Minnesotan To Meet: Rocket Club's Singer, Entrepreneur Don Smithmier

MINNEAPOLIS (WCCO) -- You could call it an "ode to the north." When Rocket Club's "North Country" made its debut back in June 2011, it went to 60 on Billboard's hot country charts.

Not a bad start for a band based in Minnesota. This week's Minnesotan to Meet is the band's vocalist, Don Smithmier, who moved to Minnesota to be a teacher.

As fate would have it a financial aid glitch while in graduate school at the University of Minnesota turned out to be the best thing for his career.

"It was greatest temp gig of all time," Smithmier said.

Plan A for Smithmier was to make it in the music industry. Plan B for the University of Wisconsin history major was to set his sights set on teaching history, but when his financial aid check didn't come, he was basically willing to do anything.

"I was begging for a job first of all, so I answered the phone, I made an excellent pot of coffee," Smithmier said. "Apparently they liked the coffee enough where they gave me a full time job."

That full time gig was at the then-new online university in the Twin Cities, Capella.

"For the first seven years I built and led their marketing organization and then eventually I ended up leading their IT group," he said.

After more than a decade with the accredited university, he left hungry to get back in touch with his creative side.

"At the time I was writing a lot of music and I was working on a demo and was going to send some things down to Nashville," he said.

From there, he created Rocket Club. Smithmier, a father of three girls, describes the band as country-rock. They have had a pretty successful launch, with now three top 100 Billboard charting songs.

"We ended up on the country charts, and said, 'Wow, I guess we're a country band,'" Smithmier said.

Rocket Club, led to Rumble, a recording studio now primarily used for commercials. It's just one of three of his businesses based in his Minneapolis office, which is open with a "Silicon Valley"-like feel

"It's a very exciting time," he said. "There's nothing better than a new idea getting created and live in the world."

He employs about 75 people between his three companies. His newest company, The Big Know, just launched last month.

"The world's top organizations create and teach classes taught by their experts on things that consumers really care about," he said.

United Health, AARP, and Dan Buettner are just some of the experts and companies creating a new approach to online learning.

"This is GoKart Labs, which takes up most of the space," he said. "It is a digital innovation lab. What that means is we work with companies that range from Fortune 20 to brand new start-up. And we help them invent and design and create new products and services and solutions that use digital."

Smithmier claims his entrepreneurial attitude stems from his musical roots and encourages his employees to think differently and try something new.

So far all his start-ups seem to be hitting their stride. He offered up advice for those thinking to go out on their own.

"At some point if you're going to get into business for yourself, you've got to make the leap, and you've got to give it all your time and all your energy because someone else is doing that and you're competing with them," Smithmier said.

The Big Know has nine employees and Smithmier says they already have 20,000 students signed up to take the online classes they are offering.

Smithmier said for a lot of these classes the first is free. It's not just online lectures, but the material is very interactive. Then, if you're interested in extending your studies, you can take more classes for a fee.