And I'm talking to. I'm not.

00:45:16
I'm talking to you. I'm talking to me. I'm talking to any entrepreneur out there. Yeah. It is just.

00:45:21
It's never. I mean, they say perfect is the enemy of good. I've heard perfect is the enemy of progress, you know, because it's just never going to be perfect. Right. So when you say get out of your own way, is that really.

00:45:32
That's what you're talking about, is you just. You. You didn't. You were slow to start the company because you wanted all of the stars to be aligned. Is that what we're talking about?

00:45:41
Yeah. And that's exactly right. And I recently sort of came across this book. What the heck's that guy's name? I forget his name.

00:45:49
I'm sorry? I forget his last name. Barry. He's a PhD. He wrote this book.

00:45:53
Everything I learned to know about business, I learned from the Grateful Dead, which seems completely ridiculous, but it literally, like, it's this phrase called strategic improvisation. And if you know anything about the dead, like, you understand, like, they weren't about their. Their releases. They were about the live show. The live shows were all about.

00:46:12
Right. Improvisation. They took that practice across their entire business. Barry Barnes, PhD. Yes.

00:46:18
There you go. Barry Barnes. Barry Barnes. Awesome. He's such a great guy.

00:46:22
I've had the opportunity to talk to him. Oh, nice. Yeah, no, he's super cool guy. One of the things, like, in understanding strategic improvisation was learning and sort of realizing that as athletes, like, we do it with second nature, we really do, because basically, what the basic sort of philosophy of that is, it's like, adjust to the present, react to the present, and then don't lose sight on the end goal. So it's like with every lacrosse play, every single one no matter how perfect we've run it.

00:46:54
Right. There are variables in there that are infinitely changing. Whether it's a bad pass, low pass. You got a defender on you, don't have defender on you. We just sort of adjust to it because we understand that the goal is, in this case, to score a goal or to win the game.

00:47:07
We're, like, in Burton masters of this, and we don't even realize that it's, like, this incredible power that we have. And so in reading Barry's book and understanding that, you know, it's like, I've really applied that to what we do here now. And I'm like, wow, it's been a very eye opening book from, ironically, the Grateful Dead. I love that. Yeah.

00:47:28
Brings to mind a couple of, you know, there was the Mike Tyson quote about getting punched in the. In the mouth. Everybody's got a plan. They get punched in the mouth. Exactly.

00:47:36
And then there's a military version of that, too. But. And the military is obsessed with planning. And I say that, I mean, you need to plan. You need to have a strategy.

00:47:46
You need. You know, you can't just, like, wing it. Right. But. But you have to know that, like you said, you.

00:47:52
You're going to have to adjust along the way. Um, so you kind of. You need both, for sure. Yes. Um.

00:47:59
Love that. So, man, I could. We have, uh. We're almost. We're pretty much out of time, but I've got some rapid fire.

00:48:06
Oh, man. Wow. There's so much more we could uncover here. Um, I've got some rapid fire questions for you, though. You ready?

00:48:14
Yes. This one. This one trips people up a little bit sometimes. Okay. What.

00:48:20
What do people misunderstand about you, Jake? Oh, my God. Where do I start? Okay, then what do people understand about you? Same answer.

00:48:32
Not much. Not much. No, I don't fit in a box, man. Like, I've never fit in a box. So it's like, you know, I guess I have.

00:48:41
Like, I tend to have, like, a very dry sense of humor, so, like, I'll just say things deadpan and people won't know if I'm serious or not. So. Yeah, you know, I'm like, yeah, I don't think you should do that. And I'm totally. Yeah, I have to clarify, too.

00:48:55
No, no, no, I'm being serious. No, that was a joke. But, um, what's one of you. We've. We talked a lot about some of the pain you've been through with, you know, different divorce and emotional health and OCD and getting out of your own way, what's one of your biggest failures, and what did you learn from that experience?

00:49:17
Oh, man. One of my biggest failures. That's a great question. Um. Wow, there's so many.

00:49:23
Where do I even start? Um. Man, you know, I. I would say that one of my biggest failures was. Was probably, um, not believing in myself sooner.

00:49:36
You know, not. Not understand, like, because we all have that gut feeling, right? And, you know, like, you don't. Your brain doesn't want to listen to it. And I think I probably would have made a lot of different decisions if I had listened to it.

00:49:51
But at the same time, it's like, we get put on this path for a reason, right? Everything. I sort of believe that all the things that have happened in the past that have happened to get us to this point. If I don't post whatever on LinkedIn or whatever on Facebook, we don't have this conversation. That's true.

00:50:10
It's not to say I would. I would change anything, because I would change absolutely nothing about everything I've done. But I just think, like, if I had had more faith in myself, more belief in myself, which is, you know, inside that. That crease, absolute overconfident, like, crazy confidence to step that off that field, though, not so much. You know, so it didn't translate for me into real life, I guess.

00:50:34
Real life, it didn't translate to me out of lacrosse, you know? So having that confidence, not. That's not like arrogance, but confidence in me side of the sport probably would have done me a much, you know. Yeah, I probably would have tapped into that earlier. I mean, I think arrogance is.

00:50:51
It is a fine line, but it's. Sometimes arrogance is actually, I think, a reflection of a lack of confidence, like, overcompensating for a lack of confidence, but trying to. You get that humble confidence is where I try to get to. Try to be there. It's not easy.

00:51:07
Try to be there. I don't have that with lacrosse or when I'm talking to people about lacrosse, because I'm like, yeah, we. I don't know if we're understanding. Right. I was the man.

00:51:19
You said it, not me. If you could go back and give your 18 year old self some advice, what would that be? I think probably what I just said, you know, it's like, believe in yourself. Yeah. Like, listen, like, it's not going to be easy.

00:51:31
You know, you're not going to know what you want to do when you graduate. Like, first of all, like, you're going to have no idea. So like, just pick something and do it, you know, and you can figure it out along the way. Like, you're not going to get stuck there. It's okay.

00:51:45
You know? Like, the first job is not the one you do for 50 years like our parents did, Jeff. Yeah, that's so true. Yeah. For sure.

00:51:54
If you could have coffee with any historical figure, who. Who would you choose and why? Whoo, man. God, there's so many. They could still be.

00:52:04
This person can still be alive today. Doesn't have to be like, that's not fun. Um, man, can I pick two? I'd love to have coffee with Elvis. That guy.

00:52:15
Okay. That guy, man. He probably stories. Um, he didn't fit in a box either. No.

00:52:23
And, uh, JFK, actually. Okay. I'd love to have. Is that, like, one session of. With the three of you talking or two separate?

00:52:32
That could be chaos. No. No. All right. If you were given $10 million tomorrow, Jake, what would you do with it?

00:52:40
Probably give it away. Okay. Honestly, like, I mean, I would, for sure. Yeah. No, I mean, how much money do I need?

00:52:49
You know, like, I I've thought about this a lot, actually, because, like, when you're in startups, like, and you start having people talk about, you know, exits and things like that, and, like, they're able to understand, like, you know, who are you building this for? Right. Companies you're building this for. Yeah. What drives that thinking?

00:53:06
You think about these things, you know, it's like, I would probably give it all. I would give 80% of it away. Love that. In your business, what is one challenge that you, you're facing right now? Growth.

00:53:21
Growth. So just, just from just getting more clients or more investors? Yeah, investors. Like, we have no shortage of kids that want to be part of this. We have no shortage of brands that want to be part of this.

00:53:33
I have no shortage of. Of high level, you know, people in general want to be part of top star. I mean, this has been. That I will say was, you know, I mentioned it earlier, like, bringing in Harvey and, and Tanya into top star was the best decision that I made. I mean, quite.

00:53:51
It just was because, first of all, they're, like, incredibly, they're awesome people. Like, Harvey's one of the nicest, most genuine people you'll ever meet. Super well respected. His wife Tanya is, like, this really smart marketing person. And, like, together, there's this fantastic team, and they're hilarious, and they're just super down to earth.

00:54:09
Um, but, like, we're, we're having, like, we have no shortage of people that, that believe in what we're doing. You know, it's like you've got former, like, major athletic brand people that want to help us. You know, we've got professional agents that are like, oh, no, I get this. Like, every, every single student athlete I've spoken to is like, wow, this is interesting. So we have no shortage of, like, interest in people.

00:54:33
It's like, you know, we just need to get to those people who are going to believe in our vision for nil and believe in, like, how we're trying to make it better, that can act checks, you know? So it's like that, that's, that's really the growth challenge. And that's for every, like, literally every startup. Like, it's. Yes, absolutely.

00:54:50
Those challenges, and that's one. And every startup has all kinds of challenges. And so it's just, if you don't have a challenge in your business, that's probably a little concerning. Probably just my. Right, exactly.

00:55:03
Um, what is a. As we, as we wrap up here, if you could try any other occupation outside of anything you've ever done off the wall question, what would you. What would you try? Mma. Oh, really?

00:55:19
Yeah. I don't know. It's when I said goalies have a couple screws, I mean, well, I did jiu jitsu for a few years, but, man, MMA is next level stuff. So I have a friend who owns an MMA studio, I guess you call it, or gym, I guess. Yeah.

00:55:36
And he's one of my oldest friends. Like, I've known him for, God, since I was 17 years old. I mountain biked with him. Like, I've hung out with him forever. And they own a gym, and they put some really good fighters into the UFC, and it was like, it was like, during.

00:55:51
It was like during the divorce time, right? And he's like. He's like, you should just start coming, man. Like, what are you doing? I'm like, so I start going, and I get hooked.

00:55:59
And so for, like, two years, I'm going, like, three days a week to MMA, sometimes four days a week. I'm spending hours at this gym, and one of the main reasons I'm spending hours at this gym is because at one point, my buddy bill, whose wife owns this thing, goes to me. He's like, you know, he's like, you probably wouldn't be bad at fighting if you wanted to do it now. Yeah, you know what I'm like, what do you mean? Never mind.

00:56:22
Nevermind. What? So, yeah, mma. Gotcha. I like it.

00:56:29
Except for the getting hit part. But, um, you mentioned one book. Any other books that you can recommend. For let my people go surfing? Yanzhbar?

00:56:37
Okay, great one. My friend John Brubaker writes a bunch of really great business books. I cannot remember the name of it right now. I'm totally spacing because you put me on a spot. But he does.

00:56:48
He's. He's a. He's a best selling author. He's fantastic. Coach Brew.

00:56:53
He's amazing. And then Jaco's book, discipline equals freedom. Oh, yeah, that's right. That's a good one. All right, two more questions.

00:57:04
What is one question that I have not asked you that you wish I had? Oh, boy. Do you want me to write you a check for $500,000?

00:57:18
Yeah. So if. If I do that, you can help me through the divorce? Um, anyway, that was, like, you know, a dark joke, but yes, I like that. All right, what, uh, last question.

00:57:33
Where can our listeners find you online? Jake? LinkedIn. Um, spell your last name. K o v, as in velociraptor.

00:57:43
A l c I k. Nice. I own all the consonants, so no one else can have any love that. They're all mine. So.

00:57:53
LinkedIn, Topstar, ac on Instagram, topstar, athletic club on LinkedIn. Also, I'm on LinkedIn, and I got a weird name that goes back to aim, AoL instant messenger from the nineties. So I'm on Instagram, and fantastic. Perfect. Jake Kovalcik, this has been.

00:58:15
This has been a blast. We went a little long because I was enjoying it, I think. I know our listeners have enjoyed it as well. So any parting? Parting words?

00:58:25
No, I'm just. I'm really grateful for this, Jamie. Thank you so much. I mean, like you said, like, it's been a while since we connected, but I'm really, like, this has been awesome. I'm grateful for the invite.

00:58:37
Thank you so much, man. Absolutely. I know you guys are going to crush it. It's going to be awesome. So thanks for spending your time with us.

00:58:44
And to the listener out there, thank you for spending your most valuable resource with us. And that is your time. Thanks, all. Take care. Thank you for spending your most valuable resource with us.

00:58:57
Your time. If you like the show, please share it with your friends and fellow podcast listeners. One entrepreneur at a time. We can change the world. See you next time.