My Quarterly Update: Q2 2025.
A few weeks ago, I met with a missionary named Chris for lunch. Our family has supported his work for many years and he and I have lunch once or twice per year to catch up. He told me about all the exciting things happening in his life, including becoming a foster parent. When my turn came to provide an update, I didn’t have much of anything new to share. I have the same jobs. I live in the same house. My wife and kids are doing the same types of things they were doing a year ago. We didn’t get any new pets. For our abnormal family, life is normal for once, and that is a good thing.
Work and Family Travel
2025 has been a relatively light travel year so far.
In January, I went to Jacksonville for a few days to speak at Financial Marketing Summit.
This is the annual industry event for financial publishing and media companies.
Over President’s Day weekend, we stayed at an Airbnb in Naples for a few days, and we really enjoyed our time down there. That was the first time we took our dog Mindy on a trip with us. It went well.
Next week, I’ll be spending a few days in Las Vegas speaking at Perry Belcher’s “Driven” mastermind event. I might travel to New York in early May for another industry event, but that hasn’t been finalized yet.
Our summer travel schedule will start a bit later than usual. Normally we head off for vacation as soon as school is out, but Ady has some dental work scheduled for the week after school gets out. Our aspirations include a trip to Kalahari (a waterpark resort), a father-son trip to watch pro wrestling, and a week at an Airbnb in a city we haven’t been to before.
MarketBeat Update
MarketBeat has always ridden the waves of the S&P 500. When the stock market has a good week and investor sentiment is strong, MarketBeat generates strong advertising revenue. When the market turns negative and investor sentiment sours, the advertising revenue that we generate can drop by 20% from one week to the next.
Thankfully, our healthy profit margin allows weather intermittent drops in revenue without having to cut expenses.
With the threat of tariffs and trade wars, the market has been exceptionally uncertain this year. The market can’t decide whether tariffs, trade standoffs, reductions in government spending, and major federal regulatory changes will ultimately be good or bad for corporate earnings. This means we’ve had some strong weeks at the beginning of the year and some weaker weeks in March as tariffs have become a reality for businesses and consumers alike. Overall, revenue is up about 15% year-to-date compared to 2024.
At the same time, we’re evolving as a company. Some functions are becoming more at MarketBeat while others are fading into the background. Our software development team is growing in importance as we clean up technical debt in our 15-year-old codebase, implement A.I. technologies, and add new features to the MarketBeat website. We are in the process of hiring a back-end development position now and will likely hire an additional front-end development position next year.
Meanwhile, technology has automated and streamlined many of our customer support functions. We made the difficult decision to eliminate a position simply because it was no longer needed, and we folded our support function into our admin team, which is led by Arin Gonseth. We are also increasingly reliant on paid advertising, which means we are working with more agencies and are considering bringing on a full-time media buyer later in the year.
Finally, our long-time managing editor, Don Miller, has decided to retire at the end of the year. Don is the third employee we have ever hired at MarketBeat. He and I have known each other since around 2009. He worked as a contractor initially and became an employee in 2017. He relocated to Sioux Falls from Florida in early 2024 and plans to live in Sioux Falls in retirement. We hope he sticks around as everyone’s “Office Grandpa” and perhaps as an occasional freelance writer for MarketBeat.
Our own Jessica Mitacek will become MarketBeat’s managing editor in 2025, and we’ll hire another Associate Editor this fall.
Venture Capital and Real Estate Update
Homegrown Capital made its final new investment in Homegrown Capital Fund 1 this Spring. We invested in a North Dakota-based A.I. startup called Chipp, led by founder Scott Meyer. Their product is a workplace A.I. toolkit that can be deployed in corporate settings. In the same way that someone might be assigned a corporate email account when starting a new job, Chipp hopes they can become the “corporate A.I. account” that new employees are assigned when starting a job.
I personally made a small investment in StringTree, which is a Sioux Falls-based startup that operates an online marketplace for rare musical instruments. It is by Peter Burghardt, who I met several years ago when he ran a startup accelerator program called The Batchery. I am not making many new one-off angel investments right now, but occasionally, I will personally write a check for the right company when they do not fit the criteria that Homegrown is looking for.
On the real estate side of things, we are finally looking at building some new apartments again. We own some land adjacent to our other apartments at Marion Ave. and Benson Road, and we will build 144 center-load apartments. We have bank financing lined up and plan to start on the project in July. Our construction pace is much slower than it was a few years ago, but we are starting to see some signs of life in the market despite the threat of tariffs and other economic uncertainties.
How I Use Artificial Intelligence Technology
With new technology releases happening weekly, it’s hard to keep up with all the new artificial intelligence tools that can supercharge productivity. I try to play with every new popular tool for at least an hour to see what’s possible with bleeding-edge A.I. technology.
Here are some of the ways that I have implemented A.I. in my personal and professional workflows:
- I use Lindy.ai to create meeting briefs before every meeting on my calendar. These briefs include a biography of the person I’m meeting with, what the meeting is likely about, and topics that I have recently discussed with the person over email.
- I use a Claude project to analyze my health records. I use an Apple Watch, a WiThings scale, and a smart blood pressure monitor to collect health data in Apple Health. Every month, I export that data, along with any new medical records, and upload it to Claude. I then ask Claude to tell me how my numbers have changed and give me recommendations to improve my numbers.
- We use the OpenAI API at MarketBeat to create a variety of types of content. One example is our Early Bird Stock of the Day. We upload news and data about a stock to create a “bull case” and a “bear case” for each stock of the day with A.I.
- I use the Gemini API that is built into Gmail as a better form of search for Gmail. I never delete an email and have 15 years of emails saved in my Gmail account. Gemini allows me to easily summarize every email I have received on a topic or summarize every conversation that I’ve had with someone in the last year or so.
- I use GitHub CoPilot to help me write code in Visual Studio at work. The magic is that you can write a comment and CoPilot will try write the code that corresponds to the functionality mentioned in the comment. I’ve also played with Replit and Lovable (“Vibe Coding” tools) but have found them minimally useful for production work.
- When my kids have homework, I’ll often use ChatGPT to explain math and English concepts to Micah (and sometimes relearn them myself). I’ve also used it to create study guides for tests and answer homework questions that even dad couldn’t figure out.
I’ve tried some of the “Agent” tools that allow AI tools to operate your computer but have found them to be slow and minimally useful so far. We are still very early on in the artificial intelligence era. You are not too late to learn the tools that are out there, and they will only get better and easier to use over time.
Other Community Leadership Notes
It’s already been a busy year for several community projects and philanthropic initiatives I’m involved in.
Here are a few highlights worth sharing:
- On January 28th, we hosted a Chamber Business Connections Tour at MarketBeat, where a few dozen chamber members toured our office and other businesses in the Cherapa complex. I’ve also been supporting the Chamber’s Community Appeals program and mentoring two members of the YPN Steering Committee.
- On March 27th, I spoke at DSU’s Entrepreneurship Day in Madison, where I shared my entrepreneurial journey and highlighted how a DSU education can launch students into a wide range of technology careers.
- SiouxFalls.Business and MarketBeat announced this year’s “30 Under 30” group, including our own Laycee Kluin. We took last year’s class to tour the Amazon warehouse in Sioux Falls and we are planning a sit-down with Senator Thune with our group later this month.
- This is the second year that MarketBeat will be the season sponsor of Levitt at the Falls, a series of 50 outdoor concerts held every summer in downtown Sioux Falls. This year’s lineup will be announced on May 1st.
- MarketBeat will again be a key sponsor of the YPN Crossroads Summit later this summer. This is one of my favorite local conferences to attend. If you are under 40 (as I am for a few more months) and work for a business in the Sioux Falls area, you should consider attending the event.
- MarketBeat is sponsoring the renovation of the space and technology floor of the Kirby Science Museum at the Washington Pavilion. This project is a few years in the making and will finally come to fruition over the summer and be open to visitors sometime this fall.
- The MarketBeat Open will be coming back in October. This is a USTA professional tennis tournament that happens in Sioux Falls. We will again be the title sponsor and are looking forward to helping create an even better tournament this year. Tickets go on sale for the tournament in August.
Wrap Up
If you are still reading this far, I’d encourage you to get tickets for the Lallycooler Music Festival happening in July. This is an outdoor music festival being headlined by Sam Hunt and Pitbull. You can get your passes here.
