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Entrepreneur Stories 4⃣ Inspiration

080: Growing a Kickball League Nationwide with Johnny LeHane of ClubWAKA

Entrepreneur Stories 4⃣ Inspiration

Millionaire Interviews Podcast & Sir Austin Peek

Careers, Business:careers, Business

4.7 β€’ 2K Ratings

πŸ—“οΈ 1 January 2021

⏱️ 59 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Johnny LeHane is the Co-Founder of ClubWAKA - Kickball & Social Sports, which has made the Inc 5000 for 3 consecutive years. He is also the managing member and lead investor in the Hudson Valley Startup Fund, a $1 million member managed seed capital (angel investment) fund for high growth startups in the Hudson Valley, launched in 2015. Want to Support the Show? Well join our Patreon Group! What's in it for you? Here's just a few of the perks of joining: (1) Instantly Schedule a Call with Austin - where he'll help you with your current or future business... (2) Discounted Pricing for Our Business Masterminds - where you can connect with other listeners... (3) Get Listed in Our Business Directory - for valuable SEO Juice... & so much more... Before Prices Increase... Sign-Up Now at millionaire-interviews.com/patreon. πŸ˜€πŸ˜ŽπŸ˜ *** For Show Notes, Key Points, Contact Info, Resources Mentioned, & the Fabulous 4 Questions on this episode visit our website: Johnny LeHane Interview. *** Support this Podcast via Patreon

Transcript

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0:00.0

We compete with Tinder.

0:02.0

You know, that sort of lays it out right there.

0:05.0

Ba la la, ba la la, ba la la, ba la la, ba la la.

0:10.0

We had to give business in California already, and if you can do business in California, you can do business anywhere.

0:33.0

But one thing that I hadn't heard about that you say that you'd like to lie was,

0:40.0

Yeah, yeah, can you tell us about that?

0:42.0

You said you weren't even affiliated with it or anything, but I just finished him.

0:45.0

Right, no, I'm not, and it's one of those things I don't even like to share because it's really a competitive advantage.

0:51.0

All right, well, my name is Johnny Lehan. I live in Rheinbeck, New York in beautiful Hudson Valley, which is between New York City and Albany for those of you not familiar with the area.

1:02.0

And I'm one of the three owners of Club Waka, which is a nationwide sport and social club for adults 21 and up.

1:09.0

My day to day role at Club Waka is the director of sales and operations as well as one of the three board members or owners that helps drive strategy as well as execution in the sales and operations role.

1:21.0

In addition to that, I also do have a few other endeavors that I'm involved in a Modest Angel Investment Fund and the recent preparation to launch a collaborative co working space, a lot of co's named co.

1:35.0

But that is me and a nutshell. And did you grew up wanting to be like a kickball captain, so you wanted to start your own legal? How'd that happen?

1:44.0

Yeah, great question. And no, I grew up wanting to be a copycat kid to my electrical engineering dad who worked at IBM for 38 years.

1:53.0

I'd geeked out on computers and PCs from a young age when I wanted video games, which I don't even think we called them them yet. My dad threw a coding book at me and told me to type in the code in there.

2:06.0

So I went to school to get a degree in electrical engineering. And I think though I never thought of myself as an entrepreneur, the word was not in my lexicon.

2:15.0

I always thought I wanted to do something home automation. It was mid 80s, early 90s, and some of that was just starting and that sounded neat.

2:23.0

And so I think that was in the back of my mind as I was going to get my degree in electrical engineering.

2:27.0

But I ended up in Washington, DC to get that degree at Catholic University of America. And I stayed there after school, popped around a couple jobs, small software startups, ended up at America online, AOL, which has come and gone as a giant of the internet.

2:43.0

But while I was there, I met a guy who had a similar mind as I do for partying and traveling and hanging out in bars or as I did.

2:54.0

He had gone to UVA and a few of his friends were also in the DC area. And together we were at a bar as we were prone to do after work or late at night.

3:05.0

And we're sort of wondering what else we could do and what's a good excuse to be in a bar on a Thursday night or a Monday night. And somebody mentioned kickball.

...

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