Build In Norfolk
Welcome to Build in Norfolk! I’m Emma Bennett, Growth Manager at Invest Nebraska and Intersect Coworking and Incubator. This podcast is all about highlighting the builders, creators, and innovators shaping the future of Northeast Nebraska. Whether you’re a startup founder, small business owner, or just someone interested in the growing entrepreneurial ecosystem here, this podcast is for you.
Build In Norfolk
The Relaunch and XPM Story
Hunter Bergman, founder of XPM (Experience Marketing) and producer of Build in Norfolk, shares his entrepreneurial journey from small-town Nebraska to leading a growing marketing agency. His path demonstrates how community spaces and mentorship can nurture startup success in Northeast Nebraska's evolving entrepreneurial ecosystem.
• Started entrepreneurial ventures early, influenced by his mother's side hustles
• Developed passion for media and storytelling through student newspaper at Northeast Community College
• Founded XPM to help medium-sized companies "level up their marketing" with comprehensive team services
• Grew from two people to seven team members in just three years
• Credits mentorship and community at Intersect Coworking for business growth and personal development
• Found crucial support through 1 Million Cups weekly meetings for visionary thinking and networking
• Learned the importance of understanding personal strengths and setting boundaries for sustainable growth
• Uses tools like Clifton Strengths Assessment to better manage teams and delegate responsibilities
• Is developing a side project called "Hi-AI" to help small businesses leverage artificial intelligence
Hunter and XPM help produce the Build in Norfolk Podcast, which is officially relaunching for season 2 with this episode. From 1MC to more events at Intersect, Emma and Hunter plan to grow their audience and extend conversations from the space to the digital realm with this podcast.
Welcome to Build in Norfolk. I'm Emma Bennett, growth Manager at Invest Nebraska and Intersect Coworking and Incubator. This podcast is all about highlighting the builders, creators and innovators shaping the future of Northeast Nebraska. Whether you're a startup founder, a small business owner or just someone interested in the growing entrepreneurial ecosystem here, this podcast is for you. Today, we're kicking things off with a special episode. It's our official relaunch. I'm joined by someone who's played a big role behind the scenes Hunter Bergman, founder of XPM and producer of Build in Norfolk. Hunter, welcome to the podcast.
Hunter Bergman:I'm super excited to get back off and going. This is honestly the set and vision that I've been striving for, you know, for the last episode, and now it's finally here to kind of relaunch it in a Norfolk fashion.
Emma Bennett:Yeah, only took us a couple of years, but we got it Awesome. So let's maybe start with a little bit of an intro. Tell us about yourself, xpm and podcasts here in Norfolk.
Hunter Bergman:Yeah, hopefully you've listened to the other podcasts and you've been jamming for a little bit with us, but I'm Hunter Bergman. I live in Norfolk, nebraska, right now and I'm the president and founder of XPM. Xpm stands for Experience Marketing and we focus on helping medium-sized companies level up their marketing. So we really just provide a marketing team service to make their life easier, get things done, planned out and executed on time. So that's my full-time gig. In my part-time. I love storytelling, media and those types of things, so I'm super excited to help produce the show and bring it back to life from where it was to continue to tell those stories of people who are building in Norfolk.
Emma Bennett:Nice, you kind of talked a little bit, but what really inspired you to start XPM? When did you start? How did that come about?
Hunter Bergman:That's a whole rabbit hole in itself. You know, I think any good entrepreneur would tell you like they just kind of fell into business and ever since, like a young age at a young age, I really was like I want to build a company. So I'm not sure what that looks like, I don't really know. You know, I was just listening to a lot of podcasts and like I was in my basement, my mom heavily influenced me. She is an entrepreneur herself and I just remember her buying like hastings was going out of business and you know, she's just natural, she sees opportunity and she bought like all the cds and dvds and so, like a whole like year, we just had like this rack of dvds and cds that she was like selling on the internet. I don't know if it like broke even or not, but that was like what I grew up with. And so I my mom bought like this drop shipping course. She was like, oh, I want to sell stuff on eBay.
Hunter Bergman:So I got into that, did that, started building websites at like a young age, and then I was like time to go to college and I was like I don't really know what I want to do. You know, I really wanted to go to like Berkeley, and I was like I don't think that's going to Northeast. Honestly, I convinced myself that I could just take free online courses. Not the case. I'm a very kind of person, so I need that structure for growth. I went to Northeast my first semester. I took entrepreneurship as a class. I was like, okay, school's for me, dove, head in over, heels, heels over, I don't know yeah.
Emma Bennett:Head over heels. Yeah, you got it.
Hunter Bergman:Head over heels into the academics and I played soccer. My first semester got super involved on campus. What really ignited my love for media and storytelling, and then transitioned to XPM, was the student newspaper it's called the Viewpoint. At the time and I really wanted to be Joe Rogan and like travel around in my van and like tell that story of people who are in the world and those types of things. And my friend I put it started with he said yo, you got to come meet Nancy. And I was like, all right, I'll come meet Nancy.
Hunter Bergman:Nancy was like my one of my first mentors and she, uh, she was like let's get you a podcast. So she hooked me up with all the equipment, um, and she taught me how to do it, how to do the introduction, set it up, structure it and really just gave me the tools and resources to be successful. You know she gave me the guidance but also like equipment and you know, just also the knowledge from her experience I'll never forget. My first podcast was to highlight the diversity on campus. Everybody thinks of Northeast as like an ag campus. It's like, bro, there's people from like Brazil here that I played soccer with. So my goal was just interview those guys, guys and gals, and one of the first interviews we were talking and she was listening in and she goes I'm not going to interrupt, you guys just go. And then if I say something, I'll say it.
Hunter Bergman:And my friends were talking about in Rio when they bulldozed all these housing complexes down to build the world cup place and I just like skimmed right over that to the next question. He goes hold on place. And I just like skimmed right over that to the next question. He goes hold on. Let's go deeper into that. And so that was my first taste of like storytelling and and using like podcasts media to communicate, you know things across the internet. I was also the digital ad manager, so I managed their ads that we sold on the website. I got my experience with WordPress. As much as I want to love that, Love that or not?
Hunter Bergman:Yeah, and then and then, uh, wade Hurley was like a. Dr Wade Hurley was a big mentor. Along with my FBLA um crew, they really I did a couple of different like community service projects. We competed at nationals with a couple of different like social media, community service things and really those experiences really pointed me in the right direction to say, oh, I love media, I love storytelling, I love storytelling, I'm good at some of these things and I'm good at like yo, can you help me with this? Come over here and help me with this? And so I realized what kind of founder I was.
Hunter Bergman:I'm kind of the conductor and Dr Wade Hurley was like you know, you got to go to a, you have to go to a university and just like round out your time there, like I out your time there, like I think you'll just be way more polished.
Hunter Bergman:On the other side, and I was like, yeah, let's, let's do it. So I went to UNL and got super involved in marketing major minor in entrepreneurship and then just found a startups you know, which was like a student community dedicated to helping people like build and um grow. You know the ideas and obviously entrepreneurs are one of those people that that they want to build something and you know, not everybody is going to go from start to finish on ideas. But just being in an area where people will talk about ideas and you know we'll try to take the first step was a blast, and I was surrounded by some really great people there and I started to really develop my skills as a leader, as like the president of that organization, and how to like lead this team to be able to like you know, do stuff Right.
Emma Bennett:So a little bit in there anecdotally, you kind of talk about you volunteered for things, you led for things like signed up to be a leader. How has that helped shape? Or was that kind of just an organic hey, I'm comfortable in this position, or was it outside of your comfort zone and is that how you're able to lead a team now as a founder?
Hunter Bergman:No, and that was kind of a long-winded way to say like all these experiences helped me build XPM. And like the world was like you know, we want video, we want media, we want social media and the way that marketing has kind of evolved is those directions like content. And so to your question about leadership that was a big thing that I like learned in college. I think leadership is earned, not learned, and so really it's trial by far.
Hunter Bergman:I made some pretty tough decisions and like learned from those things and then after I graduated I was like wow, I don't have this team anymore. But then I started like building with. You know, anna Fiala is my co-founder and we started building together and it was like just restarted the whole cycle of like build the team, meet on Wednesday mornings and just keep kind of like chugging away at it. So that's kind of the birth of XPM was just really doing side hustle projects to get myself through school and then also just being super involved to understand what are my strengths and weaknesses, where do I play best at on a team and how do I continue to see opportunity from the world and meet that opportunity. And you, you know, leadership was a really important part of like where we've been able to build the team today and manage that to be able to continue to like grow. You know people are hard to manage hanging out behind the camera.
Emma Bennett:So that's, that's awesome. Before we go any further, too, I want to maybe peek a little behind the curtain of you. Where are you from? Did you grow up? Small town, nebraska. How has that worked? How does that play into? You know, this big, ambiguous startup founder? I mean everyone thinks I have to go to San Francisco or the coast or Boston to really be in a startup ecosystem. How has that been being in a small town, nebraska?
Hunter Bergman:I really wanted to go to UC Berkeley, that was like up there, but I just did not have the springboard to be able to get there. But I did grow up in Neely, nebraska. For the remainder of my college or my high school career, so junior senior year, I was in Neely. Before that I lived in Stanton but graduated again. You know rural system not really any great. You know resources to be able to like.
Hunter Bergman:I was also like, oh, just a wild, it was like a tornado. I was like I just want to build stuff, I want to break stuff, you know, and so, you know, with working with me I move at like a kind of a weird pace. So, being from the Midwest, it was definitely, or like the rural community. It was tough because I always suffered from like that imposter syndrome. But as I started to find and be in circles, you know, at Northeast, I found people that were like me. And then at Lincoln I found like 10 X people that were like me, that were just, you know, uh, iron, sharpens, iron. So I was around these people that were smarter than me, better than me and really inspired me to continue to push in those directions. So, um, I think finding those communities is what really helped me continue to like become the founder that I am today, and I'm still not like where we want it.
Emma Bennett:I'm still 26. I got a lot of life left. Yeah, Plenty of time. I mean I have heard Northeast is basically the UC Berkeley of the Midwest, but yeah, Northeast checks that box.
Hunter Bergman:Yeah.
Emma Bennett:Uh, I mean, it's, it is great and it's cool. I think it's important for people to hear we talked to founders who it's either a second career or they didn't go to college. They don't have some of that background. So I think it is important for people to know like you can put it together. It doesn't have to be a completely linear path. So to build on that a bit, not to get too punny, but building a business, especially in smaller markets, can be challenging. So what are some of the biggest hurdles you faced early on with XPM being where you're at? How you've really overcome those? Like what are those challenges that you remember or experience?
Hunter Bergman:You know, my only real job I've ever had was selling shoes at Trade Home Shoes, and then also I was like the assistant manager of Hibbets, which literally was just a transition down the hallway. But that really taught me a lot of sales skills and fundamentally, how do I sell something. And I think that, you know, growing up and doing the experience that I did, some of the challenges that I did face was like the community side of it. You know, that's why I love Intersect and One Million Cups.
Hunter Bergman:And then when I transferred to UNL back in the day or you know, a few years ago, being surrounded by those young founders that really wanted to like build stuff but also getting connected with mentors, you know, I think the challenges that I have faced is just my inexperience. You know I've never really had a real job or nobody's taught me how to do these things. So I've just for the last 10 years just been throwing stuff at the wall and figuring out, oh, this worked, let's do more of that, let's not do some of this. Sometimes I still bang my head on some things and I'm like, okay, well, maybe I should know by now not to do that, but then I would be, I'm able to reach out to these mentors.
Hunter Bergman:You know, you yourself being a marketer and you know, professional, we've definitely had great conversations and then, as well as our community here, just having those mentors that are willing to, you know, reach out and say hey, like you know, one quote is you can learn through pain or wisdom, and recently I've just been trying to seek out more wisdom because those people are out there willing to sit down and have coffee and, you know, help you get to the next point and maybe circumvent some pain. I think some of that you have to learn on your own, but I think, you know, just as a young founder, that's probably what I struggle with the most is just, this is my first rodeo, um, and we're just trying to figure it out as I go and work with great people and, um, you know, leverage the mentor network that I have.
Emma Bennett:Yeah, definitely, I've going back to, like college basketball days. We always said we learn more from losses than we do wins. But you don't always want to be the smartest person in a room. You don't want to lose day after day, but facing those and learning from those is always important. Was there, you know, those challenges? I mean rest in peace to entry level work. That doesn't happen anymore. We want to hire someone entry level but you need three to five years experience, so it's always a big challenge.
Hunter Bergman:Was there ever a moment where you were like, damn, I don't know if this is going to work Every day, man, not every day, but definitely there are days that are way harder than others when you have to figure out, you know, is the friction right now we're facing worth it or is there something we can do differently? You know, I look at like the Snuggie guy who made millions. I have a smart enough team. We could do a snuggie, you know, worst case scenario. But I think that you know, as I grow in my, my role, it's how to make better decisions too. You know, coming back to your, your question of being what was your question? Come back to that.
Emma Bennett:Just like. Was there a moment where you're like maybe this doesn't work?
Hunter Bergman:Yeah, maybe a moment, that this doesn't work. I think we're still figuring out what our business model is. I tell people we've been kind of under the radar for the last three-ish years. I'm just building, you know, just figuring out how do we assemble the team, who do we need on the team, what does the market want? And we've just been building or somebody refers us these leads and I've got a great strong, I've got a great network that has been willing to invest in us and also get, you know, some work from that. But you know, really that's how we've grown the business right now and honestly I'm super excited. This year we're actually going to like launch into the world and become like an official company. You heard it here first.
Emma Bennett:There's also just parts of it where you have to sit back and realize even large companies, big companies, my previous employers I look back and I see what they're working on. I would say the last five years in business are some of the hardest for anyone, let alone someone starting trying to identify a niche, let alone just how we're going to build this business is is, I would say, unprecedented. I've never tried to start a business in any other time, but I would say that this is one of those times where you're like, as long as you're afloat, you're floating, you know.
Hunter Bergman:Well and and uh. Right now we're facing some really unprecedented things. You know, technology is moving at almost the fastest pace. Not ever, I mean, we've definitely had faster paces, I think, with some of the like dot com and stuff, but we're seeing a similar thing with AI right now. That is really changing the way that we work and the systems we build, and so one of the valuable things that we get to do is we don't we don't get a. We've not learned for 20 years how to do something. That way. We've kind of grown up with this technological evolution, and now we've been able to build systems around this technology shift and also have built our boat so that we can go left or right based on what happens next versus. You know, oh, we have this one system and we do it this way. We're pretty adaptable and flexible to the direction that the market goes.
Emma Bennett:I'd almost say I think, as you look at younger founders, younger businesses, just in general, there is a lot more agility there, there's a lot more ability for risk. You can make some of those changes, and I think that that sometimes is an undervalued prospect in that that, like, hey, we're learning, but we learn a little quicker. We're a lot more agile, we're used to this influx of information, so that I always think of that too as as you're working through these things. So let's, let's move a little more. Let's talk about how you got connected with Intersect kind of the space, the ecosystem, norfolk. What does that look like? And and how did you? How did you get here? How did I get here?
Hunter Bergman:I mean, shout out to Grams, I live with my grandma right now. She's held me down. So I graduated from UNL in 2022 and joined forces with Anna Fiala, my co-founder and creative chief, creative officer, creative director and I immediately went to Europe right after that, spent all my money and just wanted to see the world and you know, I needed a place to touch down and my grandma's was that touchdown spot. So moved back in with my grandma and, um, just uh, I will never forget, intersect wasn't even open. You and I had connected at a couple other things and I knew that it was on the horizon and, uh, I was like I need to work, not in my house, because my grandma was like you're not really working in there.
Hunter Bergman:You know like you should take out the trash or do these chores and remote work with family.
Emma Bennett:It's just nope, Been there, done that.
Hunter Bergman:Yeah, so that was probably. When did I? When was I mean? You let me in here before it was even technically open.
Emma Bennett:I think 2022 summer into fall of 2022.
Hunter Bergman:It was definitely like fall of 2022. I was like I had to get out as fast as possible and really that was my first office space ish other than turbine flats is like coffee shop and library. And when I made that move here, I was like, also, we talked about like ecosystem development and that's something that I'm like super passionate about. Coming from the university with the startups, you know, and also being a one million cups representative there. I was like I want to bring what I've learned and the energy I have to Norfolk to keep helping other people grow and do the thing, and so we started brainstorming on building Norfolk and all these other you know things that we've been chatting about.
Hunter Bergman:And I think when I first moved here, like it was just me and Anna, like you know, grinding away, like I probably oversold and undervalued the work and we just did a lot of just random odds and end things and and also lived with their parents at the time and we just kind of bootstrapped it and got a little bit of cashflow and, you know, would hire another contractor and would keep keep kind of growing, growing, growing. And you know we started with here at Intersect we had just me and Anna and then now we've got seven people total, which is super crazy, two years later I mean every year it seems like we doubled the amount of people and all the stories, memory and pain in between.
Emma Bennett:Yeah, there's good time, it's all a good note. That's crazy just to hear the growth and having that ability to do so what?
Hunter Bergman:Oh, go ahead. What I was going to round out, you know, having a space like intersect to be able to peek out and bother out, you know, having a space like Intersect to be able to peek out and bother people, you know, and like water cooler talk, I mean has really helped me cope with the working online. Our team is entirely remote, and so that has really helped me feel like I've got a sense of community and I have like an office where I could talk to people and like I still have mentors that I can bounce ideas off of, and it doesn't feel like I'm on my own island.
Emma Bennett:Yeah, I worked remote for six years. It's one of my favorite working styles. I do 100% support it. I can never work in a traditional office, ever again. But I would say the culture, that ecosystem or community is so pivotal to success and I think that was one of the biggest motivators for this space is we were building it and building out programming, and what we wanted is, hey, there's going to be people who do work alone, let alone most likely going to be remote workers or startup founders, completely isolated, just having someone to talk to, whether it's hey, I have this idea, or oh my God, I hate taxes, like I can't help you, but I can get you someone who can. So that is just one of the biggest things that I've wanted to see out of the space and love that it is, and our water cooler gets a lot of action.
Hunter Bergman:We have so many fun conversations.
Emma Bennett:It's what it's there for, though.
Hunter Bergman:And my entire journey through XPM has been supported by spaces and people willing to say whatever you want to build in the space. You've given us some flexibility and you've also given us flexibility in the podcast room and those things. And I think you know that has been a huge mover of the needle for me, just as a young person, to just have somebody say, hey, here's, here's this thing, like we kind of want to do these things, like just be here and like let's figure it out. You know, and that's really helped us be able to have, like you know, the conference room, to be able to have professional meetings to. You know, hopefully, as we continue to grow the podcast and like other people move here so we can have a nice studio space.
Emma Bennett:Absolutely it's. It's removing those barriers. You know you're never. You're never going to uncover the next great thing if you don't open the door for it. So, um, I think that's something I'm personally really passionate about.
Hunter Bergman:You'll never discover the next great thing if you don't open the door for it. That's great.
Emma Bennett:I mean I'm, this is recording, right Cause that was good, but out of the things you've got to do. What's here? What are some of the resources or programs or parts of Intersect and just the ecosystem in Norfolk, northeast Nebraska, that have really been maybe your favorites or have done the most impact for you?
Hunter Bergman:really been maybe your favorites or have done the most impact for you, the programs and resources that have been the most impactful for me, really, honestly, like just you as being, like having the patience and like willingness to let us, like you know, commandeer a space for a while and, like you know, the ability to say hey, like we're here to help you, like grow, and like that's what we want you to do. You know, we want you to grow in this space and I think just that support has been foundational. But I think also, in the same point, the 1 million cups and every Wednesday, like just in the morning, I have those are my, my big idea. Visionary days, Cause I get to talk about business and the these, uh, I found find community.
Hunter Bergman:I'm a, I'm a very I like to talk a lot you know and I like to talk to people and I like to figure out what do you, what are you struggling with right now, like what's, what do you see in the world? You know we have a lot of great conversations about AI technology. Um, honestly, just conversations about just random things in general, sometimes not even business related. But you know, 1 million cups has been a really solid foundation for me. To have that community and be able to get outside of my office to actually have bigger picture conversations about business, business models. You know what do you think? You know just ideas and how can we collaborate to help the community grow or maybe in a specific individual, grow has been awesome and also helped me stay in touch with my futuristic and like visionary, like personality.
Hunter Bergman:Sometimes I get really deep in the weeds on XPM because you just got to do that. Sometimes, and every Wednesday I can just get pulled back out to this like conversation and get rejuvenated about ideas, energy. So I think that has been a huge program for me. I've been able to meet so many people. I probably worked with half of our 1 million cup space. We just did a shoot with one of our members or one of the community or community members and that's like a lot of fun and so excited for that and I think the other speakers that we bring in too, they've had a great opportunity to just share. You know NBDC and some of those other programs.
Emma Bennett:Yeah, I think it really does kind of center on that trust in the community sense of everything. You know, it's not a professional networking Like here's my business card, here's my three referrals that I have, you know, it's just, it's such an organic conversation. It's really exciting to see the differences. It rolls right into my next question perfectly. But are there any like specific success stories or wins that really stick out to you that this wouldn't have happened without our community here?
Hunter Bergman:I love one specifically. You know, specifically, you know, I shout out to um kim uh with the gluten uh, gluten-free experience and I just uh signed up just for her baking, but it is so good I did just sign up for the to get muffins once a month from her I was like I just want. I want to bring my grandma blueberry muffins once a month monthly.
Hunter Bergman:There we go, yeah, and you know I will never forget when she came and she was talking about you. You know I got this thing. It's been fun. I don't really know what's going on, Just an expert at baking. And there was one meeting where we were all just going around in a circle and we were just giving updates.
Hunter Bergman:We kind of it was like the open coffee and we're just like what's going on in your life. And Kim mentioned that she was about to just leave her job full time and do this full time, and so we went and saw her go from hey, we have this idea and I think people want my muffins to hey, I think I'm going to leave my job too. Now she's like pitched us the business plan and now she's growing and I'm like I love seeing that. I mean there's other handfuls of stories you know Dustin being able to build some apps with with Ryan and be able to, you know, enter into the category of entrepreneur and be able to say I am an entrepreneur, like I'm looking for a problem to solve, to be able to then grow and scale, and whether it be scaling to like a lifestyle business or scale into, like you know, the, you know the museum app for everyone you know in the United States but no, I I agree.
Emma Bennett:It's really cool to see those and helping people identify themselves as an entrepreneur. We talk about imposter syndrome, but I also think Midwest people from the Midwest just systemically are awful about talking about themselves, at least the ones you want to hear from. But having that community and seeing people build that is just it's really been astounding, it's almost like AA for entrepreneurs though.
Hunter Bergman:I could come in and be like I struggle with this and everybody's like here here.
Emma Bennett:I mean truly we. As we talk about 1MCc, it's we've been what hosting events since october of 22, like we've really just always had this group and it's rural. We're smaller, smaller network, smaller audience. So this year, you know, focusing on our previous speakers and reaching out to them and saying, hey, we want you to come back, talk about what you're struggling with. A, to help brainstorm, find a solution for you, but B I guarantee you, other people in the room are having the same experiences. So watching the evolution of that in our community has been a lot of fun too. So, as we talk through all of this like what would be some of the biggest lessons you've learned, so we'll do that like biggest lesson learned, and then one piece of advice you would give someone starting a business. So we'll do that Like biggest lesson learned, and then one piece of advice you would give someone starting a business.
Hunter Bergman:You know I really want to like stand up here and say I learned all these great things and this is the one piece of advice for that person struggling. I think for me, the biggest lesson I've learned is to figure out how to be the best person I can be and optimize my life to be able to fit into like the work life. Early stage founders and early stage XPM was just like grinding every weekend. You know all these things and I'd never had a time to be, have like a personal life or do these things. So now that we're like year three in here, I've really tried to create boundaries but also figure out how I work best, and I think I'll never forget Somebody told me that working at 150 percent productivity does not look like you're in your office for 15 hours a day.
Hunter Bergman:That looks like going on runs, eating healthy, getting the eight hours of sleep and being an optimized person to get the most out of your life. So that was probably the biggest lesson for me is you know I need to know how I work best and also communicating that to my team. You know I'm a very big. I have to talk through things. So when we're making decisions, I'm throwing 15 different things out on the wall and I'm also. They're also like all different and contrarian to each other, you know. And so sometimes I can give my team like oh, boom, boom, boom, where are?
Emma Bennett:we going.
Hunter Bergman:And I'm just, I just have to talk it out. So that's one, you know. Big lesson for me is learning how do I communicate and how do I work best. And then I would say my piece of advice. I don't really have a lot of experience at the moment to really say this is the one thing you need to do. But the biggest thing for me that was a game changer is just learning about my strengths and weaknesses. And you know those strengths how do I play best on a team and then weaknesses are usually the things that get me in trouble. So the Clifton Strengths Assessment has really helped me understand like my basements and balconies and where I'm the most intense and where I need to make sure I'm communicating most effectively to the team.
Hunter Bergman:And then I just took this thing called the Culture Index and one of my mentors. He reached out and was like hey, you should take this and I'd love to review it with you. And that was a huge insight to this is how you work regularly. If you just were outside of work and this is how you work right now at work and it was like flip-flopped and I was like oh, like that's why I'm have so much tension right now in my role is because I'm doing things that I just wouldn't naturally do and that was hard. So, helping me, that really just realized to me I need to take a step back and make sure, hey, I'm going to delegate these things and then I'm going to have, you know, this other person do these things, because that's just not my cup of tea. I want to play best where I play best, and that was, you know, somebody who's looking to have like a partnership or a founder or a co-founder relationship. You know, having somebody that you can balance out and communicate how you work best.
Emma Bennett:Right. It's such a dichotomy when you look at like hustle culture, startup founders. I am again super passionate about, you know, setting boundaries at work. I working remote for large corporate company, yeah, that was like 60, 80 hour work weeks. That's just not sustainable and finding that. So I think it's a huge lesson. I think it's very undervalued. People just kind of forget yes, you're here, you're working on this, you might be a solo founder right now, but finding that support network to help fill the gaps, because things aren't. You can't be good at everything. If you are props, come say hi, we'd love to meet you, but it is a really important piece, so that's awesome.
Hunter Bergman:I would just say the last piece for me is also just, you know, it will always be hard and, like I was telling you when you asked, you know, do you ever think that it wouldn't work? I mean, every day it's a new adventure. You know, I go to work and like something could happen and, ok, we got to figure out taxes. Now we got to figure out, you know, how do we do the W-2 thing, how do we W-2 everyone? You know, there's just these questions that things happen, and we got to figure out how do we do that now, how do we create a 2025 budget forecast?
Hunter Bergman:and follow that and who's the next person we hire. You know, we're getting to that stage now where we are figuring out how do we grow and how do we scale, and there's so many pain points that it's like gets overwhelming if it's just you. So having that mentor, the community and a team that is willing to work through those pain points and stay positive, I think that's the other thing, and we just did like a review today and it was like start, stop, go and we're like all these problems, but we're like, but also all these wins. So celebrating the wins is also my last piece of advice.
Emma Bennett:There you go. Every week. I try to write down a win, because it's so hard to look back and say, like, what did I do? And it's just write down those wins. Screenshot those emails you get from someone. If it's a client, if it's a colleague, screenshot it, throw it in a folder. You have it there for those rainy days. What's next? What's next for XPM? And then what's next for this podcast World?
Hunter Bergman:domination.
Hunter Bergman:I mean, honestly, what's next for XPM is, you know, this year we're going to roll out our website and start getting active on our social medias and actually start to kind of put what we're doing into the world out there and hopefully we can find some more medium sized companies that are looking to get the most out of their marketing and hopefully we can continue to service those those companies and clients, and get some wins for them.
Hunter Bergman:You know we really want to be a strategic growth partner and help them really, you know, get to the next level and think of new ways of thinking and again leverage also this new technology that's coming down.
Hunter Bergman:So I also have a side hustle called high AI, where I want to help small businesses say hi to AI and get the most out of it. You know that's something that is really disrupting things and I want to help, you know, depending on what the market shakes down to, but I want to help those small business owners really get the most out of these tools. You know, really help them understand how can I make this more efficient or better or, you know, how do we really lean on it, but also where the areas where we don't lean on it Like you still need good creativity, you still need people to do things, but I think it's just optimizing those workflows for success. So what's next looks like we're just going to continue to do what we've been doing and hopefully, continue to tell our story and how we can help the communities, the businesses in the Midwest.
Emma Bennett:Nice Love. That that's awesome. I think it all kind of plays in, as we talk about community, to this podcast. We really want to take this kind of to that next level, extend those conversations we have on Wednesday mornings we can try and live stream. It's always an interesting attempt, but, you know, extending those conversations to another platform, to more people. But what do you see for Build in Norfolk as a podcast to come up?
Hunter Bergman:I hope, if you're listening to this, let us know what you think. What do you want to see? What do you want to see right now? Curious, I'm really excited. You know, what's next for build in norfolk, I think is just continuing to again tell those stories of people who are building in norfolk and I really hope that we are able to tell that story and then magnify it through social media and these channels to really get the other people out of those cracks and crevices who need that support system. In that meeting every wednesday morning to sit, to get rebalanced, you know, just be able to come with hey, I'm struggling with this, anybody struggle with this thing. Like I need help with my like email or like my my domain is broken and, yeah, let's fix it. Let's, let's help you fix that thing. So what's next for the podcast is we're just going to keep telling stories and being vocal about what we're doing and hopefully we can continue to help our community grow and get some big wins.
Emma Bennett:Yeah, definitely. And as we talk about the stories and what we want to hear, you know we'll do the full journey, like there's going to be wins, there's going to be fun things to talk through and then some of those struggles that we experience and people see it's so you're not alone. So if you can't make it, you can maybe listen to this, catch an episode and say, all right, okay, I'm not the only one feeling that. So I'm excited for that, to bring some of those resources to more people. Just talk to more people than maybe what we see inside our doors and get them those things that they need. So let's see. I think those are all the questions I really have. Is there anything else that I missed today that you wanted to drop a knowledge bomb before we wrap up?
Hunter Bergman:I think, as a as a founder, as a community member, I think just showing up is super important. So, uh, every morning, every morning, every single morning. I want to see you intersect coworking.
Hunter Bergman:Do you have a lot of coffee pods but every Wednesday at 9am we do one, 1 million cups. Most of the time I mean we depending on the weather and some of those things, but pretty much every Wednesday at 9am there's going to be somebody here to to to hang out with you and just talk through some things. So I would say, just show up to those things and come say hi to us. You know it's like the front porch step to the, the Nebraska entrepreneurial ecosystem. You know you and I both have networks that span beyond Norfolk and you know, hopefully we can help the next person get the most out of their. You know, whatever problems they have, help them flourish like a flower. There we go, you know right.
Emma Bennett:Not one that I bought from Amazon Awesome. Well, thank you so much for joining me today, hunter. It's awesome. I've loved watching the way you've built XPM, building our community, growing the ecosystem here and to everybody, listening. Thank you for listening today and, if you and if you liked it, follow, subscribe, share us on social media, and we really want to get this out to as many people as we can oh, let's build norfolk.
