We recently connected with Stephen Groce and have shared our conversation below.

Stephen , looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. Can you talk to us about a risk you’ve taken – walk us through the story?

“The person who never took a chance never had a chance, not in terms of risk, but of opportunity,” is a motto that has served me well across multiple sectors of my life. From my political aspirations running for a seat in the 8th largest School District in the US to bootstrap funding a new Financial Technology entering the United States. The risk is that I had never done either before.

However, what I learned from each of those endeavors was only strengthened by the many risks I’ve taken with other ventures in-between. Let’s look at my decision to launch two different divisions under our corporate company BUILT By PN Industries, Inc., (Brands for Utility, Interaction, Learning & Thought). One channel operates in the apparel and accessory space, while the other is in professional services focused on business consulting, marketing, and strategy.

Then there’s my equity investment and co-ownership side of my life. I love investing in pre-IPO and startup companies. Some of them allow me to take decision-making and influencing positions, while others provide me a platform to stay adventurous. This engagement comes with its own inherent financial risks.

As you can see there are a few different sectors that I personally operate in and our company accommodates my engagement throughout. Think of it as an ancillary branding and marketing strategy for each of them. This circular approach to my personal networks and interests allows the businesses and clients to always have a level of connection.

Although I was not elected in either of my two campaign attempts, the release of our TigersShare FinTech program stifled by the covid-19 now Omincron shutdown, and our conglomerate of brands have had steady revenue and sales growth. In fact, we were able to acquire a few businesses to allow us to collaborate in a more efficient and effective way with our clients.

Stephen , love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?

Thank you for the question. My true passion is my wife and children. In fact, my children are the driving force behind everything I do. The short story is that in late 2008 I was laid off from my corporate job the same day that my wife called to tell me that she was pregnant with our first child. Then in early 2009, our son was born. I didn’t look at this as a negative (not having a job or income), I looked at it as an opportunity to be there for our new son and growing family.

It was later that year that it was time for me to return to work and for our son Dario to begin his social, emotional, and learning development, so we placed him in daycare and I returned to the workforce. After returning to corporate life working in the same profession for about 6 months after remaining home for just under a year, I grew bored and started applying for other types of jobs in the government sector. It was during the application process that my “Ah-Ha!” moment and I created LEGACY Parenting Survival Wear.

What inspired the brand? I was completing an application that was timed, Dario needed to be fed and I don’t have two hands. That’s when I said to myself, “self, what are new parents supposed to do when they need to multi-task, but haven’t learned how to like seasoned parents?” “How do I survive this?” I said as a follow-up. That’s when the brand was born.

As I built out the brand and thought of the problems…i.e how do I survive being a new parent? how do I multi-task? how can I turn this into a business, so I don’t need to go back to corporate work?” and “I know I can’t be the only parent faced with this challenge, so how do I make an engaging and compelling product?”

The why and the problem that we identified and work to solve?

Finding the intersections that aren’t often seen by people is one of the things I feel that I do best. That’s when we were able to identify the need to create products that engage customers, but make our apparel engaging. Using my knowledge learned from my studies on visual perception on the brain is when LEGACY Parenting Survival Wear came to life. We use early-stage child development to foster and stimulate the intangible bond between parent and baby, but provide the baby early-stage learning growth through their vision color spectrum matriculation and the imprint of the parent’s face.

Let’s talk about resilience next – do you have a story you can share with us?

I liken my personal and entrepreneurial experience to the 2021 Formula 1 race season of two drivers; 7x World Champion Lewis Hamilton and Daniel Ricciardo. Hamilton had one main competitor that challenged him every race creating ebbs and flows of wins and losses. Just as I have experienced peaks and valleys throughout my business’ lifecycle. Hamilton’s season came down to the final race where he was in the lead and on his way to an 8th World Championship, until on the very last lap when an accident caused the governing body to step in to make decisions that shaped the outcome of the race. Hamilton was clearly in the lead of the race the entire race until their intervention allowed his opponent to take the lead.

This is the same type of decision-making that forced many of our small business peers to be shut down from covid-19 restrictions, increased taxes & fees, and now in 2021/22 trade challenges that slow down the supply chain, thus impacting our inventories and ability to win. Now in 2022, Hamilton has remained silent as he creates a new path forward, just as we have done with our business. We look for other businesses that we can collaborate with mutually beneficial marketing, outreach, and cross-functional product & service offerings.

And how did Daniel Ricciardo’s season compare with my personal and business life? Well, in 2021, Ricciardo joined a new team and had a tremendous learning curve, however, he still performed at a high level, in fact, he won a race in Monza, Italy. Just as I inspired our team to open a new division in the very competitive coffee market. We felt that we could create a brand and marketing campaign that would engage the newly stay and work from home parents. We created LEGACY Parenting Survival Brew “it’s coffee that works for you!” to serve the newly increased covid stay home market.

Unfortunately, just as Ricciardo took a step behind his fellow driver as his performance didn’t allow for him to take a leadership role, our LEGACY Parenting Survival Wear brand had to take a step back as our initial brand launch did not cause the impact we had hoped and worked for. My personal brand took a hit as well, just as Ricciardo’s did up until he won the fourteenth race of the season, just as I had recovered from my leadership role in the City of San Diego’s Redistricting process where I led a team that created a compromise infused map that was in opposition of wealthy and powerful real estate developers and advocates. Ricciardo was quoted saying, “and for anyone who thought I left, I never left, I just moved aside for a while.”

The outcome of the single event success has propelled both Ricciardo and me in a more positive light within our respective professional careers. He used the season as a learning experience and I used mine to learn how to find intersections between brands, products, and services. As we have closed LEGACY Parenting Survival Brew (temporarily), we have increased our client portfolio within our Trifecta Business Strategies division.

We found resiliency in recovering quickly from the ebb and flow, ups and downs of business and personal branding. It becomes about the work we put in to achieve a level of success that we set forth for ourselves, teams, and business units.

One of my favorite quotes that I came up with is, “the Alps were once thought impassable until they were.” – Steph Groce

How’d you meet your business partner?

Thank you for the question. This is one of my favorite stories in my entrepreneurial life. Although I’m the founder of a few companies and brands, my co-founder role in our Financial Technology software named TigersShare ranks at the top of my most joyful business decision-making moments.

I met my co-founder & business partner Dan Anderson through an initiative created by another business associate Adria Fox of C4GS and UA360. Adria and I worked to create a citywide unifying campaign for the City of San Diego called G.R.A.U.L (sounds like “growl”) which stands for Gratitude, Respect, Awareness, Unity, and Love.

From the very beginning, we were able to identify tangible and intangible aspects of the G.R.A.U.L campaign, however, what we didn’t have was an element to display true gratitude to one another. We found iSwirl Technologies in Canada had created the Gratitude Rewards Solutions. It was then that Adria and I invited Dan to come to San Diego, where we initially thought that the Gratitude Rewards Solution brand would be easily adaptable, however, the business structure and the brand did not catch on as easily as we projected.

At that time, I worked with Dan to create a new US-based business structure and brand which is affectionately named ‘TigersShare,’ which also incorporates The Gratitude Rewards Solution’s original branding. It was during this evolution that I became a co-founder of TiGeRs Share, LLC. Having met Dan through a civically-minded initiative told me upfront the type of person he was and the product that he created built solely on the intangible bond of gratitude has brought joy to both my personal and professional lives.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.stephengroce.com
• Instagram: @stephengroce.SD
• Facebook: @TrifectaBiz
• Linkedin: www.linkedin.com/in/stephengroce