After startup’s failure, founder looks inward to rebuild faith in himself as an entrepreneur

ST. LOUIS — In his first go-round as an entrepreneur, Brad Starnes lost himself in his startup, he shared. This time, the 2021 UMKC Student Entrepreneur of the Year and former Splitsy co-founder is building a startup around authenticity and his own personal brand.

“Going into the beginning of 2023, I realized that who I was, was that business,” he explained of Splitsy, which he founded with Nolan McMichael and Joe Allen in 2020 while a graduate student at UMKC. “Over those few years that I was building that business, everybody in KC knew me for that business. Everything I did was that business; like I breathed, ate, went to the bathroom my business.”

“That was everything,” he added. “And I got to the point where it was like, I didn’t even really feel like I knew who I was anymore.”

From the archives: Splitting time between student, entrepreneur lives earns Splitsy co-founder top UMKC honor

2023 was a reset year for Starnes, he noted. When Splitsy — a mobile application that allowed users to automatically split large shared bills without the need for P2P transferring services — folded in the fall of 2022, he and his now-wife moved back in with his parents and he took a full-time job in St. Louis. 

After fielding a few inquiries out of the blue about website development and marketing consulting — which he previously relegated to freelance work while in school — he decided to get back on the entrepreneurial horse in April and launched Screamin Cow Marketing Group. The new business offers website development and branding for clients in St. Louis, Kansas City, and beyond.

“My focus for the year was really just trying to figure out who I was and what my passion was,” he said. 

This led to Starnes connecting with Adam McChesney — the founder of Hite Digital in St. Louis — who mentored Starnes on the art and importance of personal branding through a program called Builders of Authority (which also offers a free Facebook group).

“My personal brand is really there just to represent who I am,” he explained. “There’s too often where we don’t see that layer of who somebody is. I want people to know about how I felt and what I went through, what I’m feeling and what I’m going through now, my wife, when we have kids — our kids. That needs to be shared because we are just as much of a person as the other person is.”

In 2024, Starnes noted, he is on a personal branding journey, leading with faith, entrepreneurship, and advocacy. In the next month, he plans to launch a YouTube channel and a podcast to share — not only marketing and business growth tips — but about his Christian faith and the challenges of having a stutter. He also plans to use the space to talk to others who have also overcome obstacles.

“The idea behind that is to bring guests on the podcast who are other entrepreneurs or business leaders who have had some sort of setback and talk about their defining moment of success,” he added.

Starnes recently posted on social media about how on Christmas Day 2022 he was writing his final check to an attorney to pay off their work for Splitsy. It was a moment he’d never shared before, Starnes said. But once he did, he realized that being honest about his experiences resonated with others.

“People love you being human and being truly authentic,” he continued. “I had people that were messaging me like, ‘I was in a similar spot. It feels good to see that there’s somebody else out there. Thank you for sharing that.’”

Having a personal brand, he noted, is important for everyone, especially for entrepreneurs.

“(People) want to do business with people they know, like, and trust,” he explained.

Plus it’s important for entrepreneurs to share the ups and downs of their journey, Starnes continued.

“I know plenty of entrepreneurs — especially in Kansas City — who have had both success and failures or setbacks,” he said. “A lot of people will go — which is what I did — and take a full-time job. They’ll go work for another company and they’ll just hide behind that loss and just shove it off to the side. And people just really need to share that and share truly what is going on in their lives.. We are all human.”