From Basement Startup to Global Brand: Tim Ozgener’s Parallel Journey

Tim Ozgener

We said, why don't we convert this warehouse into an art center, like what we've seen in Miami and New York. Give yourself a high five in the mirror. When you do that, when actually you do that, it's really a weird thing. You feel better. My father got me into yoga. He always felt like life will be like this and yoga helps you be more like this. So it's hard for you to understand who you really are unless you go out there and you try stuff.

The power of failing at stuff is how you learn who you are authentically.

Mark Cleveland

Welcome to the Parallel Entrepreneur, where we dive into the minds of entrepreneurs who push beyond the limits of a single business. Learn how these visionaries invite creative synergies to flow between multiple and oftentimes diverse enterprises simultaneously. Whether you're just starting out or managing multiple ventures, you already think outside the box. And this podcast will inspire you to recognize and tap into the power of parallel entrepreneurship.

Our guest today is Tim Ozgener. He's what we call a unicorn around here. Born and raised in Nashville, he's a seasoned entrepreneur who led CAO cigars to international success before founding Ous Arts Nashville, which is a hub for contemporary arts and performances. He blends business acumen with a passion for culture, serving on multiple community boards championing the city's creative growth. Tim has invested also in a company called Crown Head Cigars, where over the last decade, this cigar brand built a national distribution capability. And then in July of 2022, Tim jumped in with both feet again to launch Oz Family Cigars, an entirely new brand creating excitement. So Tim, welcome, welcome, welcome to the show.

Tim Ozgener

Thank you, Mark. It's an honor to be on with you and you've certainly done great things in Nashville. So thank you for asking me to be a guest.

Mark Cleveland

It's a pleasure. So we're talking about being a parallel entrepreneur, which means not limiting ourselves to one venture at a time. And you've got like four or five that we just listed that we can talk about. How do you identify opportunities and decide which of these ideas are worth pursuing?

Tim Ozgener

Well, a lot of it has to do with really what are you passionate about? So for me, I've always been passionate about the arts and I would also argue that cigars are an art as cigars are actually a combination of art and science. There's a certain science with how cigars are made. And then how you come up with a blend and how you convey what the message of that blend is, is a form of art. So there's that. And then also I did when I was growing up, a lot of acting and theater and improv and comedy improv and comedy. So I always had a big passion for the arts and performing arts. the fact that we could start a contemporary, a nonprofit contemporary arts center in Nashville called OzArts also falls down the street of my passions. So I would say as far as the opportunities are concerned, you have to kind of follow your heart and do what you're passionate about. Because as you know, being an entrepreneur and starting something new and building something new requires a hundred percent of your dedication. And so if it's something that you have to be a hundred percent committed to, it needs to be something that is close to your heart and that you really believe in.

Mark Cleveland

You know, this concept of 100 % committed to something and that often in our culture is be committed to one thing, you know, when it comes to business. And yet we parallel entrepreneurs somehow find 150%. And I'm thinking to myself that that's not really a fair representation because you're 100 % heart committed to it and you're parsing your time and your talents between more than one enterprise, how do you decide, how do you run time management studies in the, in the Tim Oz family?

Tim Ozgener

Yeah, I mean, honestly, I think it's, it is very difficult to be actively running two organizations at one time effectively. I think that's true that there's only so much of your time you can dedicate to things. So what I found by experience in doing is that you have to have a good team around you. And in the case of OzArts, you know, we found someone that is a really capable, experienced, seasoned executive who is in essence running OzArts. He's the executive director and the artistic director at the same time and he's fantastic. His name is Mark Murphy, but I mean, you know, he's, he's been very seasoned. He's been on the board of the NEA. mean, he's someone that we were very fortunate to convince him to move from Los Angeles to Nashville, you know, back in 2019, he moved right before the pandemic. And so now I help OzArts in the areas that I'm most impactful and helpful for that. Specifically, we have two fundraising events a year. So I do a lot of heavy lifting around that, getting the sponsors involved. One of the fundraisers is where you have a lot of local leaders that are hosting different tables, getting these different personalities to host tables. Another fundraising event is around bourbon and cigars and wines. And so a lot of those is getting the right sponsors involved with that, the host committee, the wine. So, and then independently of that is meeting with people that are patrons of the arts, supporters of the arts. So I'm more focused on that lane. So that's where I can, that's where I can have the biggest impact on the organization. And that's where I can be most helpful to the organization at this point with the cigars. It's also getting back involved, creating a new brand.

You know, it's, it's, I had some colleagues, two colleagues that were running the cigar business from our previous venture with CIO cigars. So a lot of it has to do with formulating the right team. And that's easier said than done because you want to find people that are also passionate about the industry, whether it's arts or cigars. Being a parallel entrepreneur is in having two different things that you're operating. It's not, it's not necessarily easy, but you have to have the right people in place.

Mark Cleveland

So you have this background of improv and theater. My wife and I took an improv class. We thought it would be great for our relationship and teach us a lot. And it certainly did. And one of the things that I learned in improv was that you just don't come with a fully thought out process. This isn't standup comedy. This is improv. So you bring a brick, I bring a brick. And I'm wondering how the discipline and the science and the experience and the love of improv has helped you with your business building.

Tim Ozgener

It's helped me from a communication standpoint, you know, because there are a lot of times where, especially you visit different customers and, and, know, the customers that I visit in the cigar world are different than people, let's say that are potential patrons in the arts world or people that are in the arts world. So sometimes you don't know what situation you're going to be in and you have to make decisions that are on the spot and go with the flow. in that sense, improv has helped me a lot. And also there's certain rules of improv that are really actually quite handy for business.

Like there's this one rule called yes and and not no. If somebody says, Mark, I'm bringing you this brick and you say, I don't want the brick. Then the scene is dead. So it's almost the rule of improv is yes. And yes. And I'm going to give you cement, but the cement has jelly beans in it or whatever kind of tweak you want to put in there. So then it kind of continues the dialogue and the potential for that.

Mark Cleveland

Plays out into human relationships, right? mean, not just business, but everywhere you look.

Tim Ozgener

It also helps you from, for me, if somebody puts me on the spot, which happens all the time and says, you know, Tim, I want you to speak or sometimes I'll be at an event and then I don't know that I'm supposed to speak. And then he calls me up to speak. I usually don't have a problem with it because improv teaches you to come up with stuff right on the spot. So that, that, in that sense, think improv classes, everybody should take them. And I think they should be required for students because that's life.

A lot of times, well, you know, Mark, things aren't planned and sometimes things happen. And if you're at the right place at the right time, you've got to do it. You got to go, you know, so improv kind of prepares you.

Mark Cleveland

completely agree. should be required entrepreneurial training at every university that everybody takes an intro to improv comedy class. It's hard actually to get out of your head. like they tell you, don't come with a fully baked concept because you can't be, you cannot be flexible.

Tim Ozgener

yeah.

Yeah. Also can't, you also can't be afraid to fail. And I mean, you're going to fail a bunch when you do improv. So, you know, you're going to be put on the spot to try stuff and some stuff is going to work and some stuff is not going to work. And you're just going to have to not be afraid to try. And if it doesn't work, then you just move on. It's like water off a duck's back. You know, what can you do? You can't do anything. What's done is done.

Hopefully you learn from it and then you don't make the same mistake twice. And hopefully the mistake that you made wasn't a massive mistake that is going to cost you. It's going to cost you.

Mark Cleveland

Yes, and it does inform us on our coping skills with failure, which I think entrepreneurs have to be, that's got to be a superpower. We talk a little bit about superpowers. think flexibility is one of the superpowers of a parallel entrepreneur. And I think we can track that back to improv.

Tim Ozgener

Yeah, yeah, for sure.

Yeah.

Yeah. You're right. You want to be, you want to be flexible because you don't know what's going to happen. mean, especially, especially right now, you don't know what's going to be thrown at you. You don't know what the business environment might be like either. So you just have to kind of listen and respond. That's another skill that I learned from acting actually that the best actors are the ones that listen and respond. I mean, after you have your blocking down, which is like where you're going to move and walk and stop and stand and turn around and look at the other actor and you have your lines memorized, then you have to really kind of listen to the other actor and read what they're doing from a body language standpoint or energy standpoint and try to use that in your organic reactions. And then it leads to a more authentic and connected performance or result. So I think a lot of businesses listening and responding to the market.

Mark Cleveland

a famous actor that we all respect and comedian Robin Williams who was given permission, I think, by his pure genius, as well as great directors and producers to go ahead and ad lib, you know. So if you're importing that into a business, I know that one of my companies has a certain personality and it's necessary for that company to be successful. It's informed by the leaders and the contributors to that company. And the other company has a completely different identity. I'm wondering, one is curb your enthusiasm and the other everyone is some drama that has got some bank, bank, shoot them up theme in it. And one's highly directed and the other one is a little bit more flexible. How do you view Oz Family Cigars and the other of your enterprises as individual personalities? Do these businesses have personalities?

Tim Ozgener

I think they do. Yeah. They also have different kind of, I don't know, different people that are around them with different sensitivities. arts center and then the cigar business have different consumers as well. would, I would say some same and, and a lot that are different. So, you know, a lot of people that are in the arts or artists and certainly our employees there, it's a nonprofit, right? So they're doing it because they love the arts and they believe the arts and they buy into the mission.

You know, and artists are more, you know, they're a bit more sensitive a lot of times, particularly because it depends on like what, what are they doing over and over and over? What's their kind of genre? And for Ozarts, we're presenting a different art form every month. So one month it could be a contemporary dance. The next month it could be a theater. The next month it could be music. So it varies. You know, with the cigar business, the customers from client tells it, you may have to like cigars. It depends on where you go, what demographic and what city.

It could be blue collar, could be or white collar. could be usually they're both. Usually you get a good cross section of mix of people that this is what they do. This is their hangout. This is their cheers. So it kind of depends on its variable. yeah, you have different, you have different personalities to a different business. And a lot of that has to do with like, what's the environment you're around one and two, who is, who are you serving?

Mark Cleveland

being sensitive to the marketplace. Once again, that's listening, right? I have a great memory of sitting down at CAO cigars with you and your dad. That building at one point was your distribution headquarters. Now today it's an art facility. It's tremendous. It reminds me to ask you the question, like, what are some of the greatest pieces of wisdom that your father was...

Tim Ozgener

Yeah. The Yard Center, yeah.

Mark Cleveland

trying to share with you and where you listen.

Tim Ozgener

Yeah. Well, you my father was a, he was a great guy. had an engineering background, mechanical engineer. So my father was always really big into the weeds and into the details. So he would always, he always believed that, you know, you have to look at the numbers obviously. And, know, even he would have a mechanical ruler and a mechanical pencil and he would go down the P and L and circle certain things. And he's like, why are we spending so much on toilet paper? I mean, I think it's an easy joke, but I mean, he wanted, he wanted.

He wanted you to see that he's looking at the smallest number as much as he's looking at maybe some of the biggest numbers on the list, you know? So I would say that was one. And then the other one is, know, can't be afraid to go out and make it happen. That was one of his things was it's good to kind of strategize and talk about things and be organized about things. But after a certain point, you have to go execute. So I've always been a big kind of believer of like trying to shake things up and make things happen.

Mark Cleveland

So how do you make things happen? This world's changing really fast. mean, right around us is just this big old swirl of change. What disciplines do you deploy to make things happen?

Tim Ozgener

Other thing I learned from my dad is he always would say, write it down. You know, cause my dad was Armenian, Turkish. you had this Turkish accent. kind of looked like an Armenian Danny DeVito. So he was like, Einstein wrote it down and you are no Einstein. So write it down. So I was like, okay. So, you know, I write a lot of things down and I have a lot of ideas. I'm putting either I'm writing them down on a piece of paper or I'm recording them.

You know, in my iPhone and you know what it means. Then I have an aggregate list and then I'll review them and I'll put them and prioritize them. And then usually what I do is on Sundays, I'll look at everything that is on my list of things and I'll look at what the week is coming ahead. And then I'll prioritize things that I think that require my attention the most. And then I'll schedule times where I'm going to, you know, focus on trying to, to do those tasks or do those things that might be the most impactful for me to dedicate towards, whether it's a cigar business or it's the arts. I love doing that. I think that it makes my week much more successful of a week when I can pretty much schedule all of my time on what is most important to do. And then after I'm done with a week, I feel really like a sense of accomplishment. So I've tried to get in the habit of doing that. It actually takes more time than I would like, but I like to think about like what's the most important thing and then how do I kind of make time for it and where do I put it in the schedule of my whole week. But that's kind of what I've fallen in the habit of doing.

Mark Cleveland

So that's a time blocking strategy. I know that some people require a little time to ramp up and then they want to finish stuff. And then other people move between topics. Do you try to concentrate your energy in a particular theme or in a particular like, do you want to finish this thing or are you incrementally moving that ball forward? What does it look like when you're blocking time?

Tim Ozgener

It kind of depends on what things have deadlines, right? And what do I need to do in order to meet that deadlines? As an example, if you're coming up with a new cigar brand or line, which has a specific flavor and you have like, have a trade show coming up. There are a lot of things that are on deadline for that. So I'll, I'll think of, okay, I've got to do X, Y, Z in order for this to be successful. A lot of it is based on what is the immediate deadline for things that are maybe longer term or down the road then that might be also important. You know, want to have time for that too. Really it starts with like trying to figure out what is, what, out of all the things that you might have that you want to get accomplished, which are the really kind of priority items to address that's going to help you achieve what your goal is.

Mark Cleveland

So what do you think is among the most, or a small list of the most important skills that a parallel entrepreneur should develop?

Tim Ozgener

Well, I think you mentioned one of them, you know, which is flexibility. The other one I feel like is that you want to have, you don't want to be afraid to be a dreamer. You know what I mean? You want to be able to dream and dream big and try to visualize what that's like, right? So using your imagination is really important as you know. So if you have like something in your mind that is tangible, that you can kind of see that you want to go towards, then I think that's important to do too.

But I also think that when you're a parallel entrepreneur and you have good people around you, then you also have to not be so overbearing that you can't listen to them and respond. You want to be able to listen to them and also empower people around you that particularly you could tell these are very talented people. Like with anything else in life, I find that it's like there's no, it's not a silver bullet. It's usually like a combination of different, different things that that'll get you there.

Mark Cleveland

The recipe is changing all the time as well, I think. What do you do? What are you doing to feed your mind? What do you study and what are you reading?

Tim Ozgener

Yeah.

Yes, that's the other thing is I try to consume as much as I can. mean, I'm a subscriber to the New Yorker and whenever those come in, those articles are so long that I'm like, okay. And then, and then you don't read them and then you have more. So what I usually do there is I'll look through the New Yorker and I'll find an article that I think is super interesting to me. And then I'll put a color tab on the articles that I want to read. So when I go on an airplane, I'll take them with me and I'll, I'll read it. They tend to be more articles as you might imagine that are more in like kind of creative fields, you know, like reading about a gentleman that who is Armenian, you know, got into the making colognes and perfumes is an article I read in the New Yorker recently. I'm reading right now Malcolm Gladwell's latest book, which is called The Revenge of the Tipping Point, which is really interesting. you know, I like reading different books that are well written and then I can read. Hopefully, you know, it's a fluid read not one that I have to labor over. I tend to gravitate more towards that and hopefully something or one that I can learn something.

Mark Cleveland

Yeah, we can tell when it's a well-written article and it jumps off the page and we really want to consume more. and then I think chat GPT is helping all of us get a little bit better at writing. I've noticed.

Tim Ozgener

That's what my wife calls it, my new best friend.

Mark Cleveland

Is that her new best friend or your new best friend or is she saying her friend because it's your new friend?

Tim Ozgener

saying no, she's saying it's my new best friend because I'll ask it like, I'll ask it tons of questions. Funny enough, oftentimes it's like really simple questions.

Mark Cleveland

superpowers of entrepreneurs is learning how to ask better questions. have all the answers.

Tim Ozgener

Yeah, that's true. That's true. And you know, I think the other thing is that I find is that, you know, this, most of the things that I've been involved in, it takes a lot of your time, energy, effort, thought, passion.

You know, it's usually not an overnight success. All of a sudden, after 10 years, you've dedicated to something and you've become an overnight success. For me, that's never been the road. I always understand that in order to be successful, you have to really be committed to work at it. And you have to be, you have to be a grinder. So I don't mind doing that because, know, I learned that from my father and my mother, but we're both like that because they're, you know, I'm first generation. they, they've really worked very hard.

Mark Cleveland

great legacy, great lessons. It's like when you're hoping to have the great big guns and arms and the physique of a trained athlete, but you still have to put in the work or you don't get that result.

Tim Ozgener

Yeah, yeah, no, it's, that's right. It's like that.

Mark Cleveland

It's probably true in any business endeavor we need to put in the work. I find that the average, well, there's no such thing as an average parallel entrepreneur, but what I am learning from these conversations is that they do focus a lot on recovery as well. So you're pressing really hard. You're working at something you're grinding, so to speak, and then back off and play hard. Tell me how Tim Osgenor plays hard.

Tim Ozgener

One thing is you mentioned books is that like there's another app that I sometimes listen to called Headway that takes these books. Most of them are nonfiction books, business books or self-help books. They condense them almost to like a 15 minute listen and you can take away what are the top takeaways from those books by chapter. So I continue to try to listen to those like maybe while I'm walking the dog in the morning once a day. And one of the books they were talking about the importance of that dynamic that you were just addressing, which is like, you work really hard and then it's also good to take breaks that are also like where you can recover. So what I do when I recover is usually I like to do things with my wife and kids right now. You know, since I've gotten back into the cigar business and it's taken a lot of work, I pretty much now have decided if I'm going to travel, it's going to be either for business or it's going to be with my family for the time being.

I went off skiing during spring break with my two boys. And then during the summer, I like to meet up with my relatives in Turkey. We'll be in a place where, you know, you're more sort of away from a city and kind of more, you know, relaxing. I'm also a big foodie. So my wife and I like to go and explore and find different new restaurants. You know what I mean? I try to like, I try to combine both when there's an opportunity to combine both and sometimes particularly in the cigar business there is an opportunity to combine both.

Mark Cleveland

Yes, and you are involved in a global business. Cigar business is without question a global marketplace. When you travel to Turkey, when you get out and about, what are you seeing and how are you taking advantage of that with Oz Family Cigars?

Tim Ozgener

Yeah.

Right.

Well, it takes time to establish the right partner for distributors in different markets. Certainly I've had experience with that with CAO because, you know, we had 64 different markets were distributed in CAO. for as far as distribution for us, family cigars, we're starting kind of slow and purposeful. You know, we want to find who are the right distributors in the right relationships and enter in because once you, once you enter in with a distributor, you don't, you don't want to leave the distributor. Then it becomes a bit messy and sometimes people can take it personal. So you want to be really deliberate and careful about who you partner with because they're your partner in that market. But in Turkey, we have a really good distributor, for example, and we've started there first because of my background. And so I'll do events in Istanbul. Last year we ran around and visited a bunch of stores and I did two events and it was, it was fun, but also tiring. And then after that, then I relaxed with my relatives for a week. So that's kind an example of how you try to balance both.

Mark Cleveland

Yeah, I was in Istanbul a number of years ago and this was before Nashville had a soccer team and I had not really experienced the soccer mania that's possible and

Tim Ozgener

Yeah.

Mark Cleveland

I'm getting swept up in the streets from some team that was a Crosstown rival of the other team. And it was pure mayhem. was insane. I don't even remember who won and I don't think I cared. was just just the energy of that environment was just off the chart.

Tim Ozgener

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, it's a lot of fun. it's, you know, part of why I love the cigar business so much is because of that dynamic that you just addressed, which is when you go to these different markets, you learn about these different cultures. And then that I think that's an education as well. So if I can bring my wife and my two boys to that, I view it as, you know, a memory that they'll never forget.

And B, it's an opportunity for them to learn. So my older son last summer came earlier with me to Istanbul to do the two events that I did there and also to go and visit these stores. And so he had an opportunity to be a part of that, that action.

Mark Cleveland

Yeah, that's fun. Tell me about like the, when did you first get in this entrepreneurial bug? What was the first business that you started? And I'm wondering what the first business your son is going to start.

Tim Ozgener

Well, I mean, look, you know, I kind of grew up being exposed to entrepreneurial life because when my father, he first started CAO or his initials and he started with these Meersham pipes, which are these white pipes that are formed by a basically small crustacea that are formulated into a mineral that's about the size of your fist. And then this rock, they put it in a pail that absorbs the water. It's highly absorbent. And then this light mineral becomes heavy, almost like the consistency of a bar of soap. And then these carvers can carve any sort of face or shape. And then you have the stem of the pipe or the shank of the pipe, which is what connects into the stem of the pipe. Therefore, it can be quite fragile. So it used to be that you would just shove in and pull out a stem into the shank of this pipe, which is fine if it's a wooden pipe or a briar pipe which is what they call the wooden pipes in the pipe industry. But my father being an engineer was like, well, whoever engineered this for Mirsham, he's a big time loser. I will improve the engineering. So he made it so you could twist in and twist out the stem of the pipe into this shank. And then he visited a smoke shop in the Carolinas. He was there for an engineering convention. And then the retailer there is like, well, where'd you get that pipe? And my dad's like, well, I made the stem. And he's like, can I order some from you? And my dad's like, son, listen, you are part Armenian. Armenians never refuse an order. How many you want? know, so, so then he, then my uncle would find the best quality Mirsham and the best carvers and get them made in Turkey and then ship them to our house in Nashville, Tennessee. And then people said, Hey, put your initials on the stem of the pipe. So we know it's got the same engineering. So his initials were CAO first name, John O but spelled C-A-N-O, which in Tennessee that's Kano.

And then middle name arett last name Osgener. So that's how we got CAO. And he started that in the basement of our house with pipes. Now my sister and I, we'd come home from school. We'd do our homework. And then on the weekends we would help my dad in the basement with anything with the pipes. A lot of them would have a pricing gun and I would price the pipes. Sometimes we'd go into our garage and we would help him pack and ship the pipes, all different types of things. So really my first entrepreneurial experience was through him and through having to earn my allowance by working for my father who started this business while he was an engineering employee at DuPont here in Nashville. And then we got into, we started with pipes. That was in 1968. And then in 1994, we noticed because cigar aficionados started making cigars more popular, people are interested in where am I going to store all these cigars that I'm buying? So we had solid wood humidor is made in Wedgwood, Houston area Nashville, Tennessee. At that time it wasn't built out and there were a lot of woodworkers that were there. So then we shifted from a pipe company to more of a humidor company under the same brand name, CAO. That became successful and I helped to that. And then I lived in LA as I was going to USC in LA. And then I was also selling pipes and humidor's while I was at USC and after USC, like while I was doing improv comedy and end up comedy and theater. Then we transitioned CAO to be a cigar brand. So even under that one label, CAO, you know, one of my friends who's a very successful retailer in the industry said, you've reinvented yourself three times in the same industry. And that's interesting because no one else had to do that or did that. So even within the same company, you can be an entrepreneur, be entrepreneurial and change your kind of focus. on the product that you're selling or the niche that you're in. So I had a lot of, I would say a lot of my experience was in CAO and then, you know, we sold CAO back in 2007. And then starting a new entity with Ozarts, that is also was a startup, but in the sector of nonprofit arts, which was a totally different experience.

Mark Cleveland

Different structure, different markets, different everything. What was the biggest challenge when you started OzArt?

Tim Ozgener

Yeah, well, you know, the biggest challenge is you're starting something new in a city that didn't understand what it is or what it was, which was we were inspired by what we saw, you know, in Miami in particular with Art Basel. It's a big contemporary visual art fair, but the energy, like you mentioned energy a lot, the energy from that show kind of bled over into the whole city. So you had different warehouses.

that had different art shows that they were showing during that week. And then you had a whole district called Wynwood that was transformed into being more of around street art and things that spilled over from there was, you know, more visual art, more performing arts, more cafes and shops that were more kind of creative and urban streetwear oriented type of things. So, so we were inspired by that. We were inspired by the contemporary art and culture. And we noticed that there wasn't that much happening in Nashville. So we said, well, why not Nashville? You know, some of these areas in Miami were industrial areas where they had converted warehouses. We happened to have, be in an industrial area with a converted, with a warehouse at CAO. We said, why don't we convert this warehouse into a, into an art center, like what we've seen in Miami and New York in particular. And then we had people from MoMA that encouraged us to do it because we consulted with them.

They said, whenever we show something, present something that's a pop-up here, if it's a contemporary performance, then it has a greater response than we think. So we decided to do that. But when you start a nonprofit, the biggest challenge there is you have to get the community behind it so that the community understands we've got to contribute and support this if we want it to be sustainable. The biggest challenge for arts is really, usually they tend to be like, it's a complicated model for funding where you have to have funding from like sponsors, patrons, foundations, government to make it work because you're doing it for the good of the community. You're not building Bridgestone Arena, you know, where you're having concerts that's more of a for-profit model. So that's been the biggest challenge with starting an arts center is you got to have people that understand and appreciate the value that it brings to the community. And I also want to contribute towards its sustainability.

Mark Cleveland

So when it came time to sell CAO, what was that adventure like? How did you seek advice? How did you navigate an exit to a global brand?

Tim Ozgener

I think it's an important question and people actually, that's a question that a lot of people haven't asked me, but I think it's the right question, Mark. So I give you a lot of credit for asking that because I think it's important. I mean, the first time we weren't looking to sell the business. Number one, we loved it. It was a lot of fun and we were growing it. We had a distributor in London, England, and his company was more oriented towards smaller cigars, machine made cigars, which in our industry we call more like mass market cigars. But he also started distributing premium cigars. So premium cigars means that the cigars are like, you know, long leaf tobacco that has not been broken or chopped up. And you roll the long leaves into these cigars so that when you smoke them, they, they hold an ash longer and they're just, they're more expensive that way, but it's, it's a, it's a more luxurious item. You know, it's almost like a higher end bourbon category or, or Scotch category. So this gentleman, he had sold his business to a company that was European that was also in mass market and they wanted to get into the premium cigar sector and they thought the best way to do it would be to buy a premium cigar brand. And so he was talking to me about it and I said, well, like what kind of brand? And he was like, well, quite frankly, a brand like yours. And I was like, okay, interesting. And then they started talking with us and you know, that's one thing I'll also say as an entrepreneur is if someone wants to talk to you, particularly about selling your business, you're not losing anything by listening.

You could always say no. And then obviously you can learn something from the dialogue. So, you know, he sat down and they made us an offer to buy our business. And then we went to, fortunately we had some financial advisors that came and broke it down to us. Like they say, okay, especially if you're selling to a European entity, do they want to, you know, they want to buy it as a, is it a stock deal or is it an asset deal? And for them, an asset deal is better for tax purposes, but it's worse for you tax purposes. then we're like, okay, no, no, we want a stock deal, not an asset deal. So we learned from that. And then when you did the math and you look down on like, you know, what, what will you end up with after taxes and after whatever deal it is, then you have to assess, it worth it or not? And then we said, no, it's not worth it. And so we turned around and we politely declined the offer. said, look, I'm really honored that you would think so much of our brand to want to acquire it.

Cause it is, whenever somebody wants to buy your business, then that's a big honor that people thought so highly about your, your brand. Then they came back a little over a year later, again, with a better offer, a more serious offer than what they first came with. And at that time we had a lot of legislation that was entering the business. Like we had a 700 % import duty tax increase on cigars. Uh, it used to be three cents per cigar. went up to like, you know, around 42, 43 cents per cigar tax import duty.

FDA was threatening to regulate cigars. Cigarette brands, cigarette companies were wanting to, FDA to regulate premium cigars, thinking that it would put the industry out of business and then they would get more market shares. For all those reasons, we were like, okay, well, maybe this is the right time to sell the business. And plus the partners were me and my father and my sister. And my father thought that all of our equity was in premium cigars.

He had a lawyer and the lawyer would always tell him a story about a guy that was his client who had an opportunity to sell his business. He didn't do it. Something happened to his industry and he always sees him at the bar at Jay Alexander's and lamenting about how he never sold his business. So that really had an impact on my dad. And he was like, well, maybe now is the time, you know? So that's all what went into it. But it was a lot of, my father would always say to me, goes, this is an education you cannot pay money for.

You cannot go to school for this. That's why it's a good question that you asked, you know.

Mark Cleveland

It's interesting to have lived that experience and now you're about to build another cigar brand, Oz Family Cigars. Well, you're doing it. And you mentioned earlier how you're doing, you're growing it intentionally and purposefully. And I want to dig in a little bit there because you've got this hands-on experience building something from scratch. And then...

There's always this pressure or this idea in modern business, maybe it's consultant speak, but know, scale, scale, scale and grow, grow, grow. How do you grow responsibly without losing the edge of what made your company special and your brand unique?

Tim Ozgener

think that you can like look on the past and take from your experiences from the past and learn from it. And some things that are applicable, you can apply it. I mean, if they're applicable and others that don't serve you or that you learned and maybe, you know, wasn't as successful, you don't have to utilize those. But I find that, you know, in our case, the experience that we had before and the fact that we've, built there and we got to kind of the top of the mountain and then, you know, sold it while we were at the top.

That helps open some doors, you know, for, for me and for us, because those that were around back in those days, they know that, and that helps kind of with your, your reputation of being someone that has built something that, that reached a degree of success. And so that, that helps with starting something new or being involved in something new, even though that's not the be all end all. And as far as like keeping your your edge. I mean, that's why I like to go and be in the field and in the market is because that keeps you alert and it keeps you connected and it keeps you informed of what the market is like and what's happening.

Mark Cleveland

Do you have a spiritual or a mindfulness practice,

Tim Ozgener

yeah. My father got me into yoga. He always felt like life will be like this and yoga helps you be more like this.

Mark Cleveland

Waves and waves are super steady.

Tim Ozgener

Yoga is great because it's a moving meditation. So I always look at it like I'm, when I'm doing yoga, I'm trying not to think. I'm trying to just focus on my breath and the breath is connected to your movement. So then if you were able to do that successfully, then you kind of automatically enter this kind of flow status. And I think that the flow state helps you in life and helps you in business. Like we talked about at the beginning, I know that you understand and connect with this concept too, because I can feel your spirit is like this too. He's like, you got to go with the flow, right? And you want to be open to whatever that flow is. And so I think that yoga helps me with connecting with that. It also helps level me and center me and even me out more. I try to meditate too, but like I said, if I'm not meditating every day, which I try to, but I don't, then when I'm doing yoga, It's a two in one. It's a moving meditation anyway. So I'm doing a two in one with, with when I do yoga. So I think that helps me a lot spiritually. Other things that helped me is I think journaling is very valuable actually, because if you, especially when you feel highly emotional about something or you feel unsure about something or you're having difficulty with maybe what you did or what you're deciding or how you can decide it or something has happened and you got to

I find that like when I was in LA and I was studying improv, that one of the exercises we did was you would take a stopwatch and you would time it and for like 10 minutes, just write without even thinking, just write whatever is, get whatever is on your mind out on paper. And I find that when you do that, that that becomes like a catharsis because you kind of come, by you writing out what's bothering you or what's on your mind, by the time you're done with that exercise, you kind of.

I've come to a conclusion that normally you feel better about it. Now, whether you've solved it or not, sometimes you do and sometimes you don't, but at least you've written it out and it kind of, think it's very, very helpful for me. Those things, you know, exercise, even if it's just walking, try to, I do that every day. tend to be between strength training and yoga and just walking the dog, you know, those things kind of, and also I'll say the other thing Mark is, is being in an environment that I feel like is helpful to me. was in an environment where I lived before that I didn't feel like the energy suited me. So we moved during the pandemic and now we're kind of in an area that I feel like the energy and the people around there are more like minded like me. We're now we're in like Belmont 12 South area where we can walk a lot and there are sidewalks and there's energy.

Mark Cleveland

Are you doing hot yoga or normal yoga without the?

Tim Ozgener

When I was in LA and my dad made me do yoga, there was a teacher out there named Bikram who would heat the class up and people would come in with bathing suits, but he chose the 26 poses that he liked the best. They changed the name from Bikram yoga, this was decades ago, to hot, hot yoga. But the yoga I like to do is in a heated room, but it's not Bikram. It's a vinyasa yoga, which these are like almost flow yoga. So a series of poses that have been used for hundreds of years starting in India. So I like doing flow yoga or vinyasa yoga in a heated room.

Mark Cleveland

Me too, every day if I can in the morning, 6 a.m. start or 7.15 start. for me, just, I think flexibility back to the original theme, know, flexibility is so important. And then this weekend, my wife and I went down and did some rock climbing with our son, Jacob.

And that's very good. And I got to the end of that outing thinking, man, I just don't use in my yoga daily yoga practice. I'm not gripping and holding on for dear life as I'm climbing up the wall. And I'm pretty good at the rock climbing thing, but I recognized how quickly I was exhausted by not having worked those muscles. And I think that applies, you know, it's a, it's a transition. Energy is so important and also putting in the work and what do you want to be able to do? I want to be able to X or Y or Z. So strength training, I just recognized, man, I'm going to need to do more rock climbing again, because it's a completely different workout. I think that's one of the things that I'm applying it to parallel entrepreneurship.

Because one business is rock climbing, the other business is hot yoga and something else might require some speed training. I do think that full body, full mind and meditative workouts are my top priority, but that's just because if I have to choose, I want to stay flexible. And I want to, I think the amount of work that goes into hot yoga is far more than people give credit for.

Tim Ozgener

yeah, for sure. Well, also they had a thing on CBS Sunday morning yesterday talking about art and the therapeutic value of people doing art. So my father, last 10 years of his life, he started to paint. He was an engineer at DuPont when he first started CAO in the late sixties and early seventies. And ended up that he was working on things like Teflon unmasked.

So because of that, he ended up, and the reason I know this is that I went and I got genetic testing and blood testing done because he had a lot of different issues with health issues the last 10 years of his life. And I wanted to make sure I didn't have the similar indicators. But during that period where he had a lot of health issues, he found that painting really helped him. It really lifted his spirit. It made him feel good. It made him connect with nature and life. And so that's probably something that

Some people like you and I would probably like a lot too. I haven't gotten into painting, but I hear there are a lot of people like a former president or a former governor, Phil Bredesen, who I really respect has gotten into painting. I think there's something to be said about doing something artistic, whether it's even writing.

Mark Cleveland

Yeah, whether you're good at it or not, it doesn't matter compared to what. Just go enjoy yourself and express, Explore, express.

Tim Ozgener

Right. That's right. That's right.

Mark Cleveland

The Parallel Entrepreneur Network is a gathering of people who think and have some similar challenges because we're all parallel entrepreneurs. And the other day in one of our meetings, the thing that surprised me, and I know many of these people quite well, and new members are joining all the time, but the facilitator asked the question, like, how many of you are musicians or play a musical instrument? And I'm thinking, well, that's a cheat, because there's a lot of Nashville people in there, like all but two on the entire group raised their hands, they're musicians. And I was shocked. And then, well, how about painting? The rest of everybody else and the people who weren't musicians were painters or had a routine expression of art at the center of their creative being. I thought, I completely underestimated that. And these are very successful parallel entrepreneurs. I think that it might be time for you to pick up the pen and paint.

Tim Ozgener

Yeah.

Yeah, well, you know, also the fact that I did a lot of like, you know, theater and improv and stand up and you know what I mean? So I think that the commingling of arts and I think the arts can help you in life, generally speaking. And I learned this from being in the nonprofit space, right? And if you think about it, like during COVID, for example, well.

During COVID, if people wanted to donate to something, they feel like I'm going to donate more towards health or social services nonprofits as opposed to arts nonprofits. You know, I think that people undervalue or underestimate the importance of the arts. You know, we, we know it, you and I do, right? But I think in general, you know, it's I think it's easy for people to overlook or underestimate. My father always, I thought, said it very well. He said like, you know, people think about, okay, it is important that you need food, right? So therefore like, you know, helping eradicate hunger, for example, you always said the right idea. But art is almost like food for your soul, he would say.

You know, like when he said, when he was fighting all these, had a cancer that was a non-Hodgkin's lymphoma where he had to have a stem cell procedure done, where they like zap your body of your good and your bad blood cells in order to like infuse brand new blood and blood cells in there. That, you know, he was like, you know, when things look dark and you will find a light and it will be art that brings you out. So I do think that there's you know, art is like important for your soul. I can even remember performances that I saw that made me feel something. Yesterday, I was in a Uber going from my hotel in Tampa to the airport and I had the most pleasant woman. She was a Jamaican. She was a nurse, hospice nurse, get this, who also does some Uber driving on the side to pay for the car that she just bought. She said, I've been to Nashville a lot because she's a traveling hospice nurse.

And she told me a quote that Maya Angelou said, which had something to do with, 25 of the people that you encounter with may remember the words you say, but 75 people will make you will remember how you made them feel. thought that was really cool. has to do with like, that has to do with the art too. I can remember how I felt when I saw a great performance.

Mark Cleveland

Yeah, I feel like our modern world is really pushing everybody to specialize and that the reality is we unlimited creative beings are unlimited by some, I'd like to say by definition. you know, we can get, I'd like to have a brain surgeon do my brain surgery. I get that. But entrepreneurship really benefits a great deal from multiple cultural, multiple art, multiple business and customer interactions and employee interactions. You just get better and better and better at the art of business when you're involved in a lot of things that are artistic in nature.

Tim Ozgener

I think you're right about that. Entrepreneurs have to be creative. My mother always was a big proponent of kids, especially the first zero through five years of their life, being exposed to creativity because she felt like it helps with their brain formulation. So whether or not you go into being an accountant or an engineer or an artist or an entrepreneur, being able to have creative thinking or creative ways of approaching complex problem solving helps you in life.

I think you're right, Mark, with what you just said, 100%.

Mark Cleveland

I think most of the time in life I'm figuring out I'm wrong most of the time and it's just a degree of how far away from failure I am that defines success.

Tim Ozgener

You're probably way too hard on yourself.

Mark Cleveland

I think that's true. think I am definitely the self-talk I continue to try to un-layer is all about how I didn't perform well enough or I didn't get something or I'm not worthy or I'm not good enough at something. And I'm just like, I'm just going to set that down and just really enjoy my friends, my life. The lessons that I'm taking away from this parallel entrepreneur project are

Tim Ozgener

I bet. I bet it's great. Yeah.

Mark Cleveland

It's like I want your dad sitting here next to me. Mark, cannot get this lesson any other

Tim Ozgener

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I think that's one thing that's another takeaway from like listening to all these like kind of book synopsis that I've been listening to through this app is that that's another one I heard recently. I thought it was really great is that, you know, don't be so hard on yourself. You know what I mean? Like I thought that was a really good lesson. One of the other one is like, give yourself a high five. When you do that, when actually you do that, it's really a weird thing. You feel better. It's the weirdest thing.

Mark Cleveland

You know what?

We humans are so, well, we have to curate our energy field. You you go into a place that supports your energy. You're aware of maybe I need to move and find a place that fits with my energy. What energy am I trying to cultivate?

Tim Ozgener

That's right. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. Well, also I had a, somebody suggested to me a, coach, career coach, which you might've experienced that before, but I never did. So during the pandemic, I had a, the coach who's very good. name is Ken Cope, C-O-P-E. He's also worked with John Ingram on things who, you know, I've really kind of been a fan of what John Ingram has done for our city. So he had me do an exercise that was like almost like a sheet of paper and have almost like a small column for every year of your life. And you can draw a little illustration if there's something you remembered from that year. There's some years like when I was a little baby, I don't remember that. But then, and then you have a little pen that's like this year was up, this year was down, that kind of thing. And it's like the stock market and you're like, okay, these years where you're up here is what were you doing in those years? So you learn from that. And that for me, like in the years that I had were like my highest years were years that I was doing something creating brands in the cigar business. And that's in part what motivated me to want to get back into the cigar business. I thought that was a useful, useful thing that I went.

Mark Cleveland

useful exercise. yeah. I ran through something like that in a 10x kind of a project where you look back at your life and see when did you 10x like two X's continuing to grow 15 or 20 percent a year, whatever the number is. When did you completely redefine yourself or and it just turned out to be I sold this company. I started a brand new one. I had this significant reinvention.

And I continue to reinvent myself. think mostly now through setting down stuff that I believe about myself that just isn't true. But these moments for me when I 10x'd were always when I leaned into a major change and got brave, I think.

Tim Ozgener

I think, you know...

The other thing that you say is sometimes things happen or they don't happen for a reason. It's one of those things I find is interesting. You look back on something that happened to you in life and sometimes you'll be like, gosh, at the time I didn't like that, but it was actually good that it happened. So it's really strange like that in life. But I do think that, yeah, you gotta sometimes lean into stuff and let go of some things and certainly be brave about stuff, you know? And you gotta go with your gut.

Mark Cleveland

If you could talk to your younger self, what's the first thing you'd say?

Tim Ozgener

You know, after you and I just talked about it, I would probably say, you know, don't be so hard on yourself. I even said that to my, my kids, you know, I even told that to my youngest. I'm like, you know what? I know that what you're going through right now, like, you know, it's not that big of a deal. I mean, you can't say that to them because it's a big deal to them at the moment. But the way I say it is like, you know what?

I think you're being too hard on yourself, buddy. think you need to like, it's okay. Yeah, I think you need to just have fun with it. Don't be so hard on yourself. Relax a little bit. Enjoy where you are at the moment. That's probably what I would say.

Mark Cleveland

So what's the question that you thought I would ask that I haven't?

Tim Ozgener

Mark, because I think of what I do with yoga and you do too, good to hear, is that I leave myself open to anything. So I didn't really have any sort of expectation to any question that you may or may not ask. So I didn't really, there was no question I thought you would ask that you didn't ask. Cause I never, left myself open to whatever you're going to say without any sort of preconceived notion. That's why you sent like questions that you wanted to, I prefer not to look at them because I don't want to have, I don't want to have a canned answer for you. want to be, I think I feel is super important is I want to be authentic. And I think it's important for people, know, especially entrepreneurs to be authentic as to who they are. You know, I mean, authenticity and everything is I think like, you know, it's a good thing when you can, when you could do that or be authentic.

Mark Cleveland

It's just so hard to not be yourself. It's just not worth the work. The show, the whatever it is that's inauthentic actually takes more energy and delivers less value than being exactly who you are.

Tim Ozgener

Yeah.

But I think it takes time though to discover who you are. That's another thing I'd say to my younger self or another thing I'd say to my children is that like, it takes time to figure out who you are authentically. mean, now I'm 55 and I have a better idea of who I am authentically than I did when I was 25, you know? And I think that's the case with that's the case with, you know, nowadays with our younger generation. And I mean, you understand it because, you know, you know, when you're, when you're growing up, you're always kind of under the, in this environment or under the influence of like a lot of other factors and people. So it's hard for you to understand who you really are unless you go out there and you try stuff that fail. The power of failing at stuff is how you learn who you are authentically.

Mark Cleveland

Yeah, you don't know what you're not capable of until you try something and and then you learn how to do it better the next time. It is sort of a rinse and repeat. Well, dude, Tim, I'm really glad that we got a chance to sit here and stay in the flow of a conversation and and invent a little wisdom while we're at it. Thank you for contributing to the Parallel Entrepreneur Wisdom Bank.

Tim Ozgener

Yeah.

It's always great to sit down and spend quality time with you because you're a very open and energetic and a positive person. So I appreciate everything that you do.

Mark Cleveland

Thank you,