We were lucky to catch up with David Nelson recently and have shared our conversation below.
David, appreciate you joining us today. So, folks often look at a successful business and think it became a success overnight – but that often obscures all the nitty, gritty details of everything that went into the growth phase of your business. We’d love to hear about your scaling story and how you scaled up?
The incredible thing is that FoundersForge is just 10 years away from being an overnight success. We launched in 2020 with only blue skies ahead—or so we thought. Within two months of launching, we were hit by COVID, our funding became uncertain, and we worried that the momentum around entrepreneurship we had been building since 2016 would be lost. Everyone remembers the uncertainty of that time.
FoundersForge is a fully independent, nonprofit entrepreneur center located in Johnson City, TN. Being independent has been a challenging path, but it allows us to focus on what is truly most important: the entrepreneurs. Instead of constant meetings and handshakes, FoundersForge concentrates on building programs, helping startups launch their ideas, and supporting founders on their entrepreneurial journeys. However, if you have ever worked closely with local, state, or federal governments as part of your business model, you know how crucial relationship building can be.
The biggest initial challenge for FoundersForge was that I, as an entrepreneur, did not engage in politics. I am known for being direct, saying what I think, and challenging the status quo. This made our early path difficult. Rather than building relationships with potential funders, I focused on the startup founders in our region. Instead of attending countless meetings, many of which seemed unnecessary, I worked on programs and events to inspire our community to start new businesses.
What my team and I did worked. FoundersForge went from being an unknown entity in Johnson City to significantly growing our region’s entrepreneurship base—from 16 high-growth startups in 2016 to over 76 today, with the vast majority of this growth occurring from 2020 to 2024. We became the leader in entrepreneurship activity, providing over 88% of all high-growth events and programs in the Appalachian Highlands—a region encompassing Johnson City, Kingsport, Bristol, and surrounding communities. Even including small business activities, FoundersForge still accounts for 57% of all entrepreneurship activity in our region. Today, we even run one of the largest conferences for early-stage startup founders in the Southeast, StartupMountainSummit.com.
While the results are impressive, the road to achieving them was incredibly difficult. It required us to change how we operated, focus on funding, and tell our story to scale up to even greater success.
In early 2023, we faced a major issue: FoundersForge had only a reliable base of $50,000 per year from the city of Johnson City and the state of Tennessee’s LaunchTN program. We had saved two years of funding through volunteering during the first two years of operations. This enabled all the success we have today, but the funds were dwindling, and we had to do something drastic to continue to exist.
Our first reaction was to ask our initial sources for more funding. While this was a possibility, it would have been a long road with too many political hurdles to be immediately effective. Our funding kept being tied back to other entities, and despite numerous meetings, nothing moved forward.
This led me to attend all the necessary meetings, build new relationships, and seek support in additional ways. We could have made drastic cuts and tried to save every penny, potentially failing in the process.
Instead, we chose to invest in areas that could generate revenue. We hired a grant writer and found immediate value in this decision. We started winning grants by bringing our innovative thinking to the grant requests, supported by high-quality submissions from our grant writer. In 2023 alone, we raised over $384k in funding.
After overcoming our funding issues, we had to take a hard look at the needs of the community. Amazing things were happening around funding and innovation in Tennessee, but we felt our region wasn’t fully equipped to capitalize on them. One issue we needed to address was expanding the knowledge and network of our region’s mostly early-stage entrepreneurs.
This led us to create the Startup Mountain Summit, the premier conference for early-stage startups across the Southeast. I identified a significant gap in support for first-time entrepreneurs and early-stage startups to become ready for funding and growth. We designed our conference to address this gap and make an immediate impact.
Securing speakers was the next big challenge. Despite limited funding, we didn’t let fear or uncertainty drive our future; we approached it like a startup. We leveraged our network to find willing speakers.
One of our first big wins was Rob Walling, host of the Startups for the Rest of Us Podcast, a bestselling author on entrepreneurship, and a past co-founder of Dripp, which he exited in a large acquisition deal. Rob is also the co-founder of TinySeed.com, an innovative funding approach for Software as a Service founders.
The 2023 conference continued to exceed our expectations. We secured Asia Orangio of DemandMaven, Glen Yelton of Invesco, Greg Digneo of Content Puppy, and Rodolphe Pierre-Louis, CEO of ActionVFX, among others. Nearly 200 people attended from five states, with the furthest traveling from Texas. We found sponsorship from across the region.
The event was a true success and has helped FoundersForge scale up to new heights. Building on last year’s success, we were able to secure Noah Kagan, CEO and Founder of AppSumo, valued at $5.6 billion and author of the instant bestseller Million Dollar Weekend and many more world class speakers.
Achieving scale for any startup, even a nonprofit entrepreneur center, is a challenging journey. I share our story so you can see that every journey is filled with ups and downs, trials, and learnings. Yes, I still avoid as many meetings as I can, but now I attend the ones that help build relationships. I have learned when to speak my mind and when to stay quiet to help our organization (even when it’s hard to do!).
Our focus on remaining an independent entrepreneur center has created a more challenging road, but it has allowed us to make a tremendous impact on our region. We’ve dreamed big, invested in revenue-generating activities that is putting us on a path to being fully self-sustaining, and always try to time our efforts to the needs of our startup community. This approach has led us to our success, and most importantly, the success of our startup community.
I believe it can do the same for you.
Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers.
David Nelson is a six-time startup founder with a wealth of experience in various fields. His knowledge from multiple accelerators, startup ecosystems, and his own companies directly supports startups in Appalachia. When David isn’t helping startup founders, he can be found whitewater kayaking or mountain biking in the Southeast and beyond.
FoundersForge is a nonprofit entrepreneur center dedicated to underdog entrepreneurs in the Appalachian Highlands, helping them on their startup journeys. Our mission is to be the catalyst behind all successful startups in our region and beyond. Connect with us and our startup community at FoundersForge.com.
How’d you build such a strong reputation within your market?
Recently, FoundersForge applied to a Request for Proposal put out by our city. We worked hard on building a strong case for them to choose us and submitted the documents on time. The proposal included a public reading, and we wanted to start involving our startup community in our activities. The day before submitting our proposal, we put out a quick message saying, “We’re going to be at this public reading. If you’re free, join this Zoom call to show your support.”
We had almost 25 people show up in support of our proposal. No other submission had a single person on the call. At first, we were surprised that so many showed up to support us simply submitting a proposal, but after discussing it with my team, it became clear why this happened.
When you truly take care of your customers, build loyalty every day, and empower them to be part of your business, you create a culture where your customers want to support you. But that is not enough; you have to give them opportunities to support what you are working on. It’s easy to declare a true North heading and tell your customers. Bringing them along for the ride takes time and commitment. However, doing so enables you and your business to reach into the community and following of your brand, activating it in ways you never dreamed of.
To sum up this advice: You have to take care of your employees and team so they take care of your customers. You have to deliver and build trust with your customers every single day. Then, you have to communicate your mission, values, and direction to your customers. Finally, you have to open the door for them to join you on the ride. This can be inviting customers to join you at a roadshow, inviting them to your office, or helping them participate on your social media. It can be empowering them to support you or even to show up in support of your company on a public reading call.
When you do this right, your customers will be your biggest supporters and leverage for your business.
Can you tell us about what’s worked well for you in terms of growing your clientele?
Of all the startups I’ve launched, succeeded with, and failed, I have found one common trend for rapidly growing your clientele every time. This works for any business, and everyone can do it. I discovered it one day when I was shopping at our local grocery store. I had a favorite drink, Bing, an energy drink that is low in sugar (<10g), full of vitamins, and equal to about 1.5 cups of coffee. You can even buy it in the fresh fruit section of grocery stores that carry it. I drink this almost every morning, and I’ve even heard someone describe me as “that guy that always walks around with that red Bing can.” I am a brand fanatic of this drink and the company. I was practically trying to sell it to you in the previous paragraph! And that is the secret to rapid growth. If you have built a product or service others love, you likely have brand fanatics. These are the customers that love you, follow you, and share your product or service unlike any other customer. These customers are truly your unofficial brand ambassadors. Continuing my story, I was walking through the grocery store. My Bing was missing, and they didn’t even have a price tag where it was normally located. A moment of slight panic went through me because I was afraid they had stopped carrying it. Stores drop products all the time, and I thought I was buying enough to keep it on the shelves on my own! Then I took a deep breath, looked around, and found an entire tower of Bing. It was a whole new display the company was using to promote their brand. It had four layers of their Bing flavors and looked awesome to me. As a joke, I snapped a picture and put it on social media, asking, “Where do I get a Bing tower for my office?” I tagged the Bing Beverage company in the post and went about my day. That evening, I saw a reply from them saying, “What would you do with it?” I just replied, “I’d set it up in the middle of my office and give Bing to everyone that came in the door that week.” I was half joking and honestly expected a coupon for a free Bing at most. The next week, the UPS man came to our office and delivered five big boxes and one very large box. I was confused, as we hadn’t ordered anything. When we opened it up, we found five cases of Bing and a Bing tower, complete with all the marketing display signs and branding I saw in the store. They also included Bing beach balls, lip balm, frisbees, and stickers. What did I do? I set up that tower in the middle of our office so everyone had to walk by it. I gave a Bing to everyone who walked through the door and would take one, and I hauled the whole thing to our next big community event. Of course, I saved some Bing for myself, but I easily gave 100 people Bing. When we ran out, I restocked it the next month! When a brand empowers a brand fanatic, they enable them to take their passion for your brand and turn it into action. They will share, spread, and distribute your brand to their entire network. As crazy as I sound, there were countless brand fanatics in college, and many of my friends have their favorite brands they are always sharing. Identify these customers by looking at those who buy the most. Reach out to your customers to see who is interested in visiting your office or meeting the founders. You’ll immediately find out who the true fanatics are. Then do what Bing Beverage did: empower them to grow your business. Many people in my network love Bing and continue to drink it. When that 4 PM near-end-of-day drag begins, I often hear, “I need a Bing!”
Contact Info:
- Website: https://foundersforge.com
- Instagram: https://instagram.com/myfoundersforge
- Facebook: https://facebook.com/myfoundersforge
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/davidrnelson/
- Twitter: https://x.com/myfoundersforge
Image Credits
Robert King