Episode 57 - Combating Loneliness with Community: Scott Weiss from Ocean Accelerator
Today we’re in Cincinnati, Ohio connecting with Scott Weiss with Ocean Accelerator. They have an incredible birth story—coming from the lobby of Crossroads Church in Cincinnati they launched into an accelerator for fast-growing tech companies. For the past few years, they’ve been on a mission to equip faith driven entrepreneurs and owners that bravely step out to change the world. Whether it’s their Ocean Conference or their accelerator, they’re committed to investing in entrepreneurs who have a faith in God and a passion for success.
As you listen to Scott’s story, you’ll likely hear echoes of what many entrepreneurial journeys sound like. They started in a church lobby where young entrepreneurs gathered for the free WiFi and coffee. What they found was that even though all these startups worked in the same geographical area, they possessed very little community. Scott sheds some light on the loneliness that plagues so many entrepreneurs and how Ocean Accelerator started as an attempt to combat isolation with community.
He also dives into the inner workings of Ocean Accelerator—how they operate, how they counsel young businesses, and how they choose the people they work with. Scott also gives a brief taste of what they might be looking forward to in the future.
But if you’re looking for a key takeaway, or something that you can write down and think about all day, it’s about understanding your “Why”. Scott talks about the passion, energy, and enthusiasm so many entrepreneurs have, and he shows how connecting those things to an underlying motivator—a “Why”—can be an impetus for future success.
Scott Weiss was an incredible guest, and we hope that you enjoy listening to this episode as much as we did making it. His wisdom, insight, and encouragement were illuminating for our team and we believe they will be for you as well.
Useful Links:
Scott Weiss Entrepreneurial Profile
Scott Weiss speaks at Startup Grind Cincinnati
We also have a very brief survey we’d love for you to take that will help us shape the direction and future of the FDE podcast. As always, we love taking your questions and hearing your comments. Feel free to submit your thoughts in general here.
EPISODE TRANSCRIPT
*Some listeners have found it helpful to have a transcription of the podcast. Transcription is done by an AI software. While technology is an incredible tool to automate this process, there will be misspellings and typos that might accompany it. Please keep that in mind as you work through it. The FDI movement is a volunteer-led movement, and if you’d like to contribute by editing future transcripts, please email us.
Henry [00:02:09] Scott's a friend of mine and he's been a leader in the space of faith driven entrepreneurship for several years now. It's been very intentional about partnering with a church in Cincinnati, Ohio, to reach out to entrepreneurs in a residential accelerator program as part of a really holistic way of loving on Cincinnati. But then to the far reaches the world. They've got people coming in from Turkey now to be able to be a part of this ocean accelerator. They'd run a conference. And when I think of a short list of people who've been really dedicated, this Space Scout Weiss is absolutely always a part of that. And so to have Scott on the program is probably a little overdue. But one thing that we've been really looking forward to, I guess we've been looking to refine and really make sure that we nail this format before we were ready to bring Scott on board. But we are and we are excited to have you. Scott, thanks for being willing to share your time.
Scott [00:02:58] Thank you so much. I am excited to be here.
Henry [00:03:02] We love to get started with you talking about the origin story. How did Ocean get started? What was your involvement? And then bridging to what ocean does today?
Scott [00:03:12] That's a terrific question. As origin stories are unique story. So picture a senior pastor walking through a large atrium of a church in Cincinnati. He's walking through every day, day after day, and he sees the same young millennial guys pounding away on their laptops. That pastor's name is Brian Tome. Brian is a pretty impatient guy. So he finally stops and ask one of them, why are you here? Why do you not have a job? And the young guy, a gentleman named Tim Metzner, answers him. I'm starting your company because the acronym opened to the public, provides free Wi-Fi. There's free coffee. And we'll do a walk to Brian or to do it anywhere near at hand. Tim walks Brian around it and points out ten different startups. Half of them were being led by founders who do not attend that church, probably had no relationship. Brian is blown away and is a really curious guy and says, Hey, I will host a breakfast for anybody from this movement who wants to be there. And I will disciple you. I will provide leadership lessons that are gospel based. And let's see where this goes. So about 10 people said yes. And six months into it, Brian had to settle down long enough and say, hey, you have to have an active service. A key part of being a disciple, being a follower is to serve others.
[00:04:42] So they decided to put up a sign in that church that I attended that said, hey, Wednesday night we're going to do this very informal gathering, no video, no PowerPoint, no music. We're going to call it unpolished, really raw. And if you're out of power or if you're interested and ask for worship and you want to hear three foreigners talk about their journey and kind of reveal how God shows up in that journey, come on over. Set up the room for 90 people. Four hundred and fifty people walked in the door.
Henry [00:05:15] Oh, my goodness. Wow. Yeah.
Scott [00:05:17] Now we know now what we did not know that we know now that desperate, lonely struggle that entrepreneurs face. We know now that half the people who attend anything we do publicly are not a member of any church, and they attend because they are desperately lonely. And if you throw in that working that I can meet other people who are on this journey, or I might find a customer or a future co-founder or an investor aren't showing up.
[00:05:48] Now, these attendees were all over the board. They're high tech. They're Main Street. They're three years post-launch. They're three years prelaunch. They're all over the board. They're incredibly diverse. About 60 percent of the people who show up to ocean events are female. When we hold them locally, about 20 percent people of color in that index just in a city that's about 12 percent. People of color. So this is really mind-blowing. Right. So we keep going and we start to have more frequently been. So then that same original crowd of 10. Three of them had launched. Businesses, two of them, I believe, are doing to other accelerators, and they had found experience, pretty soul deadening, pretty difficult. And they said we ought to try to warrant's an accelerator, specifically targeting fast growth, high tech businesses that integrates biblical principles, particularly around leadership. How you read your own life, how you lead a company, how you connect that to the mission God set down for you. And we launched it. And that's when I came into the picture. And two thousand and fourteen, we decided to go in 2015. We held our first class. I was just exiting a long career and had sold the company that I was reading. And I had worked in that career for 30 years and knew that balance of my life had to be spent both passing on the knowledge I had acquired and also building the kingdom. So I stepped in as the founding CEO and here we are five years later with a much broader operation now called Ocean Programs.
Rusty [00:07:25] That's really cool this Rusty. I'm a huge fan of Brian and Cross-roads and what you all have done. And I think lots of people talk about Brian as an entrepreneur himself. Right. The entrepreneurial church and I actually had the the privilege and the honor. I believe it was the opening weekend back in the late 90s, sometime when you opened up the big sanctuary for the first time. And I was there. My my brother lives in the north side of Cincinnati and runs a nonprofit there. Saw huge, huge fan of what you're doing. And tapping into the entrepreneurial spirit in Cincinnati is a wonderful thing that you're doing. How do you think you've been able to bridge that gap between believers and nonbelievers all feeling comfortable sort of in this ocean that you've created?
Scott [00:08:13] So Ocean, when it was launched, was intentionally launched as an independent nonprofit. So we are from the church and of the church, but not a part of a church. And that was a specific design choice that Brian and I made, because we wanted this to have the potential to attract interest from churches throughout the region and throughout the nation. And so we are incredible partners of our rather cross-sex as an incredible partner of ours that we are not a part of crossroads.
[00:08:47] Rather, we are firm. And do not answer the question, how do we put this all together? I view Olson as an open door in this discussion round about entrepreneurship and faith. It's a long journey and there are people who specialize in taking companies that are the Post's revenue and already generating revenue of profit. And they want to scale and let's build into those standards and really connect them on their spiritual to walk worth the front end of that. We want to fill the funnel with people who aspire to launch a business, and we want to be in that space for two reasons. First, in our judgment, it's the most at risk space. You're most at risk of losing your identity to your enterprise. When you are in the initial stages, it you have so much to do. You don't know how to do it. You're desperate for funding. You work harder and harder and harder. All of the research shows you with your off from face or from family or from health products. This issue, which prevents anxiety and depression, goes through the roof 60 percent chance of being diagnosed with depression, 60 percent divorce rate versus a national debt of the justice system. So we want to be up there because we think people stepping out of the water needs support and structure. We think we can provide that. Once you articulate that, we're here to help people on that scary first step before you even take it. And you never hide that. You're basing this on the theology, on the Bible, leaning heavily into Christian or New Testament principles. And that's what we have on our website. That's how we articulate everything. We attract people who are Christian. We attract non-Christians who are missional and maybe seekers, maybe seekers in another faith. And they have no faith that they want their lives to matter for something. We get to read an application to use the accelerator. It overwhelmingly the people ask, why did you apply? They said, you know, you talk about mission and purpose and principles beyond business practices. I just feel like you're where I should be banned.
[00:10:59] And they lie and they know what they're getting into. And we never alter or change how we teach things, but we attract people who are open and seeking that wisdom, either because they share my faith or because they have a right and then just serve a mission greater than just starting a company. And that along with this huge mission.
Rusty [00:11:20] I can't think of a more compelling incubator kind of call out. And what you just said, you know, a place where people can come under the tent that feel missional and purpose driven with or without the faith, but yet you welcomed them. I think it's a beautiful thing.
Henry [00:11:37] Tell us more about how you work with these companies in these entrepreneurs over time to be able to help them focus on faith and family and and so that they don't become part of the statistics you mentioned. And then I'm also really interested because I love the fact that there is an outreach component to this. Obviously, you've got a curriculum that's very biblically inspired and integrated. What are the aspects of the program that resonate most with your faith driven itineraries? And what are the ones that resonate the most with those that may not have an active Christian faith?
Scott [00:12:10] It's a terrific question. The ocean itself today runs two large training programs. The subreddit which we had been discussing last about five months. It has a global law. Half of this year's class. You mentioned one company from Turkey. This company is from Pakistan. There's a company for London, etc.. So that's exciting. They also run small business training, which we call Jettisons. And that's the people within us start businesses in this region or whatever region we operate in. And that's a job engine for any city, right? Local small businesses create jobs. That's a nine week program, followed six months and then trained. And I mentioned that because both of them rest on the same PTM foundation. And we rely on a concept called the Five Capitals Godsell datastore with five capital. Most importantly, structural capital. Our relationship with him are relational capital. My friendship with Henry, our fiscal capital, my energy level, my health, intellectual capital and beyond. My knowledge, my skills. I'm a woodworker in my high tech family financial capital, and these capitals are supported with specific biblical principles and lots of specific lessons. These capitals are not static. They're fluid. They change all the time. And once you understand you have access to five separate Kathyrn and she can begin to face up to various challenges by drawing on where you have strengths or drawing on friends. The relationships have strengthened that basis. So we base all the content on that. Companies come into the accelerator. The first thing we do is go away for a weekend retreat. All we talk about is where are you on your spiritual walk? No matter whether you're Christian or not, we take into a series of exercises that go deeper, deeper and deeper into who are you? What's your mission in life? What's your relationship with that big scary guy called God? If you have that relationship, has that influenced your life and why? Here they come out of that weekend with a sense of where they are on those questions. We then switch gears and for the next two months we go real heavy at classic high tech startup content. We focus on three things. The commercial things. And about that time, they're now making sales to. So talking to early stage investors, they've got their act together. We didn't go out for another retreat. Again, all we talk about is what is your mission? What are the values you are going to build into this culture? You're creating you're going to lead a company and share a culture creator. What are the values that you're going to imbue in it and how are you going to sustain them? And from that point forward, which is where we're at this season right now. All we talk about is some of those values come to life, which is bringing into practice the biblical leadership lessons organized during almost five capitals. I started with the exact same thing happens in our small business training program, Genesis, and in our frequent public events and in our conference, we always organize to move on some aspect of one of those five capitals where the interplay of them. So it's a very consistent teaching outward bound that impacts the people in the program. The alumni remain connected with the broader public. We try to serve.
William [00:15:38] What's really interesting, Scott, one of the things I always find interesting on entrepreneurial journeys is just the surprises and the twists and turns that it typically takes people on as you have been shepherding people through these entrepreneurial journeys. What maybe surprised you the most that, you know, as you look back over five or six years, what what surprised you? What's really interesting that you found out about how people go down this journey, we had another guest, Julie Barrios, talk about entrepreneurship as a spiritual discipline. Right. That is so unique in what it takes people through and the trials and tribulations and the ups and the downs. And just interested in your view from the people you've talked with.
Scott [00:16:16] Yeah, I heard that podcast. I was profoundly wise. And so essentially breathless. I cannot now steal it and pretend to miss it.
[00:16:24] So I really appreciate your team that do please do a few things that we use on this. I guess we've stolen from you and you'll notice we've never done.
[00:16:35] I think, you know, from my personal perspective, it's such an act of creation. And acts of creation are tumultuous. They're uncertain. They have episodic violence. That's physical violence. But violence says walking away from old paradigms, destroying old beliefs, walking away from relationships that are holding you back. So you're literally destroying some things, if not permanently, to gain new things. And so as I engage with the participants and my West show and I always host group dinners at our house and over the course of an accelerator, every founder and his or her family or their employees, we have them over to the house for dinner. So we try to provide some personal support. It's awe inspiring to me, a steadfast courage that the founders displayed in the face of daunting odds and clear uncertainty that they just keep chopping the wood. They just show keep going. And I had never been this close to pure entrepreneurship. I've started lots of things in a different format with a lot more resources and to just watch them. And particularly when you're standing alongside and walking in on one side, a believer who is starting this as a believer and to watch their faith grow as they connect to you. These were the journey they're on and they begin to connect the dots that I'm creating a business as God created and I'm trying to replicate the lessons he laid down. And of course, none of us will ever be God. But to replicate those lessons and try to walk that out and to watch that growth in somebody, and then I get to sit in a real special place.
Rusty [00:18:27] You do? Alan, take advantage of that special place for a second. I know we have listeners right now who are hearing about this and in their mind, they're going. I think my church. We could. I could.
[00:18:42] You've been through the experience. What advice would you give if someone is thinking, you know, this accelerator? I can see it. I think we should be doing it. What advice? What pitfalls? What why child would you provide to someone?
Scott [00:18:56] That's a frequent conversation here. And I begin on the practical side, I presume whoever reached us and we in fact, will host a demo day this year. We host in the morning a session for churches and come in to watch that. We'll take them to a three hour orientation to if you're interested in this. Here's what we should be thinking. That's kind of our best interest. But when I meet with somebody person, they tell me that I take them at face value, that this is driven by their faith, that they have a God calling them to do this. So they're exploring a nudge they've got. So I say, great, that's between you and God. We'll come back to that. I start on the practical side. I try to help them understand the accelerator business as a business. You're competing with two hundred and twenty two hundred and fourteen, depending on what survey you go to competitive accelerators in the United States. You're competing for applicants. And what are you going to do to distinguish yourself in that competitive marketplace? What resources do you have to draw on? Do you have proximity to universities for talent but just engineers and coding count? We're blessed too, with work rate. We do and universities do. Yeah. That's just the capital. What type of investment are you going to make? What's the nature of that investment? Are you going to make it again to have a partnership firm? What mentorship to you? And what specifically are you going to do? But we have three commercial things with. That's it. And then we take you on a journey to explore your relationship with God and how that impacts your mission. That's what we do.
[00:20:42] Once you get to that very uplifting little talk I just gave most of the church's kind of what it says. We're not up for this, but the few that are left standing that think they have mentors, capital, energy and a leader to pull it all together.
[00:20:58] Then I come back to the more important question. Was either God telling you to do that? Why are you doing this?
[00:21:04] What's the why? And then if they're interested, we can open the door, learn. How can we help?
Rusty [00:21:11] That's great. I hope our listeners, because I was listening to that as the. Personal journey, right? Understanding what your resources are, but as you wrapped up there very, very eloquently, you know, understanding your why. And should I. Should I be doing this? You know, what I find fascinating about all this, too, is that Henry, William and I were sitting around a few years ago trying to guess what cities would be the ones that we would think are going to step forward and what churches in America would be the ones that would step forward to run a successful accelerator program.
[00:21:49] Cincinnati would have been pretty far down the list, I think. And so the fact that you found your Y and the churches found their Y and felt God's calling in, that is why you're being successful. It's why it's working. So I hope those that are listening would listen to that encouragement.
[00:22:05] As you heard Dave there and maybe feel a stirring that if they're supposed to do this, they should do that. I join them.
Henry [00:22:13] You did. On the Cincinnati Sonic is I'm fascinated by Cincinnati since day is one of my favorite cities. And it's not just because you have the best ice cream in the country, which is my love language of the traders and the best chill and the best chili and the best scale until. That's right. That's right. It's a beautiful town. It's a great one. I wish I had visited earlier, but I've come to love it. But there's another thing that's really unique and innovative about Cincinnati, too. And maybe there's something about the culture maybe can speak to. But the initiative I'm point to in particular, because I think that entrepreneurs had this ability to start off by saying and often or has an opportunity and really a commandment to obey and serve. And that's one of the things that Brian challenges entrepreneurs with. But the innovative thing that you guys have going on is that you have a collection of social service agencies that had been brought together in one place so that somebody who's in need of support and love in Cincinnati can come to one spot. And you solved with so many other cities haven't, which is how to navigate the morass of bureaucracy between housing and Social Security and the DMV. Can you speak to that a little bit? Because that's an entrepreneurial way to solve a real promise. Cincinnati saw. And you've been doing that for a while.
Scott [00:23:29] I'm so pleased you asked about that. The organization is called City Link. City Link is a very creative and entrepreneur way to combat generational poverty. Cincinnati is a great city. It's not my home city, but I like candidate comes up. But sadly, Cincinnati has one of the lowest economic mobility indexes in North America. And what that means is you're born here and you're born poor. You're going to die for. You have almost no chance of moving upward economically. So city leaders examine that, faith based city leaders examine that and a collection of churches stimulated and led by Crossroads. But others were involved. So we've got to break this paradigm. And they bought some land on the west side of town. And they've built a center and it houses up to 20 different social service agents and people who are trapped in generational poverty, meaning this is the third fourth generation assistance of some type come in and they are locked up. From the minute you walk in the door, you are loved. You go through the intake process and it's a sequence of activities need education needed. Here's the agency that does that need dental care. Here's the agency that is that needs specific job training. We have several that do that here, including a fantastic kitchen which just opened a great restaurant, an automotive repair place, coding camps. We do. They need preparation for this. We do need a wardrobe. We've got that agency and everyone has to go through financial literacy. KAPLAN How to manage your money.
[00:25:17] All these agencies within this building, which defeats the number one issue driving generational poverty, which is to go from agency to agency agency within any city takes. I mean, being forced out of work. It's hard work just getting across town for the appointment with the counselor. You can't pull it off. You put them all together. You walk in the door. You're taken care of. It's led by an incredible they earn John Marks, literally. He's got a background in consulting. He measures everything. He can show you exactly the impact they're having and exactly when one of their participants is at highest risk. Done. It's less. Is that in appropriate ways? GJELTEN Mark and I are included discussions surfaces that should be angry. I said that in our early discussions that we want to begin offering our Genesis Small Business Training program on their third floor. She has enough people who've been through that program now. A certain percent of them are going to be entrepreneurial and they now have the skill set, confidence, love and community to be able to enter into this. And so I think you'll see some things being either better at some point this year.
Henry [00:26:31] I hope that's super encouraging. It sounds like we need to put together for Sarah feature national field trip to Cincinnati, get the whole thing going and you would be welcome, brother.
William [00:26:43] I don't I don't see what the ice cream in the barbecue there. So it's not gonna be a tough sell. No kill associate with Sheila Azara. Cuter. There is. I assume there's a barbecue.
Henry [00:26:51] Oh, there's a barbecue. There's our a river there. A guy who lives in Montgomery in an. Oh, my goodness.
Rusty [00:26:56] Did you hear that? That was from a vegetarian. Meet me telling you, Montgomerys.
William [00:27:01] It's good quality product, Scott, as we come towards the end of our time. What's next for ocean? What are you looking towards? Where are you guys going? And then also, if someone wanted to get involved in what you're doing. Some of our listeners, what's the best way to do that?
Scott [00:27:17] Thank you. We spent the summer kind of doing a vision casting exercise. We had a terrific outside facility. I mean, we really believe God's calling us to expand, but expand in a way that shares wisdom, contacts and practices. We don't want to control, run or operate in other cities, but we want to enable and empower the kingdom to grow by helping other people. BFI will be an open door, attract more entrepreneurs, and set them up to be sustainable long term culture creators who can lead their employees and community in a way that honors Christ. So we are organizing ourselves with codifying everything. We have published manuals. We are ready to begin talking with organizations about replicating in a way that lets them run it locally. But we feed them how to for as long as they need that. So that's next for us. We would love people who are interested to reach out to us. The easiest way is just go to our website, say ocean programs or one word dot com. There's a connect button with a real big organization. So all the emails come directly to me. So they'll hear about real quickly and I'll direct them connected with the right part of our team so we can serve them in some way.
William [00:28:40] Now, that's amazing. Thank you so much for sharing that. And then the last question we loved point our audience back to scripture and bone ourselves back to scripture. And we'd love to know, you know, me where God's taken you right now on this journey and maybe what's a passage or maybe a story or a place God has you in his word, that's revealing something new to you potentially today or in the last few weeks or maybe in the last few months. Just in this season of your life, what is God's word teaching you about the journey he has you on today?
Scott [00:29:11] You know, that's terrific. Rejoice in the Lord. I say again, rejoice in the Lord. Be known for your gentleness. The Lord is there.
[00:29:21] So that's out of Philippians. I think it's offensive. All right. And I'm just very mindful. I'm 63. I'm very mindful how blessed I am to do this work. And after a long word, running companies shot now recognized gentleness. It takes more strength and endurance than not show. So we all rejoice that God is involved in my lives. Say it again. Rejoice and be known for the gentleness and the largest in air. So that's the theme. I've been here for a while. I'm going to stay there all of my personal time with God at my readings. Come back to where in this can I rejoice in the word? What is he showing me so that I can display and work schedules? And how can I drive my is that he is always so.
Henry [00:30:20] Thank you for blessings with your time. Thank you for leading in the community. And thank you for making for a great buy gas episode and much more.
Scott [00:30:28] Thanks, guys. I appreciate everything you're doing.
Rusty [00:30:31] So, guys. I thought that was great. I'm more than impressed. You heard me say I had some familiarity with Crossroads to begin with. But, you know, he started with Brian Tom, their senior pastor, walking through and seeing somebody work on a laptop wondering why. And then, you know, sees it again, sees it again, and then asks the question, which turns out to lead to ocean. And I'm so impressed by that, because Brian came from the marketplace. Right. He was a brand manager at Procter and Gamble. He didn't come through the ministry to start Crossroads. He came from the marketplace, called to the ministry to start the church. And it's his familiarity, his background and his experience in the marketplace that probably made him say, why are those guys hanging around on their laptops? And then to find that pattern and do something with it. And I think that's a great lesson for all of us to take our back, our backward looking experiences. And if you're a pastor or you're somebody who's trying to work faith and work ministry inside of your church, you can bring that perspective to see what's going on around you. And there might be an accelerator sitting inside of you. I don't know, but I was really impressed by that. It meant a lot.
William [00:31:47] And what I was encouraged by is it could be an accelerator. It could be job readiness training. Yeah, exactly. I'd be, you know, helping people review resumes. It depends on what your church is struggling with or what your community is struggling with that. That talk about how they've integrated all of those different services is just really fascinating. And I think of how the church, depending on where you are with your context, might be able to be one of those services. Or it could be an accelerator as well, of course.
Rusty [00:32:14] All right. And maybe the modern day open door church has free Wi-Fi, you know, free Wi-Fi and coffee, free Wi-Fi and coffee and all are welcome.
William [00:32:24] And and I think the last thing I would say is it really hammers. Something that I know I feel is that increasingly our witness to people is through the marketplace. I think that story about free Wi-Fi and coffee is just so good of you. That is how people are going to learn about Jesus is through work and through the marketplace. And increasingly, they don't walk into random churches on Sundays, even with an invitation from a good friend. That's not the first encounter they have with someone of the faith.
[00:32:56] And so it's just so inspiring to think about what small things could do to now bring people into these programs like what Scott's doing and asking them, hey, you know, we don't assume you have the same relationship with the Almighty or that you have any relationship with what we consider almighty God. But we'd love to talk to you about it in you're here because we offer some other things, but that's all we want to talk about at some level.
Rusty [00:33:17] Henry, thanks for bringing Scott forward. That was a blessing.