Speaker 1: An illegal alien from Guatemala charged with raping a child
Speaker 1: in Massachusetts. An MS thirteen gang member from Al Salvador
Speaker 1: accused of murdering a Texas man of Venezuelan charged with
Speaker 1: filming and selling child pornography in Michigan. These are just
Speaker 1: some of the heinous migrant criminals caught because of President
Speaker 1: Donald J. Trump's leadership. I'm Christy nom the United States
Speaker 1: Secretary of Homeland Security. Under President Trump, attempted illegal border
Speaker 1: crossings are at the lowest levels ever recorded, and over
Speaker 1: one hundred thousand illegal aliens have been arrested. If you
Speaker 1: are here illegally, your next you will be fined nearly
Speaker 1: one thousand dollars a day, imprisoned, and deported. You will
Speaker 1: never return. But if you register using our CBP home
Speaker 1: app and leave now, you could be allowed to return legally.
Speaker 1: Do what's right. Leave now. Under President Trump, America's laws,
Speaker 1: border and families will be protected.
Speaker 2: Sponsored by the United States Department of Homeland Security.
Speaker 3: All right, so you recently just closed around. I believe
Speaker 3: you raised ten million dollars as a reg CE equity
Speaker 3: crowdfunding correct.
Speaker 4: Yeah reg CF Yeah, ten million in three rounds, So
Speaker 4: all right, and you're the first black person, black man
Speaker 4: to do that. Yes, history has been made. Kudos to that, congratulated, gratulations.
Speaker 3: So can you explain to the audience what exactly does
Speaker 3: reg CF equity crowdfunding. There's a lot of different words here,
Speaker 3: What exactly does that mean? And why is it significant
Speaker 3: what you have been able to do?
Speaker 2: Well?
Speaker 4: I think it's very important because African American people and
Speaker 4: minorities have a really tough time raising capital for their businesses,
Speaker 4: going to banks to get loans, We're going to venture
Speaker 4: capital to raise capital. And so in twenty twelve, Barack
Speaker 4: Obama and Joe Biden kind of launched this regulation called
Speaker 4: the Jobs Act and then went into it went into
Speaker 4: law in twenty fifteen, which means any person can raise
Speaker 4: capital from the general public for their business, regardless of
Speaker 4: their net worth or annual income up to one million dollars.
Speaker 4: That was the first rule. So we did that and
Speaker 4: twenty twenty. So think about how important that is for
Speaker 4: people that aren't accredited investors to invest. But then someone
Speaker 4: like me that had a startup that wanted to raise
Speaker 4: capital but VC was not necessarily rout at the time,
Speaker 4: or me going to get a bank loan to raise
Speaker 4: an excess of a million dollars. So that's why that's
Speaker 4: important for any business that you want to start, primarily,
Speaker 4: you know what I'm saying, like small businesses, which fan
Speaker 4: base was at the time, to be able to raise
Speaker 4: capital and significant.
Speaker 5: For those who want to break into the tech space.
Speaker 5: What advice and insights would you give those who may
Speaker 5: feel like it's not for us. And if you can
Speaker 5: do your journey all over again, what steps would you
Speaker 5: wish you would have taken to get here faster?
Speaker 4: Ooh, everything for us? Everything. There's nothing that you know,
Speaker 4: we can't do as a people. So every single solitary
Speaker 4: thing that exists on the planet. You know, we can
Speaker 4: go to space, we can build tech, we can you know,
Speaker 4: invent cures for diseases, all kinds of stuff. So I
Speaker 4: don't think there's anything we can't do. I would say, study,
Speaker 4: you know, learn the landscape. I had to study the
Speaker 4: landscape of social media. I was kind of like a
Speaker 4: person that used social media a long time before, but
Speaker 4: just studying the landscape of how social media works, it
Speaker 4: was interesting to be able to like jump right in.
Speaker 4: I honestly would not change anything, And I know that
Speaker 4: sounds crazy. I feel like my inexperience in the space
Speaker 4: gave me an opportunity to go down my own path
Speaker 4: and not try to follow what other people have done,
Speaker 4: which probably would have wound up dead ends or maybe
Speaker 4: had me discouraged in what I was trying to do.
Speaker 4: So I love everything about what we've been able to do,
Speaker 4: So I think it's extremely important. I think it's extremely
Speaker 4: awesome and what we've been able to accomplish.
Speaker 6: So talking about being naive to the space, A lot
Speaker 6: of times when you're naive, you're extremely creative. And that's
Speaker 6: something that fan base has stood on being creative in
Speaker 6: a space because obviously we don't have the same capital.
Speaker 6: And when I say way, i'm talking about the company
Speaker 6: don't have the same capital as some of the big
Speaker 6: players inside the space. But what happens when you see
Speaker 6: your creativity being taken by a company or being implemented
Speaker 6: by a larger company with more capital, how do you
Speaker 6: guys combat that?
Speaker 4: How do you deal with it? You know it's a strategy,
Speaker 4: Well I don't. I have a belief that there's enough
Speaker 4: room for everybody. Doesn't mean that fan base will well
Speaker 4: just be you know, extinguished out of the market. But
Speaker 4: I also think that every social media platform has a lifespan.
Speaker 4: It will live, it will die, and so I look
Speaker 4: at Facebook as a legacy platform. I look at Instagram
Speaker 4: and TikTok and x now as middle aged platforms. So
Speaker 4: there's always going to be another social media platform because
Speaker 4: young people are always going to want to be involved
Speaker 4: in platforms that their parents are not on. They want
Speaker 4: to have their own communities, their own spaces, And so
Speaker 4: I look at fan base as more as a success
Speaker 4: or a future platform, as opposed to a platform that's
Speaker 4: just ready to be the number one platform in the
Speaker 4: world right now, but over the next five, six, seven years,
Speaker 4: I think that'll be you know the case. I'm not
Speaker 4: really worried because what I noticed it tells me a lot.
Speaker 4: It tells me that I always look at black culture
Speaker 4: and technology as kind of this relationship. It's like technology
Speaker 4: tech companies put a bunch of legos on the table, right,
Speaker 4: and then we come along and make the coolest shapes
Speaker 4: of the coolest objects out of the legos that are presented,
Speaker 4: and then these companies take those ideas and then implement
Speaker 4: them into their business and then boom, you've got this
Speaker 4: whole you know, entire you know, new technology that's been
Speaker 4: invented or pioneered by us. So I think we'll always
Speaker 4: innovate the space. I'm not worried about that. I'm used
Speaker 4: to that. It's amazing as the plan go ahead.
Speaker 3: Re stort, Well, I was going to ask you about
Speaker 3: equity crowdfunding. I think that it's important people just to
Speaker 3: have some level of understanding. So it's a way for
Speaker 3: people to actually invest in a company. It's beneficial for
Speaker 3: the companies because they can you know, get around the
Speaker 3: VC world and they can raise you know, substantial amounts
Speaker 3: of money. But from an educational standpoint, how do investors
Speaker 3: actually get paid on this? Because I know it can
Speaker 3: be difficult to receive you know, it's five hundred dollars.
Speaker 3: It could be like, you know, ten thousand people that contribute, right,
Speaker 3: So I think education is extremely important because when people
Speaker 3: aren't fully educated and they don't see a return or
Speaker 3: they don't know how to you know, get the money back, well,
Speaker 3: then it turns into a scam. So that that's important
Speaker 3: to fully educate people on the process of investing, what
Speaker 3: the expectations are, how it.
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Speaker 1: An illegal alien from Guatemala charged with raping a child
Speaker 1: in Massachusetts. An MS thirteen gang member from El Salvador
Speaker 1: accused of murdering a Texas man of Venezuelan charged with
Speaker 1: filming and selling child pornography in Michigan. These are just
Speaker 1: some of the heinous migrant criminals caught because of President
Speaker 1: Donald J. Trump's leadership. I'm Christy Noman, the United States
Speaker 1: Secretary of Homeland Security. Under President Trump. Attempted illegal border
Speaker 1: crossings are at the lowest levels ever recorded, and over
Speaker 1: one hundred thousand illegal aliens have been arrested. If you
Speaker 1: are here illegally, your next you will be fine nearly
Speaker 1: one thousand dollars a day. Imprisoned and deported, you will
Speaker 1: never return. But if you register using our CBP home
Speaker 1: app and leave now, you could be allowed to return legally.
Speaker 1: Do what's right. Leave now. Under President Trump America's laws,
Speaker 1: border and families will.
Speaker 2: Be protected sponsored by the United States Department of Homeland Security.
Speaker 3: Works when they can get paid out. If they do
Speaker 3: get paid out, the percentage like, can you just walk
Speaker 3: us through that? Because, like I said, I think that
Speaker 3: it's fully important. It's very important to educate people on
Speaker 3: that because if not educated, then you know, other narratives
Speaker 3: ought to be created.
Speaker 4: Yeah, so, I mean, you guys cover both areas on
Speaker 4: this show. But it's typically like pre ipo investing in
Speaker 4: post ipo investing, So post IPOs when the companies on
Speaker 4: the stock market, you can go buy shares NASDA, you
Speaker 4: know what I'm saying, and invest in companies and do
Speaker 4: stuff like that. Pre IPO investing is really a very
Speaker 4: rarefied air that's really not available to most people because
Speaker 4: of this rule called the accredited investor rule. And this
Speaker 4: rule has been in effect since nineteen thirty three, which
Speaker 4: means you have to have a networth of a million
Speaker 4: dollars minus your house or make two hundred thousand dollars
Speaker 4: a year for two consecutive years to even qualify to
Speaker 4: invest in an early stage company. So when you think
Speaker 4: about the Microsoft's, the Apples, the Ubers, the Ibms of
Speaker 4: the world, they were all invested in by already rich people.
Speaker 4: So it was rich people saying, hey, look, let's make
Speaker 4: a rule so that we get the earliest access to
Speaker 4: the best opportunities of investment. And then tell the general public,
Speaker 4: we're protecting you by not risking your capital to invest
Speaker 4: in these companies because you're an unsophisticated investor. We don't
Speaker 4: want you to squander your life savings or your mortgage
Speaker 4: or whatever it is you know to invest in these companies.
Speaker 4: But I always say, no one has a problem with
Speaker 4: us going to take our money and gamble five thousand
Speaker 4: dollars ten thousand dollars on in Vegas, or go buy
Speaker 4: lottery tickets five thousand dollars five hundred dollars worth of
Speaker 4: lottery tickets. And so when you pre IPO invest in
Speaker 4: the C stage companies such as Fan base. I always
Speaker 4: say this, you are with us to the moon or
Speaker 4: the ground, so you get along. You are along for
Speaker 4: the ride, which every investor is, and there's not a
Speaker 4: company out here. There are people that have invested in
Speaker 4: startups that have gone unicorn and have gone bust. They
Speaker 4: still take that same risk. The difference with equity crowdfunding
Speaker 4: is that people are able to invest in small amounts.
Speaker 4: Two hundred and fifty dollars five hundred dollars and I'm
Speaker 4: not saying that's not a lot of money, but sometimes
Speaker 4: there are minimums to invest in these other companies, these
Speaker 4: these pre IPO companies, fifty thou twenty five thousand, ten
Speaker 4: thousand dollars. That's a lot, five thousand dollars, that's a lot.
Speaker 4: But to be able to say I can take two
Speaker 4: hundred and fifty bucks, which is something that I would
Speaker 4: spend on food or some shoes or some drinks at
Speaker 4: the club and invest in an early stage company's kind
Speaker 4: of a really big deal. And I think being able
Speaker 4: to take advantage of this regulation is something that is
Speaker 4: game changing for people. So I understand that people are
Speaker 4: always concerned about scams, but that's why I think there's
Speaker 4: limited it's called limited risk.
Speaker 2: If limited risk is you're.
Speaker 4: Investing two hundred fifty dollars, five hundred dollars, one thousand dollars,
Speaker 4: there's risk involved, but it's not you risking one hundred thousand,
Speaker 4: two hundred thousand, half a million dollars. And sometimes you
Speaker 4: know people invest that in those those prec routes as well.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's a follow up to that.
Speaker 6: So when we go into raising, how do what determines
Speaker 6: the allocation that's going to be the amount raised? Right,
Speaker 6: because we'll see companies or will hear it, they're trying
Speaker 6: to raise two million, they're trying to raise five, ten, fifteen.
Speaker 6: What are the factors that you determined to say, like
Speaker 6: this is the amount that we need to raise? Is
Speaker 6: it marketing? Like what are the things that go into
Speaker 6: account when you're trying to raise a specific amount?
Speaker 4: Well, for me, I put into perspective of equity versus valuation.
Speaker 4: So if I would say, okay, I'm going to raise
Speaker 4: my very first round I raised, I was going to
Speaker 4: raise a million dollars at a twenty million dollar valuation, right,
Speaker 4: So that's that's like two and a half percent of
Speaker 4: the company or five percent, sorry, five percent of the company,
Speaker 4: So it's not really a lot of equity to give
Speaker 4: away for one million dollars. You know, to get five
Speaker 4: percent of the company away at a twenty million dollar valuation.
Speaker 4: So what you're typically looking to do for me is
Speaker 4: raised funds needed to run the business. But also be
Speaker 4: mindful of the equity that you're giving up in your business,
Speaker 4: because a lot of times when you think about angel
Speaker 4: investing or VC investing, especially when you don't have capital.
Speaker 4: And I'll say this too, also, I bootstrapped fan base
Speaker 4: in the beginning, so a lot of times tech startups
Speaker 4: need that early early capital, that one hundred thousand, one
Speaker 4: hundred and fifty thousand, ty thousand dollars to get started.
Speaker 4: I spent two hundred thousand dollars of my own money,
Speaker 4: so then I avoided giving up equity there, right, And
Speaker 4: a lot of times that's where you get hit the hardest.
Speaker 4: Those that first one hundred and fifty two hundred thousand
Speaker 4: dollars might cost you ten to fifteen percent of your company,
Speaker 4: depending on which angel investor, which route you take. So
Speaker 4: I avoided giving away equity there. Then when it got
Speaker 4: to the point where I needed to raise capital, I
Speaker 4: saw the landscape and said, Okay, this looks like the
Speaker 4: music business. To me, this looks like the vcs are
Speaker 4: the record companies artists, and the Billboard charts and the
Speaker 4: app store charts are very similar. So for me, I'm
Speaker 4: trying to stay independent as long as I can to
Speaker 4: put myself in a position to have leverage. So when
Speaker 4: I'm valuing my company, I'm still going by the same
Speaker 4: metrics that other companies have raised and set their valuation
Speaker 4: that but I'm being mindful of not taking too much capital,
Speaker 4: right because I don't want to say, Okay, fan base
Speaker 4: right now is probably at this current round we just
Speaker 4: did was value to eighty five million dollars, right, So
Speaker 4: if I said, Okay, I'm going to raise thirty million
Speaker 4: out of eighty five million out evaluation, that's like thirty
Speaker 4: three percent of the company. I don't need that. I
Speaker 4: don't need. I don't need that, you know, I don't
Speaker 4: need that kind of stuff. So for me, I say,
Speaker 4: let's keep the valuation low but enough to continue to
Speaker 4: scale the company. Now we're getting into escape velocity zone
Speaker 4: with fan base, where we need to raise large amounts
Speaker 4: of capital to spend that capital faster to build our
Speaker 4: team to build faster, better products, faster and move quicker.
Speaker 4: So I think we've proven ourselves in this RecF space.
Speaker 4: I think I'm done with the RECCF space. I think
Speaker 4: I've mastered it and I'm pretty well versed in it.
Speaker 4: But now we're moving into where we raise escape velocity capital,
Speaker 4: and that's extremely important.
Speaker 1: An illegal alien from Guatemala charged with raping a child
Speaker 1: in Massachusetts. An MS thirteen gang member from El Salvador
Speaker 1: accused of murdering a Texas man of Venezuelan charged with
Speaker 1: filming and selling child pornography in Michigan. These are just
Speaker 1: some of the heinous migrant criminals caught because of President
Speaker 1: Donald J. Trump's leadership. I'm Christy nom the United States
Speaker 1: Secretary of Homeland Security. Under President Trump, attempted illegal border
Speaker 1: crossings are at the lowest levels ever recorded, and over
Speaker 1: one hundred thousand illegal aliens have been arrested. If you
Speaker 1: are here illegally, your next you will be fine nearly
Speaker 1: one thousand dollars a day, imprisoned and deported, you will
Speaker 1: never return. But if you register using our CBP home
Speaker 1: app and leave now, you could be allowed to return legally.
Speaker 1: Do what's right leave now. Under President Trump, America's laws,
Speaker 1: border and families will be protected.
Speaker 2: Sponsored by the United States Department of Homeland Security,