Building a Music Town: How Juke is Reviving Live Music One City at a Time

Underwriting Space Exploration | Yuk Chi Chan, Charter Space

In this episode, we sit down with Yuk Chi from Charter Space Technologies to unpack what it takes to build the financial and underwriting infrastructure for the space industry. Yuk shares his journey from military engineering to space law, to working inside a satellite manufacturer—where he experienced firsthand how fragmented engineering data and compliance workflows can slow missions down and make insurance painfully difficult to obtain. We discuss: • Why space is missing the “middle layer” of capital (insurance → debt/credit markets) • How better data and systems engineering can improve underwriting and reduce risk • The real reason insurance can become a growth unlock for an entire industry • A fascinating analogy: how a London coffeehouse helped create modern maritime insurance—and what that means for space today 🎙️ Guest: Yuk Chi, Charter Space Technologies 🌐 Charter Space: charter.space X Yuk Chi on X/Twitter: @astrolawyer

Building a Music Town: How Juke is Reviving Live Music One City at a Time

Griff Eaton, founder of Juke, joins Paul Anthony for OpStart's first in-person interview to unpack how a frustrated night at the Livery in Benton Harbor turned into a venture-backed platform now reshaping live music in cities across the country. Griff walks through the three barriers that kill the simple act of tipping a local artist (no cash, awkward walk to the stage, no idea what songs they actually play) and the PowerPoint-and-paper-printouts prototype he ran with the Justin Stoblin band to prove people would pay if those frictions disappeared. From there the conversation moves through a real founder's gauntlet: relaunching after COVID killed his first wedge, winning Notre Dame's McCloskey New Venture Competition for $50K, getting the call from Tim Connors, joining Platform Venture Studio, and going upmarket with Kids Bop's Live Nation tour, Wembley, Red Rocks, and a surreal Zoom with Matchbox Twenty during the Barbie bump. Griff is candid about what didn't work, why chasing huge tours wasn't a sustainable channel for Juke, and how he and the team came back to the original problem with a sharper lens. The result is "Music Town," Juke's city-partnership model where economic development teams, venues, and local artists plug into a single platform, with QR codes routing every show in a city to one place. Griff and Paul close on the lessons every first-time founder needs: when to pivot, when to commit, why fun is a real competitive advantage, and how to keep building when the easy answers are gone. In this episode, you'll learn: ● The three barriers that block live-music tipping and song requests, and why removing them changes the economics for local artists ● How Griff validated the idea with a PowerPoint slideshow, paper song lists, and a TV he carried in from his living room ● What winning the McCloskey New Venture Competition actually unlocked beyond the prize money ● Why joining Platform Venture Studio reshaped Juke's go-to-market and what founders should weigh before going the studio route ● What stadium tours with Kids Bop and conversations with Matchbox Twenty taught Griff about scale, timing, and creative production ● Why Juke pivoted back to local venues and built the "Music Town" city-partnership model ● The case Griff makes for keeping fun at the center of an early-stage company, and why it compounds Connect: ● OpStart: https://www.opstart.co ● Paul Anthony on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/paul-anthony-8a256087/ ● Griff Eaton on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/griffin-juke/ ● Juke: https://juke.band/search Hashtags: #OpStart #Juke #LiveMusic #StartupPodcast #FounderStory #MusicTown #SouthBend #Elkhart #VentureStudio #SmallBusiness #StartupLife #LocalMusic #Entrepreneurship #MusicTech #FoundersJourney