Making Something From Nothing: Nathan Minns of Green Light Improv On How To Go From Idea To Launch

An Interview With Doug Noll

Learn something and excel at it. My craft is facilitating. I am constantly rehearsing my workshop facilitation techniques and refining my explanations. If you excel at something, people will come to you and offer to pay you. Participants frequently request that I come into other groups and lead more workshops for various organizations.

As a part of our series called “Making Something From Nothing”, we had the pleasure of interviewing Nathan Minns.

Nathan Minns is the founder of Green Light Improv, a professional training company that cultivates resilience, enhances creativity, and improves communication, all while inspiring connection through improv comedy. Green Light Improv doesn’t teach improv comedy, but instead uses improv comedy as a tool to teach other work and life skills. In 2022, Nathan quit his job and is now working full-time to spread applied improv training. An Ohio State University graduate, Nathan has previously spent most of his career in the startup ecosystem as an employee and a 3x founder.

Thank you so much for doing this with us! Before we dive in, our readers would love to learn a bit more about you. Can you tell us a bit about your “childhood backstory”?

I was born in Pennsylvania, but my family moved to Dayton, Ohio after about 6 months in Pennsylvania. There, I made my start in entrepreneurship when I was seven years old. Kids in the United States typically enjoy selling lemonade, but I got bored of selling lemonade pretty fast.

I went into my backyard and gathered the coolest rocks & sticks I could find and started trying to sell the rocks & sticks to my neighbors. I created a sign to advertise my new business to my neighbors, and honestly, I did not sell many rocks & sticks, but I learned a valuable lesson about taking risks and pushing boundaries. I learned to try new things and learn through experimentation.

This is similar to my current venture: improvisational comedy. I’m constantly jumping into the unknown and trusting myself to figure it out.

After twelve years in Dayton, I moved to Columbus, Ohio, and have called it home ever since.

Can you please give us your favorite “Life Lesson Quote”? Can you share how that was relevant to you in your life?

“Be comfortable being uncomfortable.” — Peter McWilliams

In order to grow, we need to embrace discomfort and face challenges. Push limits and take risks, even if it means leaving our comfort zone.

With that being said, don’t stretch yourself too much, and don’t forget to have fun.

Find balance, and move at a sustainable pace.

Peter’s quote motivated me to quit my job and pursue entrepreneurship full-time. While running Green Light Improv as a side hustle, I felt like I was hedging my bets and not achieving as much as I could because I was “playing it safe”. The quote inspired me to take the leap and find the ground as I fell.

Is there a particular book, podcast, or film that made a significant impact on you? Can you share a story or explain why it resonated with you so much?

The Lean Startup by Eric Ries showed me how to properly run a startup. Before reading The Lean Startup, I would guess what I needed to do. Sometimes what I did would work, and sometimes it didn’t, but there was a bigger problem: when something did not work, I didn’t know why I failed. The Lean Startup gives entrepreneurs a better understanding of why initiatives in their business fail or succeed.

The Lean Startup methodology is definitely not the only way to run a startup, but it is a process that works very well. Having this methodology can be a lifesaver.

Ok super. Let’s now shift to the main part of our discussion. There is no shortage of good ideas out there. Many people have good ideas all the time. But people seem to struggle in taking a good idea and translating it into an actual business. Can you share a few ideas from your experience about how to overcome this challenge?

First, read The Lean Startup. All entrepreneurs should read it.

The second book every entrepreneur should read is The Mom Test by Rob Fitzpatrick. The book is about asking customers the right questions to inform how you build your business.

These two books give very practical lessons on how to start a business.

Outside of books to read, I suggest you start small. Don’t try to do everything all at once.

When I started Green Light Improv, I got five people together who agreed to take part in a workshop. I taught pure improv for two hours. They learned about improv performance, but they didn’t learn how to apply those skills to their everyday lives. It was only my first workshop. I overcame that challenge by adjusting my workshops to concentrate on creativity, resilience, & communication skills.

Entrepreneurs should also recognize that pivoting and accepting feedback is essential for success at any stage of a business. You just need to take the first step and start.

Often when people think of a new idea, they dismiss it saying someone else must have thought of it before. How would you recommend that someone go about researching whether or not their idea has already been created?

It’s probably good if someone else has done it before you.

If no one else has ever done this startup idea successfully before, ask yourself: “why has no one else ever successfully done this? What’s different about how I’m planning on executing this idea?”

Being able to develop good ideas is a necessary skill, but it’s ultimately the execution of those ideas that make all of the difference.

Here’s an example: when I first started Green Light Improv at Ohio State University, it went terribly. We made very little money the entire year I worked on the business and we did very few workshops. The idea wasn’t bad, but my execution was terrible.

Green Light Improv stayed a side project for a couple of years until I quit my job in July 2022.

Now, Green Light Improv is doing incredibly well. It’s basically the same idea that I had when I first started the company, but I’m executing it substantially better.

How can you become better at executing ideas?

By executing them, seeing what works, and continually testing and iterating.

For the benefit of our readers, can you outline the steps one has to go through, from when they think of the idea, until it finally lands in a customer’s hands? In particular, we’d love to hear about how to file a patent, how to source a good manufacturer, and how to find a retailer to distribute it.

I’m no expert in physical products, but here’s my advice for any startup company: don’t outsource the initial build. You need to become familiar with how your product works and be able to make changes quickly & cheaply.

Build, test, learn, repeat.

In my case, I built a workshop under a hypothesis, tested it with my market, and then I started asking the right questions to my customers. I understood the root of their pain and received useful information from them. Then, I repeated that process. It helped me figure out what my customers needed, so I could create something valuable for them.

Regarding your patent question, I am not intimately familiar with anyone who filed a patent immediately when they had an idea and it went well. (Almost) Everyone should go through the build, test, learn, and repeat process before thinking about patents.

What are your “5 Things I Wish Someone Told Me When I First Started Leading My Company” and why? (Please share a story or example for each.)

1. Go from zero to one. If you want to become an entrepreneur, just start something! It doesn’t matter what the project is. Starting your own venture will teach you more than you can imagine. Even if you “fail”, every failure gives you lessons you can apply to your next project. This advice came to me from a mentor, and it led me to start several projects, all of which failed until I founded Green Light Improv. Just start.
2. Getting revenue (or profit) won’t solve all your problems. There are different problems that come up at every level of growth. For example, for a while, I wasn’t making enough money to go full time with Green Light Improv. I spent a lot of time figuratively banging my head against the wall, trying to figure out how to make the company work. I always thought, “once I make enough money to go full time, and live well, I’ll be set.” Now, I’m at this point where I’m full time, I’m doing very well, and I now know that revenue and profits do not solve all my problems. I just have different problems — dealing with organization and hiring are infinitely more important now.
3. Figure out the change you want to see. I am deeply committed to increasing empathy, connection, resilience, and creativity in our world. After recognizing the change I desired to see in our world, the use of improv and other theatre-based games as a tool became an obvious choice.
4. Stay flexible. Starting a business takes time. I have realized that the way I run my business will evolve over time, and in the end, what’s best for my clients, or even potential clients, is also best for me. Growth can be slow during different economic seasons, but so far, success has followed because I’ve continued to put in the work.
5. Learn something and excel at it. My craft is facilitating. I am constantly rehearsing my workshop facilitation techniques and refining my explanations. If you excel at something, people will come to you and offer to pay you. Participants frequently request that I come into other groups and lead more workshops for various organizations.

Let’s imagine that a reader reading this interview has an idea for a product that they would like to invent. What are the first few steps that you would recommend that they take?

If you have an idea for a product, write it down and ask yourself: What problem does this product solve? Who will use it? What are the key features that the product should have?

To answer these questions, do your research. Find other products that are similar to yours and see what is working and what isn’t.

Figure out the cheapest and fastest way for you to build a prototype of your product and test it with real customers. This helps you figure out what works and what needs to be improved.

When starting a company, incorporating feedback, even when it differs from your original idea, is important. Be open to pivoting your concept based on the insights of your potential customers.

There are many invention development consultants. Would you recommend that a person with a new idea hire such a consultant, or should they try to strike out on their own?

Do it on your own. Figure it out. If you don’t do it on your own, just think down the line: in six months you have a product and you realize there’s one thing you need to change. You didn’t take the time to learn the software or learn how the product works when you started, and now, you need to go back to those consultants and hire them again to make a tiny change. Those costs add up. Do it on your own.

What are your thoughts about bootstrapping vs looking for venture capital? What is the best way to decide if you should do either one?

It depends on your idea, but in the very beginning, I recommend bootstrapping while trying to be as lean as possible.

Ok. We are nearly done. Here are our final questions. How have you used your success to make the world a better place?

I talk with a lot of students. They are “the now” and “the future,” and I’m glad I get to mentor them.

We use improv as a tool to help students develop skills to learn in creative ways and become more resilient to blow through obstacles. I also believe that now, more than ever, our world requires connection. Green Light Improv is here to help them connect with each other.

You are an inspiration to a great many people. If you could inspire a movement that would bring the most amount of good to the most amount of people, what would that be? You never know what your idea can trigger.

A movement that inspires learning through fun and experimentation. It’s something we do at Green Light Improv.

Introverts and extroverts alike can learn through improv while having fun. In improv, you get to think on your feet while experimenting and having fun on stage.

We are very blessed that some of the biggest names in Business, VC funding, Sports, and Entertainment read this column. Is there a person in the world, or in the US, with whom you would love to have a private breakfast or lunch, and why? He or she might just see this if we tag them.

Julia Louis-Dreyfus is an INCREDIBLE actress. I love her in “Veep” and “You People.” If I have lunch with her, I imagine it will feel like having a conversation with a long-lost friend.

Thank you for these fantastic insights. We greatly appreciate the time you spent on this.

Thank you!

About the Interviewer: Douglas E. Noll, JD, MA was born nearly blind, crippled with club feet, partially deaf, and left-handed. He overcame all of these obstacles to become a successful civil trial lawyer. In 2000, he abandoned his law practice to become a peacemaker. His calling is to serve humanity, and he executes his calling at many levels. He is an award-winning author, teacher, and trainer. He is a highly experienced mediator. Doug’s work carries him from international work to helping people resolve deep interpersonal and ideological conflicts. Doug teaches his innovative de-escalation skill that calms any angry person in 90 seconds or less. With Laurel Kaufer, Doug founded Prison of Peace in 2009. The Prison of Peace project trains life and long terms incarcerated people to be powerful peacemakers and mediators. He has been deeply moved by inmates who have learned and applied deep, empathic listening skills, leadership skills, and problem-solving skills to reduce violence in their prison communities. Their dedication to learning, improving, and serving their communities motivates him to expand the principles of Prison of Peace so that every human wanting to learn the skills of peace may do so. Doug’s awards include California Lawyer Magazine Lawyer of the Year, Best Lawyers in America Lawyer of the Year, Purpose Prize Fellow, International Academy of Mediators Syd Leezak Award of Excellence, National Academy of Distinguished Neutrals Neutral of the Year. His four books have won a number of awards and commendations. Doug’s podcast, Listen With Leaders, is now accepting guests. Click on this link to learn more and apply.