About Living in Cincinnati
As we reach the end of my first blogging experience, I hope my thoughts provided some insight into what running a small business in Cincinnati is like. I’d like to end by sharing my perspectives on Cincinnati, in general, and what I believe it will take to advance our region.


Let me start by saying that Cincinnati fits my ideal profile of a quality city. Cincinnati has relatively low crime rates, affordable housing stock, minimal traffic congestion, and is headquarters to multiple Fortune 500 companies.  We also offer all the amenities that a “big city” should, while remaining manageable in size and proximity.  Cincinnati is home to many unique neighborhoods, major league sports teams, a plethora of arts experiences, world-class Parks systems, major universities & medical facilities, and…the worst self image imaginable.  During my 33 years in Cincinnati, I can rarely recall seeing a positive news story take precedence over a shooting or robbery on local television.


Unfortunately, this has produced a generation of citizens who believe Cincinnati is a racist, crime-ridden city that is 30 years behind the rest of the nation.  I’m not in a position to determine whether these perceptions are factual or not, but I believe Cincinnati faces the same challenges that other cities do.


An example of this came during a recent trip to Boston where I noticed that local news media rarely covered stories about crime. During my visit, I mentioned to a civic leader that after four days of seeing little reported about law-breaking in Boston, I assumed there was none. My friend corrected me by saying “If we were to cover all the crime that takes place each day, then we wouldn’t have time to cover other news.”  I’m still not sure how to take this. On one hand, is it a complement to Cincinnati that we can cover our criminal activity in addition to sports and weather in a ½ hour? Or should we hope that our regional crime rate grows to a point where the local news can’t cover it all, so they cover nothing. Obviously, I’m being facetious on the latter, but it goes to show that Cincinnati is a small town where perceptions travel quickly.


How do we change those perceptions?
Cincinnati is blessed to have amazing business & civic leaders who are passionate about creating a community that not only improves our image, locally and nationally, but also fosters an environment of inclusiveness and tolerance for all walks of life.  At the end of the day, these leaders want to build a community where each resident feels their voice is heard and we can all be proud of our region.


Referring back to my consensus-based leadership comments - Cincinnati is recognizing that the talent we want to attract CHOOSES to live wherever they want.  Our ability to attract that talent improves if they feel they have a voice in the direction of our community.


Efforts such as Vision 2015 and Agenda 360 are underway to guide us down this path.  Each visioning project is intended to establish a set of priorities for our joint region (NKY & Cincinnati), based on the feedback from residents throughout those areas.  For Agenda 360, public engagement sessions have included everyone from young professionals to correction facility residents. Collectively, these visionary projects will align our resources to lead our region down a path of collaborative success. The emergence of media partners showcasing Cincinnati and Northern Kentucky’s assets will elevate the visibility, attractiveness, and respect our region deserves.

About Small Business/Organizations in Cincinnati
A few things I’ve learned about running a business/organization in Cincinnati is that: 
    1) Cincinnati is a big, small town 
    2) Good news travels fast and so does bad news 
    3) Cincinnati values the input of young leaders


I believe if you’re a sincere entrepreneur with a viable business plan, then there’s no reason you will not succeed in Cincinnati. This applies to both for-profits and not-for-profits. Give Back Cincinnati is a great example. In 2000, a few friends recognized there were too few fun volunteer opportunities in Cincinnati.  We wanted to create a platform where young professionals could volunteer in a social, yet “guilt-free” environment. We understood that most young professionals were too mobile to commit to long-term volunteer obligations and so was born the foundation for Give Back Cincinnati:  “guilt-free, social volunteering.”


Seven years and 3,000+ members later, Give Back is one of Cincinnati’s most respected non-profit organizations.  Give Back’s volunteer events include dancing with senior citizens to painting the houses of the invisible poor. The organization is run completely by volunteers with no paid staff. Give Back also hasn’t had to hold a single membership drive which is further testament that good news travels fast throughout Cincinnati.  It also proves that young professionals, given the opportunity, can play in integral role in moving our community forward.


There are many examples of similar organizations throughout our region including the YP Sounding Sessions, Bacchanalian Society, Cincinnati Sports League, Legacy, and the Freedom Project. I believe the success of Give Back as well as these other organizations is a testament to the dedication of our young leaders and is something unique to Cincinnati.


About Running a Small Business
Owning a small business and working 80-100 hours each week makes it difficult to catalog every reward and challenge but I need to begin by stating there is nothing more rewarding, challenging, or stressful as running a small business. At the point of starting Infintech, I’m not sure I fully understood the stress of having employees would be.  Taking responsibility for your own success is one thing, but being responsible for providing successful opportunities to others, with families of their own, adds another level of complexity.


Two core foundations I believe each small business owner should possess include:
    - A supportive network backing them (family, friends, investors, etc)
    - Committed employees that have the best interest of the company in mind


Tom, Joff, and I are blessed to have such loving and supportive families who understand the long-term goals of Infintech. As an owner of a small business, it’s easy to look at the daily numbers and understand how our growth and foundation hits, or misses, individual targets. However, as a spouse of one of our employees, it’s not as easy to understand and therefore trust becomes an integral factor to all of our stakeholders who must believe that the countless hours we put into Infintech will someday payoff AND that we’ll continue to offer stable employment opportunities. This all contributes to our philosophy that it’s better to “get rich slowly.”


In terms of the vitality of a small business, there’s nothing more valuable than having employees who are committed and take ownership of their own success.  Looking back on my experiences at Fifth Third Bank and Procter & Gamble, I realize now that I knew very little about how my role fit into the bigger picture. I was tasked with performing a certain function and rewarded if I met and/or exceeded predefined expectations.  However, a small business will never survive if its employees operate under that mindset.


As a small business, Infintech is unable to pay wages on par with what one would find at larger companies. To compensate, we believe in creating a work environment that provides unique opportunities and experience as well as a strong work/life balance. Our model is based on successful all-volunteer non-profit organizations. Any non-profit will tell you that the key to retaining volunteers is to make them feel as if they have input into the direction of the company while creating opportunities that nurture their success. Without this, volunteers will stop showing up. The same is true of our employees. Consensus-based leadership is a great way to engage employees and make them feel like they have a voice in the direction of the company. At the end of the day, each employee has a vested interested in the overall success of the organization and knows that their ideas and input helped to move us all towards success.

Building a Business in a Home Town
This is my first attempt at blogging, so bear with me as I fumble my way through this.  I am the son of Ray & Roxann Rybolt, and brother of Reggie, Rachel, and Russ.  (I know, I know)  I grew up in Harrison, Ohio which, at the time, was a small town on the Ohio/Indiana border. Today, it’s one of the faster growing communities in our region.  Looking back, I can understand how Harrison suffered from a regional identity crisis. It remains something of a regional stepchild.  According to true "Glenway Avenue" Cincinnatians, it’s actually not the west side, but rather a collection of "country folk" or "Indiana east siders".  Conversely, our Indiana neighbors believe us to be "city folk" rather than call us Hoosiers. Regardless, Harrison was a great place to grow up and I am blessed to have such a close, supportive family who still call it home.


Today, I live in Mt. Lookout with my wife, Kara, and our daughter Lyla (5 months old). I’m also the President of Infintech, a Cincinnati-based company specializing in electronic payment processing.  I’d like to use my inaugural blogging opportunity to talk about what it’s like to be a Young Professional in Cincinnati leading a growing small business.


About Infintech
Many people ask what Infintech does and how we came up with the name.  After all, it’s not easy to say without some assistance. For those of you having difficulty, it’s pronounced \in fin tek\.


Infintech was founded in January 2004 by me and my business partners Tom DeBord and Joff Moine. The name is a shortened version of Innovative Financial Technologies. Initially, the company was to be named FinTech, but as it was already taken, we used our combined creative energies as engineers and accountants to create Infintech.


The company specializes in electronic payment processing. Much like a magician, we turn plastic into cash.  Infintech represents business owners who offer their customers an electronic form of payment including credit cards, debit cards, gift cards, electronic checks, etc.  We ensure money transfers from cardholder to the business owner at the lowest cost possible.


Merchant processing is quickly becoming a commoditized business so it is important that we carve out a niche in the market. Instead of targeting typical retail business owners, Infintech set out to focus on emerging markets such as business-to-business, non profits, property management, and religious organizations. Shortly after launching the business, we identified resources to create the product we’ve become best known for: PledgeConnect. PledgeConnect is a turn-key online payment tool that enables religious and non-profit organizations, as well as schools and universities to accept ongoing payments online in a secure environment. The key to its success is its simplicity and its ability to allow organizations to more effectively forecast their member payments, contributions and payment cycles.


When we established our business model we also made the conscious decision to offer our services at low margins in an effort to maximize customer retention. We also align ourselves with respected parties (chambers, associations, etc), joining the buying power of the entire membership to offer the lowest costs to each member.  We fully embrace the “get rich slow” philosophy and I’m happy to report that both strategies are working.  Customer attrition is below 5%, as compared to the industry average of 25%...and we’re also getting rich, but EXTREMELY slowly.