Meet Corbin Church, Founder of iHub and a seasoned entrepreneur whose ventures span decades and industries, who took center stage as the Featured Founder at November’s Startup Stories by RevRoad. From running a snow shack as a teenager to launching iHub, Church has accumulated a wealth of hard-earned insights. Here are five lessons we learned from Church at the event:
For Church, luck isn’t something that happens to you—it’s something you create.
“Entrepreneurs manufacture luck,” Church explained. “Luck is manufactured when we are paying attention. The problem today is that most people have their faces stuck in their phones. They don’t see what’s happening around them.”
Church’s first venture began when he and his brother identified a gap in their neighborhood market. “To a 15-year-old and a 13-year-old, traveling four miles to get a snow cone was too much. We called the owner of a snow shack and said, ‘Hey, we’ve got a world crisis here.’ He laughed but eventually sold us a franchise. That’s how I became the richest kid in high school.”
He credits that early experience with setting him on a path of independence. “From the age of 13, I’ve never received a paycheck I didn’t sign myself.” For him, luck isn’t stumbling into fortune—it’s about working hard, being observant, and creating opportunities.
Church credits his success to observing opportunities, not waiting for them to find him. “The chance occurrences that create opportunities don’t happen when you’re scrolling through social media. You’ve got to be present, paying attention to the world around you.”
Frugality is often overlooked in a culture obsessed with instant gratification. For Church, however, it’s a non-negotiable principle.
“You need cash in the bank because when that opportunity comes along, you can only pounce on it if you’ve got capital,” he said. “Too many people today want instant gratification. But frugality is freedom.”
He shared vivid memories of extreme cost-cutting measures in the early days. “We didn’t turn on the heat in our apartment because it was electric and too expensive. We literally dressed in the bathroom with the door closed to keep in the steam from the shower. Those stories are funny now—it wasn’t fun at the time, but that frugality allowed us to pounce on opportunities.”
One such opportunity came at Thanksgiving dinner, when a family member casually mentioned his business. “My brother-in-law was making $250,000 a month selling one SKU—a bottle of pills—on a mall cart. I had savings, so I replicated his model, secured 17 leases nationwide, and made millions. None of that would’ve been possible without the frugality that gave me the capital to act.”
The difference between success and failure often comes down to a founder’s willingness to listen.
“I don’t care about which idea you’re excited about. I care about the one you back up with validation. Too many entrepreneurs treat their ideas like they’re unicorns,” he said. “They’re not. They’re hypotheses.”
Validation, in his eyes, is straightforward. “Go out and talk to your consumers. Ask them, ‘If this worked, would you buy it?’ If the answer is no, listen to what they say next: ‘But if it did this, I would.’ Your buyer just told you what to build.”
Church swears by the process outlined in Nail It Then Scale It by Nathan Furr and Paul Ahlstrom. “Too often, entrepreneurs get emotionally attached to their products and stop listening to feedback,” he explained. “When you stop listening, you stop receiving critical intel. That’s how you end up in the 80% of startups that fail. Nail It Then Scale It teaches how to turn an 80% failure rate into an 80% success rate. But you have to stay honest and unemotionally attached to your product.”
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Few things have shaped his career as much as mentors. “There’s nothing more important in an early-stage entrepreneur’s journey than having a mentor by their side,” he said.
His first mentor, Jim Chapman, believed in him when others didn’t. “At 21, I looked so young that nobody trusted me. But Jim did. He coached me and got others to believe in me, too. That experience and those failures shaped me into who I am today.”
Other influential figures, like Larry Miller and John Huntsman Sr., guided him through pivotal decisions. “These mentors—people who've been there done that—are so willing to give you the keys and give you advice. They want to help the next generation succeed.”
How do you repay mentors? “They don’t need anything from you. The best way to thank them is by paying it forward. Help the next young person coming along. When you help an entrepreneur, you’re blessing their family, your community, and your country.”
A big trap some entrepreneurs fall into is building businesses that rely entirely on their presence. Church warns against this, emphasizing the importance of scalability. “If you choose a business that only works when you’re working, you’re setting yourself up for a life of limitations. You need to find something that works while you’re sleeping.”
He contrasted his early ventures with the potential of scalable models. “At one point, I was running a $4 million-a-year window and door business. It provided a good living, but it wasn’t scalable. If I went on vacation, it cost me $3,000 for the trip and another $2,000 in lost income. You want a business that keeps working, even when you’re sitting on the beach.”
Thinking bigger is critical, he said. “Too many people think small—limited by their city, their church, or their state. You’ve got to think national and global. That’s where you’ll find the tens and hundreds of millions of dollars in opportunity.”
Church’s final piece of advice is to just take the leap. “Start somewhere. Your first business won’t be your last. Even if it’s a small direct-to-consumer business, it’s a stepping stone. The key is to get on the [entrepreneurial] path and stay there.”
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Startup Stories is a monthly lunch-and-learn event for entrepreneurs, highlighting a Featured Founder who shares their entrepreneurial journey, including the highs, lows, and valuable lessons learned along the way. Join us in person at 1555 N Freedom Blvd, Provo, UT 84604 or online at youtube.com/revroad.
