There are not many things on earth better than a good book. And SOCO members are a well-read bunch. Here are the books they recommend reading, whether you want to go to a fictional world or learn about something brand new.
Non-fiction
Four Lost Cities: A Secret History of the Urban Age by Annalee Newitz
Atomic Habits by James Clear
The Power of Habit by Charles Duhigg
Educated by Tara Westover
Hidden Valley Road: Inside the Mind of an American Family by Robert Kolker
The Prodigal God: Recovering the Heart of Christian Faith by Tim Keller
A Way with Words: Using Our Online Conversations for Good by Daniel Darling
Maybe You Should Talk to Someone by Lori Gottlieb
The Lazy Genius by Kendra Adachi
An Indigeonus People’s History of the United States by Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz
1491: New Revelations of the Americas Before Columbus by Chales C. Mann
The People’s History of the United States by Howard Zinn
Women, Race, and Class by Angela Davis
The New Jim Crow by Michelle Alexander
The Autobiography of Malcolm X by Malcolm X, Alex Haley
Farming While Black by Leah Penniman
Just Mercy by Bryan Stevenson
Indigenous Food Sovereignty in the United States (collection of essays)
Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge, and the Teachings of Plants
Bullshit Jobs by David Graeber
The Shock Doctrine and Capitalism vs. The Climate by Naomi Klein
Can’t Hurt Me: Master Your Mind and Defy the Odds by David Coggins
Fiction
Parable of the Sower by Octavia E. Butler
There, There by Tommy Orange
The Seed Keeper by Diane Wilson
The Night Watchman by Louis Erdrick
The Twelve Tribes of Hattie by Ayana Mathis
Under the Whispering Door by TJ Klune
The Cold Millions by Jess Walter
How to Find Love in a Bookshop by Veronica Henry
The Four Winds by Kristin Hannah
The Venice Sketchbook by Kaleigh Cox
Thursday Murder Club by Richard Osman
Magpie Murders by Anthony Horowitz
This is How You Lose the Time War by Amal-ElMohtar and Max Gladstone
All Systems Red(Murderbot series) by Martha Wells
The Calculating Stars (The Lady Astronaut series) by Mary-Robinette Kowal
The Eye of the World (Wheel of Time series) by Robert Jordan
That’s enough to keep your nose in a book for quite a while. If you’re a Columbia local, go grab a copy of something on this list from our local bookstores, like Ed’s Editions in West Columbia or Odd Birds Books on Main St. in downtown Columbia. Bookstores are a treasure. Let’s keep supporting them.
New year, new rounds of resolutions. But what if goal setting wasn’t the same old story of wanting to do something and never really following through? The problem isn’t your goal; it’s your approach. So we asked our members how they set goals and what’s worked best for them. Here’s a recap of that conversation.
We wanted to know why our members liked to set goals. Here’s what they said.
Next, we asked how everyone approached goal setting. What’s the process?
We wanted to learn about their most successful goal-setting methods.
Setting goals for the things you don’t want to do? Whaaaat?
And if you fall short and don’t hit your goals? What happens?
And finally, here’s what our members took away from the conversation and will implement in their own lives.
Hey, you can be part of conversations like this, too. But you have to do something: you have to become a SOCO member. But don’t worry, that’s easy. Go here and book a tour. You’ll love the space, but the community is even better.
During his senior year of college, Josh Snead was feeling pretty good.
He was preparing to graduate with a degree in International Business and Supply Chain Management from the University of South Carolina. And he’d already knocked out the number one priority of (most) college seniors: land a job.
During the fall of his senior semester, Josh accepted a job to work for Amazon and planned to move to Tampa, Florida.
“So I thought I was done at that point. You know, I got that job December, and so senior year is basically a victory lap for me,” Snead said.
With everything lined up, Josh felt a little bored but, he needed to fill some time since he wasn’t scrambling to submit job applications. So, he went on the hunt for an internship to make a little extra money.
While he was searching, Josh participated in a startup weekend. He pitched an idea and was one of eight participants selected to build out their product, which he did with a small team over the weekend.
Josh’s idea and work left an impression. One of the platinum sponsors asked him to stop by their office the following week.
Josh’s conversation with Sam McGuckin, of then TCube Solutions, set him on an unexpected path that has led to the founding of pet insurtech startup Rainwalk.
After interning at TCube, Josh turned down the offer from the company with everything from A to Z and joined Sam and his team full-time.
Where the Journey Begins
While Josh was working at TCube the company was acquired by Capgemini. The startup experience had been great and taught Josh a lot about building a business.
“I stuck around there for a couple of years. And then I left Capgemini to go work at the largest publicly traded insurance technology software company in the United States, Guidewire.”
Josh’s new gig required a move to Minneapolis. But, he stayed in touch with a former co-worker and friend, Tong Wu, who continued working at Capgemini. They spent time kicking around business ideas, and Josh was stuffing money into savings with the hope of launching his own venture.
Going back to high school, Josh always wanted to start a business. But, he didn’t know when or how it would happen.
The time came about two years after Josh left Columbia. Tong felt the need for a change, so he told Josh that he was heading back to China unless they started a company together.
Josh decided to leave Guidewire and move back to Columbia in 2018 to take a chance and found a company with Tong.
Finding Opportunity in an Underserved Market
They had a concept for what would become Rainwalk.
“Rainwalk was initially going to be a peer-to-peer auto insurance company with renters and pet insurance bundled in, and it was going to be all on a blockchain,” Snead said.
But as they spoke with investors and regulators, they realized that the market for auto insurance was saturated. And renters insurance doesn’t have margins that motivate insurance agents to push the product to customers.
After about 6-months of brainstorming, Josh and Tong pivoted Rainwalk to be a pet insurance company in 2018. It’s a line of business gaining momentum and attention. Josh saw an opportunity because the US market is underserved, with only 2% of pets insured.
Americans are spending more money on pet healthcare, which Snead said has increased from $10 billion per year to $33 billion in less than a decade. The costs create more interest in an insurance product that can help offset those out-of-pocket expenses for consumers.
But, launching an insurance business is a long game.
“It took probably about 18 months really to get our pet insurance company up and running after that full regulatory approval and actually able to sell that first policy, which turns out is almost exactly average,” Snead said.
The inspiration for naming the company Rainwalk established that the founders were ready to weather the storm. The “rain walk” in Chinese lore is a tale about a well-dressed member of the royal family who, instead of waiting on a rain shower to end, was determined to begin his procession regardless of the weather.
Rainwalk wants to have the same spirit as they work to disrupt a traditional industry.
How Rainwalk does business
Many large, traditional carriers have explored the possibility of adding pet insurance. However, Josh and the Rainwalk team saw the opportunity to go direct to consumers.
“What Rainwalk does, there are a lot of pet insurance companies out there, but the thing that makes us unique from those other pet insurance companies is the way that we sell the product.”
According to Josh, Rainwalk partners with existing insurers and pet brands to plug their health insurance coverage into existing platforms. So, it’s easy for potential customers to access Rainwalk’s insurance through the workplace or with a company with which they already do business.
“So our goal with this strategy is to just make it as wildly convenient as possible for individual people and for companies to get access to a pet health insurance product,” Snead said.
Rainwalk makes it easy for partners as well. They handle the integration, claims processing, pricing, and regulatory compliance.
Rainwalk plans to make integration so easy that anyone who purchases home insurance or car insurance can access pet health insurance.
The Future of Rainwalk and Pet Health Insurance
Three years after launching, Rainwalk has seven employees and is working towards being a leading insurer of pets.
“We want to build a market leader in pet health insurance,” Snead said.
Snead noted that they do that by doing one thing: getting uninsured pets insured.
Rainwalk sees millennials as a key target market. According to Josh, even though millennials earn less than their baby boomers counterparts, they spend more on pets.
As someone who grew up with dogs (and now the owner of two miniature dachshunds), Josh knows how important pets are to families. For many people, they are part of the family. And it’s Rainwalk’s mission to make sure they’re protected.
You can check out Rainwalk and apply for your pet coverage right here.
As 2021 comes to a close, we can again say, “what a year.”
The challenges were real, folks. It was a roller coaster ride in more ways than one. And while it’s easy to focus on the lows, we want to highlight the good things that happened around the SOCO community.
It’s a bit of a “family tradition” around here. Once a month, we have #winningwednesdays which we use as a time for members to share the awesome stuff in their life (business or personal). And once a year, we ask them to tell us what they’re most proud of over the last 12-months.
The answers cover a broad spectrum of accomplishments. But the common theme is this: these folks did incredible things over the past year, like freelance copywriter Cat Treme, who kept her business going (and thriving) while caregiving for her parents.
Or Mary Cate Spires, who wrote a book that’s scheduled for publishing in 2022. We love to see our folks be recognized for their hard work.
Others, like Amanda Goforth and Jeremy Tong, landed new jobs (working remotely at SOCO 🙌) with companies they’re really excited about.
And SOCO’s own Whitney Balish blew through her reading goal of 60 books (“I’m sorry, did you say 60”)? And read 78 books as of the publishing of this article (her highest total ever).
Yours truly (Ben Culbreth), quit the 9-to-5 life to become a full-time freelance writer.
These are just a few examples of what members are up to. From building new companies to leading non-profits, we’ve got a pretty amazing group of people who call this community home.
We don’t like to talk about ourselves too much, but we’d be remiss, not to mention a few things we’re proud of.
First, we welcomed two new team members; the aforementioned super reader, Whitney Balish, who’s leading our sales and business development efforts, and Hannah Lee, who manages operations and makes sure the workspaces work the way they’re supposed to.
For the first time since SOCO 80808 opened, we participated in Vista Lights and welcomed more than 1,000 people to our humble abode in one evening.
We invested blood, sweat, and maybe a few tears into the GrowCo Growth Summit and continued to fulfill one of our values by supporting the entrepreneurial community.
At 80808, we made some home improvements by enclosing offices to give members a better experience to do their best work. In addition, we upgraded seating at both locations and added outdoor lighting. In short, we have the best work infrastructure in the city (Seriously, it’s really awesome).
And gave back; SOCO members lead the way by donating more jackets and coats, which will keep local students warm this winter than any other group participating. We have Dawn Dawson-House to thank for getting us involved.
It’s been a long year. But we’ve battled through a pandemic and many other things, and we’re still here. We’ll continue to support the good people who choose to be part of SOCO. We’ll tell powerful stories and hopefully offer the advice and insight that will make you better at what you do and a better human.
Nothing in life is a given. Not for one second do we take for granted the opportunity we have to serve people who are doing work that is changing our city and the world. Whatever 2022 throws our way, we’re ready. And we hope you’ll be right there beside us.
The holidays are approaching and for a lot of us, that means cramming a ton of work into a short amount of time. But what if you took a step back, planned some time off, and tried to relax at the end of the year? Sound crazy? Our members told us how to do it.
We wanted to know why it’s important to take time off
For most folks, it’s about taking time to rest and breathe for a moment.
Next, we wanted to know how members planned for time off
Some work ahead to make sure they’re not dealing with a massive amount of work once they re-open their laptop.
Blocking off time so you don’t take on new projects is a great way to protect your vacation.
If you have a team, lean on them for support so you don’t overwork.
Depending on your career, you may have to work a little. But don’t work a lot. And if you’ve built up time-off, book yourself that trip and enjoy it!
Okay, now we know how to take time off. So what should you do with all that free time?
It’s important to make some plans. Even if those plans are “don’t do much of anything.” Enjoy some alone time or get outdoors and away from the screens and noise.
So, we’re bound to get some email from clients and colleagues. How do you handle it?
It’s pretty simple. Turn off notifications. Or, if it helps put your mind at ease, plan a day or time to check in on things. But remember to set boundaries!
We wanted to understand what is “enough” work for members to feel good about taking time off
Communication with clients and colleagues is a big part of this.
Working through what you have on your plate and knowing what’s coming up after the holidays can go a long way towards helping you enjoy time off.
If you have lots of free time during the holidays, how do avoid filling it with work?
These responses speak for themselves.
And the classic last question. We wanted to hear what our members would be taking away from the conversation and implementing into their own lives.
Here’s what they’ll be doing, even if it’s in another country.
Remember, take some time off
Hey, thanks for reading this conversation. We hope you have a great and restful holiday season. If this conversation resonated with you, book a tour and see what the community is all about.
