Ep 236 – Praxis CEO, Isaac Morehouse on Career Exploration

SIBP-Blog-NEW-4 Hello Success in Business Podcast listeners! Welcome to Episode 236. We are here for you every Monday to teach you about success in business and today is no different.

Today Tom Ryan has invited onto our show an incredible entrepreneur, Isaac Morehouse. Isaac has created a business named Praxis that provides intelligent and talented individuals with apprenticeship positions at startup companies. Praxis is an alternative to a traditional university experience, which is a welcome option for many who are daunted by expensive tuition and an ever-growing, post-graduation unemployment outlook.

When Isaac talks to parents about their children doing a Praxis apprenticeship he still picks up on the reluctance of that generation to miss out on college, even though they know full well that graduates aren’t getting hired. He reminds them that it’s not about pro-college or anti-college; it’s about pro-your child succeeding.

He compares it to a pick-up truck. In some cases pick-up trucks are a good investment and in some cases they aren’t. It depends on your situation. If you are planning to become a doctor or a lawyer, then you are still going to need credentials and licenses and college, frankly. But, if you are looking into marketing, sales or programing and you can do the work, then Praxis can get you there.

People are more likely to be interested in design and marketing than they are to interested in sales. Not many people say that they want to go into sales. Yet, many jobs in marketing look a lot like number crunching all day.

Growing up, kids think that their career choices are pretty much astronaut, fire fighter, business person. So many people end up in sales! And even if they wouldn’t officially consider themselves a salesperson, they are better at what they do because of their background in sales.

The truth is employers want to hire people with initiative and practical experience and in many fields a typical Bachelors degree simply does not mean that graduates are prepared for the workplace. Isaac has been able to see past our present expectations of a normal education and has partnered with many great startups to provide paid apprenticeships to students and give them a concentrated, powerhouse of an education!

Learn more about Praxis by clicking here.

To listen to Isaac Morehouse’s Podcast visit IsaacMorehouse.com


Tweet Tom at: @TomRyanAVL

Do you have a question about your business? Tom would love to help you:

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Ep 235 – Praxis CEO Isaac Morehouse on Finding the Crucial Pivot to get From Pre Product/Market fit and Post Product/Market fit

SIBP-Blog-NEW-4 Hello Success in Business Podcast listeners! Welcome to Episode 235. We are here for you every Monday to teach you about succeeding in business and today is no different.

Today Tom Ryan continues his interview with an incredible entrepreneur, Isaac Morehouse. Isaac has created a business named Praxis that provides intelligent and talented individuals with apprenticeship positions at startup companies. Praxis is an alternative to a traditional university experience, which is a welcome option for many who are daunted by expensive tuition and an ever-growing, post-graduation unemployment outlook.

With reference to entrepreneurship, every startup has two phases: Pre-product market fit and post-product market fit. And once you get to phase two everything goes from push to pull. For the first two years with Praxis, it was so much work to get rolling. Then a crucial pivot gave them real momentum.

What did they do? They shifted the structure of the model to include a three-month-long bootcamp when students come into the program, before the six-month-long apprenticeship. They also added a guarantee that the participants would get hired upon graduation. He knew that the students would perform better if they had that confidence going in.

Generation X watched their parents graduate from college and achieve more than their grandparents were able to achieve. Millennials seem to have had a different experience. They have watched as people around them have graduated from college and then had to move back into their parents’ basement. So, Millennials aren’t as married to the idea of going to college.

Praxis has a net zero cost. What you earn at your apprenticeship covers your tuition. More and more people are starting to realize that the traditional educational paradigm is broken. It is 100 years old and it was designed for more of a manufacturing scenario. There has been no real substantial innovation.

He compares this to his experience working in government and how seeing what goes on behind the scenes is less than great. Politics is not the leading edge of change but rather, the lagging indicator. He wants to make a real improvement in education.

With Praxis, Isaac didn’t want it to be a not-for-profit model because he wants his apprentices to be able to tell them what they want and need to get out of the program. Look at healthcare. The person paying is not the person receiving the service, so there is no accountability.

Tom and Isaac discuss the cultural conditioning surrounding a college degree and the inherent failures of that construct. They analyze the pros and cons of a standard college education and a Praxis apprenticeship.

The truth is employers want to hire people with initiative and practical experience and in many fields a typical Bachelors degree simply does not mean that graduates are prepared for the workplace. Isaac has been able to see past our present expectations of a normal education and has partnered with many great startups to provide paid apprenticeships to students and give them a concentrated, powerhouse of an education!

Learn more about Praxis by clicking here.

To listen to Isaac Morehouse’s Podcast visit IsaacMorehouse.com


Tweet Tom at: @TomRyanAVL

Do you have a question about your business? Tom would love to help you:

Leave a voicemail: (801) 228-0663

E-mail your questions: SuccessInBusinessPodcast@gmail.com

Like this podcast on Facebook

Follow this podcast on Twitter: @TomRyanSIBP

Get every episode free: Subscribe in iTunes

Ep 234 – Praxis CEO, Isaac Morehouse on Apprenticeship: Going From Student to Startup in Nine Months

SIBP-Blog-NEW-4 Hello Success in Business Podcast listeners! Today we are bringing you episode 234. We are here for you every Monday to teach you about success in business and today is no different.

Today Tom Ryan has invited onto our show an incredible entrepreneur, Isaac Morehouse. Isaac has created a business named Praxis that provides students with apprenticeship positions at startup companies. Praxis is an alternative to a traditional university experience, which is a welcome option for many who are daunted by expensive tuition and an ever-growing, post-graduation unemployment outlook.

The philosophy that has guided Isaac through his career is wanting to help people come alive and be free from whatever is holding them back, whether that is internal or external.

For a decade he focused on career mentorship and then he became very successful doing fundraising. As often happens for entrepreneurs, he became anxious to try something new. Isaac started to develop his new idea which as bridging the connectivity gap. He noticed there were lots of unemployed people with a degree and significant debt, and there were also lots of companies who want to hire but can’t find good talent.

Students sit in class for years and just hoping that what they learn will be what some company is looking for. He thought, “Why not do an apprenticeship?” He wanted to help students develop their personal brand.

It seemed crazy to try to turn his idea into a business at that time. He was accustomed to making a comfortable living at that time, so it was a lifestyle change and a sacrifice to engage in a startup at that point. But, he was passionate about his idea to help people go from student to startup in 9 months.

Aside from solving the connectivity gap, he noticed other problems with a traditional college degree. There are some missing skills that needed to be taught in order for graduates be prepared to enter the workplace.

At Praxis they teach skills, sure, but they also teach students to think, “How can I create value at this company?” They de-school their apprentices from a permission-seeking-mindset or a rule-following-mindset to a value-creating-mindset.

In the computer programing world, for example, the degree doesn’t matter very much. The startup-mindset way of hiring is the way the world is going. Think of yourself as a business: “me-inc.” See yourself as your own product and be in the startup context to see what that means so you don’t get stuck thinking that you just work a job.

The truth is that employers want to hire people with initiative and practical experience and in many fields a typical Bachelors degree simply does not mean that graduates are prepared for the workplace. Isaac has been able to see past our present expectations of a normal education and has partnered with many great startups to provide paid apprenticeships to students and give them a concentrated, powerhouse of an education!

Learn more about Praxis by clicking here.

To listen to Isaac Morehouse’s Podcast visit IsaacMorehouse.com


Tweet Tom at: @TomRyanAVL

Do you have a question about your business? Tom would love to help you:

Leave a voicemail: (801) 228-0663

E-mail your questions: SuccessInBusinessPodcast@gmail.com

Like this podcast on Facebook

Follow this podcast on Twitter: @TomRyanSIBP

Get every episode free: Subscribe in iTunes

Ep 233 – Breaking Down Revenue-Based Financing

SIBP-Blog-NEW-4 Welcome to Episode 233 of the Success in Business Podcast. We are here for you every Monday to teach you about success in business and today is no different.

Today Tom breaks down revenue-based financing for us. It is a hybrid of sorts: part loan, part credit card. It is similar to a loan because the business gets a lump sum of cash up front to use to finance the business’ growth, perhaps toward the purchase of an asset or to finance production by purchasing machinery. It is also a little bit like a credit card.

The thing that really sets it apart is how it is to be repaid. It will be repaid based on taking a percentage of ongoing revenue. As sales ebb and flow the revenue will likewise fluctuate. So, with a revenue-based financing deal the payments will fluctuate, too.

In a future episode Tom will explain how to know if a revenue-based financing deal is right for you and your business. Thanks for listening!


Tweet Tom at: @TomRyanAVL

Do you have a question about your business? Tom would love to help you:

Leave a voicemail: (801) 228-0663

E-mail your questions: SuccessInBusinessPodcast@gmail.com

Like this podcast on Facebook

Follow this podcast on Twitter: @TomRyanSIBP

Get every episode free: Subscribe in iTunes