Editorial standard
How we pick guests
Every episode starts with the same question: has this person actually built something in Northwest Arkansas? The answer decides who sits down with Cameron and Nick.
Operators with real businesses
We talk with founders, owners and operators of companies doing business in Northwest Arkansas: people with real customers, a real payroll and real risk. We don't book aspiring founders, personal brands or people whose product is advice about businesses they haven't run. A guest may be one year in or forty, with a two-person shop or a regional employer. What matters is that the business exists and the guest built it or runs it.
Rooted in Northwest Arkansas
The podcast's goal is to encourage entrepreneurship in Northwest Arkansas, so the guests are people building businesses here. They're based in Fayetteville, Springdale, Rogers, Bentonville and the surrounding communities, or built their company here before it grew beyond the region. A rare exception is a founder whose story is bound up with the region even though the business sits just outside it.
Long-form, on location
We record in person, usually at the guest's own business, for about ninety minutes. We don't script it, and there are no remote panels or ten-minute promos. The length is on purpose: the useful part of a founder's story (the mistakes, the hires, what they learned) doesn't come out in a short segment. Every episode comes with chapters, key takeaways and a full transcript you can search.
No pay-to-play
A seat on this show is not for sale. No guest has ever paid to appear, and no sponsor buys a seat for a client or a portfolio company. Sponsors are named on the episodes they support and nowhere near the booking decision.
Relationships we disclose
Northwest Arkansas is small, and the people building it know each other. When a guest is connected to a host or to a sponsor, that connection is stated on the episode page rather than left for a listener to work out. Five connections sit in the archive today, each stated on its own episode page: Ben Clark of B-Unlimited is Cameron's father, which Ben says himself during the episode; Clinton Bennett of Focus Commercial Real Estate founded Bennett Commercial Real Estate, where Cameron worked as a broker before the firm merged into Focus; Brock Gearhart of Greenwood Gearhart is the show's presenting sponsor; Marshall Saviers of Cushman & Wakefield | Sage Partners is a supporting sponsor; and Natural Capital, the firm Brad Henry runs, was co-founded by both of those sponsors alongside past guest Todd Simmons. The two sponsors were booked on the same terms as anyone else.
How to nominate a founder
Know a founder people would learn a lot from? Nominate them, or nominate yourself, on the Be a guest page or by email at nwafounders@gmail.com. Tell us the founder, the company and why the story matters. Your nomination lands in the show inbox and somebody reads it, usually within a week. We can't book every good one.