The Value Creators Podcast Episode #66. Financing the Future: Private Debt, Capital Access, and Entrepreneurial Lending Innovation with Dave Kotter

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What does it take to unlock capital in a system full of red tape, landmines, and outdated institutions? In this episode of The Value Creators Podcast, Hunter Hastings is joined by Dave Kotter, CEO of Integrity Capital and founder of the Hybrid Debt Fund. Dave pulls back the curtain on commercial real estate financing, innovative lending structures, and how technology—especially AI—is transforming capital flows.

From high-net-worth investors to B2B borrowers, Kotter explains why relationships are the key product, not interest rates. He shares how Integrity Capital designs financing that works for the future—faster, more flexible, and centered on the entrepreneur.

Key insights include:

  • How to unlock capital through advisory-based lending models
  • How debt innovation is reshaping the role of banks
  • How AI, alternative platforms, and decentralization are democratizing investment

Whether you’re raising funds, deploying capital, or building a financing venture, this is an essential guide to value creation in the modern financial ecosystem.

Resources:

➡️ Learn What They Didn’t Teach You In Business School: The Value Creators Online Business Course

Learn more about Integrity Capital

Learn more about Hybrid Debt Fund

Connect with Dave Kotter on LinkedIn

Connect with Hunter Hastings on LinkedIn

Subscribe to The Value Creators on Substack

Knowledge Capsule

1. Capital Access Is a Value Creation Lever

  • Entrepreneurs seeking debt capital often default to banks without exploring better options.
  • Integrity Capital serves entrepreneurs as a centralized access point to those other smarter lending options.
  • This advisory lending service opens doors that would otherwise remain closed.

2. Simplicity Wins in a Complex World

  • Commercial real estate financing is filled with nuance and variation.
  • Kotter’s mission is to reduce friction through clarity and experience.
  • Strategic simplicity earns client trust and facilitates execution speed.

3. Value Creation Starts with Proactive Structuring

  • Most loans fail because risks weren’t properly anticipated upfront.
  • Kotter’s team identifies “landmines” before they explode.
  • Strategic foresight turns complexity into competitive advantage.

4. Valuation Is a Deal-Maker—or Breaker

  • Appraisal mismatches can kill a deal.
  • Integrity Capital works with clients to prepare valid valuation narratives.
  • Micro-market realities must guide macro-level assumptions.

5. Every Deal Is Personal and Hyper-Customized

  • There’s no “one-size-fits-all” in real estate lending.
  • Institutional wisdom—developed through experience—adds unseen value.
  • Success depends on seeing what others miss.

6. Hybrid Debt: The Best of Debt and Equity

  • The Hybrid Debt Fund offers higher leverage with equity-like upside.
  • Borrowers can avoid raising excess equity while keeping control.
  • Investors gain steady returns with participation in profits.

7. Relationships Are the Real Product

  • Deals succeed or fail based on people, not just terms.
  • Kotter emphasizes matching the right people to the right capital.
  • The role of facilitator is as much human as financial.

8. AI Is Transforming Underwriting and Efficiency

  • AI tools speed up due diligence and eliminate bottlenecks.
  • Kotter’s team built proprietary AI systems to rate deals in minutes.
  • Automation reduces overhead while improving response time.

9. Innovation in Financial Services Is Just Beginning

  • Antiquated processes like SBA lending are ripe for disruption.
  • Fintech is democratizing investment and removing gatekeepers.
  • Custom-built tools challenge legacy institutions to evolve or lose relevance.

10. Rolling Recession Demands Adaptive Strategy

  • Kotter sees today’s market as a “rolling recession,” not a binary one.
  • Cycles are inevitable—resilience comes from reflection and realignment.
  • Hard times are opportunities for relationship-building and innovation.

11. Democratization of Capital Is Accelerating

  • Access to alternative investments is no longer exclusive to elites.
  • Technology allows individuals to participate with as little as $25K.
  • Legacy institutions face existential pressure from agile upstarts.

12. Strategy Must Precede Technology

  • Tools like AI and CRMs must follow clear strategic intent.
  • Executives must define needs before adopting solutions.
  • Discernment—not shiny software—is the real competitive edge. The human factor remains the most important.

Capitalism is never in crisis. It’s a complex system with feedback loops.

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From Capitalism and Its Critics: A History From The Industrial Revolution to AI. John Cassidy. Farrar, Strauss and Giroux.

It’s not hard to find declarations that capitalism is in crisis. In the book “Capitalism And Its Critics”, John Cassidy has 28 chapters of capitalism in crisis as documented by such luminaries as Friedrich Engels, Rosa Luxemburg and Thomas Piketty. The word crisis appears in the book 148 times, roughly five times per chapter.

At the same time, without blushing, Cassidy shows the classic chart of capitalism not in crisis – the hockey stick chart of the growth of global GDP per capita over the centuries which has the rest of us cheering and gratefully recognizing the gift that keeps on giving.

The Value Creators is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.

So what is Cassidy’s problem? Well, first, he makes a capitalistic living by writing about the crises of capitalism. He wrote How Markets Fail: The Logic of Economic Calamities and he’s a staff writer for The New Yorker, one of those East Coast publications that generate revenue by crying Fire! in the crowded theaters of capitalism, decrying the system that makes it possible for them to exist.

Capitalism is a system that persists, to the frustration of the John Cassidy’s of the world. Persistence, in complex systems science, is the result of a selection process, a process operated by the individuals who inhabit and thrive in the system. The criterion for selection is, “it works”. Specifically, it results in the individuals meeting, or making progress towards, their goals. As exhibited by Cassidy’s own use of the GDP Per Capita chart above – the most powerful exhibit to make the case about capitalism that “it works”.

So, where does all this talk of “crisis” originate? Complex systems produce emergent patterns that result directly from the actions and interactions of the people in them. The term “emergent” is important in systems science. It means that the patterns are not the result of linear cause-and-effect. No-one’s to blame. There’s no single cause or bundle of causes that can be isolated. There’s no adjustment that can be made. The purpose of a system is exhibited by the patterns that emerge.

There are two patterns that John Cassidy and his 28+ critics of capitalism (there are more than one per chapter) don’t like. One is disparities in the systemic distribution of income and wealth. It turns out that- it emerges, in other words – that some individuals accumulate more wealth and receive more income than others. This is a feature, not a bug, of course. The market system rewards those who are the most productive in creating value for others, providing incentives for them to keep on creating that value and accelerating value creation even further where possible. The result is the hockey stick GDP per capita chart showing that everyone benefits in improved well-being when a few outstanding value creators are incentivized. What the chart tells us is that all boats rise and all economic lives improve.

The second emergent pattern that John Cassidy and his ilk don’t like is that there are cycles in capitalist growth. There’s the occasional hiccup within the relentless upward progress of the GDP per capita chart. The hiccups are generally tiny and brief and have no lasting long term effect. They’re adjustments and adaptations to a changing environment. They relate to another feature of systems, which is feedback loops. Systems are alive and sensitive. They respond to the inputs of their individual agents. If something’s amiss in the context of the great purpose of value creation, the system can react and respond. If interest rates are too high or too much debt has accumulated or there are imbalances that become unstable, or whatever it is that the feedback loops point to as a problem to be addressed, the system will adjust. After adjustment, it keeps on going, and continues to bring new value and new levels of well-being. As Cassidy himself says in his conclusion, “The system cannot rest”.

Why do people like Cassidy and his collection of capitalism’s critics complain so much? It’s mostly a result of envy, that disreputable mindset that seems to possess so many humans that what one individual possesses only has worth in its comparison to what someone else has. That certainly explains the complaints about disparity. But it also explains the complaints about cycles, because their effect is different on some individuals than others. Not everyone loses, and that’s an annoyance to the Cassidy crew. They want us all to lose. Capitalism is an everybody-wins system, which annoys them most of all.

The Value Creators is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.

The Value Creators Podcast Episode #65. The Inner Excellence Of Entrepreneurial Leaders: Performance, Presence, and Purpose with Jim Murphy

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Entrepreneurial leaders are focused on value for others, especially customers and colleagues. They deliver through innovation, which is the implementation of a better future for those customers and colleagues. This outer-directed focus must start from a place of trust, clarity, and purpose. A place Jim Murphy calls Inner Excellence.

Jim Murphy is a high-performance coach and author of Inner Excellence. Drawing from his years coaching elite athletes, Jim shares the spiritual and mental tools that allow leaders to transcend fear, train presence, and perform with joy. This is a masterclass in leading from the inside out.

Key insights include:

  • Why your thoughts are not you—and how to gain freedom from them
  • How to surrender control to unlock courage and creativity
  • The business case for training your heart, not just your mind

Inner Excellence isn’t about perfection—it’s about joy. And it starts in the one place most of us avoid: within.

Resources:

➡️ Learn What They Didn’t Teach You In Business School: The Value Creators Online Business Course

Learn more about Jim Murphy and Inner Excellence

Connect with Jim Murphy on LinkedIn

Connect with Hunter Hastings on LinkedIn

Subscribe to The Value Creators on Substack

Knowledge Capsule

1. Inner Excellence Begins with Identity

  • Most people chase results; few build the identity that sustains them.
  • Your greatest performance starts with knowing who you are.
  • Inner excellence focuses on service, not self.

2. You Are Not Your Thoughts

  • Negative thoughts don’t define you—they pass like weather.
  • Learning to separate from thoughts is key to emotional freedom.
  • Awareness creates distance; distance creates clarity.

3. The Ego Is Your Biggest Opponent

  • Ego clings to image, past failures, and fear of rejection.
  • True growth requires surrendering ego to embrace possibility.
  • The more selfless you become, the more fearless you get.

4. Presence Replaces Control

  • Fear lives in the future; presence dissolves it.
  • In the present moment, there’s no fear—only awareness.
  • Success flows from clear, non-judgmental focus.

5. Surrender Is Strength

  • Surrender isn’t giving up—it’s letting go of what limits you.
  • Let go of the “little lollipop” to gain the whole candy store.
  • Surrender clears space for trust, intuition, and energy.

6. Emotional Energy Drives Performance

  • You can’t control outcomes, but you can manage your energy.
  • Every thought and environment influences your internal state.
  • Choose thoughts, words, and inputs that align with truth.

7. Feedback Is Always a Gift

  • Everything is here to teach and help you—if you let it.
  • Inner Excellence reframes every experience as feedback for growth.
  • Daily goal: Learn and grow, no matter the outcome.

8. Practice Builds Self-Mastery

  • Focus is trained by how you speak, think, and breathe.
  • Tools like the “float-up technique” help reset perspective.
  • Repetition—not intensity—creates transformation.

9. Love, Wisdom, and Courage Are Core Pillars

  • Love leads to fearlessness.
  • Wisdom is the unobstructed view of possibility and truth.
  • Courage is the willingness to step into discomfort.

10. Let Go of the Past to Become Someone New

  • Transformation requires letting go of your story and self-image.
  • You can’t reach second base with a foot on first.
  • Growth demands facing what you’ve never wanted to face.

11. Leadership Is Relational Energy

  • The quality of your relationships defines the quality of your life.
  • Self-awareness fuels better communication and trust.
  • Relationship capital is entrepreneurial capital.

12. The Fullest Life Is One of Selfless Actualization

  • Zoe: the Greek concept of “absolute fullness of life.”
  • The path is not fame or control—it’s being fully alive.
  • That begins with surrender, presence, and service.

The Value Creators Podcast Episode #64. Customer Experience Is Everything: A Conversation with Vance Morris

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What makes a business truly stand out in the hyper-competitive challenge to create customer value? It’s not just the product—it’s the experience, and the system that generates and sustains it.

In this episode of The Value Creators Podcast, Hunter Hastings speaks with Vance Morris, former Disney leader and expert in service system design, about why a customer experience system is the most strategic asset in business. From theme parks to high tech to carpet cleaning to consulting, Vance reveals how to create experience systems that delight customers, and drive lasting loyalty.

Key insights include:

  • Why systematization enables—not limits—exceptional service.
  • How systems harness personality, emotion, and consistency to create customer connection.
  • What it means to “plus” every interaction, and how to embed improvement into daily operations.

Whether you’re a small business owner or enterprise leader, this episode offers a masterclass in designing customer experiences that actually mean something—and work effectively.

Resources:

➡️ Learn What They Didn’t Teach You In Business School: The Value Creators Online Business Course

Connect with Vance Morris on LinkedIn

Learn more about Vance Morris

Connect with Hunter Hastings on LinkedIn

Subscribe to The Value Creators on Substack

Knowledge Capsule

1. Customer Experience Begins Where Product Ends

  • Good service is no longer a differentiator—it’s the minimum to compete.
  • Exceptional experiences elevate brands beyond commoditization.
  • Experience excellence means adding personality, care, and consistency.

2. Systematization Creates Freedom to Delight

  • Disney runs on SOPs—systems create consistency and free employees to “wow” guests.
  • When operational tasks become muscle memory, emotional service can flourish.
  • For entrepreneurs, strong systems create the freedom to step away.

3. Plussing: Continuous Improvement as a Discipline

  • Disney’s term “plussing” means always making things better—even small ones.
  • Experience design is iterative: each step can be “plussed” regularly.
  • Improvement ideas often come from frontline staff, not executives.

4. Experience Design Can—and Should—Be Intentional

  • Even packaging a book sale can be turned into a designed experience.
  • Vance created a “Vance in a box” experience to beat Amazon’s default convenience.
  • Thoughtful design creates brand moments customers remember.

5. Personalization Builds Loyalty

  • Customers forgive errors if there’s emotional connection.
  • Vance used stories, newsletters, and even his daughter’s ballet to connect.
  • People buy from people they feel they know.

6. Alarm Systems Prevent Customer Churn

  • Businesses need built-in alerts for declining engagement.
  • CRM systems should flag changes in behavior (e.g., less frequent visits).
  • Follow-up can recover at-risk customers before they leave.

7. Training Enables Consistency

  • SOPs must be practiced—not just handed out.
  • “Practice creates muscle memory, which creates freedom to serve.”
  • Great service requires clear systems, repetition, and buy-in.

8. Empowered Staff Improve the Experience

  • Frontline employees should be included in design and feedback loops.
  • Vance’s Disney story: how busboys improved table turnover with a tabletop organization idea.
  • Listening builds engagement and makes improvements real.

9. Let Personality Into the Process

  • Allowing staff to express themselves creates differentiation.
  • A phone greeting like “The agency that rocks” helps filter the right clients.
  • Great experiences reflect the values and style of the brand.

10. Human Touch Beats AI—Especially in Service

  • Live phone answering is a competitive advantage in an AI-dominated world.
  • Chatbots are efficient, but compassion and connection still matter.
  • The best businesses will blend tech with human warmth.

11. Service Recovery Must Account for Total Cost

  • Fixing a mistake means accounting for all customer costs (time, money, stress).
  • Offering a free repair isn’t enough—make it whole with extras (e.g., loaners, dinners).
  • Recovery is an opportunity to build deeper trust.

12. Implementation Is the Only Way to Profit

  • “You won’t profit unless you implement”—Vance’s core mantra.
  • Pick one idea and act on it; then build momentum.
  • Knowledge without implementation is just entertainment.

The Value Creators Podcast Episode #63. Systems Thinking in Action: Building Community-Of-Passion Based Businesses with Joe Zentmyer

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How do you build a retail business around passion—and scale it successfully? What does it mean to think in systems, not just solve problems?

In this episode of the Value Creators Podcast, Hunter Hastings speaks with serial entrepreneur Joe Zentmyer, founder of Snaggletooth Goby and builder of thriving passion communities—from indoor climbing gyms to tropical fish hobbyists and service ventures. Joe shares how he applies systems thinking, relationship-building, and detail-obsessive iteration to create businesses that endure and expand.

Key insights include:

  • Why systems—not checklists—create scalability and resilience.
  • How community, location, and hospitality converge to generate value.
  • The importance of building teams that thrive in uncertainty and complexity.

This is a hands-on masterclass in entrepreneurial systems design, filled with hard-earned lessons for anyone seeking to grow a values-driven, experience-based business.

Resources:

➡️ Learn What They Didn’t Teach You In Business School: The Value Creators Online Business Course

Connect with Joe Zentmyer on LinkedIn

Learn more about Snaggletooth Goby

Connect with Hunter Hastings on LinkedIn

Subscribe to The Value Creators on Substack

Knowledge Capsule:

1. Systems Thinking Is the Entrepreneur’s Superpower

  • Many founders jump from problem to problem without ever building a system.
  • Systems allow entrepreneurs to step back and let their business run, and not be consumed by it.
  • Joe Zentmyer emphasizes: “If there’s no process, the same problems will keep resurfacing.”

2. A Business Is a Puzzle—And Entrepreneurs Must Love Solving It

  • Joe sees his ventures as complex puzzles with interlocking systems.
  • He thrives on balancing operations, team dynamics, and creative problem solving.
  • Obsession with the system can be productive—if balanced with personal clarity.

3. From Vision to Replication: Systems Enable Scale

  • Each new climbing gym was hard, but systems made replication possible.
  • Over time, Joe built a system for teams to independently manage real estate, construction, launch, and operations.
  • Institutional knowledge—like climbing wall design and layout—became internal IP.

4. Community Is the Core of Passion-Based Businesses

  • Joe builds businesses around passionate identity: “I’m a climber,” “I’m an aquarist.”
  • Authenticity matters—customers want to be around others who feel it.
  • The best engagement comes from shared language, hospitality, and consistency.

5. Location Is Strategy

  • For niche businesses, there’s no McDonald’s-style data formula.
  • Objective factors like foot traffic combine with gut-level assessments like safety, vibe, and accessibility.
  • Joe chose sites near transit to lower costs and serve the community better.

6. Trust-Based Partnerships Enable Growth

  • Success depends on trusted relationships: real estate, contractors, investors.
  • Joe spent years assembling a reliable team across disciplines.
  • Being known for follow-through and fairness makes systems more robust.

7. Creative Problem-Solvers Are Essential

  • Early-stage ventures require improvisation and initiative, not rigid process followers.
  • Hiring for adaptability and curiosity is key during expansion and chaos.
  • “You can’t automate creative problem solving,” says Joe.

8. Marketing Passion Brands Requires Empathy and Simplicity

  • Deep experts often alienate newcomers with insider jargon.
  • Joe partners with generalist marketing firms to maintain accessibility.
  • Marketing must serve both the hardcore enthusiast and the curious beginner.

9. Experience Creates Loyalty

  • Whether climbing or aquarium care, the in-store experience is key.
  • Events, workshops, and personalized advice bind people to the brand.
  • Customers remember how they felt—and that memory drives retention.

10. Recurring Revenue Is the Engine

  • Joe looks for business models with built-in subscriptions or services.
  • Climbing gyms rely on memberships; aquariums offer in-home services.
  • This structure stabilizes cash flow and deepens engagement.

11. Systems Must Integrate with External Environments

  • Joe’s strategy adapts to zoning laws, transit incentives, and macroeconomic trends.
  • In Chicago, locating near transit hubs reduced parking costs and aligned with city planning.
  • Entrepreneurs must plug into broader institutional systems intelligently.

12. The Founder Needs a System, Too

  • Joe carves out time weekly for reading, writing, and system-level reflection.
  • He warns against being consumed by the business’s internal systems at the cost of personal well-being.
  • Sustainable entrepreneurship requires a personal system for focus and renewal.

The Value Creators Podcast Episode #62. Choose the Handle That Holds. Stoic Leadership and Everyday Integrity: A Conversation with Becky Schmooke

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How we lead is who we are.

In this episode of the Value Creators Podcast, Hunter Hastings speaks with Becky Schmooke—entrepreneur, leadership coach, and author of Choose the Handle That Holds. Becky shares how the system of philosophy we label as Stoic generates practical tools for leadership, self-awareness, and resilience. Rather than hierarchical leadership vested with titles and administrative control, Becky proposes a more human vision of leadership: grounded in personal values, emotional clarity, and active participation.

Key themes include:

  • Why authority and leadership are not the same—and how leadership is a lifestyle, not a position.
  • How Stoicism reframes control, responsibility, and purpose in business and life.
  • What it means to “choose the handle that holds”—and how to build emotional intelligence through action, not theory.

This conversation is a guide for anyone who wants to lead with clarity, build resilient organizations, and live aligned with their deepest values.

Resources:

➡️ Learn What They Didn’t Teach You In Business School: The Value Creators Online Business Course

Buy Becky’s book: Choose The Handle That Holds

Learn more about Becky Schmooke

Connect with Becky Schmooke on LinkedIn

Connect with Hunter Hastings on LinkedIn

Subscribe to The Value Creators on Substack

Knowledge Capsule:

1. Leadership is Who You Are, Not your position or title

  • Leadership is often misdefined as authority or power tied to position.
  • True leadership is available to everyone, regardless of rank or role.
  • It’s who you are and how you turn up every day
  • Great leaders are also great followers—engaged, empathetic, and collaborative.

2. Teams Should Be Made of Leaders

  • Hierarchical models miss the value of shared leadership and active participation.
  • Individuals in high-performing teams, like Olympic athletes, take turns leading based on context.
  • “Followership” is powerful when it means knowing when to support and when to step up.

3. Choose the Handle That Holds

  • As described by the stoic philosopher Epictetus, each situation has two “handles”—ways to approach it.
  • The “handle that holds” is integrity, courage, and ownership—not blame or denial.
  • Leaders who choose the right handle foster resilience and long-term trust.

4. Integrity Requires Personal Definition

  • Integrity isn’t one-size-fits-all; it depends on your individual values.
  • Defining what matters helps guide decision-making under pressure.
  • Businesses without this clarity often chase hollow definitions of success.

5. The Four Stoic Virtues are Practical Anchors

  • Wisdom, courage, justice, and temperance shape steady, resilient action.
  • These values ground behavior and decision-making amid external chaos.
  • For example, temperance (moderation) keeps us focused on long-term process over short-term wins.

6. Values-Driven Business Builds Market Trust

  • Living your values builds credibility with customers, employees, and partners.
  • Consumers reward integrity and are more forgiving of missteps when trust is earned.
  • Purposeful entrepreneurs create subjective value that the market recognizes.

7. Control is Internal, Not External

  • Stoicism teaches us to distinguish between what we can and cannot control.
  • In business, focusing too much on outcomes breeds anxiety and inefficiency.
  • Small, consistent actions aligned with values are more impactful than rigid plans.

8. Planning Must Be Flexible and Purpose-Driven

  • Plans aren’t inherently bad, but rigid ones can trap organizations.
  • Stoic-inspired planning involves adaptation, feedback, and clear purpose.
  • The real test is knowing when to stay the course—and when to shift it.

9. Purpose Should Anchor Personal and Business Life

  • Individual purpose must be discovered and aligned with everyday actions.
  • Companies can also have purpose—if it’s lived, not just printed on a wall.
  • Purpose sustains integrity under pressure and fuels long-term innovation.

10. Hierarchies Can Work—If Culture is Right

  • Flat organizations are inspiring but hard to scale; hierarchy isn’t inherently bad.
  • What matters is cultural leadership at every level—ownership, not obedience.
  • Debriefs, shared accountability, and transparency help flatten behaviorally, if not structurally.

11. Stoicism is Emotional, Not Emotionless

  • Big-S Stoicism engages deeply with emotions—it doesn’t suppress them.
  • Emotions are data; curiosity is the default reflex for emotional intelligence.
  • A “leadership reflex” (like the parenting car-arm) pauses reaction and invites insight.

12. Unshakable Purpose is the Supreme Aspiration

  • Seneca said it best: our longing is to be “not shaken” by events.
  • That inner steadiness is the outcome of living Stoic values every day.
  • Leaders who cultivate this internal strength create enduring impact in uncertain environments.