Part 2 with Josh Crisp of Solinity

Josh Crisp (0:03)

Solinity Marketing, which is the marketing company, is the newest, latest, greatest, and honestly, it was just born out of frustration. A lot of things that I've done in my life and the cool companies that are now, all started with a frustrated moment, where it was like, either I was personally frustrated or I was frustrated there wasn't a product like this, saw a gap.

So, we started doing internal marketing and investing in team because we were frustrated with agencies that didn't understand how to create the content.

Paul Sponcia (0:32)

From the IT Company, it's Made Right Here, the stories of East Tennessee founders, creators and builders.

From the idea behind it, to the impact it had on the community, their employees and their personal lives. We're taking you behind the scenes of the movements they built.

Macy Brink (0:48)

It's Macy Brink with the IT Company. Thanks for joining us for part two with Josh Crisp of Solinity. Today's episode has just a really unique message about how sometimes life is preparing you for something that in the moment you may not even be aware of.

Josh takes us through his journey of Solinity and the path that brought him here.

Prior to starting Solinity, he had no ambition of being in this industry, and truthfully, it wasn't something that was even on his radar. As he walks us through his story, you'll hear themes and situations and encounters with different people throughout his life that were uniquely preparing him for this role and instilling in his heart the impact that he wanted to make through Solinity. It's super powerful, and we can't wait for you to hear.

Josh Crisp (1:37)

So I was faced with a really awesome opportunity. The company was growing.

They had a massive expansion plan to go in and create these, what I kind of call, quasi-ACO networks, where they would buy a hospital or a health system in a major metro. They would buy up or create a referral stream all around it, a physician group, senior living communities, ambulatory surgical centers, you name it, to where they controlled the whole health system in a market.

And so there was conflict of interest, obviously, with the CEO, my boss, being part of the board on the publicly traded entity. And so there started to be movement to where I was gonna have either an opportunity to be part of the C-Sweep and have to move to Houston for the senior division and lead that, or I was not. And you know enough about corporate environment that you don't take the job, you're gonna get replaced. So I was extremely happy about the possibilities and opportunities, and all I saw was running up the corporate ladder in a company that I had been part of from day one.

And I would say that my counterpart at home was equally not excited about that opportunity.

Paul Sponcia (3:00)

Your mission was not aligned.

Josh Crisp (3:01)

It was not. So that was a bumpy little road.

Paul Sponcia (3:05)

Yeah, makes sense.

Josh Crisp (3:06)

I was very short-sighted, and I was just like, this is, I have no other plan. I have no backup plan. And for an uneducated person on paper, and in Knoxville, I was probably at the top of the income bracket at that time. And there was no other jobs like that around here, or I couldn't find them at least. And so that was, I would say, the thorn that came up through the nest that forced me out. So I started trying to figure out what is my backup plan gonna be? And thankfully, that organization was very good to me, and they didn't force me out. They didn't do anything, but I had a few months to figure out what I was gonna do, and I didn't know what I was gonna do. And again, had I not, I would have not made the decision myself, oh, I'm gonna jump out to space and just do something on my own.

So I started a consulting company, and I thought I've created a pretty good network. I think I understand how to do this business.

At that time, I didn't really have the ambition of this vision of what is today. I just knew that I could help people probably figure out how to do this because I was used to problem solving and helping people do things.

Paul Sponcia (4:21)

When you say figure out how to do it, how to do senior living?

Josh Crisp (4:23)

How to do senior living. So there was a lot of people at that time, particularly on the real estate side, that saw the aging tsunami coming, because this was like 2012, 13