Business Innovators Radio - Episode 6: From Vision to Impact: Justin Leach on Building Community Through Tech

Episode Date: April 25, 2025

Philip Lorenzo sits down with Justin Leach, founder of Curiosity Benefits Consulting, to talk about the power of innovation, building community through technology, and what it means to create lasting impact beyond the code. From local events to global ideas, this conversation highlights the passion and purpose driving entrepreneurs like Justin. Whether you’re a founder, builder, or curious listener, this episode is packed with insight and inspiration.Fractal Focushttps://businessinnovatorsradio.com/fractal-focus/Source: https://businessinnovatorsradio.com/episode-6-from-vision-to-impact-justin-leach-on-building-community-through-tech

Welcome to Fractal Focus, the podcast where innovation meets entrepreneurship. My name is Philip Lorenzo, the C-O-O of Fractal Group, and thank you for listening to another episode of this great podcast. My guest today is Justin Leach, and the reason why we're talking is related to Folsom Tech Week. And of course, we had an episode with Sadie St. Lawrence and we're going to have more guests that came from that event. But Justin has a really important place in this event. He actually participated in a hackathon, Folsom Tech Week. He won the hackathon with his team.

And on top of that, he got to present his results to the mayor of Folsom, the city manager of Folsom to start driving solutions through C-click fix. And so, Justin, welcome to the show. You're far more than a hackathon participant. and we're going to get into that. But say a few words. Say hello to the audience. Awesome. Well, thanks for having me. And yeah, you mentioned the Folsom Tech Week. I was delighted to hear that it was being put on and a lot of my local contacts and made me aware of it. You know, as a close to lifelong resident of the Sacramento area, as well as having

worked with a lot of startups and investors and venture capital, private equity groups, I looked at that as something that I just really wanted to be involved in and, you know, to kind of support the innovation that's going on in my hometown. It was a wonderful event. Yeah. I think what was important about Folsom Tech Week was to see this community come to life almost in real time. And I kind of want to hear from your words as someone who really loves the area of your sacrament. Native, so you're from the area. You've done so many different things in the Sacramento area to get into that. But tell me, in your words, how did it feel to see the community come out the way

that it did for this event, especially where you are in your stage of your career? Sure. Yeah. So there's been a great ecosystem driven by, I would say, a handful of individuals and entities around the Sacramento region. You know, I think of Rich Foreman. I think of groups like, you know, startup Fulsom or the Growth Factory or Manetta Ventures are all local tech and investment related groups that didn't really exist 20 years ago. You know, and I think way back and as Fulsom in Sacramento were, you know, I would say growing up. and we've got a really great community that is building on each other.

And it was really seen in small groups and small events up until Bullseme Tech Week. And to see several hundred people in one location and all the great minds and great enthusiasm that I already knew was there, but we hadn't really been in one place at one time. was a great thing to see. So it didn't necessarily exceed my expectations. I knew about what to expect, but definitely was unique and that that hasn't happened before,

to my knowledge, with the exception of maybe our TED events. So now I'd like to dive a little bit into you because I think it's important to add context as to why we're talking. And again, I don't want to always tell people you're exceptional and all that stuff because we all are trying our best every day. But I think your life experience and the paths that you've gone to is exceptional. So if you don't mind sharing with

the audience, your time in Sacramento, the careers that you've experienced to get to the point that you are now as a group benefits expert, as someone in the tech space, really having expertise in a very human part of it. So I'd love for you to just to, to, get into that a bit for our audience to get to know you. Sure. I think there's probably three noteworthy things that I would kind of break my career and experience into. Growing up, you know, family business was an interior design firm and worked residential new construction. I spent most of my career in the building industry in one way or another from granite fabrication to distribution. And so, you know, kind of seeing the building in the physical sense.

When I moved into the industry I'm in now, essentially consulting for group health care, was right after the Affordable Care Act was signed. And coincidentally, this is the 15th anniversary of the signing of the Affordable Care Act is this week. Wow. And, you know, we've seen all the evolution. I tell everyone that I joined the industry right after they shook the snow globe. So they had stability up until that point. And so as far as I'm concerned, it's supposed to be chaos. Okay. So everything is changing relatively all the time. But we're keeping track of what those are to tell our clients, how do they manage what they currently have and where the industry is evolving. So I've always loved the puzzles of getting the right pieces in place. And

to solve the problem at hand. And that's where I really dig in is I get inspired by the minutia in getting, you know, understanding the fine details of the puzzle so that I can explain a landscape to an underwriter. Had one of those great conversations yesterday with starting the conversation with, I know this is really weird and I've got to explain a lot of things with you about a business landscape and new divisions and thinner contracts and where they need their revenue. And when we got done with maybe a 15-minute conversation, those underwriters can say,

I get what you're trying to accomplish, and here's how we're going to solve it. And so we get to a meeting in the minds and do what's best for the client, take care of employees. And so that's always a great thing, too. Third, I spent two decades as an outdoor guide. I call it my job when I'm not working. So I spent a lot of time in the mountains. and it's a way to kind of inspire people to do things that they maybe wouldn't have done on their own.

Getting over a level of fear and a level of comfort. I also look at the synergy of what I do in my daily life versus what I do in my leisure time or in that guiding role, where I have some maybe personal proverbs like, you know, don't strain your ability and your safety net simultaneously. You get to pick and choose and risk management as well as the challenge together. And, you know, I tend to decorate my office with some of those, those memories. But when I think of the strategy piece, I have a lot of overlaps. I tend to use mountaineering analogies when I'm, you know, explaining a concept because that's close to my heart and makes it a little bit more interesting for the people I get to interact with.

I think what's great about your experience, both professionally, but also personally in your connection to, and let's get some context here. This is an audio podcast, but if we ever released the video, you're going to see the background behind Justin, and there are mountains and landscapes behind him

that represent, I feel like, and you can definitely expound on this, where you feel most at, home. And I think, if I'm bold enough to say, technology and our obsession with it, and especially people that are in the tech world, we need to still connect with nature. And we still need to connect with that, the ground beneath your feet. So if you don't mind talking about the photos behind you. And tell me a bit about, because you already talked about your analogies. You just

spoke on that. And I think there's something there about the value that. And I think there's something there about the value that that brings. So I like to be to talk about the photos behind you, but also talk about how that also a little bit further into how that influences the way that you approach problem solving in the tech space. Awesome. So for me personally, I need to find times that I can turn my brain off. So that when I'm addressing, you know, important urgent issues, that they can have all my concentration. And then if I'm not doing something maybe active that requires my entire brain, I have half my brain that's still running on that problem that I'm probably going to address later. And so I don't really have a chance to disconnect. So I've found that things like rock

climbing, there are certain points where you don't have the ability to cav off half your brain to think about something else. So that's always been good for me personally. But these photos that you were referring to behind me, really quick version of that day. I put it as probably one of my top five days ever. It was a little bit of an unexpected journey. I get a phone call from a friend. This is the year after COVID started in 2021. Unsolicited invite. It just says, can you be in Yosemite on this day? And I looked at my calendar and thought, yeah, I can make that work. what are we doing? And, you know, and I hadn't talked to Angie in a couple of years. And she'd moved out of state, but it was a good friend of mine that I served on a nonprofit board with. And she mentioned, I want to climb Cathedral Peak in Kualaumee. It had always been on my list of things that I wanted to do, but never got around to it. And so I thought, sure, I can be there. You know, I'll make time. I'll meet you in Yosemite. And about five minutes later, I get a text from another friend that I hadn't seen in a couple of years because of COVID and said, hey, it's going to be a group of three. So I'm great.

So the three of us are all going to go climb this peak. I know they invited me just to make it a low stress day. You know, I can handle the gear. I could leave. I, you know, make everybody safe. I act as like the father figure and make sure everybody has snacks and is happy. And Angie shared one of her favorite sayings is about epic adventures is just make sure you drink enough water and eat enough snacks that you don't cry. So we set out on this day, and I had planned on, you know, looking at the guidebook on how long does it take to hike out there to climb to descend to hike out.

And it hoped to be back to the car somewhere close to sunset. We took headlamps saying we're going to hike back in the dark. But it turns out that we were getting to the summit maybe an hour before dark. So we're sitting on a summit pinnacle that's about the size of picnic table that drops off shear on all four sides. appreciating the view but has some urgency to get off the mountain and get home. And Angie decides to tell us why we're there. And so, you know, we can see our car parked on the highway four miles from there. We can see the view.

We can see the sun setting. And she describes being in a hospital bed about a year and a half prior. She'd been going through breast cancer treatment. We all knew it. She was, you know, living in Seattle. And she couldn't really be there for a friend. But, you know, I'd sent dinner to her. family a few times and everybody knew she was going through it but didn't really realize the

gravity of the situation. And she'd then through chemo radiation surgery laying in a hospital bed and she thought to herself that climbing that peak one more time was her getting her life back. And so we kind of absorbed that sitting and watching the view and knowing the day we'd had. And it really changed the spirit of the day. And you asked comparing, what do I do in my leisure time and how that impacts how I solve problems in the business and tech world? I think those experiences are similar in that we're using our knowledge to improve the human condition to make an impact for people. Yeah. And when you can put those two together in some way, it comes out as so much more impactful and so much more satisfying to be able to to be the problem solver or be the hero when it's appropriate and knowing that it mattered to someone.

There's so much depth to that answer. And I hope our audience appreciates that depth because often when we're talking about the topics that we cover in this podcast, which is entrepreneurship meets innovation, we don't get to get into us as human beings and what we're going through when we're making decisions, what we're going through when we're approaching a difficult task, whether it's going through cancer, whether it's going through injury,

whether it's getting over your fear of scaling a mountain. Like there's so much there, right? And we could talk about this probably for another two hours. So with that said, there is something that I kind of want to segue way into because I do want to talk about the hackathon and I do want to talk about the C-click fix work that you did. And you mentioned in our pre-talk, asking better questions, getting better answers.

And the segue way is in your work on the hackathon for C-click fix because this was a project that really looked to improve the relationship with AI with this product and do it in a way that we can elicit better questions and get better answers and use that data appropriately to solve problems within the city of Folsom and the greater area. So if you could talk about the experience, a few things. And this would probably give you an opportunity to have a long answer. But tell me about your experience working on the hackathon, working with the team that you've got to work with that some people I think you might have known before or some people you just met. And tell me how that experience of building that product in a couple days was in line with your

narrative was in line with asking better questions, getting better answers, and everything else that we just discussed. Yeah. Well, thanks for that framing intro. So we had talked about the benefits consulting firm that I found it is curiosity benefits consulting and here in Sacramento region, but we work with multi-state employers across the country. The spirit of the name is I look back over my career and realized that, you know, it was never a big logo. was never a widget, how I always helped clients and really moved the needle for them, was asking better questions being inquisitive so that I could explain that landscape and solve a real problem. And in hindsight, because of the hackathon, I kind of realized that my daily

work is a hackathon of sorts, a little bit different than the project that we put on at the Pulsome Tech Week. But, you know, I found a familiarity with identifying what the real problem was. So the hackathon was put on in collaboration with the city of Folsom, and they had asked, you know, what are the things that we need, we need help with in our current structure, just context for the listeners, and wanting to be involved in as much as I could during Tech Week to make connections and meet people throughout the week,

sat in on the initial part of hackathon and thought, you know, I wasn't totally sure how I was going to fit into that, thinking I'm not a developer or a programmer. But as we dug into the problem, I realized that there was a lot to be done about defining what the actual problem was because we started to brainstorm about this thing exists.

And from our perspective, what are all the problems that need to be fixed? and we brainstormed through those before filtering, you know, yes, this is our perspective, but we're not building this for us. So we put together a number of interviews with the city of Folsom, some, you know, the vice mayor, code enforcement, parks and rec, and a number of other people to say, how do you see this? If you put a wish list together, what would you like to do with this system and how can we augment it?

And what we drilled down to was the ability to mine 17 years worth of data in their system in a quick and understandable way. And so doing that as a team, we started looking at how do we make this usable to City of Folsom employees who, like myself, aren't programmers that are going to put together a language to digest all this information. they're mostly people that are going to say, I'd like to ask it a plain English type of question and give me back a plain English type of answer. And so as we dug into that, we wanted to review what was currently in the system. So kind of statically look backwards and say,

do we have insights? We built heat maps. We got the AI tool that we built to put itself in the role of the city manager and start prioritizing and giving an outline of what should be top priorities based on its analysis of the data. We also looked at the concept that in the future, the data is going to change, and they're going to be wanting to ask similar questions and develop trend lines and understand how their policy changes have impacted that data. And we're able to present that within a couple of days of starting the project during the conference.

And then last week, we were able to sit down with the city council and expand on that, again, to get their perspectives on where this was valuable, how they might roll it out. And, you know, making that a usable tool within the city on a broad basis. Amazing, for one. And I think I'd imagine the city's response must have been positive, right? because at this point, we're embracing this technology in the positive sense. Could you tell us the reaction of the city? Could you tell us what the city manager thought? Could you give us some insight into just the feeling you were getting when you were presenting this innovative solution to the city?

Yeah. So I think in the city council meeting, there's definitely one mindset around how this works. And then I'll contrast that with maybe the people on the street, the end user of the system. Good call. Yeah. So city council is excited about all of the things that they don't know because there's a box with all this information and they can't review it in a digestible way. And there will be, we've already got insights and there will be ways to use this so that they can get the pulse on what's happening in the city through all this data. So they're very excited about it.

they have, I would say, a mid-level embrace of technology from, you know, from the leadership standpoint. But part of why they were leaning on Tech Week and all the minds we had together was that they didn't have the tribal knowledge to create something like this themselves. And so we're at a point where we could just hand over the model and say, here's how it works. but what we're planning to do, which is a little bit more in the spirit of solving exactly the right problem before we start streamlining things, is they're going to have continued internal conversations

because we just scratched the surface in a couple of days to talk to a number of people. But I think in each of their divisions, they want to have conversations about what does your wish list look like and what are the type of things do you think we should mind this for so that we can get a tool that does all of those things on a micro basis and then are able to build APIs to pull new data to deliver a report to someone in that role rather than having them have to ask for it. And so there's defining the problem

and then rolling it out on a scale basis that just makes it less friction more seamless so that it's going to get used. So we don't have the extra clicks that might prevent someone from from looking for the data. Are you thinking of this product that you've built during the hackathon beyond the confines of Folsom? Are you thinking about this as a potential product? This is where the entrepreneurial side maybe comes in a little bit, right? Because you've been an entrepreneur yourself.

Is there a feeling you're getting or is there quantifiable data that you're looking at that feels like this could be beyond the city of Folsom and beyond the greater Sacramento area. Yeah, that was definitely volunteered to us from city council because the platform that we're constructing this to work with has used across the country. There are a lot of municipalities that use it. And it's done a great job for what it was built for. And so, So, you know, the neighboring city of Rancho Cordova definitely uses it and is definitely excited about technology. And so that would probably be, they are the first people that are saying, hey, you're working on this. I'd like to talk to you next.

And so there's definitely some potential there. I wouldn't say I've quantified it or that wasn't a premeditated result for working on the project. but, you know, I think the more that we iron out the details on this, the more applicable it'll be. And that may be something that we can help, you know, the GovTech program that exists now improve the product or make it more functional. Or it might be something that, you know, on the side, we just know that we can, we have the ability and we'd already interacted with the vendor to say that building an API, they're totally open to it. They gave us the instruction manual to say, here's how you. connect to our system because it's not protected data. So they're really open to doing that.

And anyone that wanted to do something like we've done would have the ability to do. Yeah, that makes perfect sense. And it is interesting, right, that you didn't have at that moment you were creating it, the instinct, or not the instinct, but certainly the thought to expand it out. But it took someone else to say, by the way, this could be something you can, you can continue to iterate and then install in other municipalities and cities software. Yeah. But what I promised, I promised to contrast city council to, you know, end users.

Yeah, we're going to get to that. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. And this was something that I, I made a point to pause. So there were 33,000 incidents that had been processed through the program. and that's triaged within the city employees and sent to the right place, whether it's parks and wreck or code enforcement or, you know, a vendor that picks up shopping carts or one that fills potholes and they've gone through all this stuff.

When you talk to the people who are, I guess, living the data on a daily basis, there's a certain level of, I know exactly what all this data says because it comes across my desk every day. and, you know, at the very least from C to the Pants, they're not removed from the data like city council is. So their wish list was a little bit different in thinking of streamlining flow or how do I make their jobs easier. But I also felt it was important to say they've gone through 33,000 tasks and resolved for the residents of Folsom. And from a city council standpoint or leadership standpoint, they're looking at how do we bridge the gap between where we're doing, and what we want to or where we want to be. And I recommended that this is also an opportunity to applaud all the work from the

end users, the frontline workers who are actually doing the jobs that can you believe that we've responded to 33,000 requests from the city? And, you know, they've had the opportunity to do that. They've got visibility from the residents saying, thank you for letting us know. And now we can actually solve this and make the city a better place. So I like both halves of that that we can, you know, use the, use the data to celebrate as well as find gaps. That is the mindset of any good entrepreneur, I think, or any good innovator is to celebrate those moments, to celebrate the work. But then go, wait a minute. There's a lot more to do, right?

If you can't just sit in your laurels. So as we close out, what is the one thing you want to tell our audience about not only the experience of the hackathon for you, but also maybe in a couple sentences, some good nugget of wisdom about being, especially being an entrepreneur in this space that isn't a programmer, that isn't on the technical side, the way that we think of technical side, right? You're not in a command line. You're not typing in prompts, you know, with, with BS code. You're not, there's things you don't get to do. But if you can leave our audience with a piece of advice or maybe just some nuggets of wisdom about not, well, I don't want to lead the witness here. But definitely, I just, if in your own words, express to people why it's so important to be,

to at least dip your toe in the waters of innovation and technology. You made me have two thoughts. I thought of an Elon Musk quote of the worst case is to optimize a thing that shouldn't exist. And that was a little bit of like defining our problem. And I appreciate that for myself. I consider myself tech adjacent. There are a lot of things that touch my clients and data flow that I work in that's very common. But for For me in the spirit of technology and the spirit of what I do is understanding the problem, the need, and the goal, and being able to put a roadmap together. And, you know, accessing the right tools along the way or having a toolbox, it doesn't necessarily mean that you're the one building it, which is definitely the case for what we did during hackathon. It's the existence of AI models. It's the existence of a GovTech platform that we're integrating it with. It's the shared knowledge of a group for each of us to grab onto something that we have knowledge of. Patrick had worked with C-Click Fix in the past.

Both Jeff and Chris had AI models that they were interested in. from our conversation today, I like to ask more questions. And so that helped me guide the rest of the team or helped me draw a picture so that we collectively knew where we were going. And I think that's that tech is not a thing. It's an ecosystem. And that will continue to mold that ecosystem towards better things as we move ahead. That's a good summation. I like that.

And especially the part of our idea. ecosystem, which is another segue for me. So we were just speaking with Justin Leach, group benefits expert in the greater Sacramento area in Folsom and talking about his experience working on the hackathon. So this is the part where I get to brag a little bit about what we do. And so Fractal Group also has a company called FIC Labs, which actually sponsored the hackathon with the city. And so it is a point where I'd like to remind everybody that's listening that entrepreneurship and innovation is really important to cultivate. And Fracto group strived to do that. And so from systems driven service businesses to innovative new ventures to the work that we do in angel investments and also building community.

And so we're so grateful, Justin, that you got to participate in something that we worked on together to a degree. I mean, you know, I didn't get to work with you on the project, but certainly just being able to be adjacent to your group and also being able to, here's the spoiler, I was. also at that meeting with the city manager and the mayor. But I think it's so valuable to continue to make these small efforts to grow a tech community, especially in a place like Folsom, especially in a place in the greater Sacramento area that isn't traditionally looked at as a tech hub, even though it should be because there's also semiconductor manufacturing there. There is also a lot of different adjacent things. You're close to the Bay Area. So there's a lot of synergy. I hate that word, I can't think of anything else.

So with that, Justin, thank you once again for participating, for being part of the first episodes of their Fractal Focus podcast. This probably is going to be episode six, I think. So six or seven, so you're in the early, the first 10, and we'll see what this continues to go.

Is there anywhere online where people can find you or get to know you, get to see more of those great mountain pictures behind you? Yeah, so definitely look us up on curiositybenefits.com. We launched our, have our website for the work that we do every day and definitely find me on LinkedIn. I typically only post something on LinkedIn where I think feel it's profound and worth sharing

with the world. So you'll, if you're up for a five minute read, scroll through my LinkedIn and you'll, you'll find something interesting or at least that I feel is. That is rad. Thanks for having me, Phil. Thanks for being here. And if you want to know more about the fractal group, go to fractal group. You can find out more about everything that we do, including our family of companies.

And so with that, I leave you with this. Continue to stay innovative, continue to be a great entrepreneur, and more importantly, stay ahead of the curve. Take care. Thanks for tuning into this episode of Fractal Focus. We hope you found valuable insights. If you enjoy the conversation and want to stay updated on the latest trends in expert advice, make sure you subscribe and leave a review. Your support helps us continue bringing you the content that drives your business forward.

Until next time, keep innovating and stay ahead of the curve.