(bright music) - [Announcer] This program was made possible by contributions to your PBS station from viewers like you.

Thank you.

- [Narrator] "It's Your Business With Michael Aikens" is brought to you by WCTE PBS and the Tennessee Tech Center for Rural Innovation with funding provided by the Rural Reimagined Grand Challenge and the Tennessee Rural Development Fund.

- Welcome to another incredible episode of "It's Your Business" where our goal is to help anyone who has that entrepreneurial spirit find the resources and advice that will aid them in their decision to start their own business or better manage the business they already have.

We will equip you with the necessary tools and bring your ideas to life and to venture into the world of owning your own business.

And what better way than to learn from the brave men and women who have already set out on that journey themselves?

Join us as we hear their stories and learn from their successes and failures to help make your transition into entrepreneurship a bit less rocky.

(upbeat music) If you have several acres of land and a passion for music, then what better way to combine those assets than to start your own music festival?

And that's exactly what came to the mind of Dustin Kennedy when he looked out across the fields of his family farm in North Springs, Tennessee.

He not only envisioned the possibilities, he brought the vision to life by launching the North Springs Music Festival and now has music fans from all over venturing to Dustin's little piece of musical paradise right here in the Upper Cumberland.

(bright music) We're here in Whitleyville in Jackson County, Tennessee, talking with Dustin Kennedy, promoter of the North Springs Music Festival.

Dustin, welcome to the show.

- Hey Michael, thanks for having me.

Excited to be on to talk about the festival today.

- So let's talk about the festival.

What is North Springs?

- Well, North Springs is just kind of the middle of nowhere, right?

We are halfway between Gainesville Red Boiling Springs is where I grew up, my family farm.

We've lived here on this farm since 1883.

So a lot of tradition, a lot of history here.

It means a lot to me, obviously.

And so you just wanna do something for our community.

And working on year four this year and kind of took off finally after a few years of hard work.

- [Michael] Your family has been on this farm since 1883?

- Yeah, so it's my grandpa Barry Kennedy, it's his grandpa's farm.

So his grandpa's, you know, bought the land in 1883.

My grandpa's bought some adjoining pieces of land around it, and I was born in '83.

My grandpa lived here, my dad lived here.

I was living in Cookville for about 11 years.

I just kept telling my dad, I was like, Man, I'm trying to get home, trying to get home."

I know he's like, "Why do you wanna come home?

You live eight minutes from work," but it's just something to be said.

I'm just old fashioned, I'm old school man, you know?

it's just this place.

You see my Ranger out there.

I get on my Polaris Ranger and I go up here to woods, back behind this house and get lost.

You know, nobody, I'm actually upset I have cell phone service back there, but I don't know, it's just to live on the land that every Kennedy before me lived on and make sure my kids do as well.

- So you've been doing a music festival for four years.

Walk us through what is the music festival?

What kind of music do you attract here?

- So I'm a big fan of traditional country music and when people think the way that country music has turned on the radio and everything, and not a lot of traditional country exists and people would be hung up on either traditional country saying, "I still listen to all the old guys," or it's just, it's dead, you know?

And there's a whole market of guys that if you dig enough that you can find Americana, southern rock, blended into country, traditional country music.

And I just wanted to be able to connect with some of those guys, bring those guys here and just show people, "Hey, there is plenty of good up and coming Americana, traditional country music still out there.

You just gotta dig for it."

- So you bring these traditional country acts out here to Whitleyville.

So tell us, what kind of a concert is this?

- Well, it's in my hayfield, us people that grew up here, Jackson County, Clay County.

We grew up going to parties in hayfields, bonfires, and things like that.

So it's kind of a grown up version of that a little bit.

You know, I let people bring in their own camping chairs, bring in their coolers.

We cut hay the last week of September, first week of October.

Bring a big stage in, have a big time.

It lasts about eight or nine hours usually.

- So what does it really take to put on a festival?

You said this last, eight or nine hours, I'm willing to bet there's a lot of planning that goes into it.

Walk us through that.

- So this year we ended on October 14th.

So we started on October 16th planning for next year.

You know, sending out emails, talking to booking managers, talking to agents, just trying to line up musicians themselves, "Hey, is there interest?"

And with each growing year, there's musicians reaching out to me now.

The buzz has grown a little bit, so my wife's like, "I just can't wait till it's over so I can have you back for a week."

But it's nonstop.

- Well, it sounds like a labor of love really.

- Well, I'm not getting rich on it or anything like that.

So yeah, I do love it.

I grew up on music.

My dad's a big music lover.

My mom was a big music lover, so it's just something to do, this is such a small community.

I'm just trying to do my part on bringing something to Jackson County to entertain people.

- So let's talk about that for a little bit.

You know, you're bringing economic benefit to Jackson County, you're bringing outsiders in.

How does that make you really feel to be able to do that for your hometown?

- Yeah, it's really cool.

And the first couple years, we had growing pains, there's just 100, 200 people out there and it's all locals.

You know, last year it grew a little bit in 2022, and this year I think we expanded to like maybe 14 states.

People from Maryland.

There was a whole, the Florida Drive, they called themselves.

People from 10, 11 hours away in Florida made the drive up and camped in the field.

And you know, like I said, from a economic standpoint, I know Barry from The Bull & Thistle, he gave me a big hug 'cause like we had a pre-party at the Roaring River Distillery, a Moonshine Distillery the night before.

So I really pumped that in and it was like, "Hey, go to The Stolen Coin, go to The Pipe (indistinct), go to The Bull & Thistle Pub, go to Helen's, go to Giovanni's, buy the moonshine."

So Barry come up and he's like, "There's like 15 tables here that's going to your party or your festival."

So just be able to do that, just help out where I can.

- So you're bringing in people from all over multiple states, I think you said 14 states.

As a marketing person, I'm really interested, how do you get the word out to that many people?

- So this year, basically the acts got bigger.

You know, the names on on the bill were a little bit bigger.

Still not household names to some people, but people do know 'em across the country.

So I would go to the artist Facebook, like fan pages, just post the link, post the poster, word of mouth that you grew.

And next thing you know, Alabama, Georgia, Kentucky, Indiana, Illinois, Ohio, something about that community of music.

Like people knew each other.

Like people will get together in South Carolina and go see a show in Alabama.

So there was a lot of people linking up, they've been to other shows together, all year festivals.

- So you're a family man, you've got a wife, you've got kids, you've got a full-time job.

How are you making this balance?

You know, you said your wife is looking forward to having you back for at least a week.

But, you know, seriously, how do you manage the stress day to day with this?

- I don't know, it's just, I enjoy it, I enjoy it.

You gotta have a hobby of some sort.

But yeah, I make sure work is work.

Then I come home and spend time with the family.

So I'm usually out here and this is my man cave, this is my little home away from home right in my backyard.

And there's a lot of late nights out here sending emails and getting on my TV, searching for musicians, whatever, you know, I don't know, it's just, I don't sleep a lot.

- I completely understand that as a busy man myself, sleep is sometimes a little bit elusive, but when we find something that we really enjoy and we love doing, it's all worth it, right?

- Yeah, I mean, like, like I said, the biggest thing is make sure my work, my actual real job is put number one 'cause you don't want that to be a blurred line, right?

And then you've gotta spend time, especially with having young children.

I've got, well, I've got a senior in high school, then my two youngest ones are four and seven.

So just the balance.

But everybody goes to bed here early.

They're not night owls like their daddy.

I'm just out here putting together his notebooks.

There's scrap pieces of notebooks everywhere, just notes that I write.

So trying to keep up with everything.

- Well, you talk about work ethic, a lot of late nights.

Where do you think this drive comes from?

- Yeah, I think it is just a passion and love for it.

I mean, there's just something, just seeing people come together like I've said on other interviews, we don't always agree on religion, politics, sports teams, but music brings people together so strongly and just to see how people acted down here with people that don't even know each other, that's got their arms around each other, singing a song, singing a Cole Cheney song, Cody Canada song.

It's a beautiful thing.

It's a beautiful thing to see people come together 'cause this world's went crazy.

- It has.

- I've, you know, knock on wood, four years, there's never been one argument here.

Everything's just peaceful, calm.

It's a good atmosphere, man.

- Well that's really great to hear.

So let's look to the future.

Do you wanna keep doing this?

What are your future plans?

- Well, I've been kicking around the idea.

So this year was the first two nights, like I said, we did through Roaring River Moonshine Distillery, had 110 people there because it's a limited space venue, right?

So like kicking around the idea, do I go two nights in the farm 'cause we've got the 25-acre hay field and more artists are wanting to come and that is where I'm looking.

Just try to take it two nights and make it even bigger.

Let's get 20 states here this year.

- Well, so last question for you.

You know, a lot of people watching this show may be thinking about starting their own business, but they just haven't crossed that fence yet.

What advice would you give to them?

- Yeah, I would just do it 'cause you're not getting any younger and tomorrow's not promised, and I've not even fully went in, like I said, still with a full-time job and just managing that.

But I would just go into shows and I started seeing these little house parties and then like, we were sitting on our cooler in like a common room.

And I said, "Well, I can do that."

So the first show was at the Jackson County Fairgrounds.

We did four shows there.

And then we started the festival during COVID when everybody was just ready to get outta the house, do something.

Then we started putting some bigger shows together.

Chris Knight, Dina Carter, just had Dina Carter a couple weeks ago.

I feel like you put everything into it, people are gonna give it back and people here know how much I care about it.

So the locals have been very, very good to me.

I mean, so many people have seen my passion for it.

And they love music as well.

They see I'm trying to do something different, do something kind of cool.

And I don't know, it's been really cool now seeing the people coming from out of state, that makes me, was like, okay, we're onto something here.

Let's keep on going.

- Well Dustin, thank you so much for being on the show.

This has been a great conversation.

- Oh yeah, I appreciate your time and this has been really fun.

(bright music) - It's no secret that we create a lot of waste in our day-to-day lives.

And that waste has to go somewhere.

But instead of just being satisfied with filling landfills, Kelly Warbis of Ekamor saw the potential for much more.

He, along with others, realized that all of that waste could be turned into something helpful through the process of turning typical household garbage into fuel.

He now has a plant right here in the Upper Cumberland that is helping to alleviate tons of garbage being dumped into our landfills on a daily basis.

(bright music) We're here in Cookeville, Tennessee at Ekamor, talking to their CEO Kelly Warbis, Kelly, welcome to the show.

- Thank you for having me.

- [Michael] So first of all, we're in a very busy facility here.

Tell me, what do you all do here?

- So we take garbage and other difficult feedstocks, and we have a non-thermal process to dry them to make it possible for other people to use them in place of coal and fossil fuels in their facilities.

- [Michael] Well, we can hear in the background, there's a lot of things going on.

Tell me about the process.

How do you all do this?

- Well, what we're hearing right now is our pulverizing mill where the material goes in, it's conveyed in, and then it's pulverized.

It looks like a fluff material when it comes out, wet going in, fluffy and dry coming out.

We introduce air to it.

Whatever God gives us during the day, in Tennessee, it's hard to get a real dry day and warm at the same time.

So it's made a great place for us to do the testing here because the weather is ever changing as you well know.

And landfills are the third largest emitter of methane, methane's a greenhouse gas.

It eventually turns to carbon dioxide and the biogenic material, the food waste, things of that nature are really the issue with landfills.

So if we can get that material below 15%, that biological activity stops.

The methane production stops.

And so our belief is that if we can get that garbage and use it instead of just throwing it in the landfill, that we're cleaning up, we're helping do our part in the greenhouse gas world, and it's easier to get it before it starts than try to clean up the mess after you've already got it.

And that's kind of our thesis.

- So let's dig down a little bit further.

So you're literally taking garbage trash that would've otherwise gone into a landfill.

You're working your process and then you're turning it into something that your customers can turn into fuel.

What kind of fuel, what would this power, how do they use it?

- So after the garbage is dry, it has about the same BTU value as Powder River Basin coal in Wyoming.

So roughly about 15 million BTU per ton.

It just has a lot less the greenhouse gases.

So we check off the box for recycling, we take the metals out, we pull off the easy to get material like water bottles, everything that you drink and everything that's in your refrigerator or anything that's under your kitchen cabinet.

Those bottles are easy to get and they're the highest value right now.

So we pull those materials out by removing the moisture that's in the material.

It takes about two ton of garbage to make one ton of our fuel and one ton of garbage produces about 1.7 tons of CO2 equivalent with the methane going in the air if it's in the landfill.

And so our fuel not only has a BTU value, but it is negative CO2.

So when we go to the people that want to use our fuel, whether it's somebody that's wanting to make sustainable aviation fuel, they're starting with a green fuel and in their process they'll put carbon into the atmosphere.

But by starting with a fuel that's negative CO2, they can have a carbon neutral or carbon negative facility.

And that's the part that's good for everybody.

- So you've got the idea, you see the problem, how do you actually go from California to Tennessee and start this facility?

- Well, it was a long road.

I was naive enough to think there was a box that already did this and there isn't.

And so we started a search, anybody that we would talk to, "Hey, do you have a system that'll dry garbage?"

And most people said, "Yeah, we can dry it."

And when we get got there, they really couldn't.

We stumbled onto a system that was used for grinding asphalt shingles, of all things, for some reason they had run garbage through their system at one point in time and they still had a super sack of it over in the corner that was three or four years old and it didn't stink.

It was dry, it was kind of what I was looking for.

And so I talked them into leasing me their facility for a week just to run garbage.

And you know, that was in 2016 and it was a matter of just putting the people together and seeing what the market was, studying the market, understanding the waste industry was a huge component of that because if we can dry garbage, how do we go get garbage?

You know, where is it?

I mean, it's at everybody's house every day, but the garbage companies get it before I do.

So how do we do that?

So there's been a lot of time and research and money spent to do that.

As far as Tennessee goes, I've been in California for 23 years.

I had enough of Southern California living, though it's fun and it's a great place to start a business, if you can't make money there, you can't make money anywhere.

But I was looking for a reason to get out.

I met a person from here in Cookeville and he's part of our company today.

And the county wanted to do a waste audit to see what was in their garbage, to try to start putting some things together there.

They were interested in it.

Cookeville looked like a good place, good homey place to live.

And you know, so here we are, five years later we're here.

This is home.

- So you're doing this right here in Cookeville, rural America, Upper Cumberland, middle Tennessee.

Why is it so important for you to create these jobs to really help us with our waste?

Talk to me about that.

- Well, I grew up in a small Midwestern town.

There was only 19 kids in my graduating class and you know, coming into Cookeville is similar to that.

Cookeville is a lot bigger than where I grew up.

You know, coming to Cookeville is an opportunity for us to find the people that have the work ethic in not knowing every day what's happening, we've gotta have people that are here for the long haul.

It's tough to get people that'll stick with you in the big metropolitan areas.

And we really want to do something good for Cookeville.

- Well, you know, you also said something there, you said not knowing, and that's such a big part of running a small business.

You just don't know a lot of times.

How do you deal with that stress?

And more importantly, what advice would you give to other small business owners?

- Well, if you don't like sleepless nights, you don't wanna be doing this.

So as an executive manager in a company is that you've gotta be able to be flexible.

You know, our focus on what we want to do as a company when we have a lot of people is still have that mobility of a small entrepreneurial type of business.

And that's kinda our approach to it.

- So going back to you as a CEO, you're at the helm here, you're leading.

Tell me a little bit about how would you describe your leadership style?

- You know, I lead by example.

I'm not an engineer by trade, but what we're doing is in the engineering world, one of the things that I've lived by for a long time is if I can't learn something today, there's no reason to get out of bed.

And I try to hire the people that have that same mentality.

- What does the future hold for Ekamor?

- Well, I think right now, I would say if you roll the clock ahead a year or so, we will be in a couple municipalities, as many people as we've had come through our door lately, we've got proposals out and it's just a matter of us being in one or two of those places and then the genie's out of the bottle as far as these people all talk together, we'll have systems out.

We're hiring right now.

We just finished a round of financing, another funding round, and we're gonna start hiring some engineers.

We put a business development person in place and start doing all the support for that.

So that's where we're going.

- Well Kelly, this has been an incredible interview.

How cool is all this stuff?

I really appreciate you being on the show.

- Well, I appreciate you all being here and helping us get the word out.

(bright music) (upbeat music) - Hi, I am Jeff Brown, President and CEO of The Biz Foundry, the regional entrepreneur center for the Upper Cumberland area in Tennessee.

The Biz Foundry is really a non-profit started by entrepreneurs, led by entrepreneurs to help people start and grow a business.

From an experience standpoint, how do we help you solve all the problems?

You don't really learn entrepreneurship any other way than to start doing it and get mentors, coaches, people that have been there before and help you work through issues.

We do what we do to try to build a regional economic development ecosystem for entrepreneurs.

So entrepreneurship is a major leg of economic development in any area of the United States or the world.

And so how do we build a system that helps serve those people that are working on an idea, trying to launch a business that can build companies that provide jobs, grow wealth in the area, and really help our area thrive economically.

One of the things a lot of people don't understand is starting a company from scratch is very different from building projects for large companies.

So working for a large company, you have almost unlimited resources at your disposal and when you're starting out, you and your best friend in the basement, a lot of things have to be done.

So we help you figure that process out.

We're part of the Launch Tennessee Entrepreneur Center Network, which is kind of interesting compared to most states.

Launch working along in partnership with the Tennessee Department of Economic Development, there are eight entrepreneur centers across the state.

So this network, we're all connected.

So while we may operate a certain way in the Upper Cumberland, we also have access to the other seven entrepreneur centers to get you the help you need if we don't have the expertise or whatever it may be that you need for your business or your idea.

We have locations in Cookeville, McMinnville, and Sparta.

We also do coworking at all three locations.

So we do coworking to help place for entrepreneurs to get started when they need an office or at least a spot to work out of.

Also do a lot of remote workers there because in building this ecosystem we need more tech workers here, which are generally remote workers and then they can become a part of helping you with your next startup.

And so we really cover the entire region.

If doesn't mean that if we don't have a location there, we won't help you.

We'll come to you, you come to us, we'll make it work for you.

You know, a lot of people, this is a scary process.

So again, we're very entrepreneurial friendly and we do a lot of counseling and then try to lead you down the trail of does your idea have legs?

Is it something people will buy?

All those kind of things before we jump into the nuts and bolts of formally forming a business, we call it customer discovery.

And we're really gonna work a lot with you on that.

Businesses normally don't go out of business because they run out of money.

Well that may be what happens, but they run out of money because they never get enough customers to break even.

So we really work in that phase.

We're kind of the two bookends.

We do a lot of work with you upfront to flesh the idea out so you know how much money you need to raise or borrow or whatever that may be.

Then kind of on the other end is the higher growth businesses that you have some technology, some intellectual property, whatever that may be.

So how do we help you get set up?

And then on that other end is how do we help you raise investment, larger loans, all those kind of things that it may take to get you up and going or certainly growing.

And so really big part of what we do is working on how do you access capital in the region.

So we spend a lot of time working on that.

Not only our educational type programs, but a lot on how do we build the capital stack in the region that you don't see in most rural areas compared to a bigger city.

Just go to the website, there's a process there.

We do an intake meeting, which is very informal.

We just meet with you, get to know you a little bit, tell you about us, make sure you're comfortable and then kind of try to get some idea of your idea, what help you think you need.

And then of course we do a little pow-wow on what do we think we could bring to the table that help you, be it training, programs, introductions.

Can we introduce you to a customer, a mentor, a coach that can help you move along and try to make the journey easier.

(upbeat music) - Thank you so much for joining us and we hope that you've learned that entrepreneurship doesn't have to be a scary venture when you have the necessary resources for success at your fingertips.

If you would like more information on today's topics, please visit the WCTE website, and to learn more about free small business resources and expert assistance, visit the Business Resource Collective website.

Until next time, I'm Michael Aikens.

(upbeat music) (light happy music) - [Narrator] "It's Your Business with Michael Aikens" is brought to you by WCTE PBS and the Tennessee Tech Center for Rural Innovation with funding provided by the Rural Reimagined Grand Challenge and the Tennessee Rural Development Fund.

(light music) - [Announcer] This program was made possible by contributions to your PBS station from viewers like you.

Thank you.