Speaker 1: You just realized your business needed to hire someone yesterday.
Speaker 1: How can you find amazing candidates fast easy? Just use Indeed.
Speaker 1: Stop struggling to get your job posts seen on other
Speaker 1: job sites. With Indeed sponsored jobs, your post jumps to
Speaker 1: the top of the page for your relevant candidates, so
Speaker 1: you can reach the people you want faster. According to
Speaker 1: Indeed data, sponsored jobs posted directly on Indeed have forty
Speaker 1: five percent more applications than non sponsored jobs. Don't wait
Speaker 1: any longer. Speed up your hiring right now with Indeed,
Speaker 1: and listeners of this show will get a seventy five
Speaker 1: dollars sponsored job credit to get your jobs more visibility
Speaker 1: at indeed dot com slash pod Katz thirteen. Just go
Speaker 1: to Indeed dot com slash pod Katz thirteen right now
Speaker 1: and support our show by saying you heard about Indeed
Speaker 1: on this podcast. Terms and conditions apply. Hiring Indeed is
Speaker 1: all you need.
Speaker 2: Urs what's going on.
Speaker 3: Universities are outdated and don't teach you how to become
Speaker 3: an entrepreneur. They just teach you how to become an employee.
Speaker 4: You go to school for four years and you leave
Speaker 4: with nothing but debt. But here are EYL University. Our
Speaker 4: curriculum is much different.
Speaker 3: Our university teaches you real world skills that you can
Speaker 3: use to gain financial freedom right away. In traditional universities,
Speaker 3: you learn from professors that have never did what they teach,
Speaker 3: and they teach you how to become an employee. At
Speaker 3: our university, we use instructors that are currently successful in
Speaker 3: specific field that they teach, and they teach you how
Speaker 3: to become an entrepreneur.
Speaker 4: For a limited time only, you can join EYL University
Speaker 4: for twenty five percent off of the annual membership. Learn
Speaker 4: about stocks, credit, real estate, crypto and more. Go to
Speaker 4: eyluniversity dot com right now and sign up to become
Speaker 4: an earner.
Speaker 2: Don't wait, don't hesitate it over there now.
Speaker 5: My graduates from my school being false bad drops drop Mike,
Speaker 5: drop back, drop drop.
Speaker 4: All right, guys, welcome back e y L at L Edition.
Speaker 4: It's our second home and every time we come down here,
Speaker 4: we got legendary content that we that we produce. So
Speaker 4: this this was an interview that we actually we're supposed
Speaker 4: to do this before. Okay, yeah, scheduling didn't really kind
Speaker 4: of work workout, but I'm glad we got a chance
Speaker 4: of do it now. It's perfect time and actually what
Speaker 4: everything that's going on. So Ryan Wilson is a young
Speaker 4: entrepreneur that's killing the game right now. The Gathering Spot.
Speaker 4: If you if you're from Atlanta, I'm pretty sure you've
Speaker 4: heard of the Gathering Spot. It's a big deal. And
Speaker 4: so now there's actually three locations. One that's just got built,
Speaker 4: I believe in d C, one that's being built in
Speaker 4: l A. And uh, the mothership here in Atlanta. So
Speaker 4: the Gathering Spot is kind of a mix between co
Speaker 4: working space, event space?
Speaker 2: Is that give it the title? It's the hub of culture.
Speaker 3: It has civic engagement and it's a birthplace for entrepreneurism.
Speaker 4: Okay, can we go with that. I'll rock with that
Speaker 4: if it works. Yeah, it's like a hub. It's a
Speaker 4: hub for creatives to come to work, to build with
Speaker 4: each other, the network, to meet people. It's a whole
Speaker 4: cultural experience. And Ryan's thirty years old. He's from Marietta.
Speaker 4: I grew up and married it. Yeah, Marietta. And then
Speaker 4: he went to George Georgetown, Georgetown, d C. So yeah,
Speaker 4: DC roots and he came back home and uh, yeah,
Speaker 4: young entrepreneurs just killing the game. So we've got to
Speaker 4: have a very enlightened conversation. We're going to talk about,
Speaker 4: you know, obviously, how COVID nineteen has affected things. You know,
Speaker 4: how he started the business, ideas behind the business, monetization,
Speaker 4: all of that stuff. So I'm excited. Thank you for
Speaker 4: joining us, first and foremost.
Speaker 6: Hey, it's an honor. I appreciate youall. This is a long, long.
Speaker 2: So nothing happens before it's time.
Speaker 4: Yeah, for sure, for sure. All right, so let's get
Speaker 4: into it. All right, So how do you how does
Speaker 4: this all start? Because obviously you know you're young and
Speaker 4: it's a big idea. So what gives you the vision
Speaker 4: to start this and how did you go about starting it?
Speaker 6: Yeah, So it's funny. I never wanted to be an entrepreneur.
Speaker 6: My my parents are entrepreneurs, and growing up I saw
Speaker 6: what it took to be in business for yourself every day,
Speaker 6: and my dream was to be a lawyer. So I
Speaker 6: went to Georgetoun for undergrad. I was super focused on
Speaker 6: making sure that I did everything possible to get to
Speaker 6: law school, and so I stayed in DC, went to
Speaker 6: Georgetown Law, and the summer between my first year of
Speaker 6: law school and my second, I was back here working
Speaker 6: at a law firm. It was the same summer as
Speaker 6: the Trayvon Martin case, and I'm sure everybody remember George
Speaker 6: Immerman gets acquitted or Trayvon's murder. And I got an
Speaker 6: email from some friends doing some community organizing work in DC,
Speaker 6: and they sent me email on the subject was what
Speaker 6: are we going to do? And I sat on it
Speaker 6: for a second, but then I responded back to them
Speaker 6: with this idea that we needed to have a place
Speaker 6: where we could have the conversation I really missed. You
Speaker 6: think about like high school and college, like those are
Speaker 6: one of the last environments where you can you could
Speaker 6: just have people that are studying different things, people come
Speaker 6: talk about different things, and I missed that. So I
Speaker 6: wrote back to them, this was July of twenty thirteen,
Speaker 6: saying I think we should build a club basically for
Speaker 6: black folks in DC where we can get together. And
Speaker 6: I couldn't shake that idea, and so from that day
Speaker 6: forward I worked on trying to build TGS. I sent
Speaker 6: the plan to one of my roommates from college the
Speaker 6: next day, and that was July sixteenth, twenty July sixteen,
Speaker 6: twenty thirteen.
Speaker 4: We worked every day after that to try to make
Speaker 4: it happen.
Speaker 3: So, but you went to school to study law, right,
Speaker 3: so this is like a complete career change. Did you
Speaker 3: have to battle with that side of it? Like, Yo,
Speaker 3: I went to school, my dream was to be in
Speaker 3: the law field, and now my heart.
Speaker 2: Is calling me towards something else. Yeah.
Speaker 6: No, I mean it was a real it was a
Speaker 6: real thing. I mean I called my parents and I
Speaker 6: was like, hey, I don't think I'm going to be
Speaker 6: a lawyer. And I mean they're entrepreneurs, but even they
Speaker 6: were like, what I mean, I'm on like a fifteen
Speaker 6: year journey to become a lawyer at that point, and
Speaker 6: I'm finally I mean, I finished my first year, I've
Speaker 6: got two years.
Speaker 4: Left and then I'm there. And I couldn't.
Speaker 6: I mean, but this idea, I don't really know how
Speaker 6: to explain it any better than it just like it
Speaker 6: felt like it needed to exist. And so I told them,
Speaker 6: I was like, look, I'm going to graduate. I will
Speaker 6: finish my law degree. And so I was scheduled to
Speaker 6: graduate in twenty fifteen. But every night TK, who's my
Speaker 6: business partner, he would come to my apartment and we
Speaker 6: would work that second shift all night long, just working
Speaker 6: on the business, and so between twenty thirteen when I
Speaker 6: wrote their initial plan to twenty sixteen we'd actually open.
Speaker 6: Until twenty sixteen, we worked each day. But people thought
Speaker 6: I was nuts. I mean, I'm at a very good
Speaker 6: law school and I'm the president of the Black Law
Speaker 6: Students Association. I'm doing all this stuff that was leading
Speaker 6: me in the pact like direction of being a lawyer,
Speaker 6: and so to come out on the other side of
Speaker 6: that and be like, I mean, I was telling people
Speaker 6: at graduation like now I'm not going to practice, and
Speaker 6: they would look at me and be like, spend all
Speaker 6: this time and all this money to not practice law?
Speaker 4: What kind of law were you studying?
Speaker 6: I went there and it's interesting where this how this
Speaker 6: is shifted. But I wanted to be a civil rights attorney.
Speaker 6: For me, it was about trying to do something that
Speaker 6: was the best way to help people. So that led
Speaker 6: to a lot of education kind of related classes in
Speaker 6: law school. But people thought I was crazy. I mean
Speaker 6: all the way to the like the very very I
Speaker 6: feel like for some people it didn't start making sense
Speaker 6: until twenty eighteen we had been open, and folks were like, okay,
Speaker 6: it actually division, Yeah, Like I could support myself.
Speaker 4: By then.
Speaker 6: I mean that was another part of this journey that
Speaker 6: folks didn't know early on.
Speaker 4: Like we were, we were broke, broke, broke, So how
Speaker 4: did you all? Right? So twenty sixteen you say you
Speaker 4: open it? You opened the spot right twenty sist and
Speaker 4: so so you finished law school and then right after
Speaker 4: law school you decide to open it.
Speaker 6: So I'm working that whole time, and so I graduate May.
Speaker 4: What'd you work at?
Speaker 2: Well?
Speaker 6: I was working at law firms, so I would just
Speaker 6: go bounce between different law firms. But I graduate May
Speaker 6: of twenty fifteen. We moved the next day to Atlanta.
Speaker 6: We got we packed our apartments up. TK was working
Speaker 6: in finance in DC. He quit his job to kind
Speaker 6: of time at the same moment. We got in the
Speaker 6: car and drove to Atlanta overnight. And from that day,
Speaker 6: I mean, it was about just trying to figure out
Speaker 6: how to make this plan we've been writing for two
Speaker 6: years happened.
Speaker 4: So how'd you so with the brick and mortar businesses,
Speaker 4: it's a lot going overhead and expenses with just intnet business, right,
Speaker 4: So it's like you got to build out the spot.
Speaker 4: I'm assuming it's a lot different things go into it.
Speaker 4: So where'd you get the how'd you get the finance
Speaker 4: and to do that?
Speaker 6: So that was that was one of the more painful
Speaker 6: parts of this whole process. The first number we got
Speaker 6: back was a million dollars and I remember looking at
Speaker 6: TK and being.
Speaker 4: Like, oh, I'm about to go practice law.
Speaker 2: I don't know where we got to get this moody.
Speaker 4: I'm like, I don't know what's about to happen.
Speaker 6: And we had a really important conversation with my dad
Speaker 6: and he said something that we still say in TGS.
Speaker 6: He was like, son, small ideas will keep you small,
Speaker 6: and so you have to fight for the best possible
Speaker 6: version of what this business could be. And so we
Speaker 6: kept dreaming, we kept pushing, and one million ended up
Speaker 6: becoming two million that we needed. Two million became three
Speaker 6: and we would just go around town trying to pitch
Speaker 6: people the concept. We counted though it was ninety seven
Speaker 6: straight people that said no before the first person say yes.
Speaker 6: I mean and I'm talking about painful notes. We would
Speaker 6: go to these restaurants and like, I've sat in the
Speaker 6: lobby of the Ritz guess what used to be the
Speaker 6: writs in Atlanta. Nobody come I've sat at dinners with
Speaker 6: people you pitch for four hours and I kid you not,
Speaker 6: this dude said, so what is it? After four out
Speaker 6: four straight hours? And so we kept going though, and
Speaker 6: we would ask people, even when they told us no,
Speaker 6: to refer us to people, and so they did and
Speaker 6: kept going and the number kept growing, but kept using
Speaker 6: that same advice like small DIDs will keep you small,
Speaker 6: and that's how the I don't know the site kept going.
Speaker 3: So when you're trying to get the finance and my
Speaker 3: mom thinking like, what's that process like? Because you're trying
Speaker 3: to get fine some answer for something that isn't really
Speaker 3: here yet, and you're trying to tell people like this
Speaker 3: is what it's going to be, So how do you
Speaker 3: convince them?
Speaker 2: What's the conversation?
Speaker 4: Like it was, it was.
Speaker 6: A crazy Chicken or the egg problem because you needed
Speaker 6: investors in order to get a building, but you needed
Speaker 6: a building.
Speaker 4: To get investors.
Speaker 6: Because you would go to people and be like, yo,
Speaker 6: so I have this idea and they'd be like, well
Speaker 6: where is it. You'd be like, well, if you give
Speaker 6: me some money, I'll find out where it is. So
Speaker 6: we were we got to a point where we kind
Speaker 6: of like talked about both things happening at the same
Speaker 6: time where we would like we had found a spot
Speaker 6: where we are now, and we just kept like believing
Speaker 6: that we would have the money necessary by the time
Speaker 6: we needed to. And they were kind of all these
Speaker 6: different dates where you had to have different amounts of
Speaker 6: cash and fortunate enough that like those those numbers came in,
Speaker 6: I mean, and they were they were big numbers that
Speaker 6: we needed. I mean it was half a million or another
Speaker 6: half a million to make different deposits. But that was
Speaker 6: that ninety seven, just like all over town pitching people
Speaker 6: like just I mean, I was talking to anybody that
Speaker 6: I could about Tjes.
Speaker 3: I read that your slogan became, hey, you got anybody
Speaker 3: else that can tell us no, We're looking for more people.
Speaker 4: Yeah, truly, like.
Speaker 6: It was not a personal thing when you told us no,
Speaker 6: because I believed I believe then and now that like
Speaker 6: if I talked to you and you didn't get it,
Speaker 6: that that was actually a sign that we were headed
Speaker 6: in the right direction, because I'm like, anything that's disruptive,
Speaker 6: like you're not supposed to understand. And that's how we
Speaker 6: It wasn't personal. Folks would say no, and I'd be
Speaker 6: like all right, cool, like you have another friend that
Speaker 6: would say no, and a lot of times they did.
Speaker 4: So you had to raise three million dollars roughly. Yeah,
Speaker 4: So who was your first big break that was like,
Speaker 4: all right, I involve invest in this. It was a
Speaker 4: guy that nobody uh knows knows here, Yeah, just like
Speaker 4: a low key businessman. It made some money in the
Speaker 4: stock market. I guess we bugged him enough and he
Speaker 4: was like, I'll give you twenty thousand in Our first
Speaker 4: check was twenty thousand. So was it is it like
Speaker 4: a shark tank? Are you giving up equity?
Speaker 6: Like yeah, yeah, so yeah, no, yeah, there's no debt
Speaker 6: in the business at all. It was all equity and
Speaker 6: so yeah, we were selling parts of the company to
Speaker 6: get the money.
Speaker 4: And how long did it take you to get the
Speaker 4: full hmount?
Speaker 6: Nine months of like when since like from the time
Speaker 6: we moved back here, it was nine months.
Speaker 4: Until we had it like fully funded.
Speaker 6: And even that is kind of strange because like it
Speaker 6: truly wasn't like you read these stories where it'll be
Speaker 6: like we got all the money and then we started.
Speaker 6: That wasn't what we were doing, Like we would get
Speaker 6: some money in and like sometimes y'all, I didn't even
Speaker 6: have the cash for I don't even know if it
Speaker 6: like officially hit our bank account because I'm telling you
Speaker 6: that money we'd be gone, so we'd be on the
Speaker 6: phone with the bank, like, look, I wrote a check,
Speaker 6: and so there's some money that's about to hit our account.
Speaker 6: I need you to clear the check that we deposited
Speaker 6: because it's like it's coming out the same dayady, yeah, Like,
Speaker 6: I mean, we learned all the different ways that you
Speaker 6: can develop relationships with banks and really try to like
Speaker 6: speed up the process because we weren't funded, like how
Speaker 6: folks talk about doing stuff where you just have millions
Speaker 6: and sitting on cash. Like I remember this article came
Speaker 6: out that was like Ryan Wilson opens three million dollar
Speaker 6: private club, and it was it almost made me want
Speaker 6: to cry because like we had no money when that
Speaker 6: article came out, and we were truly I used to
Speaker 6: call TK on Mondays and be like, y'all, how much
Speaker 6: money do we need to make to make it to Friday?
Speaker 6: And that was that was really how we lived and
Speaker 6: how do you make it to writing?
Speaker 4: So all right, so you raise the money, you open
Speaker 4: a spot, but that's only half the battle because now
Speaker 4: I'm assuming now you got to have staff, you got
Speaker 4: to start to pay back the investors on a certain level,
Speaker 4: or just have some revenue come in period. So now
Speaker 4: what's the next step after that to actually build it
Speaker 4: out and generate revenue. Was it to bring people in
Speaker 4: as members first?
Speaker 6: Or events? What would you do first? So there's three
Speaker 6: parts of our business. So yeah, members are kind of
Speaker 6: the core part of it, and then we have a
Speaker 6: restaurant and bar, we have events, and so we still
Speaker 6: do those three things to this day, but early on
Speaker 6: it was trying to get good at all of those
Speaker 6: things really fast, Like we didn't have any time to
Speaker 6: sit and like this time was very painful, but it
Speaker 6: taught us the fundamentals of the business in a way
Speaker 6: that like nothing else can teach you.
Speaker 4: I Mean, when you truly have.
Speaker 6: People to your point, like on payroll and you're looking
Speaker 6: at them and you're thinking about rent and growth trees
Speaker 6: and like they're counting on you to figure out how
Speaker 6: to make sure that every check clears, you start to
Speaker 6: figure out ways to make money. And that was that
Speaker 6: was our promise to one another. T K and I
Speaker 6: were like, yo, if we can get the place built out,
Speaker 6: we will do everything at that point to make sure
Speaker 6: that we're successful. So like that that won't be the
Speaker 6: reason why this doesn't work if we can just get open.
Speaker 6: So once the door's open, that was game time to me.
Speaker 6: And we talking to everybody. I mean I've been every
Speaker 6: every building and office in the city. If you know
Speaker 6: them in they're in the culture, I probably knocked on
Speaker 6: their door at some point trying to figure out what
Speaker 6: we could do corporations, events, anything we could do.
Speaker 3: Is that the marketing plan, right, So obviously you have
Speaker 3: to get members now, So the marketing plan is like, yo,
Speaker 3: let's go knock on as many doors of people that
Speaker 3: we know in the culture that's trying to do things
Speaker 3: for people, or like, is there something else that you're doing.
Speaker 6: I mean, we didn't have any money for ads or
Speaker 6: any of that early on, so yeah, it was we
Speaker 6: were talking I mean and whole stuff. So we would
Speaker 6: be like, come to TGS and let's talk about you know, X,
Speaker 6: Y and Z, and from there meet people and then
Speaker 6: the same thing we did with the investors, do you
Speaker 6: have anybody else that we should meet? And a lot
Speaker 6: of son's supposed to be like yeah, you should meet
Speaker 6: my man knows doing this and doing that, and I'd
Speaker 6: be perfect, cool, what's that number, I'll call him?
Speaker 4: And we did.
Speaker 6: I mean it was like there was no money for
Speaker 6: we weren't on radio, there was no I mean, we
Speaker 6: were talking to people and posting whatever content. We didn't
Speaker 6: run our first marketing anything until two years plus, and
Speaker 6: by then people knew about the gathering spot. So there
Speaker 6: wasn't any entrepreneurs that talk like that. But they're always like,
Speaker 6: you know, I need money so I can get marketing,
Speaker 6: and like, I hear you on one level, but you
Speaker 6: can you can get your own stuff out if you
Speaker 6: have to, depending on what it is. And that's the
Speaker 6: first we took.
Speaker 4: So as far as the membership, and so correct me
Speaker 4: if I'm wrong. The membership for people that it's like
Speaker 4: a coworking space. That's the people that pay memberships, right.
Speaker 6: So in part, so you have access to the workspace,
Speaker 6: to the restaurant and bar, and then we program a lot.
Speaker 6: We host like thirty events a month that are specifically
Speaker 6: for members of the club. What you are more getting
Speaker 6: as a member is access to the network of other members.
Speaker 6: And yeah, sure the ability to work, and sure the
Speaker 6: ability to eat, but more of like the combined network.
Speaker 6: I mean, the youngest member is twenty one, the oldest
Speaker 6: is eighty eight. There's people that work for some of
Speaker 6: the biggest companies in the city and people that are
Speaker 6: starting their own businesses dope creatives, right, So, like, if
Speaker 6: you think about it, if you're an entrepreneur and you're
Speaker 6: trying to figure out how to be successful, meeting other
Speaker 6: entrepreneurs is great, but like meeting some creatives is even better.
Speaker 6: A lot of times meeting some people that work for
Speaker 6: a lot of the other companies in town that could
Speaker 6: be helpful.
Speaker 4: So we're building that more than we're building like workspace.
Speaker 4: So it's like a secret society exclusive.
Speaker 6: Yeah, I mean there's there's exclusivity to it, but it
Speaker 6: for us is more about trying to make sure we
Speaker 6: know everybody that's there so that I can introduce you
Speaker 6: to whatever it is that you're looking for. So my
Speaker 6: goal is when you come to our bar, that the
Speaker 6: person on your left and your right are people that
Speaker 6: you want to meet for some reason, whether that you
Speaker 6: can do business with them or you just want to
Speaker 6: know them socially. That's what our team is trying to build.
Speaker 6: Towards each day, Like, how do I make sure no
Speaker 6: matter when you pull up, both of the people are
Speaker 6: folks that you want to talk to, and that's what
Speaker 6: people are really like joining more than anything.
Speaker 4: So how did you You said you didn't run ads
Speaker 4: for the first two years and you've built a reputation
Speaker 4: because I've heard about it in New York so obviously
Speaker 4: you've done a good job with branding and you know,
Speaker 4: so how did you do that? Like what was the
Speaker 4: marketing plan if you wasn't spending any money on.
Speaker 6: Ads putting out content? We were just social media, yeah,
Speaker 6: I mean not paid stuff, but we would do stuff.
Speaker 6: We would put it out on social and then I
Speaker 6: mean that old school thing of really inviting people. We
Speaker 6: looked at TVs as our home, and I was trying
Speaker 6: to invite as many people into our house as possible,
Speaker 6: certainly early on, so we were I mean legends in
Speaker 6: this city that would partner with us on doing I
Speaker 6: remember the dates of some of them, like August four,
Speaker 6: twenty sixteen, got some legends Shaka and shout out to Chaka,
Speaker 6: but Shaka zul brings Luducris and Natalie Emmanual talk about
Speaker 6: fast eight tact house the mayor come Cassim was the
Speaker 6: mayor that that time. Cassine comes to TGS for the
Speaker 6: first time, and so TGS started to get out because
Speaker 6: there were these moments that were happening that like you
Speaker 6: really couldn't find anywhere else, and like conversations that were
Speaker 6: happening that like there weren't to this day really don't
Speaker 6: happen in a lot of places.
Speaker 4: Yeah, comment when we did avent in Atlanta, tell people
Speaker 4: that was like you should check out that. Yeah, that's
Speaker 4: what it should be at that's what Yeah, so next
Speaker 4: time next year.
Speaker 3: So with with membership comes pricing, right, and so how
Speaker 3: did you figure out the sweet spot of pricing and
Speaker 3: like what analytics did you use to come up with
Speaker 3: a price that you felt like, you know what, this
Speaker 3: is where we should be for members.
Speaker 6: A lot of market research, so we would go to
Speaker 6: some of the co working spots, but a lot.
Speaker 4: Of the city clubs.
Speaker 6: So the best conference TS is really the city club market,
Speaker 6: not really co working spaces, And so we would go
Speaker 6: to every city club.
Speaker 4: And figure out where they were priced city club.
Speaker 6: But yeah, so there's black folks historically have not been
Speaker 6: invited into city like these they're basically country clubs without
Speaker 6: the golf that they're around town.
Speaker 4: Oh, that's like I think we think that we went
Speaker 4: to the that's crazy. What was the name of that place,
Speaker 4: so whole house.
Speaker 6: So yeah, sohos are very well known. That on was
Speaker 6: for creatives, and it's in a lot of different cities.
Speaker 6: But there's even like old kind of stuffier.
Speaker 4: Like the Yale Club in Manhattan, like when you hear
Speaker 4: people say like good old boys Club, Like the good
Speaker 4: old Boys Club is the city club or the country
Speaker 4: club and a lot of cities, and so I would
Speaker 4: study those spots and be like, what would it be
Speaker 4: like to build one of those, but for the culture,
Speaker 4: like where you could.
Speaker 6: Come dress how like we want to dress and hear
Speaker 6: music that we want to hear and see art that
Speaker 6: we want to see. Like those were the kind of drivers,
Speaker 6: and so we did research on how they were priced.
Speaker 6: There was one in town when we first started, and
Speaker 6: this is funny how things changed, but they were two
Speaker 6: hundred dollars a month, and so we said, all right,
Speaker 6: we're gonna be one eighty five, and we're gonna we're
Speaker 6: gonna be open more than them. We're gonna have more
Speaker 6: programs than them, And I remember people would be like
Speaker 6: one eighty five, like they're two, you're new, how are you.
Speaker 4: Gonna do that?
Speaker 6: And we started growing and we eventually moved within like
Speaker 6: six months, we moved up to two hundred dollars, which
Speaker 6: is what it is now. And what's funny is that
Speaker 6: they're like one seventy five now they've they've come the
Speaker 6: opposite direction. And TGS is the most expensive city club
Speaker 6: in Atlanta with black folks, and so there's a whole
Speaker 6: bunch I could talk about in that, but it's either
Speaker 6: one hundred dollars a month or two thousand dollars for
Speaker 6: the year. It's how we're price. Everybody's on equal on
Speaker 6: equal for them.
Speaker 4: So that's interesting because yeah, now I have a better
Speaker 4: perspective on it because youah, like the the Yale Club
Speaker 4: in Manhattan and those, and you're right, it is exclusive
Speaker 4: situation and a lot of wealthy people, businessmen that go there,
Speaker 4: and it's not something that the average person probably knows
Speaker 4: about and you only hear too much for like, you know,
Speaker 4: our culture stuff like that. So to create that there's
Speaker 4: still a reasonable price. Two hundred dollars a month, that's
Speaker 4: a reasonable price, because a lot of those is like
Speaker 4: a thousand dollars a month.
Speaker 6: It's like crazy, I mean, like the country club. Country
Speaker 6: clubs a country I mean eighty a year. Yeah, I
Speaker 6: mean you could go eighty one hundred thousand just to
Speaker 6: get into a country club. So we were never trying
Speaker 6: to be anywhere near that. But yeah, to your point,
Speaker 6: we've never been invited in any of those spots.
Speaker 4: It's never.
Speaker 6: It's two groups that we paid attention to is black
Speaker 6: folks and women that have never been invited into the
Speaker 6: country club city club experience. And so the club is
Speaker 6: black and sixty percent of our membership base are women.
Speaker 4: On purpose, how do you how do you engage the women? Like,
Speaker 4: how'd you get the women engage more than men?
Speaker 6: Black women lead everything first, So I mean, honestly, those
Speaker 6: were the first folks that really just so supported supported
Speaker 6: the business. I mean we were twenty four twenty five
Speaker 6: depending on what we're talking about, and so it was
Speaker 6: a lot of black women that you know, at the
Speaker 6: top of their game in the city.
Speaker 4: They were like, all right, I'm going to join and
Speaker 4: be a member.
Speaker 6: And then from there, I mean, we built our team
Speaker 6: and just talked about how that was important to us.
Speaker 6: I mean it still is. I never wanted that good
Speaker 6: old boys club kind of talk to be affiliated with TCS.
Speaker 6: And so the way that you avoid it is just
Speaker 6: like it has always been harder to join the club
Speaker 6: as a guy, and we prioritized making sure that women
Speaker 6: were at.
Speaker 4: The head of the experience. It's harder.
Speaker 6: We just don't accept as many guys. Yeah, so you
Speaker 6: have to be accepted in GOTA, you gottapply. What's the process?
Speaker 6: So it starts online. You give us some general information
Speaker 6: about you, but then there's an interview, so someone on
Speaker 6: our team will get in contact with you and.
Speaker 4: Ask you, yeah, about what you do.
Speaker 6: But to be honest with you, if we don't care
Speaker 6: so much about what you do on a day to day,
Speaker 6: the most important question to us is like, and we
Speaker 6: ask it this way, is what animate you outside of
Speaker 6: the office. And the answer to that question matters because
Speaker 6: we're not at TGS like trying.
Speaker 4: To be stuffy for stuffy's sake.
Speaker 6: It's ain't about you know, self congratulating each other and
Speaker 6: just sitting around looking at each other, but about being
Speaker 6: specific about knowing who's there so that you can get
Speaker 6: work done.
Speaker 4: Quality Control we actually we had a we went there.
Speaker 4: Ash Cash, you know him, absolutely, he's a member. We
Speaker 4: met him. We met him there the last the last time.
Speaker 4: It was a sorority having an event there. As we
Speaker 4: pulled in. Yeah for sure, good brother. Yes, that's all
Speaker 4: got So all right, we're in Atlanta. This is the
Speaker 4: home of black excellent influencers, all of that. So you
Speaker 4: talked about Ludacris. How important is it to tap in
Speaker 4: with the influencers, entertainers, athletes out here and how has
Speaker 4: how like valuable is that as far as like a
Speaker 4: stamp of a celebrity coming in And I was.
Speaker 3: Looking at the names on the wall when I got there,
Speaker 3: I'm like, oh, that's Cam Newing.
Speaker 4: It's like black Hollywood.
Speaker 6: Yeah, I mean you'll see, you'll see. And it's said
Speaker 6: all over time. But there's a really dope company that
Speaker 6: has some shirts that say Atlanta influences everything, And to me,
Speaker 6: it really does, because more than anything, the thing that
Speaker 6: we export and send all over the world is our culture.
Speaker 6: You could go anywhere in the world now and people
Speaker 6: know and have heard stuff that's come out of this city.
Speaker 4: So things have changed.
Speaker 2: They used to be us in New York.
Speaker 4: Atlanta had it for the last twenty years.
Speaker 3: I mean, I'm giving it to Atlanta, but it's a fact.
Speaker 6: I'm biased, but I mean it really is a fact.
Speaker 6: You can go anywhere and people people know this sound,
Speaker 6: they know they know the culture that it is made here.
Speaker 6: And so yeah, it was it was very important to
Speaker 6: make sure that the club not only like opened our
Speaker 6: doors to make sure that it was like the culture
Speaker 6: was invited and was building the experience with us, but
Speaker 6: to get to other cities. We didn't think that was
Speaker 6: possible if TGS wasn't understood as being kind of one
Speaker 6: of the places where, no matter what we're talking about
Speaker 6: is music or sports or whatever, that that community felt
Speaker 6: at home at.
Speaker 4: So I mean, so.
Speaker 3: The littlecus event, you said that the mayor came, and
Speaker 3: so I'm thinking to myself, because I've seen the level
Speaker 3: of politicians that I've come to the gathering spot, right,
Speaker 3: we had ambassadors for young Stacy Abrams. I think I
Speaker 3: believe I've read you have President Biden.
Speaker 2: Have show up.
Speaker 3: So how did that come about? Was it because the
Speaker 3: mayor came? And now it was like, wait, politician is insane,
Speaker 3: Like this is an audience we need to tap into.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean a couple of things.
Speaker 6: One of the things that's cool about Atlanta is that
Speaker 6: we know each other across industry lines here, so it's
Speaker 6: not weird to be in politics and know an artist.
Speaker 6: But I mean another thing is that, I mean we're
Speaker 6: very politically active, and it happened the entire time.
Speaker 2: I mean the world. You put the world on notice.
Speaker 6: For me, it never made sense to be neutral about politics,
Speaker 6: so we were never Now y'all have some businesses are
Speaker 6: I don't get into politics or I don't have an
Speaker 6: opinion about that, and like really everybody does.
Speaker 4: I will tell you, like who.
Speaker 6: We're supporting and why we're supporting them, and we will
Speaker 6: work to try to get those people elected. And so yeah,
Speaker 6: I mean both on a local level, but then all
Speaker 6: the way through. I mean we've had President Biden on
Speaker 6: a couple of occasions, We've had Vice President Harris on
Speaker 6: a couple of occasions, and that's all because I mean
Speaker 6: we're very active in trying to make sure the folks
Speaker 6: were voting and understood what was at stake in all
Speaker 6: the I mean, it's not just this last election cycle
Speaker 6: since we've been open.
Speaker 4: So let me ask you this as far as COVID
Speaker 4: nineteen right when brick and martar businesses is closing left
Speaker 4: and right. Not only do you have a brick and
Speaker 4: martar business, you have a gathering spot literally business. So
Speaker 4: that's like even crazier, like you know what I'm saying,
Speaker 4: to be able to survive like in this climate. Atlanta
Speaker 4: is a little different because regulations aren't aren't the same.
Speaker 2: That was that was that was very nice to you.
Speaker 2: A little different.
Speaker 4: So the first thing I want to ask is how
Speaker 4: you survived that. But the next two locations are in
Speaker 4: states where it's completely different from Atlanta, well, District of
Speaker 4: Columbia and LA which are democratic, you know, territories, strict lockdowns.
Speaker 4: It's not the same. So how have you been able
Speaker 4: to manage during COVID and welding those two locations out
Speaker 4: in different parts? What are your thoughts? Are you a
Speaker 4: little nervous about that or what's your thoughts on that?
Speaker 6: I'm not really nervous though, because the core focus of
Speaker 6: our team is really not about space. I mean, I
Speaker 6: know that that sounds. We have a lot of space.
Speaker 6: I mean it's the club in Atlanta's twenty five thousand
Speaker 6: square feet, so it's not that we take little spaces,
Speaker 6: but the focus of our team each day is really
Speaker 6: about people, right, and so COVID can't change that interest, right,
Speaker 6: connecting people is I remember we had a meeting early
Speaker 6: on after we had closed, and I was trying to
Speaker 6: tell our teams, like, look, this is definitely unprecedented. We've
Speaker 6: never been in a situation like this before. But the
Speaker 6: setting is going to change the mission of why we
Speaker 6: do this every day. That's not changing at all, right, Like,
Speaker 6: this has always been about connecting people by trying to
Speaker 6: create experiences. So we're going to create them online or
Speaker 6: whatever way are the safest way to do it given
Speaker 6: the times. But why we are doing this each day
Speaker 6: is not going to shift. And so even when it
Speaker 6: got hard, that's what we would tell ourselves. As cliche
Speaker 6: as that sounds to a certain extent, I just refuse
Speaker 6: to have COVID be the thing that couldn't be. So
Speaker 6: much it happened at TGS, I was not like COVID
Speaker 6: couldn't be the thing that was going to kill it,
Speaker 6: especially when like again, I've never woken up in the
Speaker 6: morning and been like, man, I wonder how the workspace,
Speaker 6: like how we're going to build a better workspace. Like
Speaker 6: that's just I'm thinking about how can we get this
Speaker 6: person to come and speak, or how can I make
Speaker 6: sure that these two people know each other, or like,
Speaker 6: how can we explore this topic to make sure folks
Speaker 6: are informed. COVID doesn't touch any of that. And so
Speaker 6: DC and LA and really any other city that we're
Speaker 6: looking at, I think the fundamentals of building community that
Speaker 6: doesn't change no matter where it is that we go,
Speaker 6: and that's what I'm still focused on. It'll feel different,
Speaker 6: it'll look different. DC has a very different culture than Atlanta,
Speaker 6: but it's still about community and so there's thankfully there's
Speaker 6: a very large group of members in DC right now,
Speaker 6: and we really haven't been fully open in DC.
Speaker 4: Do you feel like that the future of even community
Speaker 4: may change, Like we see apps like Clubhouse where eventually
Speaker 4: really clubhouse is just a networking event on telephone. So
Speaker 4: do you think that potentially us as humans may change
Speaker 4: the way that we interact with people and not actually
Speaker 4: interact with people face to face anymore.
Speaker 6: Nah, So this is where I'm old school. I think
Speaker 6: that I think there's certain things that are just fundamental.
Speaker 6: You can LinkedIn me D and ME all you want to,
Speaker 6: but eventually, I'm gonna ask you to come meet me
Speaker 6: somewhere if we really are friends, if we're really like,
Speaker 6: I'm going to ask you to meet me somewhere, and
Speaker 6: I mean you here. All the time people talk about
Speaker 6: zoom fatigue, and I can't do another zoom Like that's
Speaker 6: because at the end of the day, like we still
Speaker 6: want to see each other at a point time, Like
Speaker 6: we could have done this conversation on a computer.
Speaker 4: It doesn't have the same field to it.
Speaker 6: And so no, I think that folks that talk about
Speaker 6: stuff changing in that way are going way too far.
Speaker 3: Like during the process, did you build out TGS online
Speaker 3: like I was being somewhere, you created an online environment.
Speaker 6: Yeah, we were fortunate that we built out an online
Speaker 6: platform that rolled out in October of twenty nineteen, So
Speaker 6: going into COVID, we already had a lot of content
Speaker 6: on the site, so that wasn't a major pivot. We
Speaker 6: just did more stuff well focus on online, yeah, I mean,
Speaker 6: but it was already there. It was weird, like for
Speaker 6: years we didn't have that, and then we made the
Speaker 6: decision to make sure it was really driven by like
Speaker 6: people would live like an Alpharetta and want to see program,
Speaker 6: but that just didn't want to drive the TGS on
Speaker 6: a given night. So we were recording this stuff and
Speaker 6: just putting it on this platform, and it worked out
Speaker 6: that when.
Speaker 4: COVID hit, we had all that stuff.
Speaker 6: Plus I mean when we do we filmed like ten
Speaker 6: conversations a week at TGS, so like it was so
Speaker 6: you sell those, so it just is included in your
Speaker 6: own membership. Okay, if you remember, you can watch whatever
Speaker 6: we've ever done.
Speaker 4: Do you have any plans of doing events like virtual
Speaker 4: events like stuff that if you're not a member's everything
Speaker 4: exclusive just for members. Everything's for members. Do you have
Speaker 4: any plans on doing things for other people that's not members?
Speaker 4: So we.
Speaker 6: Anything that is about like social justice or political engagement,
Speaker 6: we opened that stuff up. So I mean during the
Speaker 6: summer when there was a lot of protests here, we
Speaker 6: opened our doors up to any protester or any organizer
Speaker 6: in the city that needed a space to organize. But
Speaker 6: then we've also opened up conversations, So I mean even
Speaker 6: as recently as last week, we had conversation about violence
Speaker 6: in Atlanta, and you don't have to be a member
Speaker 6: to watch that conversation. We just think it's important and
Speaker 6: so yeah, I mean that's probably the one exception to
Speaker 6: the membership piece if we just think it's something that
Speaker 6: the community needs to know.
Speaker 4: But I would think, like even from a modernization standpoint,
Speaker 4: because like online summers is big right now, even regular
Speaker 4: summers pot and it's like, you know, it might be
Speaker 4: another revenue stream. It could be for us. I mean
Speaker 4: we ended up buying.
Speaker 3: This episode is brought to you by P and C Bank.
Speaker 3: A lot of people think podcasts about work are boring,
Speaker 3: and sure they definitely can be, but understanding a professionals
Speaker 3: routine shows us how they achieve their success little by little,
Speaker 3: day after day. It's like banking with P and C Bank.
Speaker 3: It might seem boring to safe plan and make calculated
Speaker 3: decisions with your bank, but keeping your money boring is
Speaker 3: what helps you live or more happily fulfilled life. P
Speaker 3: and C Bank Brilliantly Boring since eighteen sixty five. Brilliantly
Speaker 3: Boring since eighteen sixty five is a service mark of
Speaker 3: the PNC Financial Service Group, Inc. P and C Bank
Speaker 3: National Association member fdic.
Speaker 6: Erners.
Speaker 2: What's up?
Speaker 3: You ever walk into a small business and everything just works? Like,
Speaker 3: the checkout is fast, the receipts are digital, tipping is
Speaker 3: a breeze, and you're out the door before the line
Speaker 3: even builds. Odds are they're using Square. We love supporting
Speaker 3: businesses that run on Square because it just feels seamless.
Speaker 3: Whether it's a local coffee shop, a vendor at a
Speaker 3: pop up market, or even one of our merch partners,
Speaker 3: Square makes it easy for them to take payments, manage inventory,
Speaker 3: and run their business with confidence, all from one simple system.
Speaker 3: If you're a business owner or even just thinking about
Speaker 3: launching something soon, Square is hands down one of the
Speaker 3: best tools out there to help you start, run and grow.
Speaker 3: It's not just about payments, it's about giving you time
Speaker 3: back so you can focus on what matters most ready.
Speaker 3: To see how Square can train transform your business, visit
Speaker 3: Square dot com backslash go backslash eyl to learn more
Speaker 3: that Square dot com backslash, go backslash eyl. Don't wait,
Speaker 3: don't hesitate. Let's Square handle the back end so you
Speaker 3: can keep pushing your vision forward.
Speaker 7: Coach, the energy out there felt different. What changed for
Speaker 7: the team today?
Speaker 4: It was the new game day.
Speaker 6: Scratches from the California lottery players everything.
Speaker 4: Those games sent the team's energy through the roof.
Speaker 7: Are you saying it was the off field play that
Speaker 7: made the difference on the field.
Speaker 6: Hey, little play makes your day, and today it made
Speaker 6: the game.
Speaker 4: That's off for now, coach one more question.
Speaker 7: Play than new Los Angeles Chargers, San Francisco forty nine
Speaker 7: ers and Los Angeles Rams scratchers from the California Lottery.
Speaker 7: A little play can make your day. Peace, pay responsibly.
Speaker 7: Must be eighteen years or older to purchase plate or.
Speaker 6: Claim from music conference and festival down here called A
Speaker 6: three C. There so a lot more of the efforts
Speaker 6: in terms of monetizing content and all that have been
Speaker 6: on the A three C side unless about TGS.
Speaker 2: So A three C existed before you didn't You didn't
Speaker 2: create it?
Speaker 6: No, no, no, we we bought it A three C.
Speaker 6: This past year was year sixteen. It's been going for
Speaker 6: a minute.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I've heard about it. I've heard about it.
Speaker 4: I think I went to there, we go there one
Speaker 4: music festival, one music So all right, so let's talk
Speaker 4: about that. Then that's interesting. So how did how did
Speaker 4: this come about? As far as is a C three
Speaker 4: A three C three C conference how did that? How
Speaker 4: did that come about? And how did how do you
Speaker 4: acquire a music festival? Haws that?
Speaker 6: So I'm on a panel with an entrepreneur uh named
Speaker 6: Paul Judge after Paul J.
Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, we gotta get him.
Speaker 2: Yeah, he's another one that just keeps slipping.
Speaker 6: I will, I'll try to see if I could I
Speaker 6: can help with that. So I'm on a panel with
Speaker 6: with with Paul Paul coach k at this at twenty
Speaker 6: eighteen at A three C. And I didn't really know
Speaker 6: Paul that well, and it was it was interesting like
Speaker 6: we I mean, we knew of one another and been
Speaker 6: to He's been to all of his his businesses around
Speaker 6: the time. Make a long story short, I learned that
Speaker 6: the business was coming up for sale. And what was
Speaker 6: interesting about A three C is that it was not
Speaker 6: owned by the culture.
Speaker 4: Four white guys owned A three C.
Speaker 6: Wow, and I had no plans of buying it, but
Speaker 6: heard that the company was thinking about selling and we
Speaker 6: just started talking about like this is Atlanta. We talked
Speaker 6: about this is a home of culture in many ways,
Speaker 6: what is it like to have like a major conference
Speaker 6: really be owned by the culture too. And we spent
Speaker 6: the last half of twenty eighteen. Someone twenty nineteen to
Speaker 6: buy the company and produced the twenty nineteen version. A
Speaker 6: three C happens every October, so we produced the twenty
Speaker 6: nineteen version.
Speaker 2: That was what nas was the feature on that one.
Speaker 6: That was the year before okay thing our headliners were
Speaker 6: on the music side, Megan the Stallion, most depth was
Speaker 6: on it. I'm trying to remember everybody there who was performed.
Speaker 6: There was like twenty different concerts. But then Dapper Dam
Speaker 6: was the keynote that year. There was a lot of people.
Speaker 4: Spoke, so it's like a Southwest Southwestern.
Speaker 6: Yeah, so it's it's conference and music. So music at night.
Speaker 2: Is it held at the gathering spot or was it
Speaker 2: spread out throughout there?
Speaker 5: Yeah?
Speaker 4: No, the it's a through C is too big.
Speaker 6: I mean there was there was outdoor only seven thousand
Speaker 6: people or something at A three twenty nineteen, but it's
Speaker 6: indoor at America's Mark downtown and then at music venues all.
Speaker 4: Across the city. So that's how it's like south By.
Speaker 4: So you didn't do it this year, all virtual this year,
Speaker 4: but what's your plans forward? Moving forward?
Speaker 6: So it's in October every year, so we feel good
Speaker 6: about how it. Yeah, we feel good about being able
Speaker 6: to get back in person by then in close contact
Speaker 6: with all of the event, big event kind of planners
Speaker 6: in town, and everybody feels pretty good about October.
Speaker 4: So our plan is to be back in person. So
Speaker 4: how is that? Because you ever heard of curl Fest.
Speaker 4: We interviewed some people. Yeah, we grew up with on
Speaker 4: shide out to someone. We interviewed her and she was
Speaker 4: telling us about putting together a festival. That's the first
Speaker 4: person that we really interviewed that had something to that scale.
Speaker 4: They have like thirty thousand people that come to that.
Speaker 4: But this is music and you said, like fashion and
Speaker 4: tech and all of that stuff. So what is the
Speaker 4: undertakings of putting this together? Like how long does it take?
Speaker 2: Planning?
Speaker 4: Yeah, Like if y'all would.
Speaker 6: Have told me how much somebody would have told me
Speaker 6: how much it takes, it's a lot. I mean it's
Speaker 6: a lot of planning. I mean we hosted just shows.
Speaker 6: I mean there were seven like primary shows our year
Speaker 6: that the first year we did it, and then conversations.
Speaker 6: I don't I can't even tell you. I mean it's
Speaker 6: a lot. I mean there's like hundreds of speakers, by
Speaker 6: the time is all over, it's a lot you really
Speaker 6: worth it financially because I seem like I think she
Speaker 6: was telling us crow fests like a million dollars something
Speaker 6: like that put together. Yeah, it caused more than that
Speaker 6: to produce, but your thing is probably more evolved.
Speaker 4: So it's like, I mean, you make money I'm assuming
Speaker 4: off of sponsorships and ticket sales, but is it really
Speaker 4: financially worth it? Yeah?
Speaker 6: No, I mean it certainly can be. I mean I
Speaker 6: look at I mean, the A three C's existed for
Speaker 6: a while, but we are rebuilding parts of the model
Speaker 6: and building new relationships to help scale, especially on a
Speaker 6: partnership up front, and it definitely can be. I mean,
Speaker 6: if you look at some of the big conferences and
Speaker 6: festivals that happen when you get to scale and you
Speaker 6: have top tier partners, it makes a lot of sense.
Speaker 6: But I mean, to be honest with you, the motivation
Speaker 6: for A three C and it's acquired, it was more
Speaker 6: about trying to to make sure that the it was
Speaker 6: just owned by the culture. And I mean it wasn't
Speaker 6: a bad it wasn't a bad business by any stretch,
Speaker 6: but I can't say that the motivation was to you know,
Speaker 6: retire off of a three C either.
Speaker 3: So all the local companies I'm talking like the big
Speaker 3: companies here in Atlanta, are they allies in this in
Speaker 3: this in this deal as far as sponsorships like Coca
Speaker 3: Cola and Turner of the Dead.
Speaker 6: Yeah, I mean Atlanta has the third highest concentration of
Speaker 6: fortune five hundred headquarters in the country. So you got
Speaker 6: a lot of businesses in town that that you know,
Speaker 6: through their brands, interact.
Speaker 4: With the stuff that we build.
Speaker 6: So yeah, Coke, Uh, you got all the airlines here,
Speaker 6: you got spots like home Depot. There's definitely like a
Speaker 6: great city to have those conversations. Yeah, because thinking I mean,
Speaker 6: there's all the banks here.
Speaker 3: I heard you said that, you know, there's a lot
Speaker 3: of disparity here in the city. And the one thing
Speaker 3: you're going to start doing is measuring allyship by activity.
Speaker 2: And I was like, Oh, that's powerful.
Speaker 3: So like, is this one way or what are some
Speaker 3: other ways that you make You're going to make sure
Speaker 3: that that happens.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 6: I mean I think that this moment requires us to
Speaker 6: really push beyond conversation. I mean, for as much as
Speaker 6: as I love Atlanta, there are some challenges here about
Speaker 6: making sure that everybody in Atlanta is going to be
Speaker 6: able to participate in the future growth of the city,
Speaker 6: and historically we've not done a good job of doing that.
Speaker 6: I mean, right next door to the gathering spot, the
Speaker 6: next neighborhood over the median income is twenty.
Speaker 4: Eight thousand dollars.
Speaker 6: So to have that community be right next to a
Speaker 6: multi billion dollar stadium and the headquarters of one of
Speaker 6: the biggest businesses in the world that actually cast a
Speaker 6: shadow on those communities. We got to have active conversation
Speaker 6: about that leads to money, frankly, like being spent, Like
Speaker 6: we have to have investment in our community ways we
Speaker 6: haven't seen here. So yeah, I'm not I'm not well
Speaker 6: wishes and you know, having nice thoughts about black folks,
Speaker 6: which I think we saw a lot of last year,
Speaker 6: is cool, But at the end of the day, it's
Speaker 6: going to be about who actually put some resources into
Speaker 6: the community in a way that moves the needle we
Speaker 6: we needed at this point. If if the city is
Speaker 6: going to be a place frankly that everybody wants to
Speaker 6: live in, but certainly if black folks won't live in.
Speaker 4: So the expansion as far as your first model obviously
Speaker 4: was to get private investors give up some equity. Did
Speaker 4: you do that the same with the l A and
Speaker 4: DC operation.
Speaker 6: We raised We raised UH one more round to to
Speaker 6: continue to expand and yeah, still no no debt in
Speaker 6: the business, but we've taken in more equity and that
Speaker 6: that's been the way that we've decided is the best
Speaker 6: way to grow to grow because in addition to the
Speaker 6: you know, this is a a big topic because you'll
Speaker 6: have some people say, you know, I don't want to
Speaker 6: give up anything in mind, Yeah, that's not how I
Speaker 6: feel about it. To me, if you can have strategic
Speaker 6: investors that can help you accomplish those goals, almost partners,
Speaker 6: then it actually becomes really worth it. And I would
Speaker 6: rather own a smaller percentage of something that's way bigger
Speaker 6: than sitting here or hoarding all this equity that doesn't
Speaker 6: mean anything. So I don't take the approach of saying,
Speaker 6: you know, don't sell parts of the company. If it
Speaker 6: makes sense to do so and it will help you scale,
Speaker 6: then I think that you and you should do it.
Speaker 4: Are you careful who you work like? Do you just
Speaker 4: I'm sure you're not accepting anybody's money. But it's like
Speaker 4: that can also be a headache too, if you got
Speaker 4: somebody that's constantly calling you and they micro managing everything.
Speaker 4: So it's like a marriage, okay, Like I look at it,
Speaker 4: like do I want to be married to you? Truly?
Speaker 6: Like my test is when I look at my phone
Speaker 6: and your name comes across my phone, like if it
Speaker 6: makes me sad to see your name at any point,
Speaker 6: I don't want you to be an investor in the company,
Speaker 6: because that truly is like the test, because you really
Speaker 6: are with those people for forever. So if you don't
Speaker 6: want to get married to the investor, don't have them
Speaker 6: in the business because they will like annoy you.
Speaker 4: It is not even a good.
Speaker 6: Enough word, like you really behold it, like really, like
Speaker 6: y'all are in this thing together at that point. And
Speaker 6: if you think as soon as you get their check
Speaker 6: that you can ignore them, or you think that they're
Speaker 6: going to give you a check and ignore you, that's
Speaker 6: not how that works. So you have to make sure
Speaker 6: that it's a person that you really want to work with.
Speaker 4: So all the decisions made by a collective.
Speaker 6: No, so I mean the t can I manage the
Speaker 6: business day to day? There's a board that we meet
Speaker 6: with it, you can almost think of it from an
Speaker 6: advisory perspective.
Speaker 4: We bring them questions or talk about that because like
Speaker 4: for young entrepreneurs that might you know, they might be
Speaker 4: getting information from you and kind of you know, getting
Speaker 4: this mentorship, how did that go about as far as
Speaker 4: like putting together a board and like what is your
Speaker 4: level of governance as far as that's concerned. Now that
Speaker 4: you have outside money as well.
Speaker 6: So we have control of the business, so the it
Speaker 6: doesn't necessarily mean that just because you give a person
Speaker 6: a part of the company that they that they then
Speaker 6: have equals say and what happens in the company day
Speaker 6: to day. So we manage the company day to day
Speaker 6: with actually very little involvement, and that's part of the
Speaker 6: We were looking for investors that really believed in our
Speaker 6: ability to do that, and so it starts there. But
Speaker 6: then when you start thinking about a board, I almost
Speaker 6: look at it like building a team.
Speaker 4: You need a you need a.
Speaker 6: Point guard, you need to you need somebody to hold
Speaker 6: down the paint and who is who can fill those
Speaker 6: roles to make sure that Like Okay, so real estate,
Speaker 6: for example, is a blind spot for us. I don't
Speaker 6: come out of that world. TK really doesn't either. We
Speaker 6: have somebody on our board there like has rolled out
Speaker 6: hundreds of locations. So going into a board meeting and
Speaker 6: being able to say, hey, like this is this is
Speaker 6: all of the information that we have about a site.
Speaker 6: How do you feel about that? Just hearing their thoughts
Speaker 6: helps us to develop better thoughts and a better process
Speaker 6: for how we stuff.
Speaker 4: So, like you are as.
Speaker 6: An entrepreneur, the group of people that are kind of
Speaker 6: around the business as investors, but then also on your
Speaker 6: team if you don't see it that way.
Speaker 3: So that's the process of choosing where you're going to
Speaker 3: be put the next location. So obviously you have the
Speaker 3: idea you drew up division, you go to the real
Speaker 3: estate guy, Hey, what do you think about the spot
Speaker 3: in DC?
Speaker 2: What do you think about this spot in LA? The
Speaker 2: other cities is New York, is Houston?
Speaker 6: Yeah, I've looked everywhere, Houston, New York, Dallas, Detroit, We've
Speaker 6: looked every everywhere. And we have investors too that are
Speaker 6: from or live in a lot of these cities, which
Speaker 6: makes things help for a minutes.
Speaker 4: So if you look at like l A.
Speaker 6: Baron Davis is an investor, Uh, Lou Williams is from
Speaker 6: here but lives lives you know, lives in the Clippers.
Speaker 4: He's an investor too, He's an investor.
Speaker 6: You look at Detroit, Big Shawn's an investor if you
Speaker 6: look at I mean like most cities. So we had
Speaker 6: a we had a strategic approach to as we thought
Speaker 6: about cities that we wanted to go to, who were
Speaker 6: people from or like that knew that city that could
Speaker 6: help us to understand the city better.
Speaker 4: So two questions, how many people is on your board?
Speaker 2: Five?
Speaker 4: It's just five people. Five people, okay, and each person
Speaker 4: just has an expertise and something that they can bring
Speaker 4: them valuable. All right, how did you find all of
Speaker 4: these big name celebrities now, like the big Seawans of
Speaker 4: the world, the Baron Davis's of the world. Like, how
Speaker 4: do you have an active campaign to reach out to
Speaker 4: celebrities to invest Like, what's the deal with that?
Speaker 5: No?
Speaker 4: I mean that to me.
Speaker 6: I operate with the simple principle that like, good people
Speaker 6: know good people, and you never you never know who
Speaker 6: exactly you're talking to. So someone I didn't name who's
Speaker 6: an investor in the business is cam Newton. And we
Speaker 6: have known one of his advisors for years, and it
Speaker 6: was never about business.
Speaker 4: We were just cool.
Speaker 6: But one one day I was talking to him about
Speaker 6: us raised in another round and he said, hey, I'd
Speaker 6: be interested and showing it to our group and he
Speaker 6: did same same thing Will Packers an investor in TGS,
Speaker 6: same conversation where I'm very very good friends with his
Speaker 6: right hand and she said, well you should, you should
Speaker 6: take a look at this deal.
Speaker 4: So it's playing.
Speaker 6: The long game and developing relationships and inside of the
Speaker 6: black community. Honestly, it's not like it's not that it's
Speaker 6: the small world. You know, if you're closing in on everybody,
Speaker 6: you're not as far away from anybody, not really, And
Speaker 6: to be honest with you, like, it's really not so
Speaker 6: much about depending who we're talking about the person, as
Speaker 6: it is the team of people, the business manager, the
Speaker 6: person that they consult on a regular basis for advice
Speaker 6: that you really need to be trying to get in
Speaker 6: contact with. I think that's a big mistake a lot
Speaker 6: of folks makers that they'll be like, I need to
Speaker 6: talk to Will Packer, and you do need to talk
Speaker 6: to Will Packer. Like Will Packer's not going to write
Speaker 6: to a check and Will Packer doesn't know you, but
Speaker 6: he also needs to like if you the way that
Speaker 6: you were introduced, and having his team also feel good
Speaker 6: about the deal, his board, you know, and not not
Speaker 6: formally in the same way, but.
Speaker 4: Like financial advised accountar.
Speaker 6: Yeah, the people that just having them feel good about it,
Speaker 6: it's helpful. So we talk to those folks as much
Speaker 6: as we talk to the people who you might know.
Speaker 4: Center of influence.
Speaker 3: So after the interview process to become a member or
Speaker 3: become an investor, there a certain level amount of capital
Speaker 3: that I need to have in order to be an investor.
Speaker 6: So I mean the rounds have changed over time. So
Speaker 6: the first round was three million, and at that point
Speaker 6: this is actually a very important conversation. A lot of
Speaker 6: entrepreneurs get their cap tables jacked up really early by
Speaker 6: taking very very small increments of money.
Speaker 4: You talk about that cap table. What is that?
Speaker 6: So cap table is just the it's just the list
Speaker 6: of the names and how much those names own in
Speaker 6: the business.
Speaker 4: And you want to.
Speaker 6: Make sure it's like it's okay to have other people
Speaker 6: on your cap table, but you want to make sure
Speaker 6: that there's there's a strategy to it.
Speaker 4: To the extent that you can.
Speaker 6: So if you need a million dollars to start your business,
Speaker 6: doing that five thousand dollars at a time.
Speaker 4: Is really difficult.
Speaker 6: And then if you go out for future rounds, that
Speaker 6: next person is going to pull up your cap table
Speaker 6: and it's going to be like, like, who are aren't
Speaker 6: trying to who are these one hundred people I gotta
Speaker 6: I have to deal with? And like what are their
Speaker 6: rights and responsibilities to the business. And so it is
Speaker 6: important to the extent that you can to stay very
Speaker 6: disciplined in trying to set minimum thresholds and say, okay, look,
Speaker 6: I'm raising a million, and it's one hundred thousand dollars
Speaker 6: minimum for folks to be in the round, right, Because
Speaker 6: at that point it's you're insignificantly enough and like there
Speaker 6: are things that can be done on through other structures
Speaker 6: for people to pull that hundred together, but for you,
Speaker 6: as the entrepreneur, it only comes in as one single entry,
Speaker 6: and that's important. So like I could be like, yo,
Speaker 6: I need I need a hundred thousand minimum, and then
Speaker 6: y'all could go talk in a huddle on the side
Speaker 6: and go seventy five to twenty five. If you want
Speaker 6: to and create a company and then have that company
Speaker 6: invest in TGS, but I would only recognize it as
Speaker 6: one single it would only be one entry on the
Speaker 6: Captuart And I think, again, that's important. So you have
Speaker 6: to stay disciplined there.
Speaker 4: I get it.
Speaker 6: Like there were times where I'm telling you, folst would
Speaker 6: be like, I'll give you ten thousand, and I'd be
Speaker 6: like that ten thousand would be But then I would
Speaker 6: look at like what we needed to get accomplished. I'm like, no,
Speaker 6: ten thousand won't even build a bathroom, Like so we can't.
Speaker 6: It's not as helpful as what it feels like in
Speaker 6: the short term. When I would take that money, I
Speaker 6: would have spent it the next day and I wouldn't
Speaker 6: even have had a working toilet and sink. We're like,
Speaker 6: it just takes a lot of money to do our business.
Speaker 6: So the first round started there started pretty high. Yeah,
Speaker 6: first round, the first round it was the first round
Speaker 6: was three. We weren't taking less than one hundred.
Speaker 4: So the equity crowdfund you're not a fan of, I'm assuming.
Speaker 6: So it depends on what you're building. I mean, there's
Speaker 6: some dope entrepreneurs down here that have done it well.
Speaker 6: Isaac Hayes one of my friends. He just is two
Speaker 6: point six million on a crowdfund. And the thing about
Speaker 6: the crowdfund is that the rights that shareholders have in
Speaker 6: that arrangement are not overly burdened to them to the entrepreneur.
Speaker 6: So like, yeah, you have a million investors, but like
Speaker 6: each one of those investors' ability to actually talk to
Speaker 6: you as the entrepreneur is very limited in that structure.
Speaker 6: So I don't have a problem with it. Depending on
Speaker 6: what you're building, it's dope. Like I mean, he's got
Speaker 6: he's got thousands of people who are investors in this company.
Speaker 4: I think it could become a headache though, when you're
Speaker 4: trying to manage expectations of people, especially if they have
Speaker 4: investment and they're looking for, you know, some level of
Speaker 4: return on the investment. It's like a one thousand, ten
Speaker 4: thousand people. Even if it's a hundred, that's only like
Speaker 4: one percent, but one hundred focal people, yeah, a lot.
Speaker 6: You know, Look, it's not the route that we've chosen
Speaker 6: to go down, and it's honestly just getting to a
Speaker 6: point where you can raise that type of money on crowdfunds.
Speaker 6: I mean, historically you couldn't go get a million dollars
Speaker 6: on the crowd.
Speaker 4: Obama changed that. Lord, I believe.
Speaker 6: That all the changes to those regulations were huge to
Speaker 6: to open that up. But that isn't how we've decided
Speaker 6: to grow. I mean, we're very I mean we're going
Speaker 6: to LA. Will Packer is a monster in LA made
Speaker 6: some of the biggest movies of our time, and so
Speaker 6: there's not a better person that I know of that
Speaker 6: could help us really understand, especially being from Atlanta.
Speaker 4: That's that's that's him.
Speaker 6: He's based in Atlanta but has an office in LA
Speaker 6: does business in LA. So our round was was strategic
Speaker 6: from like a location standpoint and a lot in a
Speaker 6: way a lot of businesses probably.
Speaker 4: Aren't in LA is one of these places like Atlanta
Speaker 4: where it could be like huge, but like you know,
Speaker 4: the in crowd, celebrities and entrepreneurs and all of that.
Speaker 6: Yeah, I mean, but to be honest with you, like
Speaker 6: we're not chasing that every day. It's about trying to
Speaker 6: figure out how do you put that person that you
Speaker 6: may know next to the tech entrepreneur who you've never
Speaker 6: heard of, and watching what they can do together. Like
Speaker 6: I'm more interested in that than just being in a
Speaker 6: room with somebody and being like, you see that person
Speaker 6: over there, Like that doesn't that doesn't make our business.
Speaker 6: Gotta go back to the mission of while we're trying
Speaker 6: to do this, the mission was never about being in
Speaker 6: a room and being.
Speaker 4: Able to spot people.
Speaker 6: It was about trying to figure out what happens when
Speaker 6: they can meet the person on the other side of
Speaker 6: the room or frankly that they would have never ever
Speaker 6: met before. Is where things get powerful, and we don't
Speaker 6: do that enough in our communities. Like the music people
Speaker 6: know the music people, and the film people know the
Speaker 6: film people.
Speaker 4: But like you know, when the film people meet the
Speaker 4: tech people and the tech people.
Speaker 6: Meet the big business corporate people, stuff starts to open
Speaker 6: up opportunity. I mean, there's a member, he goes to
Speaker 6: new member orientation. It's a doubt company making music. Count
Speaker 6: goes a new member orientation and he meets an executive
Speaker 6: at Turner and they strike up a conversation. A year later,
Speaker 6: they announced a deal between his company and Cartoon Network
Speaker 6: just because they went to a new member orientation. I'm
Speaker 6: looking for that type.
Speaker 3: Of stuff because I feel like the only other place
Speaker 3: you would get that is that like a once a
Speaker 3: year conference or a once a year summit.
Speaker 2: It's kind of like you've done that on a daily
Speaker 2: basis with these memberships.
Speaker 6: Even the conference that you it depends, man, because some
Speaker 6: conferences it's like, yo, it's for the music people.
Speaker 2: Right right. They're more specific to one thing.
Speaker 6: So I'm not saying that you can't make good relationships
Speaker 6: at the music conference. I mean, yeah, if you're an
Speaker 6: artist and you meet a producer, like that could be
Speaker 6: a dope collaboration. We just zoomed out a little bit
Speaker 6: more than that and have said, Okay, you're an artist,
Speaker 6: here's a tech founder, here's an engineer.
Speaker 4: Yeah, Like, and that's why it works when you're doing this.
Speaker 4: Do you have anything that's structured to like, because a
Speaker 4: lot of time for networking it's like double Dutch and
Speaker 4: it's like awkward just walk up to somebody randomly. So
Speaker 4: do you have like a thing like you know, you
Speaker 4: know Dave Change, You heard of him. He has a
Speaker 4: thing where he he's like a speed networking thing where
Speaker 4: you it's like he matches people up and it's like
Speaker 4: kind of forces you. Yeah, have you done anything like that?
Speaker 6: We've done events like that, But honestly, our approach to
Speaker 6: it is why we do an event almost every day,
Speaker 6: is that we're creating opportunities for those collisions that happen
Speaker 6: through the programs. So business doesn't always look like business
Speaker 6: when you when you walk into a room, and I
Speaker 6: think some of the best collaborations are not when we're
Speaker 6: there to exchange business cards and to learn about your
Speaker 6: like like for me that like a lot of times
Speaker 6: that starts to get it's a little weird, like we
Speaker 6: we don't do it that much. It's more of and honestly,
Speaker 6: there's not even a lot of business cards changed inside
Speaker 6: of tgs. It's more of like you're at the bar,
Speaker 6: what do you what do you? Yeah, like what do
Speaker 6: you do? And sometimes that person will be like, it's
Speaker 6: not not actually me that you want to know, but
Speaker 6: like I know that member over there and you definitely
Speaker 6: should talk to them. And so through through having different
Speaker 6: things happening, it's how people meet each other. So sometimes
Speaker 6: that's live music. Sometimes we host a lot of fireside
Speaker 6: chats and like kind of like interview style things. Sometimes
Speaker 6: it's workshops on how to learn more about a particular industry,
Speaker 6: and that's where you start to like have the collisions.
Speaker 6: That makes sense, but it's not as forced. I don't
Speaker 6: even like for what I do. I don't even have
Speaker 6: business cards. If you ask me for my card, I'm like,
Speaker 6: I don't.
Speaker 4: Yeah, no, I mean help you. Relationships is one of
Speaker 4: the most important. Is one of the things like even
Speaker 4: we learned with just having this platform, almost ninety percent
Speaker 4: of everything. We don't have a pr person everything that comes.
Speaker 4: So like we got Marek Cuban, but that's from a
Speaker 4: relationship that we had with Al Harrington.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 4: I actually knew Al Harrington fifteen years ago in prep school.
Speaker 4: So it's like these little things of like Dame Dash
Speaker 4: or somebody that we always wanted to get. We got
Speaker 4: Dame courtesy of Kenny Burns. Got Kenny Burns courtesy of
Speaker 4: our god Dave at United Mastis yep. So I don't
Speaker 4: think people fully understand the power of relationships.
Speaker 6: And it's like in long term relationships, right, It's like
Speaker 6: it's not the short term stuff. I think where people
Speaker 6: get it wrong fast is where they sit and they like,
Speaker 6: what's your title?
Speaker 4: What do you do? And then it's immediately trying to
Speaker 4: figure out what they can take. How can you help me? Yeah,
Speaker 4: you got to help them.
Speaker 6: You got to sit sometimes sometimes even like you can't
Speaker 6: help them. So whatever, Just be a person that is
Speaker 6: around and that is knowledgeable about whatever it is, and
Speaker 6: you will be surprised how over time people will be like, oh,
Speaker 6: that's what I call for whatever when I go to Atlanta,
Speaker 6: just just by being the person that was responsive and
Speaker 6: nice and that didn't want anything For as many activities
Speaker 6: and stuff that we do. I'm an introvert. I'm at
Speaker 6: my house most of the time and I don't ask
Speaker 6: anybody really for anything. And that actually leads to more
Speaker 6: opportunities because folks know when I call them, I'm normally
Speaker 6: calling them with an opportunity, not trying to get one right.
Speaker 6: And so if you're that person, and that's how I
Speaker 6: want to be known, I want folks to know that,
Speaker 6: Like Ryan, I'm not gonna call you and.
Speaker 4: Just be like, yo, you I need something.
Speaker 6: I'm I'm certainly not gonna do that, but I'm not
Speaker 6: even honestly the person's gonna.
Speaker 4: Call you and be like everything good?
Speaker 2: You know?
Speaker 4: Do you?
Speaker 2: I mean?
Speaker 4: You know?
Speaker 2: Let me?
Speaker 6: I just I want you when you see my my
Speaker 6: name come up on your phone to be like all right,
Speaker 6: he's calling there's something, there's something, there's somebody who he
Speaker 6: thinks should be on the platform. There's somebody, there's a
Speaker 6: brand that's called that needs like that, there's there's something
Speaker 6: moving so that like. And I limit my my interactions
Speaker 6: to stuff that I feel like is meaningful to people.
Speaker 6: And I don't and again, I don't take anything from
Speaker 6: from folks, especially if I don't think I can give
Speaker 6: them anything, you know, any anything in return. But long game, Like,
Speaker 6: it'll be five years yars later and you'd be like, Wow,
Speaker 6: that relationship from prep school paid off. I mean, yeah,
Speaker 6: you spent fifteen years to get that interview.
Speaker 4: It's how you got to look at it.
Speaker 3: Yeah, And that's the fact that we had a conversation myself,
Speaker 3: Jamal Shotty and actually in UIL University yesterday about generational
Speaker 3: wealth and generational aspirations. And it's funny because I heard
Speaker 3: you say something when you wanted to practice law, what
Speaker 3: type of law you were practicing, and you said civil
Speaker 3: rights law. And I know that your your grandfather played
Speaker 3: a major role in the civil rights movement, and you
Speaker 3: said that your parents are entrepreneurs. And so I'm listening
Speaker 3: to you talk to I'm seeing it the embodiment of it. Right,
Speaker 3: you had a civil rights activist, you had entrepreneur parents.
Speaker 3: I know that's your father now. And one of the
Speaker 3: things we discussed was how we lose things over generations,
Speaker 3: and it seems like you haven't lost anything. And so
Speaker 3: I know your father, So what what are some things
Speaker 3: that you want to make sure that your your daughter,
Speaker 3: correct daughter is gonna you're gonna be able to pass
Speaker 3: down to her.
Speaker 2: Man.
Speaker 6: That's the that's a that's a heavy question. I more
Speaker 6: than anything, I want her to know that she is capable.
Speaker 6: And again, this stuff sounds like bumper stickrets, but like
Speaker 6: it really is. It is true to me, like she
Speaker 6: is capable of accomplishing whatever it is that she wants
Speaker 6: to accomplish. I remember first week at Georgetown. I'm in
Speaker 6: I'm in class, and like the first week they go
Speaker 6: through this is X number of valedictorians. Everybody here is
Speaker 6: so smart, this is you're lucky to be here with
Speaker 6: all these smart people. And it's a pwis majority white folks.
Speaker 6: And I remember being in this class and this dude
Speaker 6: he spoke. I remember just looking at him and being like,
Speaker 6: you're like, I'm not that smart, but bro, you're not
Speaker 6: that neither, like and so we got to compete now,
Speaker 6: like like it just because I was kind of sitting
Speaker 6: in the room like, man, I don't know if I'm
Speaker 6: gonna really be able to I was a good student school,
Speaker 6: but like, am I gonna be able to bring it
Speaker 6: on this level? And I remember just hearing them and
Speaker 6: being like no, like my my parents and grandpa, like
Speaker 6: they didn't send me up here to play small with this,
Speaker 6: Like I can't. I can't go out being a plunk.
Speaker 6: That's how you know I felt about it. And so
Speaker 6: more than anything or I'm going with this is that
Speaker 6: I want her to know that whatever it is that
Speaker 6: she wants to go and do, that she can go
Speaker 6: and do it as big and as bad as anybody
Speaker 6: else h has or wants to do it, and that
Speaker 6: there's nothing that like I'm gonna knock down as many
Speaker 6: doors as possible. I think, like we do a bad
Speaker 6: job of talking about this in our community, Like I'm
Speaker 6: trying to knock down doors for her that she did
Speaker 6: so that she doesn't have to knock down I'm trying
Speaker 6: to speed up the process. Right, There's no to me,
Speaker 6: there there ain't no, like, ain't nothing in I don't
Speaker 6: get this, like you get we work on.
Speaker 2: The bottom, Like we're not starting back from the bottom.
Speaker 6: For what that's different than like her having work ethic.
Speaker 6: I think that like I'm gonna make sure that she's
Speaker 6: a person that like gets up to work every day. Yeah,
Speaker 6: but the idea that like I'm gonna work as hard
Speaker 6: as I'm working so that she can go all the
Speaker 6: way back and work the same way. Nah, I'm not
Speaker 6: doing that. So like I'm gonna call my friend from
Speaker 6: prep school and be like, yeah, my daughter has and
Speaker 6: then she's got to go in the room and be
Speaker 6: impressive at that point. And my job is to make
Speaker 6: sure that she shows up in that way. But I'm
Speaker 6: going to make the call like I don't and I'm
Speaker 6: gonna make sure that she knows that when she's in
Speaker 6: the room, don't feel smaller than anybody. Because half the time,
Speaker 6: you know, these entrepreneurs, these stories will come out and
Speaker 6: I'm man, like they just raised one hundred million, we
Speaker 6: sitting here raise three This is this is kind of
Speaker 6: like it's ridiculous, but kept fighting for Like it's not
Speaker 6: that they're more capable than us, is they have better access,
Speaker 6: but they're not more capable. And I want her to.
Speaker 4: Know that, like she she's as capable as what anybody else.
Speaker 6: And then white folks, whatever group you want to point out,
Speaker 6: like she can go and do that.
Speaker 4: So there you have it. So before we wrap it up,
Speaker 4: I wanted to get what's your what's your vision for
Speaker 4: the next five ten years for the for the company?
Speaker 4: Are you looking to expand into different other areas of business?
Speaker 4: How many locations you're looking at? Like, what's your what's
Speaker 4: your vision?
Speaker 6: We're gonna build ten locations. The goal is to be
Speaker 6: the biggest private club of our type in the world. Okay,
Speaker 6: I'm gonna keep all in America or some overseas. I've looked,
Speaker 6: I've looked internationally.
Speaker 4: We'll see I London, I love, I Love I love
Speaker 4: Toronto Adult City please.
Speaker 6: But I mean we've even looked, looked on the continent.
Speaker 6: It looked at Uh, looked at Ghanah. We've been in
Speaker 6: South Africa looking around. So I mean the map opens
Speaker 6: up for us, but at least ten and you know,
Speaker 6: we're rolling out in the next couple of weeks. The
Speaker 6: opportunity for people to really join the club, no matter
Speaker 6: where it is that they live and have access to
Speaker 6: our programming. So we want to be the biggest and
Speaker 6: best and most culturally relevant private club in the world
Speaker 6: that does kind of the way that we do things
Speaker 6: at you know, at a high level. So I'm gonna
Speaker 6: keep fighting every day until we get there.
Speaker 4: I love to see it, love to see it. So
Speaker 4: Bryan Pleasure, how can the people contact you? What's all
Speaker 4: the information? Social media, website, all of that stuff.
Speaker 6: You can find it. You can find us online at
Speaker 6: the gathering spots or on social media at the gathering spots.
Speaker 6: I'm at spot on our w but if you go
Speaker 6: to our website to the gatheringspot dot club you can
Speaker 6: find all information about the club.
Speaker 4: You have a Troy housekeeping.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: I want to give a shout out to Dave again.
Speaker 3: Shout to Dave, a boy at United Masses, because I
Speaker 3: was like, Dave, we're going to Atlanta, and he was like, Yo,
Speaker 3: give me a list of people.
Speaker 2: I was like, Oh, Ryan's on it, let's do it.
Speaker 2: And so we connected to Shout Andrea who oh he
Speaker 2: facilitated this day. And shout and Andrea who made sure
Speaker 2: that it happened.
Speaker 3: So yeah, and shout everybody that's been supporting on your
Speaker 3: leisure everybody on Pittreon that com. We got some new
Speaker 3: members at T five obviously you know you have access
Speaker 3: to E y L University, Nathan, Miss Brunson and Joseph.
Speaker 3: So we look forward to talking to you and shout
Speaker 3: everybody that's supporting the merch. We both got our new
Speaker 3: tracks was on. We're gonna We're gonna make sure you
Speaker 3: have Some of you are now officially alumni. So with that,
Speaker 3: with that comes from some of some great privileges. So
Speaker 3: welcome to the club.
Speaker 4: Yeah, shout out to Bem and Schmidty. Also, we got
Speaker 4: a loft in Atlanta where we run our merch out
Speaker 4: of It's my first time actually actually seeing it in person,
Speaker 4: and they're working very hard. It's very impressive operation that
Speaker 4: they got going on. So yeah, shout out to everybody
Speaker 4: that's making Early Alesia. It's not just me and Choice,
Speaker 4: a lot of people behind the scenes shot out.
Speaker 2: Yeah, the shot that might be Mike. Might we see
Speaker 2: him zoom within them.
Speaker 6: Streets man, Congratulations, see all though, appreciate it, y'all, y'all
Speaker 6: doing it for real.
Speaker 4: Appreciate you appreciate it. Brother, So all right, guys, it
Speaker 4: was a pleasure. We'll see you next week. Peace my
Speaker 4: graduates from my school.
Speaker 5: Bad drop bags, drop my drop bag, drop b drop.
Speaker 1: You just realized your business needed to hire someone yesterday.
Speaker 1: How can you find amazing candidates fast? Easy? Just use Indeed.
Speaker 1: Stop struggling to get your job posts seen on other
Speaker 1: job sites. With Indeed sponsored jobs, your post jumps to
Speaker 1: the top of the page for your relevant candidates, so
Speaker 1: you can reach the people you want faster. According to
Speaker 1: Indeed data, sponsored jobs posted directly on Indeed have forty
Speaker 1: five percent more applications than non sponsored jobs. Don't wait
Speaker 1: any longer. Speed up your hiring right now with Indeed,
Speaker 1: and listeners of this show will get a seventy five
Speaker 1: dollars sponsored job credit to get your jobs more visibility
Speaker 1: at indeed dot com slash pod Katz thirteen. Just go
Speaker 1: to Indeed dot com slash p O d k A
Speaker 1: t Z thirteen right now and support our show by
Speaker 1: saying you heard about Indeed on this podcast. Terms and
Speaker 1: conditions apply. Hiring Indeed is all you need