Gamified Giving & Grit | Matt Rosen with Chaitan Fahnestock on Building Sportsmo

🚀 On this episode of The Grit Mindset, Matt Rosen sits down with entrepreneur Chaitan Fahnestock, founder of Sportsmo, the “gamified giving” app changing how fans support their teams. From growing up in Wichita and working in the family heating & air business to building a his own companies, Chaitan shares his biggest lessons, setbacks, and what grit really means to him. 💪 Discover how patience, tenacity, and the love of building led him to launch Sportsmo.
Stay Gritty!

Timestamps:
0:00 Intro
0:30 Matt intros Chaitan Fahnestock the founder of Sportsmo
1:00 What is Sportsmo explainer "it is gamified giving"
1:30 Examples of the Sportsmo app and how to use it play by play
2:30 Host Matt Rosen is ready with rooting on his Aggies!
2:45 With Oklahoma State in mind, Chaitan was problem solving in his own mind with Universities calling on their wealthiest donors to be successful. Chaitan says this is the "easy" button
4:00 Host Matt Rosen asks "What led you down the path through your life to become an entrepreneur"
4:10 Chaitan grew up in Wichita Kansas and he had a desire to take a high school entrepreneur class and it got his wheels turning of what could be
6:00 Chaitan was a worker at an early age! He worked in heating and air, golf corse, restaurant and a family business Fahnestock Heating and Air
6:30 Fahnestock Heating and Air details working for family and how one particular summer taught him what he didn't want to do.
7:15 Chaitan's College days at Oklahoma State, minor in French and major in Accounting.. happily falling into accounting.
8:00 Ernst & Young (EY) was his first firm, he describes being on site with clients and the excitement of this real world experience as a young man in business for 5 years
10:00 Chaitan's Accounting to Sales story, managing teams and he shares the skills that were different with rolling up his sleeves.
11:30 The changing business landscape
12:00 In 2005, Chaitan is approached to start a business and this was a wonderful decision. Chaitan had quite the journey building a company to 300 million!
13:00 Host Matt Rosen asks Chaitan about his greatest adversities he has faced in business. Chaitan shares moments of grit from the earliest days such as collecting invoices to make payroll. Growing pains as a small company are much different from the larger company problems. Chaitan shares moments of everyone getting checks and illustrates angst in digging the company out of the earth with blood sweat and tears.
14:58 Chaitan shares a story about recruiting faster than selling and becoming overstaffed. This was a business issue that caused pain and suffering for Chaitan. Business growth was put on hold and this was not his favorite chapter of his story.
16:00 Matt asks what Chaitan would "do over" and Chaitan shares he would have tapped the breaks on hiring and would have avoided this pain all together however his perspective is
17:00 Host Matt Rosen asks his famous question: What does Grit mean to you? Chaitan's response is heartwarming about his daughter's team is named Grit. He shares his personal perspective on grit means patience and tenacity.
18:00 Matt asks Chaitan what adventure he is on now in business, Chaitan shares there was some freedom however he is not built to play golf everyday. He loves the beach but he has aspirations of building.... and that is why he started the Sportsmo app!
20:00-25:00 Matt asks Chaitan about his personal hobbies. Chaitan surprises us with mountain climbing! He has climbed the snow capped mountain of Mt. Rainier. He shares an incredible story about the challenges along the way of hiking and climbing a variety of mountains like Mount Kilimanjaro which was 6 nights on the mountain along with the journey to get there. "You get to learn more about yourself than you thought you needed to know"
25:00 Chaitan has a revelation about the adventure of the climb and he starts thinking about the first Fahnestock from the 1700's and the grit to get to America. He has flashes from his past and the grit of his parents who he says are the ultra adventurers. He shares where his name came from.
27:35 Matt asks in closing Chaitan's words of advice to listeners, Chaitan says "do your homework but JUST DO IT"