Unexpected Beginnings at MSU
At Michigan State University, entrepreneurship often begins with a spark, curiosity, a side hustle, or an idea shared between friends. For brothers, Aaron and Ryan Letzeiser that spark turned into Obie, a rapidly growing technology company in the real estate insurance space, recently acquired by The Baldwin Group.
Today, the brothers are proud members of the Spartan Founders Club, giving back to the same MSU community that helped shape them. But their road from East Lansing to high-growth entrepreneurship was anything but linear.
Neither brother followed a traditional business path at Michigan State. Ryan earned his degree in horticulture from the College of Agriculture & Natural Resources before pursuing a master’s program in architecture. Aaron studied political theory in James Madison College and had planned to attend law school—not start a company. While still an MSU student, Aaron drafted the original medical amnesty bill for the state of Michigan and later founded the Medical Amnesty Initiative to take that legislation nationwide.
During that same period, Ryan was building a landscaping business and gaining firsthand experience operating a small service‑based company. His path eventually led him into real estate private equity, where he noticed something significant: small and midsize property owners lacked tools designed specifically for their needs.
Listening Hard, Building Smarter
Ryan invited Aaron to join him in building a software platform designed to help property owners manage their assets. Like many early startups, the work was scrappy and uncertain. It meant knocking on doors, hearing “no” more often than “yes,” and showing up again the next day anyway.
As they worked with customers, a pattern began to emerge. Among the many features in their platform, one small component—a third-party insurance service—kept capturing attention. It was the only piece customers consistently wanted to talk about. The brothers paid attention, narrowed their focus, and began building around what the market was clearly asking for. That pivot became Obie.
Today, that experience shapes one of the most important lessons they share with student entrepreneurs: focus matters. Early founders are often tempted by what they call “shiny-object syndrome,” chasing too many ideas at once instead of doubling down on what customers truly value.
“Ask your customer if they’d take out their credit card right now for what you showed them,” Aaron says. “If the answer’s no, you still have work to do.”
The Brother Dynamic
Many founders struggle with co‑founder dynamics, but for the Letzeiser brothers, their differences became strengths. Their age gap and opposite personalities meant little overlap in responsibilities. They also developed a rare level of candor—something only siblings tend to pull off.
“We had one of those conversations an hour ago,” Ryan stated. “He wanted to give me feedback, and I said, ‘I didn’t ask for it.’” But underneath the jokes is something deeper. They’ve been preparing for this partnership for their entire lives.
“No matter what happens, he’ll still be across from me at Thanksgiving,” Aaron says.
Investing in Future Founders
Success didn’t make Aaron and Ryan step away from their roots. If anything, it made them lean in more. Today, the brothers remain deeply connected to the Burgess Institute through the Spartan Founders Club and mentoring emerging Spartan entrepreneurs who stand exactly where they once stood.
They’ve worked closely with teams like Protein Pints and BRCĒ, long before product launches or Shark Tank appearances. They offer practical advice rooted not just in theory, but in lived experience, missed opportunities, hard pivots, fortunate timing, and the luck that accompanies perseverance.
“Any success story includes luck,” Aaron says. “And for us, a lot of that luck came from people who believed in us early. We want to be those people for the next generation.”
Their journey has taken them far beyond East Lansing, but some of the work that feels most meaningful still happens back on campus. When Aaron and Ryan sit with early-stage teams, they’re not trying to map out anyone’s future. They’re helping create the conditions for other Spartans to find their own way forward — the same way others once did for them.
Their success didn’t end with building a company. Today, it continues through the founders they mentor, the ideas they encourage, and the Spartans they help take the next step toward building something of their own.