#200: Andy Tran (Arthur Street Ventures) — A Modern Renaissance Man

Andy Tran has lived more lives than just about anyone I know. He’s a serial entrepreneur who has started multiple businesses across industries, including tech, ammunition manufacturing, defense contracting, and tequila, among many others. Andy is a true modern Renaissance man whose path defies convention and serves as a testament to his deep curiosity, creativity, ability to execute, and humility.He has alpine mountaineered in Patagonia and Tierra del Fuego while living out of the back of a truck; spent months in the interior of Alaska guiding caribou and moose hunts, as well as driving jet boats for the Discovery Channel. He has been embedded with Special Mission Units and Anti-Poaching Task Forces in South Africa and Kruger National Park. Additionally, he worked with Ecuadorian Special Forces on missions to hunt narco submarines in the Amazon jungle.Andy was also a professional MMA fighter, finishing his career with an undefeated record of 6-0. Beyond fighting, he helped start and lead Beta Academy DC, an MMA gym in Washington, D.C. At just 18 years old, he co-founded an architectural practice with his uncle and led the firm to become a multi-million-dollar enterprise.Most recently, Andy joined fellow Cleveland entrepreneur and Renaissance man Nick Dadas (featured on Lay of The Land episode #158) as Chief Marketing Officer of SISU Lifestyle....And the list goes on. It’s difficult to assign Andy a single label or category. However, to ground our conversation today: Andy is the founder of Arthur Street Ventures, a Cleveland-based venture design studio and holding company focused on developing, incubating, and providing seed and early-stage capital to companies operating in media, defense, consumer packaged goods, alcohol & spirits, cannabis, and apparel sectors. ----- LINKS: https://www.linkedin.com/in/andyctran/ https://www.instagram.com/actran001 ----- SPONSORS: Impact Architects & Ninety Impact Architects & Ninety Lay of The Land is brought to you by Ninety. As a Lay of The Land listener, you can leverage a free trial with Ninety, the platform that helps teams build great companies and the only officially licensed software for EOS® — used by over 7,000 companies and 100,000 users! This episode is brought to you by Impact Architects. As we share the stories of entrepreneurs building incredible organizations throughout NEO, Impact Architects helps those leaders — many of whom we’ve heard from as guests on Lay of The Land — realize their visions and build great organizations. I believe in Impact Architects and the people behind it so much, that I have actually joined them personally in their mission to help leaders gain focus, align together, and thrive by doing what they love! As a listener, you can sit down for a free consultation with Impact Architects by visiting ia.layoftheland.fm! ----- Stay up to date by signing up for Lay of The Land's weekly newsletter — sign up here. Past guests include Justin Bibb (Mayor of Cleveland), Pat Conway (Great Lakes Brewing), Steve Potash (OverDrive), Umberto P. Fedeli (The Fedeli Group), Lila Mills (Signal Cleveland), Stewart Kohl (The Riverside Company), Mitch Kroll (Findaway — Acquired by Spotify), and over 200 other Cleveland Entrepreneurs. Connect with Jeffrey Stern on LinkedIn — https://www.linkedin.com/in/jeffreypstern/ Follow Jeffrey Stern on X @sternJefe — https://twitter.com/sternjefe Follow Lay of The Land on X @podlayoftheland https://www.jeffreys.page/