SUMMER 2019
DIGITAL SIX LABS IS THE NEW REMOTE WATCHDOG THG ENERGY SOLUTIONS DEMAND & RESPONSE
CHANGING THE WORLD LOVE'S CUP WINNERS TURN INNOVATIONS INTO REAL WORLD SOLUTIONS
WHITEBOARD TECHNOLOGIES CREATES THE MORTGAGE CRM PLAYBOOK
Comprised of over 160 Oklahoma corporations and business groups, the Oklahoma Business Roundtable serves as the state’s primary economic development support organization. whose sole purpose is advancing Oklahoma’s economic development. We support programs that focus on business start-up, expansion, recruitment and workforce development. Created in 1991, the Roundtable has supported hundreds of state, national and global business promotion activities – resulting in thousands of jobs and millions of dollars in corporate investment throughout Oklahoma. Our members are committed to the state’s economy.
We invite you to join us in our
PRESIDENT/CEO Ann Ackerman, Ph. D.
www.okbusinessroundtable.com
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BUSINESS LEADERSHIP ADVANCING OKLAHOMA’S ECONOMY
INSIDE Remote Watchdog 6 Digital Six Laboratory pioneers advanced Internet of Things technologies Solving the Demand Curve 8 THG Energy Solutions helps commercial power users manage utility costs The CRM Playbook 10 Whiteboard Technologies develops mortgage industry software solution Better Ideas 12 Love’s Cup winners move concepts into real world markets Growth Strategy 20 Love’s Travel Stops on growth trajectory from very beginning in 1964 Home Grown Solution 22 Plains Venture Partners, Oklahoma's new growth equity fund
innovators & Entrepreneurs is produced by i2E, Inc., manager of the Oklahoma Technology Commercialization Center. For more information on any content contained herein, please contact i2E at 405-235-2305. © Copyright 2018 i2E, Inc. All rights reserved.
i2E TEAM The i2E management and staff is composed of professionals with extensive experience in technology commercialization, business development, venture investing, and finance.
Scott Meacham President & CEO Rex Smitherman Senior Vice President, Operations Sarah Seagraves Senior Vice President, Marketing Mark Lauinger Senior Vice President, Client Services Ryan Cargill Vice President of Business Development Tom Francis Director of Funds Administration Judy Beech Director of Finance Carol Curtis Venture Advisor & Director of Academic Research Assessment Richard Rainey Venture Advisor & Director, SBRA Program Stacey Brandhorst Venture Advisor & Director of Venture Outreach Malachi Blankenship Venture Advisor & Business Development Manager Darcy Wilborn Client Engagement Director Melissa Kempkes Investment Portfolio Manager Cindy Henson Underwriting Coordinator & Investment Compliance Officer Katelynn Henderson Events Specialist
BOARD OF DIRECTORS Stephen Prescott Chairman OMRF
Mark Poole Vice Chair First National Bank of Broken Arrow Michael LaBrie Secretary McAfee & Taft
Ryan Posey HSI Sensing Meg Salyer Accel Financial Staffing Claudia San Pedro Sonic Corporation
Darryl Schmidt Leslie Batchelor BancFirst Center for Economic Craig Shimasaki Development Law Moleculera Labs Howard G. Barnett, Jr. Brien Thorstenberg OSU-Tulsa, OSU-CHS Tulsa Regional Chamber Jay Calhoun Rose Washington Apis Holdings Tulsa Economic Development Corporation Michael Carolina Roy Williams OCAST Greater Oklahoma City Chamber Teresa Rose Crook Communities Foundation of Oklahoma Steve Cropper
Richard Williamson T.D. Williamson Duane Wilson LDW Services, LLC
Carl Edwards Price Edwards Company Tom Evans Encompass Financial Services, Inc.
PARTNERS
Philip Eller The Oklahoma Experimental Program to Stimulate Competitive Research (EPSCoR) Eller Detrich, P.C. Joseph J. Ferretti University of Oklahoma Health Sciences Center Chris Fleming RECHO, LLC
Cherokee Nation Chickasaw Nation Choctaw Nation
Cheryl Hill Greater Oklahoma City Chamber Hill Manufacturing/Hill Equipment Love’s Travel Stops Danny Hilliard Chickasaw Nation Muscogee(Creek) Nation Ronnie Irani Oklahoma Business Roundtable RKI Energy Resources
Brad Krieger Oklahoma Center for the Advancement Arvest Bank of Science and Technology (OCAST)
Shaun O'Fair Philip Kurtz Underwriting Specialist CareATC
Oklahoma Manufacturing Alliance
Jennifer Buettner Executive Assistant
Presbyterian Health Foundation
Hershel Lamirand III Capital Development Strategies Merl Lindstrom
U.S. Economic Development Administration
Fred Morgan The State Chamber Mark Nance American Fidelity Corporation David Pitts Simmons Bank
www.i2E.org
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Welcome from Scott Meacham ABOUT i2E WE INVEST IN ENTREPRENEURS TO BUILD SUCCESSFUL HIGH GROWTH OKLAHOMA COMPANIES Over our 20-year history, i2E’s nationally recognized services have provided business expertise and funding to over 700 of Oklahoma’s emerging small businesses. With more than $63 million of investment capital under management, we are focused on serving companies in all phases of the business life cycle, from startups looking for their first round of capital all the way to established businesses seeking funding to expand their markets or products. We also help lead new business developments into the marketplace more efficiently and more quickly while providing guidance to bring more funding to Oklahoma’s researchers and entrepreneurs. Through our proven business and venture development process, we turn ideas into successful enterprises ... i2E.
W H AT W E D O • Evaluate the market potential of new concepts • Assist with evaluation of business plans, marketing plans and raising capital • Provide guidance in building a management team, business structure and financial forecasting • Assist with developing an effective investor presentation • Assist in obtaining funding through federal grant programs • Work with research universities to encourage commercialization of research technologies • Provide grant capital assistance and equity investment
In her keynote presentation at the 2019 Love’s Entrepreneur’s Cup Awards Dinner, Jenny Love Meyer told college students who participated in the business plan and pitch competition that its conclusion was only the beginning of a life-long journey. “The things you’ve learned during your time with the Love’s Cup will stay with you for a lifetime,” said Meyer, vice president of Communications for Love’s Travel Stops, Signature Sponsor of the event. Meyer’s charge was clear to her audience of almost 400 attending the Awards Dinner. “Continue to push the boundaries for what you thought possible and you will change the world as you know it,” she said. In this edition of I&E Magazine, you will meet students from first place teams in the Small Business, High Growth Undergraduate and High Growth Graduate divisions for whom the Love’s Cup was only a starting point. All are advancing their concepts as new ventures. Our cover story (beginning on Page 12) introduces you to the concepts and students who conceived them and successfully wrote business plans and pitched them to panels of Love’s Cup judges. You are most likely familiar with Love’s Travel Stops from encounters along the Interstate highways. But did you know that Love’s may be the ultimate Oklahoma entrepreneurial venture. Read our story (Page 20) about the success story that is Love’s Travel Stops from the perspective of historian and author Dr. Bob Blackburn. Blackburn wrote the book, “Love’s: Fifty-Five Years of a Family’s Enterprise,” which traces the remarkable history of the company from its launch as a single gas station in 1964 to its nationwide corporate presence today. Elsewhere in this edition, we profile three up-and-coming i2E clients that are advancing high growth concepts in areas of finance, energy and what is known as the “Internet of Things.” Digital Six Laboratories, Inc. (page 6) provides proprietary wireless sensor technology developed by founder Steve Montgomery that monitors critical equipment in a wide range of industries at remote locations around the world. THG Energy Solutions (page 8) developed an automated energy demand response platform that tracks power consumption in real time and allows commercial users to shift or reduce non-critical energy usage to less costly operating hours. Whiteboard Technologies (page 10) helps mortgage lenders maintain relationships with customers and referral partners with an innovative customer relationship management software solution developed specifically for the mortgage industry. As you read this magazine, I’m confident you will glimpse the excitement of the Love’s Cup competition, as well as the potential of some of Oklahoma’s emerging entrepreneurial ventures. Enjoy.
– Scott Meacham President & CEO
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Profiles Digital Six Labs
THE INTERNET OF THINGS
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igital Six Laboratories, Inc. provides wireless sensor technology that tracks performance of critical equipment in wide range of industries. Look no further than a balky ice cream maker at a Tulsa fast-food restaurant for an explanation of the growth of Oklahoma Citybased Digital Six Laboratories. D6 Labs, as it is known, was founded by Steve Montgomery to provide high tech monitoring of critical equipment at locations such as oil and gas wells, grocery stores, restaurants and even hospitals. D6 Labs provides engineered wireless technology that facilitates the “Internet of things (IoT)” monitoring capabilities, providing analytics that show real time status and historic performance. IoT is a concept in which sensors strategically placed on appliances, cooling units or virtually any strategic equipment used in production or storage, providing instant alerts when something goes wrong. Or even before something breaks. Montgomery invented a wireless sensor and transmitter called the Whisker.io® that is at the heart of D6 Labs business. Whis-
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Digital Six Laboratories provides wireless sensor technology that tracks performance of critical equipment in wide range of industries
ker.io® incorporates proprietary, long-range wireless technology that provides D6 Labs’ devices the ability to transmit over long distances and operate for years from a single set of batteries, a combination that cannot be matched by other technologies. “We have a unique interface that is a true enterprise grade solution,” Montgomery said of the Whisker.io® cloud-based alerting and monitoring platform. “Let’s say you are 7-11 and you have 5,000 locations and each of them is going to have 10 sensors. That is 50,000 sensors. With our solution, you can identify any one sensor and get to its data with two mouse clicks. That’s something that none of our competitors can touch.” With three decades of electrical engineering experience, Montgomery made a breakthrough in wireless technology that proved to have exceptional broadcasting range and long battery life. He started D6 Labs in 2015 in the bedroom of his Yukon home. “I originally started this company with the intention of having a small startup that would do wireless sensors for oil and gas,” he said. However, he quickly discovered that other markets such as grocery stores and restaurants provided explosive growth potential for his technology. So he relocated D6 Labs to a small business center in far western Oklahoma City and set up both an R&D laboratory and a manufacturing process. Today, D6 Labs has 15 employees – including six engineers – and operates in 7,000 square feet of space across two buildings. Potential new business has Montgomery considering an expansion into 15,000 to 20,000 feet of space. Whisker.io® and the company’s cloudbased monitoring service have found a big demand among so-called quick service restaurants (QSR) and food providers that need to monitor not only critical refrigeration units, but also required hand-washing by employees (yes, there is a sensor for that).
“From the beginning, from Carol Curtis coming up and introducing herself all the way up to funding, i2E has just been pretty close to perfect,” he said. “They’ve been a really good partner and advocate for us. The people who work there are spectacular.” – Steve Montgomery Founder & CEO
“The reason we were able to get into the QSR space is because our radios work so well,” he said. “We can put them in refrigerators and they transmit right through the metal walls, and nobody ever has any problems getting them to work. And we also have a very intelligent alerting system.” D6 Labs’ ability to weed out false alerts has distinguished the company from its competition in the monitoring business. Competing technologies routinely send out so many false alerts that restaurant operators often give up on the technology and ignore it, Montgomery said. D6 Labs also has developed a digital dashboard that allows both its employees and those of its clients to quickly drill down to individual units or appliances to see how they are operating in real time. Montgomery cites the success of an operator of 10 McDonald’s restaurants in Tulsa as an example of the effectiveness of the Whisker.io® technology. “In 2017 of Quarter Four they spent $12,000 on those 10 restaurants on refrigerator maintenance,” he said. “They spent less than $4,000 in Q4 of 2018 because using the alerts that we gave them let them know where they need to put their effort.” A $1.35 million investment round of funding led by i2E in 2018 provided capital that let D6 Labs plan for future growth. Potential new business is on the horizon from a national restaurant chain that invited the company to bid on a project to provide monitoring services for thousands of locations. Montgomery was introduced to i2E through Venture Advisor Carol Curtis, who met him after he made a 1 Million Cups Oklahoma City presentation.
“From the beginning, from Carol Curtis coming up and introducing herself all the way up to funding, i2E has just been pretty close to perfect,” he said. “They’ve been a really good partner and advocate for us. The people who work there are spectacular.” D6 Labs continues to innovate in its R&D laboratory. It developed a new cellular radio hub for its Whisker.io® technology that is has built-in battery back up and is far less expensive than the current model. It also has a new universal hand soap dispenser sensor that works with any type of hand soap dispenser in use, along with a new energy monitor. “We’re always, always innovating,” he said. “We are always writing apps and code and new features for our platform.” And then there is the Tulsa restaurant operator’s ongoing problem with the troubled ice cream machine. Employees often failed to monitor inventory levels in the machine, and it was constantly running out of liquid to produce ice cream. So, engineers at D6 Labs came up with a solution. They created a way to insert a probe into the machine that sends out an alert when the liquid gets too low. “These guys in Tulsa have been able to go from 72 percent uptime to greater than 95 percent uptime because of the feedback that our system gives them,” Montgomery said. “This is actually a legitimate way for them to solve a problem they’ve been having for a long, long time.”
Steve Montgomery, CEO Location: Oklahoma City No. of employees: 15 Year founded: 2015
Product or technology D6 Labs manufactures and sells “Internet of things” technologies to monitor critical infrastructure for clients in the oil and gas, restaurant, grocery and health care industries Markets Served The company is currently focused on serving the quick-service restaurant industry, which promises high growth potential Future Plans D6 plans to deploy a more powerful yet inexpensive communications hub for its Whisker.io® platform that will enable the company to scale to meet demand for thousands of client locations nationwide Funding i2E led a $1.35 million investment round in Q4 of 2018 Milestones Already in a number of quick service restaurants in Oklahoma and Texas, D6 Labs has identified the restaurant space as a major growth potential and has developed new technology to allow it to scale quickly to meet that demand www.d6labs.com
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Profiles THG Energy Solutions, LLC
ENERGY DEMAND AND RESPONSE THG Energy Solutions helps large electricity users manage utility costs with demand response and usage tracking products
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t’s a hot summer day in Oklahoma City and you are the operations manager for a large manufacturer of, say, food products. You are at peak production at 3 p.m. when the temperature also hits its peak and hundreds of thousands of air conditioning units are drawing electricity throughout the state. That brief period of peak electricity usage might end up costing you money all year. Advanced forecasting of these events along with real-time notice and flexibility around short-term energy consumption would be extremely valuable. Large consumers have two important components of electricity cost. One is commodity charges, or the amount of electricity used per month. Demand charges comprise the second component. That is the amount of power consumed during a critical (usually 30 minute) period as defined by the utility tariffs. Usage during these short-term periods that determine demand charges make up between 30 percent and 60 percent of the monthly bill, and can also impact the entire summer season, or even the entire year. According to Dan Frey, President of Tulsa based THG Energy Solutions, LLC, demand management remains one of the best opportunities to lower energy costs. THG helps large and mid-sized clients with strategies and technologies to plan for, and reduce these demand charges. Even moderate and short-term reductions in demand can reduce overall electricity costs while also helping the grid, Frey said. In fact, actions taken during less than 1 percent of the time can reduce total electricity costs by more than 20 percent. THG has deployed an award-winning automated demand response platform that tracks power consumption in real time and allows commercial users to shift or reduce non-critical energy usage to less costly operating hours. Mark Lane, the company’s executive vice president of Demand Response, pioneered and created its proprietary
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ON Automated Demand Response (ADR) controller and platform. “Our ADR technology provides market integration with utilities and grid operators for real time events and prices,” Lane said. “We combine real time markets with automated load response and integration of a wide variety of assets and strategies. We also provide measurement and verification of performance and savings.” For one large city, THG demand management program generated three-year savings with commercial facilities and water treatment plants more than $1 million after costs, he said.
In addition to Demand Management, THG’s software-as-a-service-based Energy Intelligence Software platform collects electricity, gas, water and waste data for more than 50,000 commercial accounts in all 50 states, providing best practice benchmarking and analytics. These services streamline data access and allow clients to better manage and measure energy and sustainability. “We help make all energy and utility data, from a wide variety of sources, actionable in a single, easy-to-navigate and secure platform for payment, processing and review across the organization.” Frey said. Another customer, a large multifacility industrial processor with nationwide locations, had no enterprise access to meaningful energy data before implementing THG’s EIS platform. Now the platforms are helping identity and prioritize significant energy savings projects and opportunities. With locations both in Tulsa and Austin, THG employs teams of engineers and energy professionals who are developing new capabilities for energy data and technology. “We have a team of six engineers and product managers in Austin involved with our demand management technologies,” Frey said. “They are continually building out and deploying integration capabilities with real time markets, grid operators and utility programs across North America.” As for the Tulsa location, the company employs 15 energy professionals, including three high level engineers and sustainability experts. It provides high level customer support and data management services for customers across North America. “We see opportunities for both cities and workforces to complement each other as we execute our strategies for growth,” Frey said.
“For anyone paying attention, one of the biggest disruptions in our economy will be from electrification, solar and wind, supplemented by EV (electric vehicle) batteries and grid services. These technologies will very quickly dominate and disrupt the entire energy economy.” – Daniel Frey
Distributed energy and variable renewables, such as wind and solar, create an even greater need for power grid integration, Frey said. These transformational technologies are providing new opportunities for THG and their clients. For example, THG is working closely with California utilities to provide grid support to help manage real-time volatility dealing with both excess and reduced power requirements. “The road forward is for extremely affordable, clean, renewable and distributed energy,” Frey said. “For anyone paying attention, one of the biggest disruptions in our economy will be from electrification, solar and wind, supplemented by EV (electric vehicle) batteries and grid services. These technologies will very quickly dominate and disrupt the entire energy economy.” As the landscape evolves, THG provides the technology to ensure that its clients have the flexibility to monitor and manage real time energy usage as needed and to lower costs associated with demand charges. “Prudent measures for energy efficiency and sustainability for commercial facilities have always provided high rates of return,” Frey said. “Easier access to better data drives better decisions and highlights opportunities for savings.” THG established a relationship with i2E when it invited the company to sit on its Advisory Board in 2017. “We are extremely pleased that this initial relationship has now resulted in i2E c0-leading an investment in THG,” Frey said. “i2E provides the perfect investment partner to support THG’s growth in Tulsa and our client engagements across the country.”
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Daniel Frey CEO Location: Tulsa and Austin, Texas No. of employees: 30 Year founded: 2003, acquired by current management in 2011 Product or technology Software-as-a-Service energy management data and technology solutions Markets served Large and medium commercial and industrial power users throughout North America Future plans Leading technology for real time automated demand management for commercial facilities and grid integration with distributed energy sources such as wind and solar. Funding THG Energy Solutions recently closed on a $4 million Series A investment round co-led by i2E and the George Kaiser Family Foundation Milestones Deployed Energy Intelligence Suite with commercial clients in all 50 states www.THGEnergy.com
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Profiles Whiteboard Technologies
THE CUSTOMER RELATIONSHIP PLAYBOOK Whiteboard Technologies develops innovative customer relationship management software for mortgage industry professionals
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he home mortgage lending industry is a relationship business, says Brian Bomar, founder and CEO of Oklahoma City-based Whiteboard Technologies and regional president of Cornerstone Home Lending, Inc. Maintaining relationships with customers and referral partners such as real estate professionals or homebuilders is key to driving both new and repeat mortgage business for mortgage lending professionals, Bomar said.
Whiteboard created a customer relationship management (CRM) software tool specifically for mortgage lending professionals such as the 80 people who work in Cornerstone’s Oklahoma City location. Communicating to customers with timely messages, remembering birthdays or sending small gifts upon closing a loan are all the type of touches that help ensure the ties remain strong. That’s where a CRM software tool like the Mortgage Playbook developed by Whiteboard becomes a critical element. CRMs facilitate efficient workflow and communication for lenders.
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Before Whiteboard created its CRM product, there was little customer relationship management software built specifically for the mortgage lending industry, Bomar said. “We tried a lot of different systems, and we didn’t feel like they were designed by people in the business who really knew what our day-to-day looked like,” he said. “So, somewhere along the line, it made sense to build our own.” Bomar founded Whiteboard Technologies in 2015 to assist his Cornerstone team by developing a CRM based on a concept he had conceived almost a decade earlier. It is called Whiteboard Mortgage CRM. “When we had the very first version of it, I was really impressed with what the team had built, and we decided to take it to market and let others experience it as well,” Bomar said. “The whole goal was to take everything we need to be successful and automate it and systemize it so you didn’t have to think about it.” Whiteboard Mortgage CRM has been recognized as a HousingWire Tech 100 top industry technology product for three consecutive years. In its description of
Whiteboard Mortgage CRM, HousingWire wrote: “Included in the Mortgage Playbook are mortgage and loan campaigns, clientcentric campaigns, referral partner campaigns, marketing campaigns and all of the pre-built forms and reports needed. Some of the company’s clients report seeing their loans-closed numbers grow by more than 800% within the first year of using Whiteboard Mortgage CRM. Whiteboard clients reported substantial benefits in both timesaved and organizational streamlining.” The Whiteboard Mortgage Playbook was created to help a new user get up-andrunning with the CRM on Day One, Bomar said. “Even if you have the right tools, it still takes a lot of time and a lot of vision to put it all together,” he said. “Our Playbooks don’t require you to have all that vision to build these incredibly robust CRM experiences.” Among Whiteboard CRM’s features is the ability to send pre-written correspondence that enhances relationships with team members, partners and customers of lending professionals.
Playbook are mortgage and loan campaigns, client-centric campaigns, referral partner campaigns, marketing campaigns and all of the pre-built forms and reports needed.
“i2E has given us great advice and put us in touch with some other great investors and mentors,” Bomar said. “We’re extremely appreciative of the relationship we have with i2E.” – Brian Bomar
“We did not want the communication to look robotic or coming from some marketing engine,” Bomar said. “We want to make it look human and like it was being delivered as if you were writing a personal email, and we wanted to use that to scale our communications to our database and referral partners at a really high level.” A native of Oklahoma City, Bomar began his journey down the entrepreneur’s path while still in college at the University Central Oklahoma, when he and his wife, Heather, opened a kiosk in Penn Square Mall selling health supplements and wellness products. Later they worked together for a small mortgage lending company before opening Cornerstone’s Oklahoma City offices, where Heather is a Senior Mortgage Advisor. As Cornerstone’s regional President, Brian Bomar oversees seven offices across Oklahoma, Arkansas, and California. Cornerstone is Oklahoma City’s largest home mortgage lender, and they took that spot within six years of opening their doors, Bomar said. Whiteboard Technologies and Cornerstone Home Lending are located just down the hall from one another in an office building in OKC’s Gaillardia Office Park. Whiteboard employs 14 people, including six software developers who use the close proximity with working mortgage lenders to beta test their work. “I can actually bring my developers in to sit down next to people who are on the front line and are using the software and find out what their pain points are,” Bomar said. “This is our advantage. I can’t tell you how many technology CEOs, when they hear about this, are very, very envious because of the insight we can get into the user and their experience.” So, who are Whiteboard Mortgage CRM’s customers?
“Our average customer is an individual loan officer or a small team or branch, but we are moving higher and higher up the food chain to where we are dealing more on the enterprise side of things,” Bomar said. “We are spending a lot of time building out the tools needed to manage an entire fleet of sales professionals at scale and do some of the same things we have done for the loan officer.” Whiteboard currently has a paid pilot program under way with a mortgage lender with about 900 users across the country. It generates recurring revenue on a per-user basis for the software-as-a-service (SaaS) platform. Bomar connected with i2E when he was seeking investment capital to fuel the company’s growth into bigger markets. i2E led a $2.5 million investment round in Whiteboard in late summer of 2018. “i2E has given us great advice and put us in touch with some other great investors and mentors,” Bomar said. “We’re extremely appreciative of the relationship we have with i2E.” As Whiteboard grows its user base among mortgage lenders nationwide, it no doubt will draw the attention of potential suitors among major players in the technology world. However, that’s not Bomar’s concern today. “I’m not focused going out and selling my business,” he said. “I’m just focused on making it a great business.”
Brian Bomar CEO Location: Oklahoma City No. of employees: 14 Year founded: 2015
Product or technology Customer relationship management software created specifically for the mortgage lending industry Markets served Small and medium sized mortgage lending businesses across the United States Future plans Whiteboard is quickly moving into the enterprise space, serving large fleets of lending pros at mortgage firms with multiple locations across the nation Funding i2E led a $2.5 million investment round in Whiteboard in 2018 Milestones Developed an innovative Software-as-a-Service CRM for the mortgage lending industry, with iterations created to scale for enterprise customers www.whiteboardcrm.com
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The Idea Maker
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Top Place Love’s Entrepreneur’s Cup winners plan to move forward with their businesses The journey to the Awards Dinner stage for the Small Business Division first place winner began with a doctor’s visit. East Central University’s Laura Bolin, team leader of a student-generated concept called Ex-bac, saw the doctor for a cough. During her checkup the doctor mentioned the medical practice needed a solution to safely clean electronics used in the examination room. She left the appointment thinking of ways to tackle the problem. “We started brainstorming,” Bolin said. “We knew the product needed to be something that would stay wet on the surface but not cause damage down in the electronic range of things.” She went to work devising and testing formulas for cleaning the surface of electronics without causing damage that results when moisture seeps into them. “We took the best formula and it turned into Ex-bac,” Bolin said. As a senior Business Management student at ECU who had already competed in the Love’s Cup as a freshman, Bolin decided to put together a team for this year’s competition and write a business plan around the concept. The results were a first place finish and a $10,000 prize that is being invested in scientific development and a patent application. The Love’s Cup will serve as a springboard to launch the venture, she said. Bolin said she will use the experience and the feedback from the Love’s Cup to move this business forward. Ex-bac is one of three student-generated concepts that claimed first place finishes in the 2019 Love’s Cup. And like Bolin’s ECU team, the winners of the High Growth Undergraduate and Graduate divisions plan to move their concepts forward. Bubble Calm from Oklahoma State University was named first place winner in the High Growth Undergraduate Division, while a fellow OSU team, Paldara Pharmaceuticals, won the Graduate Division competition.
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Conceived by William Petty, team leader, and Walter Bowser, advancing the concept. The Love’s Cup experience provided an insider’s perspective into Bubble Calm is a chewing gum that includes natural ingredients that provide a quick and easy way for consumers to ease symptoms of what it takes to raise equity funding by writing a business plan and anxiety and stress. pitching to a panel of “investors,” Blanchard said. While the Bubble Calm teammates already had formulated their “Every single step along the way was extremely well thought out,” product, new opportunities surfaced during the Blanchard said. “Going into the initial interview, Love’s Cup experience, Petty said. submitting the business plan, getting feedback from “The competition helped us think through our the judges and submitting the finalized business plan “Another big takeaway business,” he said. “It brought up a bunch of new ideas and preparing for the pitch was literally everything we hadn’t thought about. We learned a lot about our that I could have thought that entrepreneurship was is that they realized product just working through the business plan.” and preparing (us) to raise equity in the future.” through this process The Love’s Cup is the ultimate confidence builder Next steps for the company are incorporating for future business leaders as they take their first steps as an Oklahoma corporation, working on a patent that they really are as down the entrepreneur’s path, said Kyle Eastman, application for the intellectual property and OSU professor and advisor for Bubble Calm. applying for federal grant funding. capable as anyone else “I think they came away thinking ‘wow, we “For any student or entrepreneur who is interested to start a company.” really could build this company, this could be a real in starting a business in Oklahoma, I would highly potential avenue for us after we graduate,” Eastman recommend the Love’s Cup,” Blanchard said. “I said. “Another big takeaway is that they realized could not say enough how beneficial it was to the – Kyle Eastman through this process that they really are as capable entire process of launching a company.” as anyone else to start a company.” The Love’s Cup Awards Dinner on April 18 featured Next steps for Bubble Calm include investing in presentations from Oklahoma Lt. Gov. Matt machinery and production space to begin scaling up production of the Pinnell and Jenny Love Meyer, vice president of Communications for product. Love’s Travel Stops, the Signature Sponsor of the competition. “Look for it to be released in September of this year,” Petty said. Pinnell, himself an entrepreneur, told the audience of almost 400 Paldara Pharmaceuticals is developing an innovative microbial that innovations like those conceived the Love’s Cup competitors are gel coating to be used with existing catheters to reduce urinary tract key to moving the state forward economically. infections by 99 percent. Team member William Colton developed “For us to be a top 10 state, it starts with your ideas to start the technology and, along with Paldara team leader Beau Blanchard, is businesses, to grow businesses and to do it right here in Oklahoma,”
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Energizing young minds for a
BRIGHTER ENERGY FUTURE We are proud to recognize the 2019 OG&E Positive Energy and Environmental Interview winner, SeePay from Northwestern Oklahoma State University. The SeePay team, led by Crystal Keller alongside her team member, Callie Campbell, developed a real-time electrical monitoring device that measures and displays the amount of energy used in the home. This device also provides touch screen payment capabilities from a smart phone, allowing users to predict costs and reduce waste.
These students are powering a brighter energy future, TOGETHER .ÂŽ
Š2019 OGE Energy Corp.
Pinnell said. “It’s why I ran for Lt. Governor, because my wife and I chose to raise our family here and start our business here and we’re not going anywhere. And we don’t want you to have to go anywhere either." In her keynote address Meyer told the students that the Love’s Cup experience will prove to be a life-changing experience for them as they launch their careers. “Each of you is going home with something you will cherish forever,” she said. “Each student in this room has chosen to commit to excellence. The things you’ve learned during your time with the Love’s Cup will stay with you for a lifetime. Continue to push the boundaries for what you thought possible and you will change the world as you know it.” Meyer’s point was echoed by Darryl Schmidt, President and CEO of BancFirst, which sponsored the Small Business Division
Interview Awards. Schmidt said the “handson” learning will benefit students as they move forward. “It’s experience these students will use and refine over their entire career,” Schmidt said. “We hope that through the competition, these future entrepreneurs will utilize the coaching and experience they receive to gain the confidence needed to take the next step – beginning their own small business.” The Love’s Cup also struck Bill Crawford, advisor for team Fillup from Oral Roberts University, as a confidence builder for students. “I think the students will walk away with the confidence that they have the skills to turn dreams into reality,” Crawford said. “The experience as a whole is a great opportunity to take learning outside the classroom and see that the principles and concepts we talk about in class work in a real world setting.” Seth Reiter, a first time advisor for team Project Eden from Oklahoma Christian University, viewed the competition as a learning experience for himself as well as the students. “My biggest takeaway was identifying the problem you are trying to solve with your business and then doing the market research,” Reiter said. “I think that was one of the most important things I learned.” And for the OC students? “The Love’s Cup is just a complete holistic approach to creating a business plan,” Reiter said. “It was a whole new ballgame as far as what you have to think about in starting a business. It’s awesome.” In his closing remarks to the Awards Dinner audiences, i2E President and CEO Scott Meacham stated that the Love’s Cup impact will be felt long into the future.
“The measure of the success of this event is the difference it makes in these students’ lives,” Meacham said. “The skills that you learn in this competition are skills that you will use and apply in the business world. You’ll have to work on problems in team settings. You will have to put together solutions and you will have to present them and defend them. That’s exactly what this competition does and I think that’s the real power of this competition.”
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THE WINNERS
2nd Place Small Business PROJECT EDEN OKLAHOMA CHRISTIAN UNIVERSITY
1st Place BANCFIRST Small Business EX-BAC EAST CENTRAL UNIVERSITY
3RD Place Small Business THE HAIRY HOTEL EAST CENTRAL UNIVERSITY
2nd Place UNDERGRADUATE BANNERS THE UNIVERSITY OF OKLAHOMA
1st Place UNDERGRADUATE BUBBLE CALM OKLAHOMA STATE UNIVERSITY 18
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3RD Place UNDERGRADUATE BRIDAL WAVE LLC THE UNIVERSITY OF OKLAHOMA
INTERVIEW SPONSORS BancFirst The Chickasaw Nation Greater Oklahoma City Chamber OG&E Oklahoma Business Roundtable Oklahoma Center for the Advancement of Science and Technology
PITCH SPONSOR Google
1st Place GRADUATE PALDARA PHARMACEUTICALS OKLAHOMA STATE UNIVERSITY
GOLD SPONSOR i2E E.L. and Thelma Gaylord Foundation
SILVER SPONSORS The University of Tulsa Oklahoma State Regents for Higher Education OneNet
BRONZE SPONSORS 2nd Place GRADUATE ONE-VOICE
3rd Place GRADUATE BABEL ANALYTICS
Oklahoma State University
OKLAHOMA STATE UNIVERSITY
THE UNIVERSITY OF OKLAHOMA
The University of Oklahoma
High Growth Interview Winners
Small Business Interview Winners
Chickasaw Nation Student Generated Technology Design Kozorazzi Technologies, The University of Oklahoma
IT/APP Category LikeaPro, East Central University
Greater Oklahoma City Chamber Healthcare WhiteGlove, The University of Oklahoma Oklahoma Business Roundtable Manufacturing, Material Sciences and Transportation Axiom Graphene, The University of Tulsa
College Product Category KelCares, Northern Oklahoma College Service Category FILLUP, Oral Roberts University
Paulsen Award Scholarship
TABLE SPONSORS Ada Jobs Foundation American Fidelity Foundation Ardmore Chamber of Commerce First National Bank and Trust of Broken Arrow George Kaiser Family Foundation HSPG & Associates
OCAST Information and Technology/ Communications Zonx, The University of Oklahoma
Small Business Kelli Dollarhide, Northern Oklahoma College
Lobeck Taylor Family Foundation
OG&E Positive Energy and Environmental SeePay, Northwestern Oklahoma State University
Undergraduate Callie Campbel, Northwestern Oklahoma State University
Norman Economic Development Coalition
GOOGLE Pitch Winners
Graduate Parker Randels, University of Oklahoma
Gabe West, Oral Roberts University Jace Zacharias, Southwestern Oklahoma State University Tyler Bryant, Oklahoma State University
McAfee & Taft Oklahoma Medical Research Foundation Presbyterian Health Foundation Rural Enterprises of Oklahoma, Inc. Triton Wealth Advisors, LLC Tulsa Regional Chamber SUMMER 2019 i&E
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Love’s Travel Stops and Country Stores founder Tom Love continues to set the family-owned business on new growth trajectories by implementing innovative initiatives
In his book, “Love’s: Fifty-Five Years of a Family’s Enterprise,” author and historian Dr. Bob Blackburn describes how in 1964 Tom Love opened his first gas station in what was an abandoned filling station in the Western Oklahoma community of Watonga. By the time the Watonga station opened on Jan. 6, 1964, Tom Love was already scouting for future locations among rural communities across Western Oklahoma. He was planning for growth. Growth was critical to sustaining Love’s new enterprise that had been incorporated as the family-owned Musket Corporation, Blackburn said. Tom and Judy Love launched their business without any real investment capital, depending on cash flow from selling gasoline “at the cheapest price in town,” to sustain their operation. Additional locations provided critical cash flow needed monthly to pay for fuel inventory and employees. “He never had the capital to go in and just say ‘I’m going to invest in this empire,’” Blackburn said. “He had to have the cash flow, so it was incremental, which was key because by going incremental, he was learning lessons along the way.” By the end of that first year, Tom Love operated six service stations across Western Oklahoma. It was the beginning of a business enterprise that eventually came to be known as Love’s Travel Stops and Country Stores and which today operates in more than 480 locations across 41 states, employing more than 23,000 people. The company is still operated by the Love family and headquartered in Oklahoma City.
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For the Love of Growth
Tom Love opened his first gas station in 1964 in what was an abandoned filling station in Watonga, Oklahoma. Tom Love continued to pursue relentless growth and expansion over the past 55-plus years, finding ways to continually set the operation on a new growth trajectory through innovative initiatives. Blackburn described a conversation with Tom Love in which he outlined his philosophy. “He told me that most businesses have a Bell Curve, reach that peak and then slowly decline,” Blackburn said. “The successful companies are those that hit that peak and right before they hit that peak they start a new trajectory. Tom said ‘that’s my goal, that’s what I wanted to do.’” Blackburn’s book recognizes several inflection points at which Tom Love launched a new trajectory for his business. The first was when he added food and grocery items to his service stations and then branded them as Love’s Country Stores. “Tom had this ability to develop his business plan that to me reaches a new trajectory first when he converts the little store in Guymon to a country store and said ‘well, instead of having this hodgepodge of filling stations, I need a brand,' Blackburn said. “By this time cash flow is up and he’s able to invest a little bit of money and he is able to hire a staff.
To me, that was a plateau.” In its Crossroads of Commerce gallery that traces the history of the Oklahoma business community, the Oklahoma History Center showcases a lighted replica of the sign that went up at the first Love’s Country Store location in Guymon. Tom Love also added a central staff of management and accountants in the mid 1970s that relieved his wife, Judy, of her bookkeeping duties for the corporation. By 1978, Love’s Country Stores had expanded to 60 locations across five states and had weathered the energy crisis brought on by the OPEC oil embargo of 1973-74. In 1981, Tom Love launched a new trajectory for his family-owned business that took it to an even higher plateau. It was called Love’s Travel Stops, which were mostly located along the nation’s Interstate highways. “He took the best of his Country Stores and put it on steroids,” Blackburn said. “So, instead of three gasoline islands, he does 10 islands. Instead of a store with 5,000 square feet, he does 12,000 square feet. It’s just bigger and bigger.” The expansion to more locations, some a thousand miles or more from Oklahoma City
presented new challenges, so experienced management was added to the corporation. And then Tom initiated another innovation that provided motivation for distant employees to do the best job possible at their particular location. It was a profit sharing plan called “Love Shares.” “Love Shares made all the difference in the world,” Blackburn said. “And that started a new trajectory in terms of Human Resources. Again, Tom is showing the ability to adapt on the run.” In the intervening years, new initiatives carried the company even higher. Pairing well known food franchises with Love’s Travel Stop locations, for one. Expanding into the hospitality business and operating hotels adjacent to Love’s locations is another. Then adding truck and tire repair shops. In 2010 Loves acquired 20 Pilot Travel Centers and six Flying J locations, and in 2017 it acquired a trucking service and inspection business called Speedco. “These initiatives add to streams of revenue, helps them with competition and attracts even more people,” Blackburn said. “Saying ‘we are going to grow even more’ never allows them to reach that peak and say ‘yeah, we’re there’ and then let that descent start.” Along the way, giving back to the communities in which it operates has been central to Love’s corporate culture. Love’s has supported the Children’s Miracle Network at the store level for two decades and encourages
each location to donate part of its budget to the nonprofit of its choice. Nationally, Love’s supports Teach for America, Operation Homefront and the Special Forces Charitable Trust, among many others. It also supports institutions of higher education such as the University of Oklahoma, Oklahoma State University, the University of Central Oklahoma, Oklahoma City University and Langston University. Love’s stepped up to assume the role of Signature Sponsor for the Love’s Cup competition in 2016. “The philanthropic tradition has always been there,” Blackburn said. Today, a second generation of the Love family has assumed leadership roles with the company. Tom and Judy Love’s sons, Greg and Frank, serve as co-Chief Executive Officers, while daughter Jenny Love Meyer serves as Vice President of Communications. “What amazes me is how well those three members of his family share management, because each has his or her own specialty,” Blackburn said. “Greg’s specialty is construction and real estate. Frank is the one on transportation, fuel trading and all related things. Then they have Jenny, who is what I call the keeper of the corporate culture as the communications person.” Although would-be partners made offers to Tom Love over the years, Love’s has remained a family-owned enterprise. Tom
sees that ‘family-owned’ status continuing far into the future. Blackburn quoted Tom on the subject in the final chapter of his book, which outlined an ambitious expansion plan the company launched in 2015. “I fully expect that Love’s will be family owned for as far out as I can imagine, because it works,” Tom said. Added Blackburn: “He wants it to remain family owned. I think he has seen with a partnership you have to compromise and he didn’t want to compromise. The minute you have a partner you are compromising.” Now 81 years old, Tom Love has built a legacy of entrepreneurship that evokes comparisons to other titans of business such as Walmart founder and Kingfisher native Sam Walton. “I think he’s going to provide a business model that other entrepreneurs can use,” Blackburn said. “I think we are going to look back on the Tom Loves of the world and the Sam Waltons and the C.R. Anthonys, as building for the long term and creating opportunity for others while impacting the community. I think that Tom has done that.”
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Oklahoma’s Home-Grown Solution i2E launches Plains Venture Partners growth fund as critical ‘third step’ capital source
by Scott Meacham, President and CEO, i2E, Inc.
I
n today’s world, a state’s economic future demands investment in innovation and high-growth industries — especially for a state like Oklahoma whose economy is dependent on depleting natural resources. As a state, our economic future is riding the collective decline curves of all oil and gas properties in the state at any given time plus whatever reserves remain to be produced. Therefore, we must leverage our existing resource base to diversify our economy for the future. It’s a straightforward proposition. If we believe that more and better jobs — opportunities with wages that are more than 70 percent higher than Oklahoma’s average — are desirable, required, and achievable, we need to double down on the things that we are doing well that create those jobs and step up our commitment in the areas where we are not as strong. So where is Oklahoma doing well, and where do we need to improve? Commercializing new technologies into businesses is a three-step process. First, there must be innovation, a unique solution to an existing problem in the marketplace. Then, that unique solution, which is now a product, must be tested for market acceptance in a process we call proof-of concept. Finally, once a company and its new product successfully navigate the proof-of-concept stage, the company must acquire the capital to scale so it can sell its product regionally, nationally and, sometimes, internationally. We refer to this last stage of commercialization as the scaling stage. We have challenges as a state at the beginning and end of the commercialization process but have a pretty well established, tested system in place for the middle (proofof-concept) stage. In a recent “Heartland Study,” published by the Brookings Institute and the Walton Family Foundation, Oklahoma is ranked fourth from the bottom in R&D spending among “heartland states.” The Governor’s Science & Technology Council’s OneOklahoma Strategic Plan for Science and Technology 2016 reports that Oklahoma ranks
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33rd in granted patents, 36th in R&D expenditures, and 48th overall, in spite of high scores in being pro-business. There are efforts under way at Oklahoma’s research universities to improve these statistics as they relate to university-based research in our state. Anecdotally, we can report at i2E that we are seeing more and higher quality new concepts than we have ever seen. Perhaps the tide is starting to change in Oklahoma on this critical first step to commercialization. Without innovation, there is nothing to commercialize. Compared to peer states, Oklahoma has top tier resources to validate concepts and provide funding and resources for proofof-concept stage opportunities. Our TBFP Concept Fund has made 142 awards ($12.22 million) to 126 companies, including companies like Selexys Pharmaceuticals, which was acquired by Novartis for up to $665 million, and Novazyme Pharmaceuticals (TBFP was the first investor), the source for a ground-breaking FDA-approved treatment for Pompe Disease. We have developed a highly successful Venture Assessment Program to test market acceptance of new concepts, gauge likely competitive responses and determine the initial path to market. This program has served 130 Oklahoma companies over the past 4-½ years. Through our partnership with OCAST (Oklahoma Center for Advancement of Science and Technology), Oklahoma has a seed stage venture capital fund known as the Oklahoma Seed Capital Fund with over $36.8 million under management to invest in helping Oklahoma startups advance from startup through proof of concept. In fact, this program has been such a success that we have created a new problem: what do we do with successful companies that make it through proof of concept and now need larger capital rounds than the Seed Capital Fund can deliver to scale regionally, nationally or internationally? When it comes to the third step of the commercialization process — scaling, Oklahoma falls well below our peers. Refer-
ring again to the Brookings/Walton Foundation “Heartland” study, only 5.2 percent of our nation’s venture capital is deployed in the “heartland” and half of that goes to Illinois. Low rates of venture capital, lead to low rates of scaling, which leads to low rates of innovation and venture capital. It is the venture capital “circle of life.” We have a pipeline of vetted research and validated proof-of-concept deals that are ready for the next, less risky stage of capital so they can scale. After tirelessly working to attract out-state-capital to Oklahoma to invest in these growing companies, i2E has decided to take matters into its own hands and find a home-grown solution. After all, we would all rather scale Oklahoma-grown startups here rather than export them to some other state. To help solve the problem, i2E has launched Plains Venture Partners I, a new growth equity fund designed to help scale companies that have proven their concept in the marketplace and need capital to grow their proven business model. With this fund in place, we will be able to take Oklahoma companies that have received TBFP funds to build out their product or obtain initial market validation, graduate them to the Oklahoma Seed Capital Fund which helps them launch their business and prove their concept in the market and then scale their validated business with Plains Venture Partners I. This will allow these companies with their high paying jobs and advanced products to remain in Oklahoma and help be part of the building blocks for Oklahoma’s economy of the future. As Will Rogers might say if he were here, i2E has gotten off the tracks and onto the train. I for one think this train is leading to a very bright future for Oklahoma.
TO OKLAHOMA’S YOUNG INNOVATORS
BancFirst is proud to sponsor the Small Business Interview competition. We celebrate the entrepreneurial spirit shown by the brightest minds that will guide Oklahoma’s future forward.
Darryl Schmidt, CEO BancFirst, is pictured presenting the winning team trophies from the 2018-2019 competition.
W W W. B A N C F I R S T. B A N K
FORTUNATE FUTURE
Tailwind, Selexys and Oseberg are just a handful of homegrown Oklahoma City startups who are making national headlines. No matter if it is tech, bioscience, aviation, energy or everything in between, the entrepreneurial climate here is breeding big success. We want to help ensure startup success for you in OKC. Whether you are trying to raise capital, are interested in potential incentive offerings or our entrepreneurship resources, let us be your gateway to OKC’s burgeoning startup scene.
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