Bearcats Mean Business Archive: 2026

Grant Freking: (00:00)
What does real world success in business actually look like? Welcome the Bearcats Mean business, the official podcast of the University of Cincinnati's Carl H. Lindner College of Business, where inspiring career stories, honest lessons, and fresh business perspectives from the people building impact in the real world come together. Tune in for inspiration, practical business insights, and forward-looking thought leadership on how ambition turns into action. And now for today's episode,

Grant Freking: (00:32)
Phil, tell me about like your entrepreneurship origin story. Where can you trace that back to, um, in your younger years? 'cause you started really early on, I think, even earlier than even most entrepreneurs do.

Phil Santoro: (00:44)
Yeah. So my journey started really with an obsession for building and helping people. And at the age of 12, I built a computer for my grandparents as a gift. I had so much fun that I decided to build a computer for myself, mostly to play age of Empires. And so, you know, I was the youngest one in this gaming community. Naturally I was the most tech savvy, and so I was the one to set up the forum for us to all talk on. And if you remember, back in the early two thousands, forums were the center of the internet. I mean, everyone was on forums, and yet they were incredibly difficult to set up. You had to be technical enough to know PHP and MySQL. You had to buy a domain name and, and web hosting. And so my thesis was remove all the friction and then create a platform where people could sign up for free.

Phil Santoro: (01:33)
And I started my first company when I was 13 in 2002 that did just that people could sign up for a forum. And then in 2007, that's when I launched free forums.org, um, when I was at Madeira High School. And that was an improvement on the platform, you know, more features, easier to use. I spent a lot of time just thinking through every single thing that people needed to talk on the internet. And it took off instantly. We had all kinds of forums. The the largest was a Twilight Moms form where a bunch of moms would talk about the Twilight Movie series, but we had cyclists, gamers, um, sports leagues, any, anything you could think of right. Was on Free Forums. And yeah. At, at our peak we were doing over 125 million monthly page views, which this was pre-social media. That's incredible. Pres smart phones. This, this was a lot of traffic. And here I was in my parents' basement in Madeira, , you know, operating this large platform. And so this really taught me my first lesson about business, which is you take a technical problem and you solve it with an easy product, people will use it.

Grant Freking: (02:42)
So what was like, did you have a template you were working off of? Was you started your, even your journey with Free Forums, did you have like a template or something, an idea in mind? Or were you, was it more learning as you go in this process?

Phil Santoro: (02:51)
Yeah, I completely, first principle is learning by doing. And I didn't even start out to run a business. I started out because I wanted to help people make forums. And it was, it was pretty cool to do that on the internet, you know, back then. So really by, by 2002, there wasn't a way to make money on the internet with forums. That monetization came much later. And eventually in 2008, that's when Google Ads came out. So you could run ads on your website for the first time, right? To make income. Um, but originally it was just to do something cool and, and help people.

Grant Freking: (03:28)
Right. And you spoke earlier about sort of the vacancy you saw with for something as, you know, forgive me as simple as, as a forum mm-hmm . Is that something that you, even going back to your even younger years before you built your first computer for your grandparents starting to see when you started Stu, when you studied and zoned in on something was like, all right, how can I, what's the missing part of this? And how could I possibly make it better?

Phil Santoro: (03:51)
I, I think so, but I think it was more foundational for me. I just like building. Yeah, okay. And I think there's a very unique part of entrepreneurship where you have an idea, you write it down on a piece of paper, and these ideas could come at 2:00 AM or or 2:00 PM during launch any hour of the day, you write it down on a piece of paper, you execute it, you build it, and then you watch millions of people interact with it and enjoy it. And you get a rush from that. That is very unique to entrepreneurship. And, and I picked up on that early. Sure.

Grant Freking: (04:22)
So fast forward a couple years, you're getting ready to pick a, a college, and I'm sure you had many options. Um, and you had, you're also unique in the fact that not many students were like you and had successful business ventures. What made, um, what were the factors that led you down to staying close to home and choosing the Lindner College of Business? In University of Cincinnati,

Phil Santoro: (04:43)
I was living a double life. You know, during the day, , I was a student at Madeira, struggling with biology exams and playing baseball. And then at night I was leading this global forum platform and conferencing with my team until 3:00 AM So I, I knew I wanted to stay somewhere around Cincinnati because I had my business there. I had infrastructure, my computer development, server advisors, mentors, uh, my bank, you know, all the physical component. So I knew I wanted to stay around there, but it was really meeting Dr. Chuck Matthews in the entrepreneurship department. I met with him, had a great conversation, was really impressed by his vision for entrepreneurs and, and student entrepreneurs specifically. And so he was the one that really put it, um, uh, sort of decided, you know, I decided I wanted to go to uc after meeting him.

Grant Freking: (05:37)
And so did he appealed to that part of you that wants to build and scale?

Phil Santoro: (05:40)
Yep, exactly. And then I moved into uc. I actually had two dorm rooms, um, one for me to sleep in. I was at Stratford Heights and then UPA and I had one dorm room to sleep in and one for my business. I had my development server in there and all my computers. And so in the morning before class i'd, I'd roll out of bed, go to the dorm room next door, you know, check on my business, make sure nothing had broken overnight, and then would walk to class. And I, I still remember to this day how hot that room got because they're, you know, they're tiny rooms and I had all this equipment in there, so it, uh, it would heat up.

Grant Freking: (06:16)
What was the reaction for, I guess, your, your fellow classmates and also maybe your other professors that weren't Chuck when you told 'em about this sort of actual business you were running in addition to being a student?

Phil Santoro: (06:26)
Yeah, I think I kept a lot of it private until I sold Free Forums. Okay. So there, there was an article in the Cincinnati Enquirer. So a lot of high school students knew about it at that time, but I kept most of it private. I was just heads down building. Uh, and then when I came to uc, I, I, there were so many great professors that I would meet with during office hours and learn from because I had this unique ability to learn something in the classroom and then apply it literally that next, that next day, maybe even the same day in my business. And I found that very valuable. I, I had a lot of great relationships with professors, and I think they ultimately realized that, um, I was interested in the subject, not just getting a good grade in the class. And so they were willing to help out. Sure.

Grant Freking: (07:15)
And you decided as a sophomore to exit Free Forums. So the first thing that you actually created, how was, was that difficult or did you know you were wanting to move on to something else? How, what was that process like as your first exit?

Phil Santoro: (07:26)
I was burnt out by my sophomore year of college. You know, they say, at least for me at the time, they said, uh, grades, social life and sleep. And you can pick two of those as a college student, except I had a business to add into that, and I could still only pick two. And so I was burnt out. I was tired. I had been working seven years plus school at that point, and I just wanted to be a normal student for, for part of my college. Um, and so I, I sold Free Forums to a public company crowd Gather in, uh, spring of 2010. And that was, that was a big milestone for me. It, it was financially great, but more importantly gave me my time back and I got to really enjoy the last two years at uc.

Grant Freking: (08:14)
What was your overall experience like as a, as a student entrepreneur at this time? Maybe also looking at other things, even be maybe before you an you exited free forums and then maybe after free forums. What did you do with the time? I guess you had left before you got like a, a real job, so to speak.

Phil Santoro: (08:29)
Yeah, it was, it's, it wasn't as glamorous as it sounds talking through it because, um, I was just sort of heads down on the business and grades, so it was definitely challenging, but I would say the ability to apply what I was learning was very cool. And what Lindner gave me was a more structured approach to business. I had the first principles, I, I was running a business, but I didn't know how to read a balance sheet, for example. Mm. And there's actually a, a funny story. Uh, professor Nugent, corporate Finance, incredible class. I learned a lot from it. So we do this project at the end of my senior year where a company's going through a transaction. You have to make a balance sheet, reflect that transaction and model it out in Excel. And I'm, I'm here post Free Forums just wanting to dive in and make the perfect model. I had time, I had the experience of going through an exit. I wanted to work in finance. I'm like, this is it. And I worked for weeks on this. And he, he said at the beginning, he said, balance sheets are called balance sheets because they balance assets have to equal liabilities and equity. If you don't balance your balance sheet, I will give you a zero on this. And some of you will not balance your balance sheet. So he said that over and over and over. I bet you can tell where this is going. I

Grant Freking: (09:54)
Have an incl

Phil Santoro: (09:55)
, so I work on this and I'm getting the perfect model dialed in, and I'm, I'm working very hard. Uh, I get to the, the very last step before I submit it, and I wanna make one tiny change. And after I do that change perfect model, I, I, I feel like on my side, so I submit it, balance sheet doesn't balance. And he was so disappointed. I was, I was more disappointed. Um, but luckily he didn't give me a zero on it, and other students did that, but he, he knew exactly that that would happen. And that's the type of knowledge that you learn in school that now to this day, I look at a lot of balance sheets and I will never ever forget that lesson. Uh, and so having that, that ability to make mistakes and learn from things in school and then apply that later, really gave me that more formal business acumen education that I didn't get running Free Forums.

Grant Freking: (10:54)
Sure. It sounds like Lindner almost helped fill in some of the gaps you didn't have from running a business. What were some, any other examples you can think of of like, you know, I didn't even experience this sort of thing, um, with Free Forums, but I'm experiencing it now in an actual classroom.

Phil Santoro: (11:10)
I'd say all the soft skills. Yeah. Um, you know, I was in student government, director of technology, tried to get involved with campus honors program and all of that. And just when you're online, like I was in my parents' basement on Skype at the time, you don't learn the actual soft skills, leadership, public speaking, just the whole gamut. You don't learn that stuff. So getting that through a different avenue is very important because when you start a company, you have to wear all the hats. Literally, you're wearing all of them until you hire people to do those things. And so, whether it's finance or accounting or BI or business law or public speaking, all of these more soft skills that you don't pick up until you're in a group with people working on them, uh, was very helpful to have.

Grant Freking: (11:59)
Did you know you needed all those skills at the time? Or is it, were you just kind of take them in stride when you kind of learn them?

Phil Santoro: (12:07)
I think one of the benefits of starting young with a business is you don't know what you don't know. Mm. And so you sort of just rush into it and you do it and you don't think too much about it, which I think is actually a good thing because most people overstate the risk, and that's why they don't want to take the leap. So I don't think at the time I was thinking about that until I was in the moment and going, wow. Public speaking, like, this is going to be useful later. Right. Um, so most of that came while I was doing it.

Grant Freking: (12:38)
Were you actively, like, mapping out your future, you know, and thinking like, oh, we'll get to your next step after Lindner here in a second. Were you actively mapping out, like, this is where I wanna be, in your five years after graduation, 10 years after graduation, having, you know, already founded and sold your own company? Were you the type of person that's planning out that far in advance?

Phil Santoro: (12:56)
It's easy to look back at my resume and think that everything just sort of lined up perfectly since I was 12. And that's definitely not what happened. Um, I had wanted to work for Google after I sold Free Forums. My, my sophomore year. I had wanted to work for Google since I was a kid, since I built my first computer. And so finally senior year throw in my application and I waited and I waited and I waited and never heard back, no rejection, just didn't hear back. And, and I thought, well, okay, I guess I'm not going to Silicon Valley. And so I started going down my option B, which was law school. I wanted to work in intelligence for the FBI wanted to get my master's in finance and become a lawyer, which would have increased my odds. And then for reasons I don't really know, I decided to apply for Google again, same job, same role, same application package. Three months after I just had applied and I heard back the next day and, and they flew me to California. I had my interview and ended up getting a job there. And that was, that was a very important lesson for me on just resolve, if you want something just because you're told no, or, or maybe they just ignore you, that doesn't mean that you can't ask again, what's, what's the worst thing that can happen. Once

Grant Freking: (14:18)
You were settled in Google, did you ever bring this story up to anyone about like, Hey, I never heard from you guys the first time and I suddenly, you know, you know,

Phil Santoro: (14:25)
I, I didn't, but having worked there, I know what happened. It's just big company. Yeah. Problems. It, no one, it wasn't even necessarily about me. It was that there were, there weren't roles at that time. They have specific hiring windows, and when they reopened that window, nobody's going back to look at the past applications from the last four months. They're just looking at the applications coming in now, because there's enough of those. So I, I sort of understand how big companies function now, but at the time it was, it was a MiiR it seemed like a miracle.

Grant Freking: (14:58)
Yeah. That's like really pertinent I think, for any students, whether the current or just graduated that are looking for co-ops or Yes, yes. Some jobs is like, just because you hear no, that window still open, you may have another opening. Yeah, absolutely. So you, you go to Google, you spend two plus years as a growth strategist. Is, was this, did the position you ended up being in, in Google, sort of meet your, I guess, personal expectations that you had when you were younger that you, you mentioned you wanted to always be at Google. Did those, did those coalesce at the end?

Phil Santoro: (15:24)
Yes, it was, it was very intimidating, which I wasn't expecting because Google is just operating at a different level of scale than, than any other company, maybe even globally. And so I'm there as a recent graduate managing tens of millions of dollars of ad spend for these advertisers that are growing with Google. And I'm sitting there after I moved across the country from uc, going, why aren't adults doing this job? I mean, seriously, there's tens of millions of dollars. Why, why am I doing this job? And what I realized is sometimes technology is moving so quickly or things are changing that the college graduate that's hungry, willing to grind for 60 hours a week, they are the right people to work on a specific challenge or problem. And I think that's very applicable to the concerns. Now with ai, there's a lot of concerns about AI and, and how will college students and college graduates, you know, fare and in AI first world? And I think the way I think about it is, if you're in college, you graduate and you embrace ai, you, you learn as much as you can. Those are the people that will pave the future, um, just like it was, you know, at the time. Mm-hmm .

Grant Freking: (16:38)
What were some memorable challenges or obstacles that you encountered that sort of, if I, I mentioned that to you, that sort of popped straight to your mind from your time at Google?

Phil Santoro: (16:48)
For me, it was the scale, just everything. Everything was larger. And so you would work on something and the, the stakes were just higher than you were used to or maybe even comfortable with. You really had to be comfortable being uncomfortable and, and just the scale, uh, the ability to learn on the fly, uh, but also know that, you know, millions of dollars were at stake if, if you made a mistake. I think that's, that's a very valuable lesson that I took and then applied it later when, when I went on to start Wilbur Labs.

Grant Freking: (17:22)
When you got to Google, were you, would you say you were already comfortable being uncomfortable or is it something you had to learn?

Phil Santoro: (17:28)
I'd say I'm learning to this day. Every single day. I have to push myself constantly. It's something I try to do is become a lifelong learner and not just feel like, you know, school is over, learning is is done. Now it's time to do. I've tried to be a lifelong learner and I catch myself all the time. It's okay. I know I'm starting from zero. I know that I'm not going to be the best, you know, starting this now type of thing. Um, but I think especially moving across the country, starting a new job, not knowing anyone, I was sort of fully embracing, you know, being uncomfortable.

Grant Freking: (18:05)
Yeah. And so you decided to leave though, you left Google your, yeah. What was then your dream job? Why? Yeah.

Phil Santoro: (18:11)
So Google is an awesome place. I met a lot of incredible people. I met my wife Ruby there. I met my co-founder David. And after about a year and a half, David and I started brainstorming startup ideas, and we would get lunch every Wednesday and just brainstorm ideas for the whole dinner. And finally, after a year of that, we had a problem. We had so many ideas we wanted to work on and start that we couldn't just leave and start one company. And so we decided to leave and start a startup studio, which is a company that builds companies and that would become Wilbur Labs.

Grant Freking: (18:48)
And so what, what do, when you think about the early days of Wilbur Labs and those, during those lunches, what was, what was the thing that bonded the two of you together and like that and that idea?

Phil Santoro: (18:57)
Yeah, so I, I had started Free Forums. I wanted to work, I wanted to start another startup. David had worked for a startup. He knew that he would eventually found a startup. So we sort of came together because of that mutual interest. But then it was really brainstorming these ideas and thinking about people say the AI bubble or the AI phase that we're in started now, but it, it really started back in 20 15, 20 16. That's when we were exposed to automation machine learning that this is taking over every aspect of business. And David and I just saw across the landscape that companies were too risk adverse. They, they weren't adopting automation the way they could. They had these legacy infrastructures or cultures that were holding them back. And we both thought that we could go industry by industry and really take a first principles, the latest technology with the latest best practices, ignore what had been done previously, just think of the problem, how it would be solved today, and build a company for that. We, we felt like that was a great way to start a portfolio.

Grant Freking: (20:07)
So what were the early days like? Were you back in your, um, you know, res I guess collectively maybe mom's basement again? Or how, what was, how was, like, how did Quickly did, were you guys able to scale? How did that happen?

Phil Santoro: (20:18)
Yeah, so we left in 2016 to start Wilbur Labs. We worked on my couch for the first five months. So

Grant Freking: (20:25)
Traded, traded up a

Phil Santoro: (20:26)
Little bit. Yeah, exactly. Traded the basement for a, for an apartment. And, you know, we, we tried to take this process that normally is like bottling lightning is what I call it. That's what entrepreneurs deal with, is they, they try to bottle lightning and get this idea and bring it to market and hope that people want it. There's a, a lot of luck with that process. We wanted to build a systematized, repeatable process where we generate ideas, we research them, we hire people, we go to market, we launch a company, and we're building expertise along that full end to end journey. Um, and to give you one example, vacation renter. So Vacation Renter was one of our earlier companies. We were a small company at the time. And so we would take these offsites just to get away, you know, change of scenery from the city, and we would work in these apar uh, these vacation rentals or hotels with our team. And David and I were the ones booking them. And we just realized what a nightmare it was to book travel. I mean, literally you'd have 50 tabs open Airbnb and Booking and VRBO and hotels.com, and then all the apps on your phone, and you'd have so many tabs open, your computer would start to heat up and the fan would spin like a jet engine. Yep.

Grant Freking: (21:44)
I can, I can relate to that.

Phil Santoro: (21:45)
Yeah. And we thought, this is awful. Why don't we just aggregate everything together, all the hotels, all the rentals in one place. We launched a vacation renter, and it went on to be the fastest growing travel startup ever to reach a billion dollars in gross bookings. And so clearly we were not the only ones that had that problem. And we went on to take that same approach to other industries as well. We have a job list, which is a job search engine. Bark Bus is monetizing health, uh, pet care, largest mobile dog grooming company in the country. So we look for problems that are affecting a lot of people that we feel like we can build a company to solve as simple as possible. You know, going back to my earlier learnings with Free Forums mm-hmm . And, and we look to do that in as many industries as possible.

Grant Freking: (22:34)
Sure. Now, I'm sure you guys have, and back, even back then, when you founded over labs a a decade ago at competition in the sort of what you call, you know, systemized ideas, what sort of, what set you apart in your mind from the competition?

Phil Santoro: (22:49)
Yeah. When it comes to competition, we, we don't think that we have competition in the typical sense because our competition is really anyone who builds a business. So whether it's, you know, a bootstrapper, someone getting VC funding, private equity, I mean, there any, any business out there could be competitive for us. But all of our ideas are sourced internally. We have a, a r and d team internally that is coming up with ideas. We then do the research and diligence ourselves. We hire management teams to come in and help do the research and lead the company. And so we don't really compete with anyone necessarily. What we're competing for are good ideas for businesses. And so that is anyone who's making a business.

Grant Freking: (23:37)
How have the goals of Wilbur Labs changed since you founded the company, if they have at all?

Phil Santoro: (23:43)
I would say the goals are the same. We, we look to turn bold ideas into market leading companies. The tactics have changed a bit, especially with AI the last few years. We're thinking more and more towards being able to create leaner companies. Instead of having to spend one to two years building a company, people are able to get something out to market in three to six months. And so that speed, because it's happening from other companies, you know, we're looking to bring that in-house and get to market with the same speed.

Grant Freking: (24:16)
Does that make your job more stressful?

Phil Santoro: (24:19)
I'd say it's, it's different. It, it, it is both most the most exciting time to build a company ever, just given the opportunities out there. And also the most, um, I'd say the most stressful because you feel like the stakes are higher.

Grant Freking: (24:35)
Yeah. What prepared you for being an employer now that you have your company has grown to the, to the fact that you're a boss of many people now. How, what was, what's that journey been like for you?

Phil Santoro: (24:48)
Yeah, I think sort of working backwards. You know, people want to work at a company that's doing well, that is making an impact beyond just the paycheck, which is very important. But they want to make sure they're doing something. And so one of the principles we've tried to believe from the beginning is to solve real problems. And that's easier said than done. I think there's a lot of very smart people, especially in the Valley, who are building very complicated solutions to problems that nobody really cares about. And it's, it's very easy and tempting to get into that, um, because it's really about the building and, and you, you sort of have this vision for the future, and you want to build to that. And then at the end of the day, nobody cares. And so one of the things we've tried to do from the beginning is just solve real problems. Have our teams work on things that are actually impactful. They can see their work, they can see the impact they're having on others, whether it's dogs getting groomed more fairly, uh, so they don't have to be locked in cages at the, at the groomer, or whether it's helping people find a vacation rental for their family reunion. Being able to just work on cool things that are impactful. It really goes a long ways.

Grant Freking: (26:06)
So it sounds like the entrepreneurship pitch is still being scratched you in this job.

Phil Santoro: (26:10)
Very much so. Every every day is different. That's

Grant Freking: (26:12)
Great. Talk to me about giving back and where this sort of mindset, um, entered your, if it's, maybe it's always been there, um, maybe if it's something recent, but you know, you have some scholarship and, and giving that you do with your alma mater, your various alma mater mad and, you know, Lindner College of Business. So what's the story behind that?

Phil Santoro: (26:34)
So when I first started, I was, I was very young, and so got to see the sacrifices required to start a business. And then the further sacrifice is required to be a student entrepreneur. And so I, I think there's really three, three things I think about. One is entrepreneurship is critical. It's critical for our country. It's critical for the world. I mean, America was built by entrepreneurs. The, the products we use, the services, the jobs that are created, the economic empowerment that comes by people being able to lift themselves up by starting a business that is very powerful, and that's not going away anytime soon. Number two is, it is very challenging to start a, a business when you're young. And I would even say the system pushes against you in a lot of ways. And I don't think we'll necessarily change the system. And so we have to do what we can to help young entrepreneurs push through that.

Phil Santoro: (27:33)
And then the third thing is, I've just seen over the years starting so many companies that the younger you start getting into entrepreneurship, the better. Lots of reasons for that. But, and, and you might not even succeed the first time, but you will get so many lessons, so many learnings that you can then take to your second business when you launch that second company. And so starting earlier is almost always better. So for that reason, I started the Santoro Entrepreneurship Scholarship at Madeira High School in 2018. The entrepreneurship teacher there, Jennifer Jordan is incredible. She has this entrepreneurship class. It, it's always full and people have a, a, there's a wait list for it. There's competitions and, and it is incredible. And so I started giving a scholarship to high school students that are operating a business. And one surprising thing I saw with that, which I wasn't expecting, is that the number of student created businesses increased after my scholarship came online.

Phil Santoro: (28:31)
And it wasn't just because people wanted the money, that was certainly something, but people were just aware for the first time that, Hey, I can start a business in high school. Not only can I, but other students are doing it. And that really empowered students to build businesses. Then I brought that mission to uc and Lindner in 2023 with this inro Family Fund for entrepreneurship, helping student run businesses and funding a pitch competition. And then my wife and I now are researching what it would look like to start a private foundation to bring that scholarship nationally. And so I'd say the goals of all of this is help student entrepreneurs, but also increase awareness that, hey, you don't, you don't need to wait until after you graduate to start a business. You know, this might be your life calling and you can start it while you're in school.

Grant Freking: (29:22)
When you meet, uh, young entrepreneurs, whether they're at Madeira, Lindner or elsewhere around the country these days, what are some of the attributes that kind of come to mind? Do you, when you look at them, do you see a lot of yourself in them, or do you see different, is it a mix? I'm, I'm curious about that.

Phil Santoro: (29:37)
I think one of the great things about entrepreneurship is there isn't a single path. There are so many roads into entrepreneurship. I mean, pro the, a number of combinations. So you definitely don't have to go through a single path. I think the curiosity, sort of willing to take calculated risk. I don't consider myself a risk taker. I think that I take calculated risk and are able to sort of think through different outcomes. But there is some degree of calculated risk that you have to take. But really just a curiosity, desire to learn plus, you know, the ability to do something that isn't easy. If it were easy, everyone would do it. Um, that, that's really what sets young entrepreneurs apart.

Grant Freking: (30:23)
Does the calculated risk play a role in you being a licensed private pilot?

Phil Santoro: (30:27)
It, it does. I've, I've tried to be a lifelong learner, and this was a childhood dream. There's something about being thousands of feet up in the air on top of the world in full control with the freedom that is very hard to articulate just how cool that is. And, and I actually was able to bring some of the aviation learnings to Wilbur Labs, really, and, and aviation. We use checklists and risk risk management as a way to compensate for human error because human errors are fatal in, in aviation, in business not so much. And so a lot of our companies have embraced checklists, which we use for repeated work. So anytime you have something that you need to do more than once, we make a checklist for it. And whoever's doing it goes through the checklist, just like a pilot up at 40,000 feet. And that's made a pretty big difference for our companies.

Grant Freking: (31:21)
Was on your own personal checklist, where did, um, holding a Guinness World record for a fastest time to eat a jam donut with no hands come in .

Phil Santoro: (31:30)
This was another, this was another childhood dream. One of my favorite achievements, uh, I actually as a kid was reading these Guinness World record books. Oh, yeah. Flipping through it. Oh yeah.

Grant Freking: (31:42)
I we're, I'm, we're in the same wavelength here. Did the same

Phil Santoro: (31:44)
Thing, yep. Looking at all the weird things people were doing, . And I said, I have to be in there. Yeah. And I wasn't picky. I couldn't add three feet of height and become the world's tallest man. I had to pick what I could actually beat. And it turns out competitive eating is a unique mix of physical and mental ability, but it's more mental, which, which I enjoy. And so I, I actually tried to beat a world record at uc, fastest time to eat a onion. I failed. I could not get past this onion. Uh, and then, so finally in 2014, decided to try donuts, ate 22 donuts in one week, practicing getting the technique down. beat the world record for fastest time to eat a jelly donut with no hands, 11.4 seconds. And the hilarious thing is that every year there's a national donut day.

Phil Santoro: (32:35)
I don't know if you celebrate June 5th, um, you should add it to your calendar for next. I need to. Yeah. And so every every year national donut date comes across and my record goes viral every few years. And it's been picked up by, um, Newsweek, Yahoo SFGate, business Insider. I was in page 86 of the Guinness World Record 2016 book. And then also in this book called The Mammoth Book of Weird World Records. And the funny thing was, we're launching Wilbur Labs while all of this is going on, and we're trying to get some press for our company launches. And journalists not that interested. There's just, there's a lot of companies that are, are going, uh, and launching. Um, and so on the same point, these same journalists are covering my, my donut record. And, and I'm like, really? Like , but hey, every, everyone loves donuts

Grant Freking: (33:29)
And the marketing that comes along with it, apparently for a new company. Yep. That's right.

Phil Santoro: (33:33)
No matter how many companies I start, people just want to talk about donuts.

Grant Freking: (33:37)
, have you, have you, have you attempted to beat the record anytime lately?

Phil Santoro: (33:40)
I have not, but I, I would, I'm surprised that it's lasted this long. And people ask me all the time, are people trying to beat this? And I say, of course they are. You know, it's, there's only, you can't come up with your own record. It's only the records in the book. Mm. And so there's only 40 or 50 food related records. This is one of them. So I think, uh, I think you should try it. Try it one day.

Grant Freking: (34:02)
Yeah. Maybe, maybe I'll have to . Maybe we can find one of those books and find a record that I can go through. I don't know. Yeah, I definitely don't, couldn't do onions. That's, I don't, yeah, that sounds really tough. Let's make that great transition from, from donuts to closing advice. Um, there are students to listen to this podcast. And I'm curious about, you know, a couple of points that you maybe wanna leave anyone who's made it to the end of this podcast with about, you know, if they're thinking about entrepreneurship, if they're having trouble making that last clearance over that hurdle to like actually wanna start their company. They had the idea. What are some, from your own personal experience, both with starting a company and just being in the business for a while now, you're handful of bits of advice to leave with, you know, current students or maybe even recent graduates with?

Phil Santoro: (34:43)
Yeah, I think the biggest thing I wish I had in college was, um, a different perspective on risk and being open to taking more risk. I think I, I objectively took risk, but I think everyone always overstates the risk in their own life. Whether it's starting a company or applying for a job or following up twice because you didn't hear back from someone there. There's a million different risks that, that go on in your life. And for me, what's been helpful later in life is to actually think through what are the downsides if I do this and it actually doesn't happen, or it goes terribly. Um, and it's usually not as bad as you think. And we did a study on why startups fail. We surveyed 300 founders. We did a meta-analysis of all the literature out there on failure. We then combine that with our knowledge and we publish this report on why startups fail. It's been cited in a few different books so far. And one of the things that surprised me is that of the entrepreneurs that experienced failure, 84% said they would do it again. 84% would start another company after going through the worst thing imaginable. And you have to ask yourself if that many people are able to do it again. It's actually not that bad to fail. And I think that applies to everything, not just startups, because

Grant Freking: (36:10)
It what it teaches you about yourself, both personally and I guess professionally

Phil Santoro: (36:13)
Too. Yep. Absolutely.

Grant Freking: (36:15)
Thank you for listening to this episode of Bearcats Mean Business. If today's episode sparked a new idea, challenged your thinking or helped you see your path a little more clearly, be sure to subscribe, leave a review and share the episode with someone in your network. Thanks for being part of the conversation. And remember, real world success begins here at Lindner.