Speaker 1: Coach, the energy out there felt different. What changed for
Speaker 1: the team today?
Speaker 2: It was the new game day scratches from the California
Speaker 2: Lottery players.
Speaker 3: Everything.
Speaker 2: Those games sent the team's energy through the roof.
Speaker 1: Are you saying it was the off field play that
Speaker 1: made the difference on the field.
Speaker 2: Hey, little play makes your day, and today it made
Speaker 2: the game.
Speaker 4: That's all of now, Coach, one more question play the
Speaker 4: new Los Angeles Chargers, San Francisco forty nine ers and
Speaker 4: Los Angeles Rams scratchers from the California Lottery. A little
Speaker 4: play can make your day. Peace made responsibilit must be
Speaker 4: eighteen years or older to purchase late or claim.
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Speaker 6: All right, so now we're gonna talk about VC. So
Speaker 6: we talked about vcs before. Previously, we had an XNFL
Speaker 6: play shot out to Mike Brown and he's doing equity
Speaker 6: crowdfunding and he went to Duke he used to work
Speaker 6: work in Silicon Valley, so he's Silicon Valley and so yeah,
Speaker 6: he told us about the whole VC process and all that.
Speaker 6: But like I said, one of the good things about
Speaker 6: Ernie Lisia is that it's kind of turned into like
Speaker 6: a college course in sorts where it's like you know,
Speaker 6: a lot of these things you hear about, but nobody
Speaker 6: really knows the inner workings of it. And from his perspective,
Speaker 6: he told us from the outside end, but you actually
Speaker 6: have a VC firm. Yes, so this is we're just
Speaker 6: getting the apple sauce from the apple orchard. Yes, so
Speaker 6: this is dope. So all right, all right, so we
Speaker 6: gotta tell a story on this. How did you How
Speaker 6: did you come into the venture capital world?
Speaker 8: Okay, so after I sold my business, I at that
Speaker 8: time was very passionate about building some kind of startup
Speaker 8: community in Harlem. So I did that and it initially
Speaker 8: started as like a little meet up that we call
Speaker 8: co found Harlem, and it just kind of turned into
Speaker 8: you know, at that point, because I sold the business,
Speaker 8: I had a lot more bandwidth and creativity and runway,
Speaker 8: and I wanted to make some shit happen, and so
Speaker 8: we added a little business model behind it. It was
Speaker 8: not a great one, but it turned into incubator of sorts.
Speaker 8: I convinced a developer to give me space for free.
Speaker 8: By the way, this is a thing you can I learned.
Speaker 8: I learned a lot through co Found Harlem because it
Speaker 8: was a non for profit that focused on economic development
Speaker 8: so improve in the area. And so that that got
Speaker 8: me to interface with politics.
Speaker 6: So clpful because people might not be familiar. Co Found
Speaker 6: Harlem was an initiative that you started to help small
Speaker 6: businesses in Harlem get capital right.
Speaker 8: Yes, it was the first incubator in Harlem, and so
Speaker 8: that kind of project I stepped up a little bit
Speaker 8: in my thinking. I got a little bit more macro
Speaker 8: because I was going from just operating a business.
Speaker 7: Now I'm helping other people operate.
Speaker 8: So I'm interfacing with politics because I discovered, oh shit,
Speaker 8: politicians care about the area getting better, but more.
Speaker 7: Important than politicians.
Speaker 8: Politicians have power, but real estate developers have a very
Speaker 8: long term interest in the area. I discovered longer term
Speaker 8: than politicians because politics are just like looking for the
Speaker 8: quick election.
Speaker 7: Yeah, these momokers are here forty fifty years.
Speaker 8: And so I pitched a developer to give me free space,
Speaker 8: and you know, it was a very.
Speaker 7: Bold thing, and she was like, why would I do that.
Speaker 8: I was like, well, because I'm gonna incubate businesses and
Speaker 8: the only thing I'm going to ask for them is
Speaker 8: that they stay in Harlem.
Speaker 9: Yeah, I think that's one of the things you said
Speaker 9: right that the businesses had to put their headquarters in Harlem.
Speaker 7: Yes, for four years.
Speaker 8: It ended up it started as four I ended up
Speaker 8: being two Oka and so anyway, so yeah, so we
Speaker 8: were able to get free space because they were like,
Speaker 8: all right, bet, like, we want the value of our
Speaker 8: proper our main business residence is to go up. So
Speaker 8: they had some retail that was opened, so our bet
Speaker 8: cool take that. So yeah, so we got the space,
Speaker 8: we got mentors, we made a little bit of buzz,
Speaker 8: we got companies applying. All of a sudden, I'm running
Speaker 8: an incubator. It's a non for profit incubator. I'm raising
Speaker 8: money through grants and fund you know, and sponsors and
Speaker 8: shit like that. And I inadvertently got into running kind.
Speaker 7: Of an event's business. We had a little bit of
Speaker 7: event That's.
Speaker 8: When I really started dipping my toe into content and
Speaker 8: building a community type business. And then eventually one of
Speaker 8: my biggest donors, who I didn't know. His name is
Speaker 8: David Rose. He's a very prolific angel investor. He's one
Speaker 8: of the most active in New York City. He pretty
Speaker 8: much was like, yo, I come from a big real
Speaker 8: estate family. You might not know that, but I want
Speaker 8: you to do what you did for cofound Harlem for
Speaker 8: us and learn the investment side.
Speaker 7: Can you describe what an angel funder?
Speaker 8: Yes, So an angel investor invests in startups with their
Speaker 8: own money. A VC of venture capitalists invest in startups
Speaker 8: with other people's money. And that's really the key distinction.
Speaker 8: And so David Rose is a prolific angel and he
Speaker 8: wanted me to He wanted to recruit me and help
Speaker 8: him run a fund, as a real estate technology fund.
Speaker 8: So we invested in real estate technology, not physical stuff,
Speaker 8: property management software. And I told Dave, I was like, yo,
Speaker 8: I don't really know any of this. He's like, John,
Speaker 8: we know real estate. You bring your energy.
Speaker 7: So anyway, fast forward a year.
Speaker 8: We learned, you know, we made some good investments, and
Speaker 8: like I sourced the deals on my own, like I
Speaker 8: did everything on my own because they was too busy
Speaker 8: to really give me guidance. But the most important thing
Speaker 8: I learned had nothing to do with the job itself.
Speaker 8: It had to do with like the family had generational wealth,
Speaker 8: Like they controlled thous dozens of thousands of units in
Speaker 8: New York City. I mean truly a legacy family, man.
Speaker 8: I mean, when you go to you know, Dizzey's Club,
Speaker 8: That's that's the Rose. You know the Rose Hall. If
Speaker 8: you go to the American Museum of Natural History, it's
Speaker 8: the Rose Planetarium. Like they're embedded in what it means
Speaker 8: to be New York. Mister Rose, as David's father, large
Speaker 8: and part funded Martin Luther King Junior's original Millienmire March
Speaker 8: in nineteen sixty three. I mean, we're talking about a
Speaker 8: legacy family. And so at that point, man, I really
Speaker 8: caught the bug. I was like, yo, I gotta go
Speaker 8: do this for us. So I went back uptown. I
Speaker 8: met the fellas whom are now my partners at ACP.
Speaker 8: They had their own background. They come from a more
Speaker 8: academic background, and they were fortunate to be exposed to
Speaker 8: finance early. You know, I learned this shit through being
Speaker 8: an entrepreneur. They learned this through like there are pathways
Speaker 8: and programs in place. There's one called SEO and there's
Speaker 8: one called MLT. These are placement programs specifically for people
Speaker 8: of color to break into investment banking. That's only in
Speaker 8: New York or this is nationwide, I want to say.
Speaker 8: And and yeah, these brothers actually all you know, they
Speaker 8: the group was bigger back then.
Speaker 7: They all met in these.
Speaker 8: Placement programs, all working for banks, Goldman, Bank of America,
Speaker 8: shit like that, and they decided like, yo, let's put
Speaker 8: our bread to work. So that you know, they started
Speaker 8: doing that, and they kept hearing about me, because that's
Speaker 8: one thing. If you are top of mind at whatever
Speaker 8: you do, you're going to get more opportunities. And so
Speaker 8: you know, eventually they came on my radar, we met,
Speaker 8: and we started investing together. And one thing to clarify,
Speaker 8: and this is really important because you know, people want
Speaker 8: to get into VC like they think, if you don't
Speaker 8: have a million dollars, you can't do it. But in reality,
Speaker 8: our first few checks were like ten or fifteen K
Speaker 8: by the way, split between like five guys, so it's
Speaker 8: like it was like literally two or three k each.
Speaker 3: So that's what you all came to the table, like
Speaker 3: three thousand piece.
Speaker 7: Yes, that's enough right now. Now, Look, if you.
Speaker 8: Can't make slash save enough to make two or three K,
Speaker 8: you're not ready. But if you're not bullshitting and you're
Speaker 8: serious about your shit, you can stack two K, two
Speaker 8: or three K.
Speaker 9: So five of you come up with three thousand, got fifteen,
Speaker 9: We put together fifteen and then what's the vision now?
Speaker 8: Like and then and then it's like, all right, bet,
Speaker 8: now where do we put it?
Speaker 3: You know?
Speaker 8: And so the quality of your deal flow increases over time.
Speaker 8: But at first, you know, we caught word of a
Speaker 8: local cafe that was looking for money.
Speaker 6: Cool.
Speaker 8: We put a little bit of bread into that, got
Speaker 8: to experience what it was like to be invested in
Speaker 8: small business. We caught word of a dental practice. A
Speaker 8: guy that was buying in dental practice is looking for money.
Speaker 7: Ooh.
Speaker 8: You know, because you start communicating y'all, I'm looking for
Speaker 8: businesses to invest in, you do get deal flow back.
Speaker 8: You put it out and you start getting deal flow back.
Speaker 8: We caught word of a venture company, and so we
Speaker 8: invested in a couple of different few different assets.
Speaker 7: The initial fifteen. No, we're grossing as we go.
Speaker 8: No. So it was like we did capital calls, which
Speaker 8: is like, hey, we found a deal, it's time to
Speaker 8: put bread up.
Speaker 7: So that's a capital call, and you hit the whole group.
Speaker 7: Between all the five of you, there was like six six,
Speaker 7: So there was like six all right.
Speaker 6: So now it's like, okay, we put the first fifteen,
Speaker 6: but you you have to put five more in.
Speaker 8: Each Yeah, I mean five was a lot for me
Speaker 8: at the time, but like you know, it was like, hey,
Speaker 8: we found a deal. Who can put what was really
Speaker 8: the question? And like if I was more liquid at
Speaker 8: that time and really liked the deal, I might have
Speaker 8: put four.
Speaker 7: And then we might've had.
Speaker 8: A partner who was like, ooh, I can only put
Speaker 8: one right now, and so it would vary and so yeah,
Speaker 8: over time.
Speaker 5: You know.
Speaker 8: The interesting thing, and this is credit to my partners
Speaker 8: at harm Capital, is like we always treated twenty five
Speaker 8: k like it was twenty five million, and now we've
Speaker 8: closed on twenty five million. So you know, so it's
Speaker 8: just crazy because you got to treat the baby step
Speaker 8: with as much respect as the end goal.
Speaker 6: So how did you all right, how did that work out?
Speaker 6: As far as the first early like look at even
Speaker 6: the first deal that you had a dentist office or
Speaker 6: the bakery. You gave him like what like five thousand
Speaker 6: dollars something like that or yeah.
Speaker 8: So so the way the actual mechanics is, I know
Speaker 8: Yl likes to get into that is so the way
Speaker 8: you do it is you form an LLC.
Speaker 7: Okay, okay, and so each of the partners become members
Speaker 7: in that LLC.
Speaker 8: You name that shit whatever you want, and yeah, so
Speaker 8: it ends up being what we call an SPV, which
Speaker 8: is a special purpose vehicle, which is pretty much fancy
Speaker 8: talk for saying like, hey, anytime we invest in said company,
Speaker 8: it's gonna come through this entity, right, And the LLC
Speaker 8: is a fascinating legal entity because it's a flow through entity.
Speaker 8: So it's like, you become members in that and like
Speaker 8: you on the company. Let's say we invest in you know,
Speaker 8: the cafe on that company's docs, on the formation documents
Speaker 8: for that company, they're going to see Harlem Capital Partners
Speaker 8: LLC on there.
Speaker 7: But then you.
Speaker 8: Know, if we make a profit or a loss, the
Speaker 8: profits and or losses from that entity flows through to
Speaker 8: each of the individual partners. So it's really just like
Speaker 8: a like a shield. It's like a step step away
Speaker 8: is removed. So anyway you make an LLC, you invite whomever,
Speaker 8: for anyone listening who wants to create a little syndicate.
Speaker 8: That's what you call it, an angel syndicate. You invite
Speaker 8: homies that you think are serious, you join the l
Speaker 8: see you brand it, come up with a cool name,
Speaker 8: and then you start communicating into the world at large
Speaker 8: that you're looking to invest, and you know, and then
Speaker 8: you look for deal flow, and that's you know, that's
Speaker 8: how it works. And so we would put ten k,
Speaker 8: and then I think we ended up doing like six
Speaker 8: deals as angels, ten, fifteen, twenty if it was a
Speaker 8: hot deal, ten if I was low on cash, and like, man,
Speaker 8: it's not really about We haven't seen a dollar, by
Speaker 8: the way, from any of the Angel investments we've made.
Speaker 8: In fact, we've lost money. Yeah, the cafe closed down.
Speaker 8: You know, we've seen some distributions from the dental practice,
Speaker 8: but not really a lot of stuff doesn't work out
Speaker 8: according to plan. But the most important thing is being
Speaker 8: on the ride. Like I don't listen to anyone in
Speaker 8: business who hasn't lost more money than me. Like, you
Speaker 8: gotta get skin in the game. I can't take you
Speaker 8: serious if you don't have skin in the game. Like
Speaker 8: you guys got cameras, you got mics.
Speaker 3: Lost a lot of money if this shit.
Speaker 8: Wouldn't have worked, Like you know, you got the focus right,
Speaker 8: you got the mac butt, Like you know what I'm saying.
Speaker 8: Like you guys are putting bread in you put bread
Speaker 8: up to buy the shirts. You're putting bread in right,
Speaker 8: and and so anyway, with the angel investing thing, it's
Speaker 8: a lot more important to get in the game.
Speaker 7: And you will not know this why.
Speaker 8: At the beginning you asked me, like, yo, if I
Speaker 8: got any book tips, and I said, I don't really
Speaker 8: fuck with books, because you will not know what acid
Speaker 8: class you like until you invest in it.
Speaker 7: I thought I loved.
Speaker 8: Investing in small business, and then I discovered I really
Speaker 8: don't like this ship because when I was meeting with
Speaker 8: the business owners, we were talking about napkins and forks,
Speaker 8: and I'm like, dude, you know, I want to talk
Speaker 8: about scale, and you know, like this just wasn't It
Speaker 8: wasn't for me.
Speaker 7: I discovered that I like real estate a lot.
Speaker 8: I love real estate. I wouldn't have known that unless
Speaker 8: I jumped in. So I'm a really big fan of
Speaker 8: jumping in. And if you can't jump in a big scale,
Speaker 8: you're jumping in a small scale.
Speaker 7: Just jump in. So how does that work when it's
Speaker 7: six of you?
Speaker 9: Right as far as decisions, is it like majority or
Speaker 9: if it's like you know what, you don't like it,
Speaker 9: you're just not part.
Speaker 7: Yeah, So it has changed over time.
Speaker 8: So when we were an angel syndicate, it was like, hey,
Speaker 8: are you interested.
Speaker 7: Some folks might have said no.
Speaker 8: But also, you know, going back to this business is
Speaker 8: really a people first thing. You know, it's also respect
Speaker 8: for your partners, because your partner might find a good
Speaker 8: deal and you know, might have gotten in a good
Speaker 8: rapport with that founder and then two months in it's
Speaker 8: time to invest, and like, you know, I want to
Speaker 8: support the fact that my partner's excited about this deal,
Speaker 8: and I'm gonna put I'm not going to step up big.
Speaker 8: I might put up a thousand and be like yo,
Speaker 8: all right, cool, you know, put that in the deal. Conversely,
Speaker 8: when it's a hot deal, when it's by the way,
Speaker 8: hot deals, you're not they're not pitching you, you're pitching
Speaker 8: them to get in. Hot deals are oversubscribed, meaning a
Speaker 8: company typically will raise a finite amount of capital that's
Speaker 8: what we call around at a fixed evaluation. Okay, so
Speaker 8: they'll say, hey, I'm raising one point five million dollars
Speaker 8: at an eight million dollar valuation, i e. They're giving
Speaker 8: away twenty percent of the company. And then if it's
Speaker 8: a high deal, you get good funds in investing, and
Speaker 8: so like a fund you know, is like for anyone
Speaker 8: maybe doesn't know, is like you know entrepreneurs who go
Speaker 8: out there and rate.
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Speaker 1: Coach, the energy out there felt different. What changed for
Speaker 1: the team today?
Speaker 2: It was the new game day, scratches from the California
Speaker 2: Lottery players, everything. Those games sent the team's energy through
Speaker 2: the roof.
Speaker 1: Are you saying it was the off field play that
Speaker 1: made the difference on the field.
Speaker 2: Hey, little play makes your day, and today it made
Speaker 2: the game. That's all for now, Coach, One more question.
Speaker 4: Play the new Los Angeles Chargers, San Francisco forty nine
Speaker 4: ers and Los Angeles Rams Scratchers from the California Lottery.
Speaker 4: A little play can make your day. Peace made responsibily.
Speaker 4: Must be eighteen years or older to purchase plate or claim.
Speaker 8: Paise money from the market. You know, in institutions and downmns,
Speaker 8: shit like that. And you know they have a great
Speaker 8: brand name. And over time, especially from Silicon Valley, you've
Speaker 8: had prestige funds emerge. These are funds that have proven
Speaker 8: track record that they know how to spot winners Sequoia, Benchmark,
Speaker 8: Kleiner Perkins.
Speaker 7: Whenever you see them on the cap table.
Speaker 8: The cap table is short for capitalization table, which is
Speaker 8: the page on your company's documents that shows who owns
Speaker 8: what and so the cap table, you'll see a list
Speaker 8: and it'll say NAS invested fifty K owns too PID. Yeah,
Speaker 8: and so he also invests an angel you know such
Speaker 8: and such invested this.
Speaker 7: So the cap table. So we have this thing in VC.
Speaker 8: You want to be on cap tables, you know, like
Speaker 8: a lot of motherfuckers talking shit.
Speaker 7: But I never see you on the cap table. You know,
Speaker 7: you might be at.
Speaker 8: The club table, but I don't see you at the
Speaker 8: cat table at the crap table. Yeah right right, so
Speaker 8: that's good on the cat table.
Speaker 7: You ain't on the cat table.
Speaker 8: So so so anyway, Yeah, when you see a marquee fund,
Speaker 8: meaning a top fund on the cat table, it's a
Speaker 8: competitive deal. That founder has options, and we were fortunate
Speaker 8: a couple of times to squeeze into a very competitive deal.
Speaker 8: And in those deals, when a deal is hot, you
Speaker 8: want to make sure you as much as it costs you.
Speaker 8: I don't care if you got to pawn your fucking watch,
Speaker 8: get in the deal in as big of a way
Speaker 8: as you can.
Speaker 7: You might lose that money. I'm not gonna lie.
Speaker 8: But when you can get a good amount of exposure
Speaker 8: into that deal, you know those deals that end up
Speaker 8: doing ten twenty.
Speaker 6: X, I'm an ask you a question for some good
Speaker 6: deal before I forget this. The reason the reason why
Speaker 6: I like this podcast is that we get to interview
Speaker 6: people and nobody. Like the last guest that we had
Speaker 6: was talking about stocks shot the Wallstreet Trapper and he
Speaker 6: was saying how it excites him and like you I
Speaker 6: could see like it's like you've seen paid in full before.
Speaker 7: Yeah, okay, so so and.
Speaker 6: Mitch, he was like I love a game. Obviously he
Speaker 6: was talk about illegal game. But business is like a
Speaker 6: it's like a competitive sport. So it's like, that's what
Speaker 6: I really loved, Like even with Steve Jobs when he
Speaker 6: said that it's the process that really excites him, not
Speaker 6: even getting this is the journey. And it's like for
Speaker 6: people I really want everybody to understand, even like with
Speaker 6: the podcast, it's like it's ups and downs, but it's
Speaker 6: an exciting ride.
Speaker 3: Sure, and I could tell it.
Speaker 6: I could see the excitement when you're telling a story,
Speaker 6: and it's like for people that have never been entrepreneurs, I.
Speaker 3: Just encourage just to have that feeling.
Speaker 8: Yeah.
Speaker 3: Man, it's like a natural.
Speaker 7: The feeling is everything, bro.
Speaker 3: But I wanted to ask you, so, how do you all?
Speaker 8: Right?
Speaker 6: So you started as Angel investors and you said that
Speaker 6: didn't really work out for you guys for the most part,
Speaker 6: it wasn't profitable.
Speaker 8: Yeah, I mean so, so one thing to know is
Speaker 8: like when you make an angel investment, the yield curve
Speaker 8: on it, meaning the amount of time with which you're
Speaker 8: expected to make anything back, if at all, is typically
Speaker 8: seven to nine years because that's the average life cycle
Speaker 8: of a business. And so when I say we haven't
Speaker 8: made any money, it's like a chance for sure, and
Speaker 8: we're in some companies that were expecting to make some
Speaker 8: money back. But like you, I quickly found out, like
Speaker 8: it's funny because you know I'm making you know, we're
Speaker 8: making deals and every time we make a deal, and
Speaker 8: we announced that deal, and so my social was blowing up.
Speaker 7: Yo, your angel.
Speaker 8: I'm like, yeah, yeah, you know, and then I'm I'm like, fuck,
Speaker 8: I'm not seeing any money. Like it just literally feels
Speaker 8: like you're just like your money's just disappearing because it
Speaker 8: goes to work. And then what happens for anyone who
Speaker 8: doesn't know how you make money adventure? You only make
Speaker 8: money in venture on a liquidation event, which is the
Speaker 8: company is sold. You do not contrary to small business investing,
Speaker 8: if you invest in an ice cream shop, barbershop, restaurant, whatever,
Speaker 8: you're yielding.
Speaker 7: Profits, so you have a profit split.
Speaker 9: So because the example would be like when nas Or
Speaker 9: in his firm invest in Ring and then Ring gets
Speaker 9: put by Amazon.
Speaker 8: Or pill pack correct right, pill pack. So if you
Speaker 8: invest in a restaurant, you're making quarterly dividends. You get
Speaker 8: cash flows in venture because you're typically reinvesting profits in
Speaker 8: the business because growth and profits are inversely correlated. If
Speaker 8: you want to grow, you got to sacrifice profits, and
Speaker 8: so it's a very different kind of investing game. So
Speaker 8: you don't invest in a startup with the pretense that
Speaker 8: you're going to get profits.
Speaker 7: You would be hurting that business. So the trick.
Speaker 8: Is jumping in and getting in early at a nice valuation.
Speaker 8: On average, we invest in businesses along the businesses that
Speaker 8: are coming from the Midwest are on average valued between
Speaker 8: four to six million inventure and businesses along the coast
Speaker 8: are valued between eight to ten million. So now eighty
Speaker 8: percent of m and A, which is mergers and acquisitions,
Speaker 8: are happening right now between the one hundred and fifty
Speaker 8: to two hundred million dollars price point. Like gimblet Media
Speaker 8: got acquired for two hundred million by Spotify or whatever.
Speaker 8: If I would have gotten into Gimli Media when they
Speaker 8: were worth ten million, you do the math on that.
Speaker 8: You get in at ten, they get sold at two hundred. Whoop,
Speaker 8: you know you got a twenty x. So what money
Speaker 8: did you put into that deal? You know, if you
Speaker 8: put in one hundred, that'll tell you what you net
Speaker 8: at the back end. So anyway, I'm just clarifying how
Speaker 8: you actually make money in venture. You get in into
Speaker 8: the sweet spot, and then that business grows and if
Speaker 8: you're fortunate, it gets acquired and then you net.
Speaker 9: What's the difference between the valuation of cities that are
Speaker 9: inland and the ones against the coast.
Speaker 7: That's a great question.
Speaker 8: And the real reason that businesses are priced differently based
Speaker 8: on geographies is due to cost of living.
Speaker 7: Okay, so like.
Speaker 8: Businesses make, you might make more as an individual in
Speaker 8: New York, and so as a result, employees are more expensive,
Speaker 8: offices are worth more and so, and there's also more
Speaker 8: capital in that market, and so you can usually justify
Speaker 8: a higher price point, Whereas I love investing in businesses
Speaker 8: from the Midwest because they're reasonably priced.
Speaker 7: In fact, they say this is a nugget.
Speaker 8: Vcs say that the actual valuation, the true valuation of
Speaker 8: a business is the Midwest valuation. And then when you
Speaker 8: go out to the coast you get inflated because when
Speaker 8: you're in Silicon Valley, those motherfuckers will pay any price
Speaker 8: for any business. And so we actually rarely invested, We
Speaker 8: haven't invested in a single business from the valley, because
Speaker 8: by the time they come to us, they're like, oh, yeah,
Speaker 8: we're worth twenty million dollars. I'm like, show me a revenue.
Speaker 8: They got one hundred k revenue. I ain't paying twenty
Speaker 8: million for one hundred k revenue. So, like there's one
Speaker 8: thing to know as well. It's like there's actual different
Speaker 8: investment climates among the coasts. The West coast is very like, yo,
Speaker 8: we're looking at scale by any means, and the East
Speaker 8: Coast is a little bit more like conservative, We're looking
Speaker 8: for revenue and a little bit more modest growth, but revenue.
Speaker 6: So how did you guys go? You have twenty five
Speaker 6: million dollar war chests right now.
Speaker 8: Yeah, yeah, it's a little bit beyond that. And we
Speaker 8: get this a lot because people say, yeah, I want
Speaker 8: to break into VC. Well, there's a number of ways.
Speaker 7: You either.
Speaker 8: Work at a venture firm, good luck breaking into one,
Speaker 8: they're very exclusive, or like the path that we took,
Speaker 8: we started as angels, and eventually once you have enough
Speaker 8: of a track record you can you can go out
Speaker 8: to the market as a whole and say hey, here's
Speaker 8: my thesis, like here's my idea, and it could be
Speaker 8: like our shit is around investing in the you know,
Speaker 8: diverse founders, like we invest in women and minorities. But
Speaker 8: that doesn't have to be your thesis. Your thesis could
Speaker 8: be around sports, Your thesis could be around music. Yo,
Speaker 8: I want to create a fund that invests in you know,
Speaker 8: music companies, sports companies, sewage, you name it. And the
Speaker 8: true test of whether you can raise a fund or
Speaker 8: not is if you can convince enough people to believe
Speaker 8: in your ship. And what I found out raising money
Speaker 8: is there's a lot of montherfuckers with money for wealth.
Speaker 9: You said you said that the founding the goal is
Speaker 9: to invest in one thousand companies over the next twenty years, right, sir,
Speaker 9: So that would mean like fifty companies, is that the goal?
Speaker 9: Like you're doing fifty companies, we're.
Speaker 8: Doing a thousand founders over twenty years. So like if
Speaker 8: we invest in one company has four founders, we're counting
Speaker 8: that as four. But yeah, the way our fund model
Speaker 8: is structure. Right now, we're looking at doing uh, you know,
Speaker 8: thirty deals out of this first fund and then you
Speaker 8: know it'll accelerate, so it's not very linear. It's like
Speaker 8: our first fund might be twenty five to forty million
Speaker 8: our second fund is going to be one hundred million,
Speaker 8: then court you know, then quarter billion and then a billion.
Speaker 7: You know, we're you know, we're thinking pretty big.
Speaker 6: So it's our relationship people. You build relationship people when
Speaker 6: they invest in your fund.
Speaker 7: Yep, that's right.
Speaker 8: The same way that entrepreneurs are asking for money, we're
Speaker 8: doing the same ship.
Speaker 3: Okay.
Speaker 8: And so the biggest misconception, like when we close our
Speaker 8: fund and we make the announcement, I think it's gonna
Speaker 8: make a very big splash because we're gonna be like,
Speaker 8: you know, young of color, and I think we we're
Speaker 8: gonna raise a considerable amount. People are gonna look at
Speaker 8: the headline and automatically think.
Speaker 5: That you.
Speaker 7: Our bread.
Speaker 8: Okay, full disclosure, not our It's very important that.
Speaker 6: A lot of times people that Angel in the VC
Speaker 6: they kind of get that mix and they think, if
Speaker 6: you have a VC firm, all of that money is
Speaker 6: your money that you're putting up.
Speaker 8: Yeah, and if you want so, I'll just break this
Speaker 8: down quickly. The fund my all right, this is how
Speaker 8: you make money. When you cross over from ANGEL to VC.
Speaker 8: You get paid a what's called the two and twenty.
Speaker 8: That's the fee structure. So the two refers to your
Speaker 8: management fee. So whatever the total size of your fund is.
Speaker 8: This is why your incentivized to go for a big fund.
Speaker 8: Whatever the total size of that fund is, two percent
Speaker 8: of that annually is what you make as your fee.
Speaker 8: So on a twenty five million dollar fund, two percent
Speaker 8: of that is five hundred grand, So you get five
Speaker 8: hundred grand every year to pay for a salary, office, travel, everything. Now,
Speaker 8: if you know, with a team of four in office
Speaker 8: and stuff like that, like you know, you might make
Speaker 8: one hundred g's on salary, Like that's nice, but you're
Speaker 8: not going to get rich off of that. You're not
Speaker 8: meant to get rich off of that.
Speaker 7: The LP. There's two kinds of partners in the fund.
Speaker 8: There's the GP, the general partner, which is the partner's
Speaker 8: putting in the work, and then there's the LP's a
Speaker 8: limited partners, the person who's investing. So your LPs do
Speaker 8: not want you to get rich off the fees because
Speaker 8: then you would never work. You get rich on the
Speaker 8: other side. I remember I said it's two and twenty
Speaker 8: too is a management fee. The twenty is what we
Speaker 8: call the carry, and the carry is your share of
Speaker 8: the profits. So now because we can, because we can
Speaker 8: get in a little detail.
Speaker 7: I'll just explain this.
Speaker 8: Typically, you as the GP, if you set out to
Speaker 8: go raise a fund, your commitment to the fund. You
Speaker 8: put up one percent of the total fund. Okay, So
Speaker 8: if my partners and I are set out to raise,
Speaker 8: as an example, twenty million, one percent of that is
Speaker 8: two hundred thousand. So we have to come up with
Speaker 8: two hundred g's across you know, the four of us. Okay,
Speaker 8: bet now, but here's a mind blowing ship. Remember I
Speaker 8: said the twenty is that refers to your share of
Speaker 8: the profits, which is twenty percent. So we're making twenty
Speaker 8: percent of the profits on twenty million. So it's just
Speaker 8: like you know, I guess it might be complicated. It's
Speaker 8: like ingrained in me now, so it's not the complicated
Speaker 8: to me now. But like in a nutshell, you're if
Speaker 8: you can put together two hundred g's, it's buying you
Speaker 8: a ticket to get the profits on twenty million.
Speaker 3: Like, so that's two million.
Speaker 8: Well, it depends on how much money you make with
Speaker 8: the twenty million, and that's the incentive. So it's like,
Speaker 8: can you make this twenty million and turn it into
Speaker 8: one hundred million. If you do, you get twenty percent
Speaker 8: of that, you get twenty million millions.
Speaker 3: Yeah, you know.
Speaker 7: So it's like it gets complicated, but like.
Speaker 6: How can people if they want to move on to
Speaker 6: the next segment? But I want to So if people
Speaker 6: are interested in like pitching their business, It's like shark tank.
Speaker 3: How realistic is shark tank?
Speaker 8: Shark Tank is to angel investing what Indiana Jones is out.
Speaker 10: So they're not coming in front of you and you're not,
Speaker 10: So how do they Jones to Indiana Jones?
Speaker 7: Nothing like that shit?
Speaker 8: Yeah, So yeah, the real way is like people send
Speaker 8: in a pitch deck and we you know, and then
Speaker 8: you know, if the pitch deck looks good, then we
Speaker 8: will sign apart. There's different levels of a deal screen,
Speaker 8: so you know, pitch deck looks good, If not, then
Speaker 8: we'll we'll we pass pretty quick. And we see a
Speaker 8: thousand deals a year. We invest in ten deals a year,
Speaker 8: so we're talking about a one percent investment rate.
Speaker 7: So if we see a hot deal.
Speaker 8: One partner's jumping on the phone with that founder, then
Speaker 8: that partner reports back with about a page of notes
Speaker 8: to the rest of the team.
Speaker 3: Yo.
Speaker 8: Cool, And then if there's interest, then another partner will
Speaker 8: jump in as many partners as are interested. Then we
Speaker 8: jump in with the full with the full team, we
Speaker 8: try and get a fuller team situation, and we learn more.
Speaker 8: We have interns, so then our interns might go and
Speaker 8: do market research and analyze what we can expect to make,
Speaker 8: and then interest grows. And usually you have every partner
Speaker 8: leads their own deal at the fund. So it's all
Speaker 8: about like a right, what deals? What deals am I getting?
Speaker 8: Versus Brandon versus Jerry versus on reed, We're all looking
Speaker 8: for our own deals. And to your question about voting,
Speaker 8: we have a conviction over consensus philosophy. Like it's not
Speaker 8: like all of us have to agree. It's like if
Speaker 8: someone really worked up about this deal, and can you
Speaker 8: get people excited, You're.
Speaker 7: Judging off the passion of one of your partners for.
Speaker 8: Sure, and their ability to defend the deal. And we'll
Speaker 8: test you. We'll he check each other and grill each other, like, yo,
Speaker 8: I don't know if this deal is gonna make it.
Speaker 8: Like like I try to get a media deal through
Speaker 8: and I couldn't get it through. It got shut down
Speaker 8: because my partners were like yo, you know, the media
Speaker 8: climate is really hairy right now. You know Vice and
Speaker 8: BuzzFeed and Refinery twenty nine. You know they're not doing
Speaker 8: too well and they're the big dogs, so how the
Speaker 8: small dogs and you just it's a mental game.
Speaker 7: And if you can get people excited, then.
Speaker 8: We close the deal and we say, all right, bet
Speaker 8: we're gonna invest X amount and then we just wire
Speaker 8: them the money and then we put the prayers up there.
Speaker 6: You have it, ladies and gentlemen, one O one, one
Speaker 6: O three, one o four on one oh five. That
Speaker 6: was it, right, Venture capital and Angel Investments.
Speaker 2: My graduates from my school being forced bad drops drop,
Speaker 2: Mike drop.
Speaker 3: Bad drop drop.
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