We had the good fortune of connecting with Curt Bear and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Curt, how does your business help the community?
The mission of The LoCo Experience podcast is to inspire and entertain the current and next generation of business leaders!

We feature guests who have started interesting and inspiring businesses, and get into the time machine with them to share a good portion of their life story. Listeners get perspective from all different kinds of social and family backgrounds, and may be inspired to launch their owner business journey.

Can you open up a bit about your work and career? We’re big fans and we’d love for our community to learn more about your work.
A former employee at LoCo Think Tank and I launched The LoCo Experience podcast in December of 2020, as a way to share the stories and journeys of our business members and other business and community leaders in Northern Colorado. My primary business – LoCo Think Tank – is a small business owner peer advisory organization, which provides me access and relationships with many dozens of entrepreneurs.

We’ve now completed 4 seasons and over 200 episodes – long form conversational interviews with successful and inspiring entrepreneurs. Probably what sets me apart as a podcast host is my genuine curiosity with each and every guest – I love interesting people, and my guest list is full of them!

It’s been an interesting challenge managing the hobby business of the podcast – which generates few revenues but does generate leads for LoCo Think Tank. But – recording sessions and equipment and production take a lot of resources from LoCo Think Tank, and so we’re trying to find a sustainable plan that honors my love for the podcast while also honoring the resources of my primary business. We’ve won Best Local Podcast from Best of NOCO the past two years, and working on our 3-peat!

Any places to eat or things to do that you can share with our readers? If they have a friend visiting town, what are some spots they could take them to?
My wife and I are hosting an exchange student from Finland this year, and for Spring Break we are taking a 1,000+ mile RV camping trip to Southwest Colorado and basically a loop around the whole state. We’ll be seeing awesome mountain towns such as Durango and Telluride and Aspen and Steamboat Springs, and also soaking in wonderful hot springs pools such as Orvis Hot Springs in Ridgeway, Iron Mountain in Glenwood Springs, and Strawberry Hot Springs near Steamboat. Authentic Mexican food in a small town is our go-to, depending on the town and region, and we’re taking a couple days out in Moab along the tour – because there’s nothing like that region of Utah!

Shoutout is all about shouting out others who you feel deserve additional recognition and exposure. Who would you like to shoutout?
Shoutout to my wife Jill, who has marched by my side from a career in banking into and through the great unknown of entrepreneurship for the past 11 years.

Website: https://www.thelocoexperience.com

Instagram: @thelocoexperience

Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/showcase/the-loco-experience-podcast/?viewAsMember=true

Youtube: @thelocoexperience

Image Credits
All photos by Curt Bear, or by the staff at LoCo Think Tank.

Nominate Someone: ShoutoutColorado is built on recommendations and shoutouts from the community; it’s how we uncover hidden gems, so if you or someone you know deserves recognition please let us know here.