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- [00:00]
Jonathan Dues
No.
- [00:22]
Doug Goodnow
Welcome to the White and Blue podcast. I'm Doug Goodnow and my co Host is Colleen McGinnis. We are here to tell the interesting stories of Hillsdale College alumni or more accurately, help them share their own stories. Here's a little bit about today's guest. Jonathan Dues from The class of 2003 was a former basketball standout at Hillsdale. Now he is combining his love for basketball and business. Dues is the co founder of Swish House, the world's first basketball fitness community for adults. Learn more about this innovative business venture and also about his time as a charger. Jonathan, thank you for joining us today.
- [00:58]
Jonathan Dues
It's my pleasure. Thank you so much, Doug, Colleen, for having me.
- [01:01]
Colleen McGinnis
Yes, it is thrilled to be here. Well, it's very fun to have you in this capacity. 20 plus years later after we were students, I know the same time frame.
- [01:09]
Jonathan Dues
So 99 to 03.
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Colleen McGinnis
Yeah, I didn't hang out much with you. You were too cool with all your basketball guys. You know, it was fun to watch you on the court.
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Jonathan Dues
Thank you so much.
- [01:19]
Colleen McGinnis
But it's also been fun following your career and all of the things you've been doing so successfully in finance and in your family life. But one I think very interesting thing and one reason you're here is the Swish House venture. And I'd love to learn more about that. Share with the audience specifically what you're doing, what Swish House, what the concept is.
- [01:41]
Jonathan Dues
Indeed. I always explain the business in two parts. It's, it's most people categorize us in the world of adult boutique fitness kind of in like everybody's familiar, I'm sure in some capacity with CrossFit, Orange Theory Fitness, there's Soul Cycles, some of these mega, especially in major cities, these adult fitness experiences. There's boxing fitness classes called Title Rumble that are multi billion dollar companies at this stage where adults go train like a boxer. They're in your 20s, 30s, 40s. That's where I came up with the idea for Swish Outs. Oddly, in Chicago, I had this idea to add a title boxing workout. It was a, you know, in my neighborhood, I went to try it. You buy boxing gloves, you beat up a heavy bag for a while. And I had this like epiphany, like, man, I think people would, I mean how many people do I know played, have ever boxed? And not that many. I always love asking people, how many people do you know have ever like gotten a ring and like beat somebody up? Not that many. But how many people, how many people do you know, that played basketball, not that we're like college or pros that like played on their eighth grade team their ninth grade or just enjoy it. And I was like, God, I think people would show up as like some 30 year old, 40 year old dude or gal would show up and like get worked out and like do shooting drills and contests and like maybe not have the risk of getting injured. So I started thinking it through in my, in my mind and like we came up with basically I called my smartest friend from childhood, his name's Dave Holtzmiller. He played collegiate basketball as well. And we came up with this idea to create an adult basketball centric fitness community where you could buy a membership and get on an underutilized local court. So think of it as. That's kind of the other kind of aspect of it is we're in that same business sector I always explain as Airbnb and Uber. So activating underutilized assets and turning and running a business out of them, a car or somebody's awesome condo in Miami, Florida or something that just sits dormant. You can now like put on Airbnb some of them. So it was like, gosh. And if you do that, the overhead for the model, the business is really low. You don't have a real estate plan. A lot of these other businesses, you have to have this monster overhead. You have to be rich to open up like an Orange Theory fitness. That's kind of the punchline is it's like, it's a very expensive franchisees that you would have to do in order to run some of these other fitness companies. So we had this idea of like, wow, what if we went around, activated and bought up a bunch of unused basketball courts in Chicago and New York, created an app, and if you're a casual NBA fan and just, you know, maybe played on your sixth, seventh grade team, you need to lose a few pounds. You want to go catch. You know, instead of getting on a treadmill, you could go do something super fun like doing shooting contest drills. The things you used to do as a player as a kid or for me, as a collegiate player, I was pretty decent college player because I like outworked everybody. I was the guy that was shooting 300 threes a day or something. You know, like there's a lot of junky basketball players that just love to shoot and run. And so we just had this. We started riffing on it as kind of a fun entrepreneurial idea in 2016, 2017, 18, and then we actually brought in a few, like Real angel investors and brought in a full time employee and during the pandemic raised some money and like went from like kind of a fun idea into like a real thing that's now humming in New York City and in Chicago. And then we're planning to take it to 50 cities within the next, I'd say seven or eight years, hopefully faster. But think of it as, you know, we're going to franchise it all over the country. I think it could be a global business if we really execute. But right now it's just a small business. It's really going well in Chicago, New York. And so think of it as like, you know, you're, as an adult, you, you buy a, a membership to Swish House the same way you might do a CrossFit gym. Whether you're in Hillsdale or in Detroit or in San Francisco. You know, like you, you can catch basketball centric workouts and if you really still like to play competitively, you can catch organized, high quality, consistent pickup games that are competitive for those people who still like to get their juices playing. And because the workout classes are non contact, you can be Lebron James or an out of shaped good. No, you get or, or people literally like novices. Like we have novices that might come with, you know, a girl might bring her boyfriend who's never played and she played, you know, at Michigan and brings her boyfriend who's like played, you know, isn't a real great basketball player, but can do the class because there's, it's, it's just, it's team based shooting contest stations, a whole litany of like really fun kind of strength, conditioning, flexibility, mobility drills that we've gamified. It makes exercising super fun. Like people have a hilarious time at Swish houses. So does that make sense? That's kind of what the business is.
- [06:16]
Doug Goodnow
Yes, it does. And you know, I have a couple questions in there, but go ahead. You know, obviously.
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Jonathan Dues
Hit me.
- [06:25]
Colleen McGinnis
Well, go Doug.
- [06:26]
Doug Goodnow
Okay. Your financial planning background in your basketball background. I mean, basketball, you know, basketball.
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Jonathan Dues
Yeah, yeah.
- [06:34]
Doug Goodnow
But to actually convert that into a business and then convert the fitness part, that's like, you know, it's more than just knowing how to play basketball. So talk about that process, the business piece of it, the learning process. You had to go just to get this up and running.
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Colleen McGinnis
Yes, I think my questions are more fun, but we'll start with that.
- [06:50]
Jonathan Dues
No, I love both. So I'm here to get the truth, so. No, I love the question. I've been asked it before too. So I Had I, I'm very self def deprecating with respect to my talents in financial services. When I say talents, I mean brain talents. It's more. I was a speech communication major here. As you know.
- [07:08]
Colleen McGinnis
You know, me too.
- [07:09]
Jonathan Dues
As you well know. I was advised to either get into sales or go into politics. My father was a, you know, six term Republican judge, you know, before that a prosecutor was, you know, brilliant guy like, and they had, people had said like. My sister worked on Capitol Hill for a couple of centers. Jack Kemp, John Boehner, she worked in the, you know, on, she was assistant to the sergeant at arms on Capitol Hill in D.C. so I was like kind of into that. We had an aunt and uncle that lived in D.C. so I was like, maybe I'll get into politics, you know, or people were like, Jonathan, you can really talk to people. You should get into sales.
- [07:46]
Colleen McGinnis
It's the same thing.
- [07:47]
Jonathan Dues
It's the same thing. It's the same thing. Sales. So I was like, all right, I actually just like playing basketball. I'm going to try to play pro basketball. And I wasn't, I was good enough to. I had a couple of opportunities to play professionally in Italy, but not in like the big boy leagues where you're making serious money and you know, whatever. So I was, whatever. That's a whole other ball of wax. But I got into financial services through my brother. I did not major in finance. My brother was a financial advisor with Morgan Stanley. He, you know, just kind of got me into internal sales job with a firm called Ibbotson Associates in Chicago. And then I hustled really hard there like 0506 and then got the opportunity to start an entirely new division of a firm in Chicago called Mesero Financial. And I quite literally was the first employee of this like new division which a group of executives that had spun out of the company I was working for, which was acquired. And I got like a crazy wild like forced into like entrepreneurship. Like I was just having to build like an institutional like investment advisory business from scratch basically. And I was 25, 26 at the time and like basically was given half the United States to cold call and build a business from. And our team from 06 through 2014 built it from like zero clients, zero assets, no brand. And the time I left we were at 30 billion and had like 15 major institutions that hired us around the country. And we're like a real brand in the 401k. This like the retirement planner, you know, here in college, at a college 403B industry right. Like the retirement plan, investment services, mutual funds world. And I just got an entrepreneurial itch and, like, got to build that from scratch and got to become the national sales manager and kind of, you know, it was really. I was so proud of it. But, like, I did not like the stock market. Like, some people live and breathe that I don't. I'm so blessed to work in that industry. I love it. I still do. I work for, you know, incredible company called Fisher Investments and instill him in that industry. But I took what I'd learned in the entrepreneurial side of financial services and had this wacky idea with Dave, my best buddy from childhood, Holtz Mueller, who I started Swish House with, to, like, kind of take all I'd learned in the world of entrepreneurial financial services and, like, attach it to something that I'm, like, deeply in love with. Basketball. And, like, it was also. The Swish House thing was a solution for you. I'm very honest. Like, as a traveling salesman in financial services, it's a lot of business travel, a lot of steak dinners, a lot of drinking. Unhealthy, unnecessary. Just drinking at dinners. I had put on a ton of weight post college, and I needed to get back in shape. And I hated all the other stuff I was doing. I always joke, my wife ran a couple of marathons. I ran a couple of half marathons. So I ran one full. I hated that. I did triathlons. I hated that. Worse. I just like everything. And I just was. And I didn't like playing basketball anymore because I wasn't as good as I used to be. I was pretty good back in the day. And, like, I was out of shape and not very good. And, like, I was like, what would I show up with bells on to do? And that's kind of how we came up with the idea of persuasion. I was like, I'll actually go to this. Like, I do this seven days a week. And so it was kind of a solution for me, too. That was. Was kind of like the perfect marriage. Like, I think I got a cool idea. I think this could really scale. And you could scale it fast as a business if we just perfect it for a few years. And it's basically just like a franchise model of, like, you start in one city, starting to. You build a brand, you get people to know what you're doing, and then you spread it like wildfire everywhere, which is kind of what I did at Mesero in the financial services world. So I got to kind of take that and apply it into what I love the most, which is hoops. Other than my, my family, it's basketball, like so. And that's just what's been so fun about it is it's just been like a really interesting. It has not been always fun. It's been a real grind. It's a serious company now with real employees and you know, big boy plans and a major board. You know, like it's. But it's super fun because it's hoops, you know, So I kind of still have my fix of both. Like, I, I don't want to leave. Like people always ask like, why are you doing two jobs? It's like, well one, I'm like 44, I'm not wealthy, I need money. You know, like it's income, you know, it's your highest earning years. But like I actually thoroughly enjoy both because I have balance now. I, there was a few years I was very out of balance mentally and like physically just because of how stressful this has been. Kind of running two startups because the division I'm building at Fisher is kind of a startup too, so. But I'm loving it. So I don't know if that answers the question. Sorry.
- [12:16]
Colleen McGinnis
Yeah, yeah, it was an interesting answer to a uninteresting question. I'm just kidding. Just kidding, Doug. Okay, so logistically I want to go back to the concept of Swish House and how it works. So I'm trying to picture this. So, so you have pick like gyms that pick up different times, you know, if they're not busy. You have people that are training in your model.
- [12:44]
Jonathan Dues
Yeah.
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Colleen McGinnis
So there's coaches. Yes, there, there are they people with full time jobs that jump in to do this. How does all that work?
- [12:53]
Jonathan Dues
So think of it like this. I'll give you the, the perfect example of like New York City. So we found our business partner. It's a guy named Paul. You in every market you need to have, we basically find one or two people that will lead a franchise. So there's a two gentlemen that are going to lead.
- [13:06]
Colleen McGinnis
So they're owning it.
- [13:09]
Jonathan Dues
Paul Vitelli owns Swish House, New York City and it's thriving. He makes a nice living off of that. He is also a major shareholder in the mothership of the company and runs kind of the HQ with me and Kristen, our other partner that runs the company now. So think of it as in every market there's call it a franchisee or somebody who in that world they're not technically franchisees right now, but that's the long Term plan, everything will be. But think of it as there's usually one or two people that are cubing the business full time hyperlocally in Chicago and New York that are the business owners, the owner operators. And we often are desperately trying to find like the ideal candidate is just a hoops centric, die hard basketball lover, somebody where basketball is in his or her blood. They ideally have some serious academic rigor and have done something professionally that's relevant, you know, so entrepreneurial, have built a business, you know, that they really want to be and call it a adult health and wellness or built around basketball. You have to be a community builder. So it's got to be a really dynamic hyper local leader. Call it the owner operator, that's the face guy or gal of the business. And then the really cool part is we then staff it with a ton of part time contractors, you know, like just they're not employees. I, I always joke, I kind of hire, I try to find like the 26, 27 year old version of myself. Like we just hired this guy who you know, in Chicago, played at Colgate. He's a stud, has a big job in Chicago and like he just got engaged and he's like, he probably will make another like 5, 10 grand a year just like getting paid 50, 65 an hour and he walks down the street. He lives in the neighborhood in Chicago where we operate. So like, so if you, there's always like one or two people that own the business then you staff it with. We exclusively hire from the pool. You have to have like a deep big boy or big girl basketball resume. You have to have played post high school. We don't care if you played at Michigan, at Hillsdale or at Albion, you know, D1, D2, D3 or whatever. If you just, you know, you have to have like a real pedigree. You have to be vocal. Like you kind of, we have tryouts, you have to, you're kind of a star. So there are these, we call them basketball fitness coaches. So we've built a whole online curriculum. We had Kristen Hydloff who I run the company with. She's in the Illinois High school Basketball hall of Fame. She was a four year starting point guard at Georgetown. She has a Northwestern Masters. She's brilliant. Like she runs the company, you know, like so essentially think of it as why did I bring Kristen up? What was I?
- [15:29]
Colleen McGinnis
Fitness basketball, fitness coach.
- [15:30]
Jonathan Dues
Oh. So she built the, she built the curriculum. We have this entire like seven pillared part to our, we call it our signature 60 minute basketball fitness class designed for anybody who loves the game. You can literally fog a mirror and like basketball, you can do the workout. If you stink or if you're LeBron, we do not care. You get the same workout and we make you feel like Diana Taurasi or LeBron. Like, our coaches are taught, like the social emotional skills of like, everybody is going to 100 out of 100 classes, have a great time and be treated like a star, whether they make 80% of their three pointers or 20.
- [16:02]
Colleen McGinnis
So everyone's a winner.
- [16:03]
Jonathan Dues
Everybody's a winner. Exactly. I don't know how I feel about it. It's co ed in classes. Like, we have female coaches, we have male coaches, we have a girl that played at Pimp 10 in the Ivy League. We have a bunch of ex Dartmouth players. Like, we hire these studs that show up with bells on and they make a little. And you know, living in New York and Chicago in your 20s and 30s, you need money. Everybody does extra, you know, fun money, you know, so that's what's really cool is there's this incredible leaders and they. We have like a whole. So Kristen built it alongside this guy, Trevor Huffman, who is one of our other co founders who played 14 years professionally. And then we brought in the biggest get we brought in was the Detroit Pistons, who then became the Charlotte Hornets head sports performance director. So we got like an NBA sports performance head of sports performance at major NBA teams to kind of sign off and help build the workout class. So think of it as like, it's not just the physical, incredibly killer workout they provide. The best part to me is like, it's fun. There's a mental health benefit. It's one of the only workout classes you go to. And you're like, holy cow, that was actually a good time. And you know what? Like, we hear people all the time like, I suck at basketball, but that was so much fun. And you know, like, you guys. And we get told lots that we are and I don't know how you guys feel. I don't know what it's like around here. And I don't live in Hillsdale anymore. But, like, it's just fitness has become so, like, sexy exclusive. And like, is everybody's, you know, like all this, like, overly, like, I don't know, exclusive and people. It's intimidating for some people if you don't grow up. I try to avoid working out and that kind of thing. People just like. And we often get told that even though basketball is a very exclusive sport, you have to be a very good athlete to be good at basketball. We have to run, jump, catch, shoot, pass, dribble, play defense. You have to do a lot of stuff. And we make it accessible to just any regular Joe or Josie who's a casual fan. And there are not a lot of solutions for those people. There's a zillion of those people. There are very few Jonathan's that played four, four years of college. It's like a crazy stat of like people who played college for four years. It's like less than 1% high school athletes or something. So the point is like it's. We hire these great talented people and then the so think people. That's the most important piece. The second piece is then we go out and bird dog the company is we have 50 investors. 40 of the 50 investors are former pro college players. Our network, I always joke like other than maybe the people who run the NBA and the wnba, I don't think there's a bigger batter network than like our swish house network of like. And it's people who played at places like Yale, Princeton, Harvard, Notre Dame, Butler, North Carolina, Duke, you know, like on our investor team and like Northwest. We have a ton of ex Northwestern folks. Like so it's just this, it's this killer network though. When we open Seattle, we make three or four calls. You're from Seattle, right? Like you know, I can just tell you offhand, like I know two or three people I can call immediately. I know the entire Seattle landscape. And it's just like it's my partner's sister in law, like works for the Seattle Storm and runs this incredible 3x3 business. Like I could call her and like she's, she puts us in touch with the whole Seattle basketball community. Like we have this killer network and we find all these great unused basketball courts could be at like on a college campus. You know, an arena that's underutilized. It could be a rec center gymnasium inside a college campus. It could be some quaint little Christian school or you know, charter schools. There's these beautiful new schools that get built all the time that have these luxury basketball courts that sit dormant 7pm to 10pm when like people after work would want to go exercise on them. So that was like our idea to go find unused courts. Call it 6, 8, 10 hours of court time a week, year round strike leases with these places. So we, that's like think of, that's where we run our business. Lock those up. We try to, you know, let's say if we're opening Atlanta. We'll go get three or four facilities that become Swish house partners. They go into the app and like with our membership, you can bop around to like a bunch of different neighborhoods in Atlanta. Hop on a court for an hour, like you go catch a workout for an hour and you leave.
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Colleen McGinnis
So someone is franchising the local area, not necessarily the gym.
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Jonathan Dues
Not the physical gym. Correct. Yeah. Think of it as a territory.
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Colleen McGinnis
Got it.
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Jonathan Dues
Like in Atlanta, the 404, you know, and in Detroit it'd be 313248. You know, somebody would own those markets. And Chicago, 312-847s, the North Shore, et cetera.
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Colleen McGinnis
Okay.
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Doug Goodnow
Seems like to be pretty unique in your segment because a lot of the gyms you need kind of a permanent fitness place. This is definitely a little different model, less overhead on.
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Jonathan Dues
That's the beauty of it. People think it's the hardest part. No question. I don't even call it the hardest part. It's just, that's the company. If I want to open Atlanta in like Buckhead and I wanted to build a basketball facility, I would need to raise probably 5 to 10 million dollars just to build it, let alone like run it, hire people. That's, it's in tax. There's, there's like NBA players, There's people, there's billionaires that open up these luxury pimped out basketball facilities all over the country and then they go, they go bankrupt in like five, 10 years. And like, I should have mentioned this. My boy that I started Swish House with, Dave Holtzmeyer was like a Manhattan real estate attorney at like Skadden Arps Manhattan, which I didn't know this, but it's like playing for the Lakers or like the Yankees in law, especially in real estate law. And like, that's the beauty. I think the smartest people that get behind us, that invest in us is because we don't have the overhead. And what I also love to tout about it is there are two very normal human beings that I think are going to kill it that are opening up Atlanta, right? These two guys, Vinnie and Jason, for us, like, they like it. It's, it's, it's people who are, they are such die hard Hoopers. They love basketball. It's all they want to do with their careers. They have other careers, but they're like, we're going to open Atlanta, blow this up. And this is what we want to do, grow this. So it's like you're finding people that really want to, to do the Business and are super passionate about it. And then you know, we just work to kind of find, you know, the right places to operate it out of and it just, it becomes like that's like the only big puzzle piece you have to figure out. Then from there it's just community building. You have to, you know, get four or five hundred people to come try a swish house. You know, we usually can build a nice community of 2, 300 members and you have a very, a nice business there to kind of build off and sets a great career for somebody. So it's like, so it's think it's like that's kind of how we're like, you find the great leaders. They find in the part time staff. Tap into like all these unused facilities. We help with that, open up a bunch of doors. Once we lock those up, you then kind of launch the business and kind of build the community. And again, we're. We're in two cities now. We'll be in four or five by the end of this year, early next year. And then I think like, which ones do you. Atlanta is next. Columbus, Ohio. And then if I were betting, my hunch would be we'll do Indianapolis. We have a pretty interesting deal cooking in Indianapolis. And then our biggest connections. Something we should talk about is Detroit is our biggest connection. We've mapped out the whole country. We have some serious juice in Philadelphia through three or four of our bigger investors. We have a ton of juice obviously in New York connections, Boston connections, But Detroit's number one because I'm obviously the founder. Then we've got. Dan McGrath's an investor. You remember Dan McGrath who played here? Ryan.
- [23:17]
Colleen McGinnis
I was giving him a PI Phi formal.
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Jonathan Dues
He did, yeah.
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Colleen McGinnis
He doesn't dance. Everyone.
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Jonathan Dues
He's.
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Colleen McGinnis
I'm putting it out there.
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Jonathan Dues
Danny's not. I'm gonna. You're gonna just. He's gonna be crushed that you called him a bad dance.
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Colleen McGinnis
Oh, I could, I could imitate it if I was not sitting in a chair.
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Jonathan Dues
He's one of the greatest men in the history. He's one of my favorite people.
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Colleen McGinnis
He's wonderful.
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Jonathan Dues
He's like the greatest guy of all time. So he. Now I lost my train of thought.
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Colleen McGinnis
Sorry.
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Jonathan Dues
We brought Dan McGrath.
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Doug Goodnow
Detroit.
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Jonathan Dues
Detroit's. And Ryan Veronisich, who's interestingly education right in education superintendent at Melvindale. Yeah, he's brilliant. Brilliant guy. One of my best friends. They're investors. Johnny Hamoud's an investor. I don't know if you remember Johnny. He was a freshman when I Was a senior from Dearborn. Great guy. And then like five or six other investors are from Detroit. So I think Detroit and then Minneapolis and San Diego are like the other two big cities that we're looking at. We have like investors that want to do it that we're interviewing and like really getting to know. But we've all agreed to go to like, I'd say 8 to 10 cities by the end of 2027 and then you know, 50 to 75 cities by the year 2033. That's like the company's goal.
- [24:22]
Colleen McGinnis
Okay.
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Jonathan Dues
So it just becomes a matter of like finding the right fit, lovely people that want to put the money and the time in their lives into owning Houston. And you know, once you find them, you find the facilities and then you build. It's think of it as like in every. We're very confident and obviously we have to be. You have to be crazy to be an entrepreneur. Like, yeah, like we, we're, you know, there's no question there's a market for what we're doing. It's just an extraordinarily fun. It's. The only thing that matters is we all age is your health, you know, and we've created a way for I think millions. Right now it's thousands, you know, hundreds and you know, hundreds. Almost thousands. I think across Chicago and New York we're almost at a thousand. But like the point is there's million, billions of people who love hoops that will love this. There's just. No, we already know. It's just we don't want to be crazy and try to grow too fast. But that's, that's the business, it's. And the beauty. The beautiful thing is to go back to it is like there's, there's precedent for what we're doing as a company. That's why, you know, we're. And we've been smart enough. Like Dave is a, was a high end real estate lawyer. I was a pretty good, you know, mutual fund and 401k investment sales guy. Like I didn't know anything about building a basketball centric fitness franchise that operates out of unused. Like it was just a wacky idea that actually it's working, it's profitable, it's making money in the two biggest cities in the country. And it should like, it should technically work everywhere. It just is a matter of like anything you have to hire really, really well, train and develop people really, really well and execute on a scalable franchise based business plan. So other companies have done it. We think with and you know, with. With. We always say like other companies have done much bigger things without the built in vantage of basketball. Like we already know people dig hoops. We just have. We've created a new way for people to enjoy it that's very accessible I think if that makes sense.
- [26:09]
Colleen McGinnis
I have another.
- [26:10]
Doug Goodnow
Go ahead. You have a question? I can talk.
- [26:12]
Jonathan Dues
You look like you had a great one coming.
- [26:14]
Doug Goodnow
I did, but I'll defer.
- [26:16]
Colleen McGinnis
Okay, that's good. So you mentioned fun a lot. Gamify the curriculum. Can you walk us through?
- [26:26]
Doug Goodnow
Yeah.
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Colleen McGinnis
Typical. Or you know, most popular. Most popular class maybe. And what people do.
- [26:32]
Jonathan Dues
We call it the Signature 60. It's called the Signature 60 basketball fitness class. So the first. So in a traditional. So let's just say what day is it today? Wednesday, Thursday. I think it's Thursday, the Thursday night today in Chicago. So there's I don't know, three or four things going on in Brooklyn, New York tonight. I think one on the Upper east side of New York tonight and then you know, maybe one in the suburbs tonight. One in the two. Two classes in the city in Chicago tonight. I think if I'm my schedule off the top of my head's right. So there's depending upon the size of the court, we try to use like high school size basketball courts. 16 is the perfect class. 16 to 20 is the perfect class size. One certified coach and again all of our coaches are ex pro college players. So they're trained on this like there's like a whole comprehensive online course they have to go through. They have to do in person training with us on this like signature 60 minute class which is basically the first five or six minutes. Everybody on the court has a basketball in their hands and it's an organized full court. We call it a full court, full body warmup. You're just typically running and dribbling and shooting a series of layups, jump shots and three pointers if you want to. If you're a novice and you just want to run and like just get your. You're like getting your heart rate up. And we always say Everybody go about 50%. There's. We have a really cool aspect that I like to tout is we have like all of our playlists. Our classes are built by like really high end like New York and Chicago DJs most of the time. So like everything's orchestrated. There's killer music, a great sound system that we have in every facility that we operate out of. So it's like this whole. You kind of feel like you're at like an arena. Even though you're in like some little gym in New York or Chicago, you're not an arena obviously, typically, but so five or six minute full court, full full body shooting and dribbling warmup that also we, we don't publicizes. It also gives the coach the opportunity to assess the talent. If you are any semblance of like an expert basketball player, I always joke, you can watch 10, 15 kids run around on a basketball court. You watch 15, 20 men and women running around adults on a basketball court and be like, oh, Dan is dunking. You know, Dan McGrath, he's the class. Dan's dunking every time. You know, four or five, you know, four or five people are like awesome. Four or five people are like, eh, they're pretty decent. Looks like they may be played. And there's like, oh, Colleen, Steve Dribble. Steve and Katie haven't hit the rim yet, but they look like they're smiling and carrying on and having a good time. So whatever. So it lets. So because. And I'll come back to that. But it allows us to assess the talent. It's like a tryout. You can look at them for five, seven, five to seven minutes. Be like, all right, I got the assessment of the talent. And then there's eight minutes which we, we probably market more than anything of ankle, knee, hip and shoulder mobility and injury prevention, which we have 65, 70 year olds that come to class in Chicago, New York when we have like 22 year old.
- [29:13]
Colleen McGinnis
Yeah. This is one question I had.
- [29:15]
Jonathan Dues
Yeah, that was one of my. Yeah, here we have the like, you know, the hottest, youngest people and like, you know, old out of shape people. It's all a little bit everything, you know, like that's what's kind of cool about it. So there's, but there's a lot of ankle, knee, hip, shoulder mobility, basketball. A lot of people I've learned stop playing.
- [29:30]
Colleen McGinnis
Yeah.
- [29:30]
Jonathan Dues
Because of the risk of injury.
- [29:32]
Colleen McGinnis
Well, and I've heard a lot of people get injured.
- [29:33]
Jonathan Dues
That's the key to the, it's. That is a mega, like a brand pillar of swish house. Like our entire thesis is you get a better, better fitness output like than you do in a like a one hour pickup game or like a men's league game in Toledo where you're from or Dayton where I'm from or whatever.
- [29:49]
Doug Goodnow
Like anywhere.
- [29:50]
Jonathan Dues
Like that's like, it's a, that's kind of the, the beauty of. It's a crazy killer workout with no risk of injury. If Anything like we're helping your build your body so we do it and that we always tout the NBA sports performance doctor that built this with us. So there's a whole like eight minutes of injury prevention, stretching and ankle, knee, hip, shoulders, most commonly injured body parts and hoops. And then we always spend like, after that there's like five or six minutes of like a skill breakdown. It can just be like I often, if I'm running class, I still run like one a week in Chicago. Like I'll have everybody do like four or five minutes of like crazy weird dribbling drills which like you can stink at basketball and still like bang. Like get in a stance, it rips your legs. Like your legs are burning, your feet are moving, like you're sweating profusely. Or you might do like, you know, three point, a three point drill or something. Whatever you want to do, like break down one skill where like, because there's a lot of 30 somethings that are like, still want to get better at basketball. And like there's some woman, you know, Erin tonight, she, she was a captain at Penn in the Ivy League. You know, like she's running the class like and she looks the part. She's six one. Like she's just, she was, she was amazing. You know, like these are amazing athletes teaching these reg, mostly regular Joes and Josie's like, like I was a expert three point shooter. Like I do a lot of like three point things in my classes, you know, that was my thing. So whatever. So like that's what's kind of fun is the coaches put their own little spin on it too. So there's, you know, that five or six minute warmup, injury prevention, a skill development. And then the best parts of class are right in the middle and right at the end. They're called game ball and buzzer beaters. They're team based and sometimes individual shooting contests where like it'll literally be team Doug versus Team Colleen. And we remember going back to the six minute warmup, that's like the tryout. We, we always like, we'll say like we'll put like the two best shooters, you know, like you guys go down there, you're the captains, two or three good, you know, three or four good players each, three or four bad players each on each team, you know, and like it's then like a best of seven, like, like an NBA playoff series where like all sorts of different shots where you're running and shooting and like in each class members run two and a half to three Miles in every workout. And it's obviously we feel exponentially more fun than like doing that on a treadmill or like going for a run in Chicago in February is not a good time either, so. Or in the summer.
- [32:06]
Colleen McGinnis
And so that.
- [32:07]
Jonathan Dues
All that. So it's like a. Yes, like right. So it's like a. And then in between those games there's four to eight stations that are like really grueling. There's a strength station, a cardio station, a shooting station.
- [32:18]
Colleen McGinnis
Strength was a part of it.
- [32:19]
Jonathan Dues
And there's a. Remember, it's like an NBA sports from us doctor built it. So we always tout is like, you're literally doing some of the things that like LeBron's doing in the off season, you know, like. And like you're getting to train like your favorite wnba, NBA player, college player, whatever.
- [32:33]
Colleen McGinnis
So it does sound very fun. A good salesperson.
- [32:37]
Jonathan Dues
That's it. So there's like we had to build and we've what we've surrounded ourselves. Like I love telling people this. Like we've had great advisors over the years, like the woman who founded Purebar. Have you heard of Purebar? The, the ballet centric. She's been an advisor to us on this. We had to build a really scientific curriculum that had credibility. So we always say it's the perfect blend of credibility. There's mega former pro college players, NBA sports, performance science behind it, but it's built for regular Joes and Josie's. No matter your age, skill or fitness level, you're going to have a great time and get a killer workout. And then what we've built in the last couple of years, which I think is really cool, is if you're still like a competitive hooper in your 20s, 30s, even 40s, 50s and want to play competitively. We have pickup games for you, three on three and five on five pickup games where you can hop on a court and like have a high quality, consistent like, you know, you can go battle somebody if you like that. But some of our members don't even care to do that. I don't do it anymore. I don't play competitively anymore. I just, I ripped my ankle last year and I'm like, I don't have anything else to prove at 44. What am I doing? Like you know, chasing around like some 29 year old like who played it like Northwestern, like what am I doing with my life on a Thursday and I'm going to like blow my Achilles or something.
- [33:53]
Doug Goodnow
Yeah, I made that call a long time ago and I'm happy I did. So I can actually walk now.
- [33:59]
Jonathan Dues
There you go. There you go.
- [34:00]
Colleen McGinnis
This sounds very fun. And it is.
- [34:03]
Jonathan Dues
It's the thing I'm most proud. I mean, it's truly like, I. Again, if we have a million miles to go, we're a small company, but it's getting big enough that it's like. I do believe we have, like, a real shot to scale it and. But I think if we just stay humble and focused. The beauty of it is companies say this like, we're going to change the world. I'm not one of those kind of people, but I can tell you this. I was almost £250 when I started the company. I'm 210, £15 now. And I've kept it. I've stayed healthy myself, and I feel like I'm using it. All of our other founders, Founders, all of us who are, like, washed up, 40 something, like, all of us have used the product and it's in. It's totally because, like, I have such a good time doing it. Like, I roll into, like, the Sunday morning class. Like, I'm the founder and, like, people know that. And it's still, like, I love going to it. It's super fun. And I think it'll help millions of people, like, right. Their hearts get healthier. They're like, you have fun doing it. You smile. Like, people with mental health issues, like, need to go, like, find a community. Like, I know when I moved, like, you know, probably one of the things I've learned. The biggest lesson I've learned in starting this is the. And I experienced this too. And, like, I wasn't really in touch with this, but I had a massive bout with depression when my career ended here. I really did, like, like, horribly. I didn't know it at the time, right. It was just moving to Chicago and partying really hard, you know, like, doing unhealthy things and not, you know, kind of acting out a little, like. But it was. I just, like, lost my identity. I moved to Chicago. I grew up in a town of the size of Hillsdale. Like, 10,000 people, you know, like, moved to a city of like, whatever, 3, 5 million people, whatever it is, depending on what you're counting. And it was like, I didn't know anybody. I'd lost my friend. Like, my. I didn't. Like, you didn't have the basketball community, you know, and that's. People need that, you know, like, in. It's. It's. That's what I think is so cool is it's going to help. It really is helping people. It's not people that lose weight. I think it's too focused on superficial things. To me, it's like, it's just, if you feel better, that's what life should be about. It's like you're feeling a little better. That's, to me, is if we can help people feel better. If you want to look better with your bathing suit, cool.
- [36:18]
Colleen McGinnis
But, well, helping people live optimally will change the world. Health is huge and there's a lot of components of it.
- [36:27]
Jonathan Dues
So no doubt it's complicated. Yeah, for sure.
- [36:30]
Colleen McGinnis
And challenging.
- [36:31]
Jonathan Dues
For sure.
- [36:32]
Colleen McGinnis
Well, it's awesome. You have questions on this.
- [36:35]
Doug Goodnow
Well, I think we're gonna wrap up this first segment here, so I think at this time we'll take a break and be right back with the White and Blue Podcast. Now it's time for the Hillsdale History Minute where we bring a slice of Hillsdale College history to the White and Blue Podcast. For today's minute, we take a look at the 1980-81 basketball team. Considered one of the best in school history. The Chargers advanced further in the NAIA national tournament than any other team that came before it, finishing fourth in the 1981 national tournament. The team set a single season school record with 28 wins and a season winning percentage of.800. The NAIA District 23 champions featured head coach Bill Morse as well as three All Americans and four players who eventually scored more than 1,400 career points.
- [37:34]
Podcast Announcer
This show is a part of the Hillsdale College Podcast Network. If you like what you hear, please subscribe to your favorite. You'll get brand new episodes of all your favorite shows sent right to your device, and you'll help us know that you're out there listening. Never miss another episode by going to Podcast Hillsdale. Edu subscribe. That's Podcast Hillsdale Edu subscribe or click the Follow or Subscribe button on Apple podcasts, Spotify or YouTube.
- [38:19]
Doug Goodnow
Welcome back to the White and Blue Podcast where we have 2003 graduate Jonathan Dues as today's guest. Jonathan, I don't know if you knew about that 198081 team. That was pretty legendary. I think we're going to honor them here at the Tip off dinner next month.
- [38:33]
Jonathan Dues
Oh, nice.
- [38:33]
Doug Goodnow
And yeah, I ran into a couple of those guys recently and they're still in pretty good shape.
- [38:39]
Jonathan Dues
Dale Allen was on that team, right?
- [38:40]
Doug Goodnow
He was.
- [38:41]
Jonathan Dues
He was. And then was Dr. Kaltoff also on that team?
- [38:43]
Doug Goodnow
He was. Well, I don't know if he was on the 80, 80, 81 team. But he was in that.
- [38:47]
Jonathan Dues
Yeah, yeah. I love Dr. Kaltov. That guy. I love that guy. Yeah, I know, but he always talks about that team. I remember. But yeah, no, some great players.
- [38:55]
Doug Goodnow
Well, Colleen, I know you wanted to pursue a little bit about the entrepreneurship, so feel free to ask away.
- [39:01]
Colleen McGinnis
So it sounds like. Sounds like entrepreneurship, startup. Startuping has been a big part of your. All of your career. It has, in a way. Tell us, what do you think are the most important qualities or being successful in entrepreneurship?
- [39:18]
Jonathan Dues
I would just say, like, go into something that you. If you can possibly find something that you are actually passionate about. Like for me in Swish House and basketball. Right? Yeah. And it was. For me, it was just. I got real, you know, it was just an idea that I'd had and I had been kind of forced into like this cool new job as an entrepreneur, an entrepreneurial role in my twenties in financial services that I got to kind of be a part of a startup. I didn't actually own that company.
- [39:44]
Doug Goodnow
I was.
- [39:45]
Jonathan Dues
We built it from 0 to 30 billion. I wish I did own that. I got paid well, but like it was more cash comp. Less like ownership. And that's kind of what I've learned is like I'd done some big. Some like real things in financial services, but didn't have ownership of it. And there wasn't like the big payday for me as you hear about, and other people who start something and actually own it. And like I kind of learned about equity and like what that meant really. And like, so I. When I started Swish House with my closest childhood friend, it was this, the two of us that put the original money and it was real serious money to both of us in our like mid-30s at the time. And. But it was Dave and I who started it, quite literally. Grew up on the same street in a small town. We were high school star, basketball and football teammates. I planned his bachelor party kind of guy. It was like that was that kind of a friend and it was basketball, but it was also like he was. We had hung out a lot in our 20s and 30s. Cause I was always in New York. Cause I work on Wall street and was in Boston a lot, which is a ton of financial services work. There's. So he and I always hung out socially. When I'd be in town, we'd get beers, do dinner and stuff. And like we came up with the idea and it just was around something that we loved. So I'd say that to me is like, if you. If there's something that you're genuinely passionate about. That to me makes it so much more easier to be like psycho, crazy in love and like have the like ability to like defend it and like, you know, care for it like a baby. You know, it's like, it's. People say it's like a baby. Like, it's not. I don't like, but it's the closest thing. Like, I've never cared about anything more other than like my, you know, wife and children. Other than my wife and children. That's what I mean. Like, I couldn't care about anything more. I love Fisher Investments. I don't care about it nearly as much as I do Swish House. It's like as I built that, like the founders of Fisher built Fisher Investments and I get to work there. I'm blessed beyond measure. But like, it's just, it was a different thing. So like, that to me is like, find something that you're. You're actually are really passionate about or really know. I think sometimes people are just like, yo, I want to, I want to be an entrepreneur. And it's like, it is not always glamorous. It's more often than not glamorous. It's really like. And it's whether you're owning a restaurant or you're owning a manufacturing business or a law firm, any of it, it's just, it's. It's you, yeah, it's yours. You own it. But like, so to me, it's like finding something that you truly are passionate about and, or actually are an expert. And I am both at basketball. And I'm not an expert in the way that like, you know, Kevin Bradley is here at basketball. Like then John Tharp, like the real coaches, like, I was a good player. I don't think I would have ever been like an awesome coach. You know, I just don't have that kind of a mind. But like that. So that those two things I think matter more than anything. Like the true genuine love, passion and like real knowledge. You know what I mean? I always felt I had a ceiling in financial services because I don't have the die hard passion for the markets and that I know other people do that have studied it and really are like passionate about the capital markets. You know, I'm just, I know it to a sharp degree. But like, so I don't know, I think that that matters to me more than any. I think that. And then you have to have the ability to. I always say, like in entrepreneurship, like, athletes are very well made for it. Doug, we talked about it over breakfast.
- [42:52]
Doug Goodnow
I was just speaking because we have a lot of athletes, former athletes here that are, I've run across that are incredible entrepreneurs. And I think that athletic background feeds into that.
- [43:02]
Jonathan Dues
It feeds into it beyond belief. As we talked about over breakfast, you have to have thick skin to, to be an athlete and definitely to play for the people that I played for here. They were tough coaches that were like, we won a lot of games, but Ed Dalma was like, that's a tough. He was a highly critical guy. And like I played for him as a point guard, shooting guard for four years. And like I played high school football like I was. I've been coached by really harsh, tough critics. And you. Entrepreneurship's way harder than even anything I've went through is like, it's humiliating. You get humbled every day and it's your face. Things have gone sideways a few times with Swish House and I've had a really, really, really big breakdowns over it because of like how scary it is because now you have investors. Some of it's, you know, everybody's seen Shark Tank. Now everybody's an armchair angel investor. I always joke. And everybody thinks, oh, we just, we did a family and friends fundraising round. Are you guys familiar with what those things are? Like these, you know, you go raise money from your rich family and friends. That's what it is. Everybody thinks that's really cool until things go bad. And then you're like, hey, you know, my sister has stock in Swish House and so does my sister in law and like four of my buddies from college and like a lot of pressure. And oh, by the way, the billionaire that I like met last week is like looking at investing or something like, and then you just have this weird pressure. It's just you. So there's like the harsh, there's the critics and the you get 100 times more no's. So like being an athlete, like, you've.
- [44:32]
Doug Goodnow
Got a lot of failures you have to deal with.
- [44:34]
Colleen McGinnis
You have to lose.
- [44:35]
Jonathan Dues
Yeah, you have to lose.
- [44:37]
Doug Goodnow
I mean, I was a baseball player. I hit 300 and I was a success. That means I failed 70% of the time.
- [44:43]
Jonathan Dues
I was one of the best three point shooters in America my sophomore year in America. And I think number two in the country. I shot really 48. That's less than half. My point is like you always say, like, if you shoot, if you make half your shots at the NBA, you're going to the hall of Fame, like 50% you're missing the more Stuff. You know what's. There's a great Michael Jordan call. It's like, you know, you miss the bulk of the shots you don't take. Yeah, you miss 100% of the shots you don't take. Yeah, I almost butchered the Michael Jordan quote. That would have been really embarrassing, especially in Chicago. Missed 100% of the shots you don't take. I think I had that poster in my house, like, bedroom growing up or something.
- [45:17]
Colleen McGinnis
But is. Were the Bulls your team?
- [45:19]
Jonathan Dues
They were, actually, yeah. Which is wild because. Because I grew up in Ohio, but there's not an NBA team close. I went to Pacers games actually growing up, but here and there, because that was the closest. It was like an hour and a half from where I grew up. Indianapolis.
- [45:31]
Colleen McGinnis
Indianapolis.
- [45:32]
Jonathan Dues
But, yeah, I grew up Die Hard, Michael Jordan. So it's funny that I ended up in Chicago on literally, like, swish houses. Like, primary facilities are like, in the same neighborhood as the United center, essentially. So right down the street.
- [45:46]
Doug Goodnow
All right, well, I was just going to say, you know, you came from Ohio.
- [45:50]
Jonathan Dues
Yeah.
- [45:51]
Doug Goodnow
Get a scholarship at Hillsdale and you play basketball here and obviously had a great career both on and off the court. Talk to me about your path to Hillsdale and your experience here.
- [46:01]
Jonathan Dues
Sure. Oh, gosh, Serendipit. I'm so grateful that I ended up here. My God, I just have the greatest experience here, start to finish. And, you know, I try to get back once a year, usually for the alumni hoops weekend, like the basketball homecoming. But yeah, no, I was. I was a little bit of a late bloomer in high school. We had. We had. I played it more of a football high school. And we had two of my high school football teammates. I was a. I was a football player in high school as well. And like, two of my high school teammates, Travis Swain and Josh welch. Travis was two years older. He was 97. Josh was 98. I was 99. They had both gotten full rides to play football here. And I was like, so I'd heard of it. And they were. Josh. I mean, they're both really smart guys. Josh was brilliant. I knew it was like a high academic school. I was being recruited by a lot, mostly almost all Division 1 schools. Colgate, Davidson, Western Michigan. Gosh, what else? Eastern Illinois, I remember was like, you know, pretty interested right around when Hillsdale got involved. And, you know, I was just kind of like, I was a late bloomer and I was kind of number two on everybody's list. Like, hey, we already offered this kid. If he doesn't take it. You're our guy to come to Davidson or Western Michigan or wherever. And then I just. I, out of nowhere, got called by Hillsdale and I, like, obviously I perked up because Travis and Josh were here. I knew nothing about the basketball program, but I knew Coach Dauma. And then the head assistant was a guy named Bill Saul who's, you know, to this day, I'm still really close with. Love that guy. And essentially they, like, out of nowhere, like, I get contacted by them. They had one kid had transferred and they had a full scholarship free up. Like a full ride free up. And like, it was like, only three hours from home. A couple of the schools that were recruiting, we were 10 hours away, 12 hours away. Like, I was like, gosh, my parents are like, gonna never see me play. So, like, I just was like, I don't know, it's Division 2 and I, you know, I could be the. I could be like a national spokesperson for kids going D2 or even D3 if it's a better fit academically, culturally, playing time wise. Like, D1's not what it's cracked up to be. Like, it really isn't. So, like, I came up here and I'll never forget, I actually talked to Aaron Veldier this morning about it, like, because we were laughing about it, but I just. He hosted me. And my parents. And my parents were so impressed with Aaron. I was, too, but he was a point guard. I was a point guard, too. I was like, I kind of was, like, looking him up and down, like, I guess we're going to be teammates, but, you know, like, we're going to be like, I could take that. Like, you're so competitive back then, you know, Like, I was like, yeah, he seems cool. He seems cool, but, like, really smart. He was so confident. And he's like, we're rebuilding the program. We got these great recruits coming in. And he really sold me. He's like one of the most successful guys I know, by the way, too. You know, he's a great salesman. And my parents, you know, it just. It was the coaching staff. You know, Coach Dauma had won a national championship at Calvin University. Coach Saul had played for him at Calvin. And, like, they were great. They had. They had signed some other great players. And, like, I just came up here, I played. I had a great, like, kind of tryout. I played with the team and I just. I had this just, like, kind of gut feeling. My mother loved it. I remember my mom was just, like, so over the moon. And you Know, and like, the conservatives, you know, piece of our school, like, mattered. You know what I mean? My dad, as you know, is a Republican judge, as I mentioned, you know, and, like, the school just really spoke to us. And I had like. And they are. I just would never forget, like, face to face. Like, coach down my. And saw were like, yeah, we'd like to offer you a full ride. You don't have to decide right now, but, you know, you need to go home and think about this. We want you here. And like, that just, like, spoke to me and I, like, I was so geeked. I was like, man, these. These people really want me. I'm like, kind of second on everybody else's list. Like, I just had a gut. And like, I just, you know, because. Probably because we're such good friends still, me and Aaron Valdeer. But, like, you know, he. I just had this vivid. I met other people on the visit. There were, you know, other people involved. I didn't, you know, but then it just was like, kind of a week later. I remember just waking up and committing here and, like, had like a whole, like, national, like a letter of intent signing day or whatever. It's like a big deal. And then I knew I had seen. I can't remember if he saw it or I saw it, but Sam Belk, who was like my, you know, my best friend from Hillsdale to this day played football here, was our age. He's captain of the football team. He had signed to play football here. And like, he was from the Dayton area. And I remember, like, he had seen it or I saw him like, there was like a. In the Dayton Daily News, there was like, something like. I think it was him signing with Hills. That'll play football. I was like, oh, my God. Because I knew him because we played them in football. Usually he's from the Dayton area. Like, we. Our high schools played each other. So, like, I kind of. And it just was such a gut feeling.
- [50:22]
Colleen McGinnis
I remember, like, a lot of things came.
- [50:23]
Jonathan Dues
It just came together. Yeah, it was just like the perfect timing. Small school. Like, I, you know, some. It might not be for everybody, but I'm from a small high school, small town, kind of a small Dayton suburb. You know, it just was a great fit. And I was so lucky, like, that I was able to come in and obviously I worked my butt off. Like, you know, like, I'm, you know, I. I really did. I deserved it. But, like, I got to start every game as a freshman and was. You know, we went to two NCAA tournaments, won The GLIAC for the first time, like ever, I think, you know, in regular season, first team to ever go to back to back NCAA tournaments, you know, you know, we just, And I had a really good individual career. Like, I got so lucky and we had such great teammates and like the, the, the caliber of men I got to play with here. I always joke, like, people think I'm successful and they're like, God, dudes, you're really doing well. It's like, have you, have you met Aaron Valde? Have you met Ryan Brownisage? Have you met Ben Bixman? He's a brain surgeon. Have you met, like all of my clothes? Like so many of these people that I played with are just brilliant people, like, lovely, great people, you know, so I couldn't, I know I'm like, I could go on and on for three hours about how much I love them. I was just going to say not everybody had that experience. I, I got to play, I got to start, I got to be, you know, and how to. But more importantly, it just was like a great academic and college experience. Like, the professors really cared. Like, we just ran into coach Bill Lumberg at the finish line at breakfast. Like, he actually might be the nicest man in the history of the world.
- [51:51]
Colleen McGinnis
No doubt.
- [51:51]
Jonathan Dues
He really is the sweetest, nice, greatest man. The man was like an elite, elite, elite athlete.
- [51:56]
Doug Goodnow
Well, he wasn't even your coach, right?
- [51:58]
Jonathan Dues
No, he wasn't. And he still knew like the whole roster from the 2002 team or whatever. Like, how's Matt doing? How's Brooks doing? How's Tommy Farmer doing? How's all these people doing? You know, like, it's, it's really a special place in that regard. And the professors too. It's like, you come back, you see Dr. Connor call. You know, he's always there. A lot of people are still around. It's just a, it's not everybody has that kind of experience. Like, I feel like, you know, no.
- [52:22]
Doug Goodnow
You know, I've spent some time working at another university and the student athletes there, you know, got it done in the classroom. But I would say in my experience, both as a student and an athlete here, and then hearing the experiences of other former student athletes. Yeah, the academic side, I think, I mean, there is, there is no give here. Like, you know, there's a lot of, like, people that get kind of waved down through it maybe at some other institutions academically, I find, I find that, you know, pretty much across the board where the, the athletes here had to cut it or they weren't going to be here. In fact, I had some, some classmates that didn't make it because of that.
- [53:00]
Jonathan Dues
You know, really good, smart guys. It just like, it just was not a fit here. It's a really hard. I used to talk to my dad. You know, my dad was such a, like hardcore, like, be an scholar first, an athlete second. You're a scholar athlete. You're not an athlete, Scott. You know, like my mother, they were always just so hardcore about that. And like, I remember just like being like. Because, you know, you have this, like, as an athlete, you know, like as a cocky athlete in high school, you're just like, you think like, oh, maybe I'll get treated differently by some of the professors here because I put up 18 last night against Northern Michigan or something. And I remember just being like. I remember being like, well, hey, I got like, I gotta go on like a road trip to play like Michigan Tech, Northern Michigan, Lake State, which is like a 10 hour drive to the upper peninsula of Michigan. They're like, no, no, you still had to go do that and come back after playing at Lake State the next morning and like, take your biology. Like, how hard was like biology and like physics and stuff here as a freshman?
- [53:53]
Colleen McGinnis
Oh, my God.
- [53:54]
Jonathan Dues
Oh my God. Or like, you know what I mean? Like that stuff, like, I couldn't. Or like how hard were the, how hard were the classes? I was so can see. I didn't know that. How hard were the, like those intro classes here? Like, you couldn't. It was just so hard academically. And it was humbling because I just was like, oh my God, this is like, I thought high school was its breeze, but I got here and was like. And I was a really good student, don't get me wrong. But like, God, it was, it was really hard here. And I, I remember just respecting that and telling my dad, like, yeah, they don't care that like, I thought like, maybe they'd let me take the test like a day later or something.
- [54:24]
Doug Goodnow
And he's like, or let somebody else take it for, you know, at some school.
- [54:27]
Jonathan Dues
Definitely not that going on here. I wish that was going on. It definitely was. At least I didn't. No one, no one offered me that. But that's the thing was, it's so humbling here. Like, I always joke like, God, like, even if you just go on LinkedIn, it's very humbling to be like, there's like 20 people I know that I went to college with, like running major companies. It's like, what am I doing with my life, I gotta like, I gotta hustle harder. I don't. I say that too much.
- [54:47]
Colleen McGinnis
I can sometimes feel that too.
- [54:48]
Jonathan Dues
Cause we're, it's such an incredible. I mean there's such a. So many talented.
- [54:52]
Colleen McGinnis
We're here smart people, you know, promoting all that. So we're, you know, in the middle of it all the time.
- [54:57]
Jonathan Dues
It's amazing, you know, it's amazing how much there's so many.
- [55:00]
Colleen McGinnis
There's a lot to be proud of.
- [55:01]
Jonathan Dues
It was a very. I just thought, hey, you're just. When you go to school here, you're surrounded. Not only is everybody on the basketball team, everybody was like their high school's all time leading scorer or like first team all state or something. And they had like a 3, 9 and were, you know, got like a 28. Act like everybody's so sharp here and academically and athletically, it's just. That's what I think is so special about it. It's the high academic and like really serious athletics here that not a lot of schools can tout like that. That to me is the coolest part of it, at least from my personal experience because I was an athlete, you know.
- [55:36]
Colleen McGinnis
Well, and you've mentioned a few times in this conversation, your work ethic has seems to kind of come out in a lot of different conversation. You mentioned outworking other people, working harder. Hustle did. Where did that, where does that come from?
- [55:54]
Jonathan Dues
I mean I would think any like most things. Upbringing. I was the youngest of three kids. I have a brother that's eight.
- [55:58]
Colleen McGinnis
I'm the youngest, two years old. I don't have that husband.
- [56:01]
Jonathan Dues
Gotcha. Gotcha. See, I mean everything family doesn't. So like I was. But my siblings would say I was babied and all like they'd, you know, who knows? There's all perspective.
- [56:10]
Doug Goodnow
Right.
- [56:11]
Jonathan Dues
But no, I would say, you know, my, my parents were just like I, you know, like I quite literally had the loveliest childhood and you know, parents that you know, were there and like cared and never missed anything and were so supportive. But it was also like my siblings were really expectations. You know, my, my parents were both, you know, my, my dad was, you know, an elected official. My mom was an entrepreneur, had her own interior design business which I always like looked up to so much. She started that when I was like middle school, high school and like ran our own little company and like consulted on businesses and families who you know, wanted to redesign their homes. I just thought so like there was a little, there's entrepreneurial thing that I noticed through my mom and then my dad, in addition to running, being an elected judge, he had launched this incredible non profit in our hometown. Like a youth foundation that like had like raised millions and millions of dollars to have like a YMCA youth center, built community college, built a whole like, you know, hospital, like, you know, wow, you know, in, in and out. What's the word I'm looking for? Immediate care clinic, Urgent care clinics. Yeah, so like, you know, and my, you know, so my dad was like just, you know, like a hustler. He in addition to, and he like coached me and everything. I don't know how the dude did it, how did anybody do that stuff? But like, so I, it was that. And then my siblings were both overachievers, you know, good, really great students, good athletes too. And just being the youngest, my sister was four years older, my brother was eight. That, that number one, I would say family upbringing. And then like I, I, you know, you've heard me mention Dave, like the co founder of Swish House. Like I grew up in this little town, very similar. I think why I loved Hillsdale is like I grew up in a town identical to Hillsdale. Eaton, Ohio is like the same exact town basically. And so I happened to grow up with, in that little town, like a guy a year older than me, one of my best friends, his name's Tommy Jones. He was, you know, like literally recruited by everybody. He was a Big ten quarterback. He played quarterback at Indiana. We had another. One of my closest friends was like our conference player of the year, a year older than me. Like and we had, and then Dave was a year younger than me that the guy started Swish House with. We had this like really tight knit group of hoops junkies. And then we had this killer football program and there was just all these. And then our girl group of friends were all like stud like athletes and just overachieving kid. Like we just grew up in this really great little tight knit community of I think overachieving kids and athletes that all fed off of each other. They all grew up in the same little four or five year window where a couple of our friends were state champion wrestlers that wrestled at Indiana. There was just this little window of four or five years where this elite crew of athletes came through our little town that all of us played together is like from like third grade through high school and like you and just growing up around like a, I mean a big ten quarterback who was a freak of nature, like, who was my best friend was just like you kind of had to like, you had to kind of step up on everything. Like, so when you grow up around another, like a freakish elite athlete, you almost, like, have to step up. Like, so I. There was just a lot of, like a crazy little. And it was one of those towns, like, I always joke, like, did you ever watch the show Friday Night Lights? Like, I grew up in one of those towns. Like, the whole town, like, went crazy for.
- [59:25]
Colleen McGinnis
That's fun.
- [59:26]
Jonathan Dues
Like, and it just was like, it was like a sports thing. Like, so that was like, kind of what it was. My upbringing is like, what you did and like, I don't know. So I think that. And they just. It just. You just always feel like you have something to prove, you know? Like, I always felt like, you know, I was like, being the underdog, I think. So. Like, I kind of. I would never want to, you know, I'd love to play for, like, the tier 2 or tier 3 schools where you can go against the big, like the, you know, David versus Goliath thing. I don't know. I kind of just have, like, a chip on my shoulder sometimes. I think being the youngest and I don't know, I was. So I think that's. I don't know if that answers your question.
- [60:04]
Colleen McGinnis
I was hoping you would say Hillsdale, but that was a good answer, too.
- [60:09]
Jonathan Dues
It's all Hillsdale.
- [60:10]
Colleen McGinnis
I'm just kidding.
- [60:10]
Jonathan Dues
I know.
- [60:11]
Doug Goodnow
Well, it sounds like you really built a life around community. Yeah. And now you're in. In the Chicago community you were talking about at breakfast this morning with your family. Yep. Tell me about, you know, kind of family life between these two business ventures.
- [60:23]
Jonathan Dues
Yeah, so I, So I've, you know, I've been married. My wife, Lindsay, she. She's not a Hillsdale grad. She went to Bowling Green. BGSU in Ohio. She's a cheerleader there. She and I met after college and we've been in Chicago, gosh, since we got married in 08. We. She, you know, we've. I've been in Chicago. 03. She moved there. 06. We got married. 08. So our. I have a seventh grade son, Johnny, who turns 13 this weekend, which is a big deal. And then my little girl, Mara is fifth grade. She's 10. And so, yeah, we live in Little Italy in downtown Chicago. Like, my wife's from Defiance, Ohio, which is a small town, kind of like Hillsdale in Eaton, where I grew up. But we're raising our kids in the city in Chicago. It's a completely different life. We live in Little Italy, which is Kind of right on the west side of downtown. And. Yeah. And my day job for Fisher Investments. I travel one or two days a week for business and, you know, run Swish House with my two partners. And so, you know, I.
- [61:17]
Colleen McGinnis
But, you know, seems like a lot of work.
- [61:19]
Jonathan Dues
Ton of work. We're super busy. Yeah. My wife's a teacher, a second grade teacher at a school in Chicago. Not at where our kids go to school at a different school, but, yeah, our kids go to. You know, so we're. We're all in, like, city dwellers, like in. In Chicago. It's a completely different life.
- [61:33]
Colleen McGinnis
Like, then you both grew up.
- [61:35]
Jonathan Dues
Oh, my God, the polar opposite. But we love it. Like, Chicago is just incredible city. Like, we've. It's. I never thought in a million years that's where I'd live growing up in rural Ohio, but it's been awesome. You know, it's changed our lives. We love it.
- [61:50]
Colleen McGinnis
Well, we're very happy to have you here. It's been fun to learn about Swish House and trying to think through the different ways we can promote it, but I'm excited for other alumni to hear about it.
- [62:00]
Jonathan Dues
Yeah, no, I think so.
- [62:01]
Colleen McGinnis
See what comes from that.
- [62:02]
Jonathan Dues
But indeed. And again, congratulations. Thank you. No, it's. We still have a long way to go. Gosh. But, like, we're. We have a cool plan. I think, you know, it's pretty straightforward. And our goal is like, you know, hopefully as we expand the next, like, you know, several years, like, it's just something that people can do everywhere. You know what I mean? That's the goal. It's just to help. To help more people. Like I said, the older I'm getting, I don't know how you guys feel. It's just like, the only thing that matters is your health, you know, and if you're happy and if you're feeling good and being around people, you know, like, just. I think people. If you can facilitate health, community, and it's, you know, a good thing. There's. There's a lot, as we were talking about at breakfast, a lot. A lot of divisiveness around here. And I. I think like hoops and just like sports in general bring people from every.
- [62:46]
Colleen McGinnis
Absolutely.
- [62:46]
Jonathan Dues
Political, socioeconomic, religious, like, you know, basketball and Hillsdale is the reason I, you know, I have a group of diverse friends from all different races, ages, you know, just the whole. The whole. I just think the world meets. Just bringing people together, like, in a good, positive way. And I think basketball does that, like, I think more than almost pretty more than any other sport.
- [63:08]
Doug Goodnow
Well, Jonathan, thank you so much for being here today. And for Colleen McGinnis, this is Doug Goodnow thanking you for joining us on the White and Blue podcast. And may that spirit long remain sa.