The Entrepreneur Ethos

Jeremiah Alder

Jarie Bolander -

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Summary

On this episode, I speak with Jeremiah Adler, the founder of UP(st)Art Creative Living, a unique co-living community for artists, musicians, and other creatives in Los Angeles. He recently founded Agile Medical Systems, which takes the living pods his company developed for Up(st)Art for use in hospitals and as shelters to address COVID-19 challenges.

Jeremiah has always been an entrepreneur, starting from when he was doing yard and agricultural work as a teen in Portland, Oregon. After writing and shooting a TV pilot, he moved to Los Angeles to pursue his dream of working in television. He became a leasing agent to make money and soon found himself in the lucrative Los Angeles real estate market.

Dissatisfied with having to turn down young, creative people because of their incomes and credit, he developed an affordable, cohousing community for young creatives, adopting Japanese-style pods for individual living spaces.

He has now redeveloped these pods for use in hospitals to address the challenges of COVID-19 under the new business, Agile Medical Systems. Full disclosure, I’m an investor in Agile Medical Systems and also advise them.

We talked about what makes an entrepreneur different from being self-employed, and how being a CEO of a company is as much about telling its story as it is about ensuring its growth and stability.

Now let’s get better together

Actions to Try or Advice to Take

  • The key to a company’s success is the story you tell. Make the emotional appeal part of the story of your product or service.
  • Adler reminds entrepreneurs that they are not their business; if a business fails, that’s part of the entrepreneurial journey.
  • Draw from your own experience and longings to find your passion. Adler’s first TV pilot was based on his own experiences in college. When developing his idea for a cohousing community, he was drawing on his own experiences as part of various communities growing up and how vital those have been for him.

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