Championing the Underdog: How Small Businesses Can Change the World (with Tyler Copenhaver-Heath)

Angela Frank: 00:00:00

Welcome to The Growth Pod. Today on the podcast, we have Tyler Uriah Copenhaver-Heath, a biochemist and MBA graduate who is a beacon of resilience and transformative success.

From humble beginnings on welfare with a father in prison, Tyler transformed his challenges into entrepreneurial triumphs.

He founded Apex Customs, evolving it from a garage startup to a multimillion dollar enterprise, later selling it and several other businesses in under a decade. Beyond his business milestones, Tyler's heart beats for the underdog.

Having assisted over 100 new or struggling entrepreneurs without charge, he's living testament to the power of giving back. His latest venture, Glaive, aims to level the playing field for small businesses and budding entrepreneurs.

An international MMA connoisseur, long sword practitioner, and published author, Tyler's journey is rich and varied.

Through his blog, podcast and docu series, he inspires and supports those with big dreams, emphasizing the transformative power of small businesses in communities. Tyler, welcome to the podcast.

Tyler Copenhaver-Heath: 00:01:04

Yeah, thank you so much. Appreciate the intro.

Angela Frank: 00:01:08

I am very excited for our conversation today. You're going to share a little bit about how small businesses can change the world.

Tyler Copenhaver-Heath: 00:01:15

Yes, they can. And it's a subject I love and have a huge passion for. And, you know, not a lot of people think about business as, like, the direct change maker.

You know, I think we default to charity and that sort of stuff, but business is actually the key catalyst. I believe in changing about anything fundamentally that you believe in.

Angela Frank: 00:01:35

Yeah. Amazing. Before we get started, I wanted to learn a little bit more about you.

I mentioned in your intro that you come from a challenging childhood and you were able to successfully transition into an entrepreneur. Can you share a pivotal moment that shifted your trajectory?

Tyler Copenhaver-Heath: 00:01:53

You know, I get asked this question a little bit and I wish I had it in a bottle. Like, I would give it away, like, easily.

Like, I would love to help other kids coming up from, like, challenging circumstances because, I mean, let's face it, if you do a little research into adversity, those that face adversity, especially like, high levels of it, become the most amazing people in the world, as long as the adversity doesn't destroy them in a way. I can't give you a key ingredient. I can tell you that it took a while and it took little wins stacking up.

And I think maybe the defining moment for me is I had a lot of doors closed in my face and I finally braved this college thing. That was hard. That took some, like, little wins.

Like I said before that, and because I was told I was stupid in high school, and, like, I believe that. So I was deathly afraid to go to college thinking, oh, man, like, I can I even do this? I got there and I actually excelled in my initial classes.

I was approaching a business degree. And then there was like, I don't know. After my first semester, I'm like, what is the hardest possible degree they have at this institution?

And the biggest word I could think of was biochemistry. So I switched my degree and I kind of like, maybe a middle finger to the world, you know, I was like, I'm going to go for this biochemistry thing.

And little did I know I would love it.

And that, you know, that first win put me on the other ones, you know, the second you can start believing in yourself a little bit and that you can have something, you start to dare a little bit riskier endeavors, right? And then from there, it's just not quitting.

Angela Frank: 00:03:28

I love your story about how it's not just one pivotal moment.

Instead, it's little things that build up over time and how you were able to take those wins in stride and have those offset some of the negative things, like being told, you know, that you weren't smart in school and things like that, and you were able to prove that wrong and continue using that as fuel for your growth. You talk a lot about how content can be a tangible, positive change in society. Why do you think that is?

Tyler Copenhaver-Heath: 00:04:00

You know, it's been a long road for me to even be here today with you. This is a tremendous fear of mine that I'm overcoming. But I do believe that it has a tremendous power to change things that you're interested in.

And the other thing is, it's like, if I had never heard a story about somebody coming from nothing, about, like, challenges, about, like, overcoming the odds, you know, like, similar stories to mine, then, like, we need those to believe. And that's why more people need to be picking up the camera and telling good stories.

Because I can tell you, like, evil has no problem using this tool that I'm talking to you on now. Like, more people to be out there, like, with the force of good behind it and telling good stories. And, you know, I.

I don't know about your feed, but my feed is awesome. It's showing me puppies and love and, like, people coming from nothing and helping each other.

It's like, that is my feed on Instagram, TikTok, all that stuff. And that's probably because that's what I look pay attention to, right? You know, and so I want more of that stuff in the world.

ave a whole charity we it's a: 5013

And we use the camera to tell good stories that tell the stories of overcoming odds. And then also it attempts to monetize the content 100% for charity too.

So we believe in the camera and its power, like to make a difference in the world.

And you know, from a small business person standpoint, it is the one way we have an advantage in the business marketing world because we are really interested in what the founders of companies are like, what small business founders are like. And if they'll just get on the camera, which they can do for free, it is free marketing.

You can get lucky, host a little video and it can have more potential than millions of dollars in a Super bowl commercial ad. And so it's like, if you're a small business owner out there right now, please overcome the fear, get on the camera.

It's one of the edges that you can have right at this moment in the small business world.

Angela Frank: 00:05:59

Yeah. I want to go back to something that you said and it's that evil has no problem using this platform.

And something that I recognized when I was starting my first business is that a lot of people say that they're self made and they actually come this immense place of privilege.

And it was really hard for me to find people who came from similar situations to myself and see those people then be successful because a lot of the most successful people who have heavy presences and say that they're self made again came from these immense places of privilege and they kind of drowned out the lower voices.

And with everything that we have available to us now, like you said, there's so many different ways to create content and get your voice out there and show that there are many people making it. And we just need more people like that. So I really love what you said.

Tyler Copenhaver-Heath: 00:06:54

And I appreciate you bringing that up because it's like, I'm sorry, I don't have much to learn from Mark Zuckerberg. You know, my choices in life were not own a McDonald's or go to Harvard. You know, it's like Bill Gates with all the advantages.

I'm sorry, like that can't be an entrepreneurial inspiration for me. You know, I can appreciate their business acumen in some ways, but it's like they didn't walk my same road.

And to your your point, it's like that's why we need more people talking about it. And you're right, there are very few true success stories.

I mean, I started my first business by living in a lot with no electricity, no water, $4,000.

You know, it's like, and I don't truly consider myself self made still, you know, it's like I had customers that came to me and bought from my business.

I had employees, you know, that like a went above and beyond along the way, you know, and so it's like, but to your point, it's like people need to hear stories like that. It was a, it was a hard thing for me to start talking about, but it's like, you can do it, you know, like I'm proof $4,000.

Go suffer a little bit, work hard. And it paid off for me. And like, I didn't have any advantages whatsoever. You can't say, hey, Tyler, you had this advantage.

Because I didn't have a single one other than my work ethic, which I did myself, right? So the world out there needs to know that you can have whatever you want.

But if we start from the not Mark Zuckerberg level, we have to make that up with work. I'm sorry folks, if you're starting a little bit less, but you'll appreciate it more, I promise you.

Angela Frank: 00:08:24

I agree. And speaking of not coming from Mark Zuckerberg level, you have assisted over a hundred struggling entrepreneurs for free.

So I'm curious what you see as the most common hurdle that these entrepreneurs face and how do you help them overcome these hurdles?

Tyler Copenhaver-Heath: 00:08:42

Well, not to toot my own horn, but I think I'm at hundreds now.

Angela Frank: 00:08:46

Hundreds.

Tyler Copenhaver-Heath: 00:08:47

Some of the. Yeah, so I work with a lot of people. And then we started doing a free seminar series too.

And so on average, we're getting 100 people at each of those seminars.

And then on top of that, my schedule usually has bare minimum five people a week that I'm helping in it, you know, and so like, I think that number is well over a hundred now. But to that end, like, there's a theme, you know, like when I first started doing this, even helping is like learning, right?

What's the right way to give? What's the right way to help? And when I first started doing this, it's like I had some free time and I'm like, what can I use to help the world?

And I'm like, well, I have this business knowledge from getting my butt kicked on every level and maybe I can save people some butt kickings, right? And so because everybody tells Me, like, how do you see it that easy?

And the answer is because I've had that problem before and I've had to fix it, you know, and then people tell me, well, it's so simple when you say it that way. It's like, yeah, but you didn't see the two years it took me to learn to say it that way.

You know, it's like, but like the two biggest problems I see and like initially diving into businesses, you know, like helping, like even doing accounting, marketing, that sort of stuff. If your business was failing, I went hands on. I'm doing things a little bit different now.

Like now if you come to our facility, there's desk space, I'll help you there, you know, like, because even like that has been a process. But two resounding things to get to your question in the longest way possible. Number one, I'm sorry you're being sold the wrong dream online.

They're going to tell you like, buy this hundred dollar course and you'll be a billionaire tomorrow. Let me put it this way.

For a guy that went to school full time and worked full time, I dreamed of this entrepreneurial dream where it's like, oh, you get to choose your own hours, you know, but. And then like when I actually during my senior year of my college degree, I started my own business and I thought I had that in mind.

Well, I got rid of my full time job. Now I'm going to be in business now I can choose when these hours are. You don't. The hours are all the time.

Right before I punched out at 40 hours a week, you know that there was always something to do in your business, so it's not true. And then at first too, you need to be doing a lot of things in your business and that requires a lot of hours.

You know, the people that get to the point where it's like vacations all the time and things like that, that's 10 years down the road, six years down the road. You know, at first you're working in your business and you're not taking a paycheck, most of you, for a couple years at least, you know.

And so people are getting set up for failure in that they think they're going to open a business. Tomorrow is going to be 20 hours a week and like a huge paycheck. And that's not true. Absolutely not true. That's a fallacy.

I'm sorry out there if I'm ruining this for you, but at least I've set you up for success rather than Failure. So you know what to expect. Number two numbers, right? All comes down to numbers, you know, it's like, know your numbers and don't hire a bookkeeper.

Even if you're having a bookkeeper. Help you start asking questions, start to get to know it, get in your books a little bit too.

If you're going to, like, log some transactions in there because you know your numbers better than anybody else, believe it or not, you know what these transactions are. And the right data and the right columns is so important because everybody I meet says, tyler, I just need marketing.

If I had X number of dollars for marketing, my business would be such a success, you know? And I ask them, I say, okay, where would you spend this money on marketing right now?

I give you the cash and they say, well, I would spend it on this candy bar. I'm like, okay, great. What is the margin on that candy bar? I don't know, right? So now we backtrack to the numbers.

It gives me my opportunity to go where I need to anyways, you know. And so it's like we start looking at that.

I would say, depending on the amount of products they have, a lot of times they're not even making money on that candy bar. It's like, so now you're going to spend money to go out and sell something that's losing you money, you know, And I see that all the time.

But it comes down to having a basic grasp of your numbers, you know, and so those are the two things setting up for failure on what business expectations are and knowing your numbers, on some level, you have to do it. It's not something you can sub out completely.

Angela Frank: 00:12:52

I agree.

Something that I've noticed previously helping business owners as well is that lack of knowing numbers and something as simple as, like, a transaction fee that you're, like, just conditioned to accept. You're not appropriately counting into your margins. And there's so many things like that that can really make you realize that you're not.

You're running your business in a way that's less profitable than you maybe originally thought.

Tyler Copenhaver-Heath: 00:13:18

That's. As small business owners, you know, it's like one of our best tools is our financial data on, like, making decisions. You know, it's like.

And if you have it set up right too, even when you market, you can see the impact in it, you know, Besides the other KPIs that you can come about.

But to your point, it's like, unless you have that logged in the right way, like people with transaction fees, for instance, they're like, yeah, whatever. You know, there, there's a. I call them creepy crawlers.

There's a place where creepy crawlers live, and that's in complex systems in low numbers, when you're getting charged 3% a pop, you know, on each transaction, you don' Think it's that much money. Put it all together. You know, it's like when I realized this in one of my companies, like our office transaction was $15,000.

You know what that is for credit card fees? That was a huge amount. You know, having that data in the numbers allows you to make better decisions. Right.

That's just one transaction that we're talking about. But it's like the point is data, good data in your numbers. And there's.

And that doesn't mean getting your bookkeeper to just check boxes that they don't know how to check. Right. It means good data between the difference between an expense and the cost of goods.

And like having good GL revenue accounts, you know, like these are all the difference in your business, right?

Angela Frank: 00:14:27

Absolutely. You can bring in an accountant, but at the end of the day, you're the person who's deciding the trajectory for the business.

And you need to be an active partner knowing your numbers better than your accountant who's just there to help.

Tyler Copenhaver-Heath: 00:14:40

You know, I don't want to talk bad about accountants, but 90% of the time they've never run a business. So they may know like the difference between, like, how to log accounting. I should say.

I don't want it to go there actually, because like, they don't know how to log your accounting transaction. They may know the fundamentals of accounting, but it doesn't mean they know your transaction. Right.

And here's how to tell if you have a bad accountant or good accounting.

If they've ever asked you about an Amazon transaction, if you've never been asked in your business, by your bookkeeper, by your accounting on about an Amazon transaction, go find a new one. They're guessing.

We all have an Amazon transaction in our business, every single one of us these days, you know, and you need to know if that Amazon transaction is a cost of goods or an expense particularly. And then I would even like it in the better bucket than that. But the point is, otherwise they're guessing. How do they know? They can't.

There's no way to know.

Angela Frank: 00:15:35

Absolutely.

So building off of this foundation of helping struggling entrepreneurs overcome these challenges, you have a recent venture Glaive that's designed to level the playing field for small businesses. So in today's Digital age. What challenges do you see the businesses that you're helping through Glaive face?

And how does Glaive come in to address them?

Tyler Copenhaver-Heath: 00:15:57

I mean, this is such a biased opinion, but Glaive is so cool. You know, it's like Glaive does, like, a lot of really cool stuff. Let me go to this. First, I tell people, don't do something you love in this world.

Do something you hate. Open a business that solves a solution for something you hate. And I hated what was happening to small business.

I hate the people that take advantage of small business. I hate the fact that, like, for underdogs in business, there's no help, no guidance. I hate that we have to go through it all the hard way.

You know, it's like, so I wanted to change that, you know, and so we have a boots on the ground facility here that I'm sitting in right now. You know, it's like you can come in anytime during our business hours in Phoenix here. I hope to eventually do this all over the place.

But we have desk space that you can use for free. You know, like a. We work.

But on the other side of the wall is myself and other business owners that know what they're doing to help you with accounting for free, marketing for free. We've had people come in and say, hey, my business partner is the best website guy I know.

They were like, hey, let me give you 15, $20,000 to build a website. And he'll be like, no, why don't you sit right there and I'll tell you everything you need to do. And people have done that, right?

They built their own websites instead of spending $15,000. You know, first off, we do that and then we. Once we see a problem enough times, then we develop technology around that problem.

And right now we're building out the whole fundamental layout. But eventually you'll be able to go to Glaive and absolutely anything in the business process you'll be educated on and you'll have a solution for.

And so in a lot of that, we do through the pain points that I had. And then I see there are people that come in here constantly that have the same pain points.

It's like, okay, now we're going to develop a technological solution for that so we can help more than beyond Arizona, right? Like, we developed the physical solution by helping them physically, and then we develop the technology after that.

And my brother happens to be a PA or excuse me, a PhD in AI technology, and he runs the forefront of our technology. And so there's always that thought in mind, too. How do we embrace what's going on currently with technology? How do we build the solution?

I'm the monkey in the box that breaks things. You know, I'm the guy that's not very technical, but I find the problem and I can fix it physically, right?

And now we then work on a technology through my brother, my business partner, my other brother, and our team. And now we. We actually come up with a better solution that we can broadcast across the country. So that's kind of what Glaive does.

We call it the big stick for small business. Or it could also be the big brother for small business.

Angela Frank: 00:18:30

I love that I see a core theme between the work that you're doing with Glaive and some of the work that you've done previous.

Is there a core message that you'd like every aspiring entrepreneur or every individual who faces challenges to take away from your journey and the initiatives that you've been working on?

Tyler Copenhaver-Heath: 00:18:49

Number one, I know everybody's going to say this, it's cliche, but you can do it. Like, absolutely can have it. I was that guy that thought business was only for people, raged with the rich father.

I really thought that originally I wasn't like one of those entrepreneurs that knew from their youth that they wanted to be an entrepreneur that seemed out of touch for somebody like me. So, number one, you can have it. Absolutely, you can have it. And not only that, but we need you to have it.

If you're coming from nothing, if you're coming from a system, that's awful. I heard of two kids this week from the foster care system that became billionaires and are now opening things that help the foster care system.

Though I never set out to have a target Persona client with Glaive, you know, like, I know that you're supposed to do that with business. I just wanted to help underdogs. But the person that walks through my door the most is an African American woman.

There is no bigger underdog in business. I love that Glaive is helping the biggest underdog in business right now. And guess what?

When a woman, African American woman, minority, somebody from an underdog background, they make it in business. Guess what they do? They hire those same people. They support those same people. They go back and they change things from a cause that they like.

The foster care system that they were frustrated with. That's what these people do with their success.

And like our hippie hypothesis in Glaive too, is like the underlying fundamental of getting people their success ultimately Teaching a person to fish through business is not only having, like, economic impacts, which are huge around small business. I could go off for an hour and bore your audience. But also like social. Social aspects. You know, it's like on every level.

Like, if you get people success that will change the world. You've changed the world. Right. And that's what's amazing about what we get to do.

Angela Frank: 00:20:38

That is incredibly inspiring.

I love how you're lifting people up who then go out and lift up their community and make impactful change, like you said, in the systems that they've had experience with or communities that they know need help as well. So I, I am incredibly inspired and awestruck by everything that you shared with us today. I'm curious to know what's next for you.

Tyler Copenhaver-Heath: 00:21:04

You know, like, we're going to continue to build Glaive at this point. We're bootstrapping it. It doesn't go as fast as you'd like it to when you're bootstrapping it.

We're hoping to release in the next couple months first episode of our docu series, which is our kind of like banner project from our content from Good we're putting out in the world. A man who was in Hollywood, had the dream job, helped with X Men, Titanic, Braveheart, all these huge movies, incredibly successful dream life.

Sold everything he owns. He's over in Cambodia. He's been there 20 years. He started foundation. We spent two months filming his. His life, his impact on the world.

Incredible human being. That's. We're really excited to bring that story and others in the future.

Continue to podcast for our bullying podcast and our underdogs podcast around business and yeah, just try to do every day something that like, actually one of my favorite phrases, I'll put it this way. My friend told me the best thing you can be in life is of some use. And I try daily to be of some use.

Angela Frank: 00:22:11

I love that. If somebody's wanting to keep up with your projects online, what's the best place for them to do that?

Tyler Copenhaver-Heath: 00:22:19

Yeah, please do love the support of anybody. I'm very accessible. Like at Tyler Uriah is my Instagram. I. You can reach me there very easily.

I also have all the other social media channels, YouTube, that sort of stuff. All at Tyler. Tyler Uriah. Yeah, Reach out anytime. Those are the best ways.

Angela Frank: 00:22:37

Great. All of those links that you just mentioned will be in the description.

So if you are listening and you are also inspired by anything that Tyler shared today, it will be there for you. Tyler, thank you so much. For joining us today.

Tyler Copenhaver-Heath: 00:22:49

No, my pleasure. Thank you so much for having me.

Angela Frank: 00:22:52

It was my pleasure. Thank you so much for listening to this episode of the Growth Pod. If you enjoyed it, please leave us a review.

I look forward to seeing you in the next one.

Tyler Copenhaver-Heath: 00:23:01

Bye.