How you too can raise $18.2 Million w/ Clarence Bethea

technology products built by tech startups were deeply technical. So if you're Intel, you're building chips and motherboards. A lot of the companies I meet today, I don't mean this to denegrate their products. The products they're building have really low technical risk. You're building a retail experience. You're gonna start on Shopify. Do you really need Google engineer to help you get started on Shopify? I don't think so.

So the way I think about it is, if your product has relatively low technical risk, the most important thing is to get it felt, And if that's done by an agency or an a worker to get you to view one, I think that's totally fine. I'm Will Lucas Mrs Black Tech, Green Money. I'm gonna introduce you to some of the biggest names, some of the brightest minds and brilliant ideas. If you're black in building are simply using tech to secure your bag, this podcast is for you.

Claren's Bethew is founder and CEO at ups, a technology company offering consumers an alternative when purchasing extended warranties for electronics like mobile devices and home appliances. He recently closed an eighteen million dollars Series A funding round, as Clarence

about the counts of that. With several black owned startups announcing large fundraises recently Upsee among them, is there still validity to the idea that there's still so little progress to show for black founders raising sufficient capital to build and scale their businesses. Do I believe that that narrative

has changed? No. I think oftentimes we look at when ye know Will has a show, right, or Clarence raises some money, or you know, this black black person does this one thing, and we started looking at the narrative like, look, it's getting better and and the truth is I don't believe that. Is it's it's gotten better for me, which is okay, it's great, But I'm also not I'm not in this game just for me. I'm in this for

for all of us. So I think why I've been been blessed and lucky and fortunate, Um, it's we still have such a long way to go, you know. So we see like these winds that people like you just raised eighteen million dollars, people like Squire just raised a bunch of money, and there's there's so many more people who have raised money, both institutionally and even like with crowdfunding.

And I wonder, like, what if you could give me like your you know, two minute, three minute state of black companies being funded, what would you say it looks like at present day? I think at present day, what we see is what Solange and I'm doing at the Squire, right, we see up see, we see what Steven and those guys are doing over at a kids company about like we see those moments, but remember those moments are like they're in tech Crunch, the Black Enterprise that you know

that then all of these other things. And and I still hear so many stories every day of founders with great ideas, um, great businesses who are not getting funded at the rate of our counterparts again funded so ideas on the napkin or I haven't quite hit traction yet. And we know that our counterparts, like they get the opportunity to figure out traction and figure out go to go to market. Oftentimes we don't get a chance to figure that stuff out. And so I don't think we're

any better off than we were two years ago. They're just there's more news around us because what happened with George Floyd anywhere happened without right. So there's it is. It is pretty cool to announce a black person's raise or black person show or a black person X right

now because you're gonna get clicks. Yeah, And when I read your um and it's been well documented that you came through tech Stars program when you had this idea for this warranty business, and I wonder, you know, how did you go for capital first or did you go

for customers first? If you went for customers first, you know, how did you get that attraction when you know, if you're selling warranties, that means you gotta have the money to be able to put it out if I break my device, right, Yeah, I got lucky in the early days, I had some former angel investors who put a little bit of money and some time and some built out our first kind of m v P, and so out of the gate I had, you know, we while we were going at the customers, we had a little bit

of money in the bank of folks that could help us. UM. But when we got into tech Stars. Tech Stars really turned me on too, like what venture was and what it is and what it can be. Because before tech Stars I didn't know how to raise that and raise one venture dollar. I didn't understand how you play the

venture game. I didn't understand how you pitch. I just know I had a bunch of gumption to try to do this, but I didn't know the game there was in in tech Stars where like, hey, okay, you have all this possess in this charisma, now let us teach you how to actually play the game the way it's supposed to be played, so you can actually get money in the bank. So I would say we probably went for customers first UM and didn't learn how to raise money later. So let's talk about that tech Stars program

because so clarance about here. Today. Let's say you are reviewing that Clarances application to tech Stars. Um, because you successfully got into the program. If you're reviewing your application as the reviewer, what is it in histories Clarence application that says, you know what, this guy's got something, then let's let him in. Because there's the thousands of people who apply to these pro tenies accelerators and boot camps,

and you got in. So if you were reviewing your application from that day, what was it that said, yeah, yeah, he's somebody we want. I don't believe it had us getting in. It didn't have anything to do with our application. I think us getting in had everything to do with how bold I was walking into the program. Um, some of it was fake boldness because I didn't internally, I really didn't feel like I just I deserved to be and and and you're asking me to go back to

a time before I know what I know now. But going into the program, we have people from Silicon Valley, we have people from New York. I was really really intimidated. I was. I was. My wife would tell you I was scared because I was, Wow, there's you know, there's a woman from Silicon Valley who was at HP for all these years and like had this network and was great, and I think I just had to be bold. And you know, you know, my story is well documented. Like

I'm just a street kid, man. I come from the hood. I grew up, you know, doing all the wrong things that you bossibly can do. So in times of of of of being nervous and in times of like not knowing what to do, it's kind of the only thing that you can turn to is your confidence and being bold. And I would say that is what I was just bold enough to think, Yeah, I can come in, I can do this um and and it's worked out so

far for us. So let's let's talk. Let's dig into your history a little bit, because I wonder what was that moment where you realized what Silicon Valley was and what venture capital was to be nervous walking into those rooms, like you said, you said yourself, you know, you were a street kid. So so many of us come from these backgrounds, and we and too many in our neighborhoods still don't know what silok and Valley is. What was your introduction to that world beyond you know, wanting to

build something, which we'll talk about. What was your introduction to that specific world that says, you know, this is a little bit intimidating because this is could be my future. You know, I'm walking into a room that people who in many ways, not all of the ways, but in many ways hold the keys. Right. My first foray with the Silicon Valley was actually in Silicon Valley. UM I went to. I was in a program called Village Capital UM.

They run a great program where they get the top two companies a hundred grad at the end of the program and their final the final piece of the program was in Silicon Valley and it was at this big law firm and then you moved to UM this like where all the Silicon Valley like investors meet up deal and I remember we had like eighty Silicon Valley investors there and it was a hard lesson for me to learn they didn't give a damn about me, Like it was clear that I was a nobody, that I meant

nothing to them. I was just a black guy in the room. And I remember being like, wow, like nobody even even though I felt like I was, I was like I won the competition. So even though I felt like man like, like I know what I'm doing, that like I don't have it all figured out, but I'm figuring it out. And you know, I'm careiss mag I'm already saying that he said you want to be and it was clear, you know, that was two sixteen. It was like, now I don't believe. And I actually had

the investor tell me. He said to me, Clai, I've never seen a black founder go to exit or I p o at like a billion plus exit. So I just have a hard time believing that a black founder can build a big company. So I'm just not interested. Um, and it was so great, So one can take that many ways. UM, you being the guy who you grew up being. When you have somebody put that kind of you know, stamp on you saying you know, I've never seen nobody like you, UM do this that A don't

you like? What did your spirits? How you like in that moment? I'm gonna be that guy? Can we curse on this show? Um? Look, I'm a I'm a big chip on the shoulder type of guy. And so when people were telling me, especially earlier only in the journey, that I would never do this, I would never do that. Like, you don't have the background, you don't have the pedigree. That that's the word I kept hearing. You don't have the pedigree. You didn't go to Harvard, you didn't drop

out of Stanford, you don't have the network. Man, I tend to say fuck you, like in my mind, right in my mind, I'm like, all right, okay, I'm gonna show you. UM. And I think at a certain I'm actually getting out of that phase now of this journey because UM, everybody seemed to believe that we can do what we can do now. But early on in the journey, I would use that as as motivation UM to just be like, all right, well you don't believe me, let me show you. What do you think happens in UM

the tech space for black entrepreneurs. UM. Do you think not enough of us have that? Or do you think so many of us have that that maybe they're not getting recognized? Like how come not enough of us? As to your earlier point, and it is very well know, not enough of us are raising capital like at the levels that you have and that others that we've mentioned.

Do not enough of us have that? Or is there are there other issues that UM keep people keep us from getting to the place to where we're even having the conversation at that level with an investor. Yeah, I see it both ways, to be honest with you. And then this is, yeah, this is always tough for me to talk about. There's one side of it from a founder.

You know, you're a founder, right, Like we're founders where we're like like, we all think that we deserve money and that's cool and like, yes, we should be more bold than whatever. But on the other side of me, which is I'm out at True Ventures out of San Francisco. They want to top see stage firms. I also get a lot of inbound from black founders, and what I see a lot of times is we're not ready for

prime time. And not only are we not ready for prime time because we have to fight and call and scratch and like have that kind of screw you mentality, we're also don't have our ears open here like what we need to hear to get to the next level. And I give you I give you a quick example. I was talking to a founder I don't know a few months ago and the we were going back and forth over zoomed and I was like, hey, like, and I'm not the one to give advice, but I do

give you, like, here's what it worked for Clarence. Here's what I did to have success, and feel free to follow it or not. But there's just fundamental things you can't do in a pitch you can't do in the pitch jack, and just certain stuff you know, Like I mean you can probably say you have our phone call. Like and I was going back and forth with the founder and I said, hey, I really think you know you should try doing this, like like you don't talk

about traction. I think I was talking about traction. You don't talk about traction anywhere. And he's like, well, I'm kind of pre revenue. I said, great, but you still have some traction points like how fast are you building your product or or how many UM people on your wait list do you have? Like all of that is considered traction in this game because dudes are raising millions of dollars off ideas on the napkin. So you show

some traction, you can get it. And the dude literally looked at me and he was like, f you, you just don't want to see me when you want to be the only one in the room, blah blah blah blah blah. And I remember thinking like man like, like if you had just listened, I wasn't I wasn't here. I wasn't here too to hurt you. I was here to give you everything that somebody gave it to me at one point. And so I think we why, yes, there's a funding problem, there's also thattitude UM, and I

had it at the beginning. I had to like, I got checked on it, and somebody sat me down and said, hey, man, you're not going to be your best stelf unless you learn to listen. And I was like, well, what do you mean that that? And that it's just like everybody's not out here to hurt you. Some people are out here to help you, and you have to decipher between the two. So I think that we have to UM, because we've been in a fight, in the struggle for

so long. We have to understand that there are people out here to help UM and sometimes you gotta learn to just listen and then walk away gracefully and decipher and take what you need out of it. So how do you decipher through that? How do you know who's really trying to give you some game and the ones that are, you know, just saying whatever they got to say because they don't believe. Yeah, well, I mean, everybody to me deserves to be listened to. How I take

it is up to me. So if you're giving me advice, and I may say, well, like man like, thanks for the advice. Man, I appreciate it, and I'm so humbled that you would even take your time out to give it to me, then it's my job to walk away and start to look at what you're saying and say, Okay, you know what, it's kind of full of it, but this a little this, a little timper cent that he gave me, it's gonna help my business go to the

next level. Often times we walk away and we say if we don't agree with one thing that you say, we stopped agreeing with everything that you say, and I just don't believe that that's true. There's nuggets in in all of this advice that you should get um, and it takes a humble spirit to to to figure out that timper cent that you should be taking. You know, I wonder you're making me think about when you said the investors said, you know, I've never seen anybody you

know exit at the billion dollars. I p o who looked like you and you talked about that that happened after winning a competition, and I wonder how much stock we should be putting into competitions then, because you know, there's a lot of diversity theater out here, UM and two. Now, checks can mean nothing to a lot of these companies. And it could be, hey, we had a black company

with our competition. You know, they got this check and so apparently to that investor, you winning a competition was not enough to say this guy clears is onto something. How should we be looking at competitions, UM with a critical mind but also one you know, hey, I'll take the k But how should we also be looking at them critically and strategically as proof points that we're onto something? Right? Right?

Great question. Competitions are great from the sampoint of you get up, get up in front of most time a live crowd, and practice and be able to have the ability to understand what it's like to change in emotion in the room, because great founders can change emotion in the room. Great founders can make you like, here a business and you said, oh, that's stupid, and then get in front of it. You get up in front of the stage and the whole emotion in the room change,

it changes. So I think they're good for that practice. But like you said, we can't put too much stock in it because oftentimes these conferences, these competitions are theater I need a black person, or need I need a couple of black people to do. Like literally, I've been reached out to where people say, hey, we want you to be in our twenty dollar pitch competition, and I send them a link to our article, to an article, and then like you didn't even doing the whole work.

All you saw was that I was black. You know, there's somebody more deserving for this at this stage, and so I think there's a lot of diversity theater that plays into this. So I think we have to look at it for what it is. It is an opportunity to pitch, and whenever you have the opportunity to pitch, you should take it win loser, draw to get better because in order, like I keep telling people, in order to raise the money that we raise to day, you

don't many bad pitches I've had. I've had hundreds of bad pitches in order to get to a pitch where it may step. So I would say do it, but understand what you're doing. We talked a little bit about your introduction finding out that Silicon Valley even existed, right, And and there's so many UM in our communities, the communities that we come from, that UM that still struggle with, you know, some of the issues that you said you

did as you were growing up. And what do you find as a successful if we're trying to sell them on, Hey, there's this other world out here, the world of building really big companies. UM, what do you find as a successful narrative or a successful story that UM would get their attention to see that there's a viable path in this world that they may not have considered for themselves. Right. I speak at jails in prisons, especially before COVID. I do that a lot, and I say the same thing

to them. I am no smarter, no more savvy, no more like my business acumen is not any better than any of their's. It's all about taking the time and just doing it. Like a lot of times, it's just about jumping into the game and being a voracious learner.

I don't believe, but I think oftentimes we make founders, we make them feel like they're special like we are like we have the special innate because we we feed off the Elon musk, and it's the Steve Jobs kind of aura, and and and the truth is, I don't look at anything that we've done at ups as special or unique or anything like that. I look at the work that our team do on behalf of our customers a special unique. But as a founder, I'm like man like, like,

there's nothing special about players. And so that is my message to anybody. Every time I go speak, I say, there's that special about me. All of you are smarter than I am. All of you are more savva than I am. The one thing that I don't know that you all are more than me is I'm gonna outwork you at every turn. And if you can outwork people, because look, I got a lot of white buddies with founders. Man, there are some of the laziest s O b s I've ever been around in my life. Yeah, but they've

raised hundreds of millions of dollars. We can't be that. I can't be that. I gotta outwork you in order to get in the room. So my message I was just saying, you want to get in the room, you want to have a chance outwork everybody. So let's let's go step further on there, because let's say you sold Okay, yeah, I know businesses, you know, an opportunity out there for somebody, but I don't really have any like brilliant ideas, Like

there's nothing special about warranties. You know, it's a warranty, right, And so let's go a step further and say, Okay, now you've sold me that business. There's this viable path some way that um, I can find a different life for myself. But I don't know, like what now, what

to do? I've in effective devalued my own idea. So what would you say to that to to that person just trying to figure out, like what do I do next with They don't they don't feel like they have an idea worthy of millions of dollars or market attention or et cetera. Google is a powerful tool. You You literally can start your business by googling how to start

a business. You know, there's tools like Shopify. There, there's so many you know, big commerce, there's so many tools where you can just say, you know what, I want to start this thing. I'm just gonna set up a Shopify store and figure it out. And a lot of times again it goes back to my first comment. Sometimes you just gotta go and do it. Like it's gonna be all screwed up. This ain't gonna make sense. You know, I got many buddies who wants to start businesses. They're

just like, but what I do next? Like, just go do it and guess what when you mess up, you'll figure out the right thing to do. A lot of this game is not in books and and and and all these other places that people want you to mind it. Sometimes you gotta go do the work, mess up and figure it out. I want to talk about the milestones

to actually raising as much money as you did. You know, I asked you this question from the perspective of like, how like if you're reading the Clarences application to get in the Tech Stars. What if I'm the VC and I'm reading um your inbound to raise this eighteen million dollars that you're eighteen plus a million that you raised? What if if you're the VC, talk to me about those indicators that you presented, and what is the VC

reading that says, yeah, I want in on Clarences deal. Yeah, I believe that there's a couple of triggers that get vcs interested in your business. UM. One, I think traction. But if you can show that you're growing the business in a steady way, in a sustainable way. UM. That was one thing that that we showed. So if I'm a VC on the outside of like, oh, they they've grown the business dramatically, that's great. UM Too, I'm a big bet on team, and our Tea team is just smartest, brightest,

hardest working folks I've ever been around. And so I'm looking at our team and I'm looking at you know, what they've done in the past and what they're doing now. UM. And I'm betting on that team because they're that good. UM. And then three, I would say that the space the industries forty eight billion dollars now supposed to grow to be sixty seven billion, about two seven in the United

States alone, UM, a hundred sixty billion dollars globally. UM. I'm looking at that space and say, Okay, they don't have to get everything right to win MCAU. I think those I think those are hard spaces going when you gotta be right a hundred cents a time, you know, we could be right a quarter percent of the time and still still build a multibillion dollar business. So go in there, because I don't hear a lot of people talk about that. So get some education to that point there,

Please on. You don't have to be right all the time to to find success. Yeah. So so they when I look at some people businesses, they're like, well, if I'm right, this is what happens, right, And I actually don't believe that those are the best business We've seen those businesses work out and multibillion dollar businesses. But I didn't want to be in the business where I had to be one right in order for this thing to

be a rocket ship. And what I mean by that is other players like that's why I can continue to do what they do. It hard to continue to do what they do. Um, some of our startup competitors that are on the B two B side can continue to do what they do and UPSET still could be a multibillion dollar company. Well, I don't believe that this is

a winner's take off deal. Um, And it's showing itself up because you know, those companies are thriving, We are thriving, and we're all kind of doing what we do right now in the market more often than not, I personally even and I'm sure this is a sentiment you know that's mainstream. I see warranties has in like an unwanted like up sell, you know, like, hey, you bought some Q tips, you want the warranty Like, so like like,

how do you get over this consumer like sense about warranties? Yeah, I mean so, first I would say, that's what so exciting about our space, right it's a space of where like you hate warranties or you don't want to hear about warranties, and we're trying to put this fresh new look that warranties are valuable to you, you know it. I always go back to the stats about where we're at in this country. Over forty percent of consumers don't

have four hundred dollars in their bank account. If something breaks, we need to be replaced. And almost seventy consumers don't have a thousand dollars in their savings account. So when you look at where this country as as a whole, you know, the next iPhone that comes back, it's gonna cost We no longer can say, um that the iPhone is a luxury. It was a luxury and two eight when they launched it is no longer a luxury. It

is a necessity. Um. If I bet you, if you look around yourself right now, you have four or five devices around you that keep you connected to your world, whether it's your laptop, tablet, your phone on whatever that that may be. And so when we're looking at ups, you were saying, well, we want to make it more affordable, we want to make it more transparent, and we want to make sure that we are servicing the hell out

of our customers. And if we can do those three things and stay true to who we are, then we can carve out our own little niche in this space, which would end up being a yeah, a big thing for consumers. So, um, yes, warranties are not sexy, you know. We we we we we say that all the time. But it is valuable for most of Americans. But sometimes it's it's not even about the value, it's about the

experience of dealing with customer service, you know. So it's I may be sold on hey, you got this iPhone, but I know if I call, they're gonna be running me through eight different you know, prompts on the phone. Then they're gonna send me to Russia somewhere that I have to figure out how to explain to them that's something draw on my phone. So we don't really have good relationships with warty providers, right, and so it's like they're always trying to figure how to not pay to

help me, you know, get my stuff renewed. How do you manage the customer service side of this experience without exposing yourself to people who just want to take advantage of the system. Yeah, I mean they're always going to be people who want to take advantage, right that. That's no matter what business you're in. But we have a very very clear rule inside of UPSET that's take care of the customer first, no matter what. We actually have a budget inside of UPC that is to take care

of customer budget. I had a customer service. So in our business, things go wrong sometimes that's just the nature of the of the business. We're dealing with insurance companies who always want to not not not pay claims as

much as possible, and we're like the opposite. We're like, no, you're going to pay claims, even if we have to pay the claim and so we have this budget that if you start to go through that process and we see you going through that process, literally, you'll get a phone call from us and say, hey, well, look we see you having a tough time. We just want to get you taken care of. I can't tell you how many thousands of dollard from her customer that have made

us simply because they're like, well they actually care. Well, when you just got a warranty at Best Buy, they're not gonna call you and say, hey man, we see you having a tough time, let us take care of you. So what we've done we created this like loyalty with our customers that they say, look, even if I'm in the right, upset is always gonna take care of me, even when you're wrong. Like I got a buddy, We

just sent them a brand new washing machine. We just didn't didn't didn't didn't talk to him, didn't ask for permission, didn't do anything. It just shows up at that house one day and like, holy moly, what's going on? Because this is what we believe in, You're gonna be taken care of. I dig it dig it um. You mentioned like the Best Buys and the targets UM, and you also mentioned there's some other you know, sharks in the water.

I want you to like to level set like what the landscape looks like for the war team market and like is this a game where it's like a David and Goliath and you're like trying to figure out how to topple the big dragons or do you have to outrun your counterparts? Who are you know in the early stages to be to your earlier point, you don't have to be right, you gotta be right or thirty percent right? What has to happen to where you're fifty right? Does

is it toppling the best buy the target? Or is it making sure that you know FLIPSI, you know buppsy is not you know, taking the market here, right, So there's two sides of our market. There is a B two B side. So that is the side when you go to the website, UM, like you go to you go to buy an e commerce skateboard or something, and there's a little box set that says, you know, will would you like to add a warranty to your checkout?

There's that side of the market. Then there's ups that's it's always totally different side of the market, which is B t C. Like you won't we won't ever be at your checkout, but we will always be here. So when when you leave check out, you can come to upse, find your thing protected and move on. Um. So when you look at the landscape, there's like the Best Buyes of the world. There's square trays of the world, you know. Um there there is like the Assurings of the world.

They all are sitting on that like B two B side where they want to be at checkout. They want to work with the retailers and and get that EG distribution. What we're saying is that we believe that the most important person in this equation is actually not the retailer, it's the customer. So we want to sit on their side.

So which means you gotta give great pricing, you gotta make sure you're transparent, and you gotta make sure your service to hell a lot of your customers because if you don't, they're just gonna go back to the way

it used to be done. And so for us, when we look at the landscape, we're always in a David Goliath type story because everybody only knows like the big box retailers doing it the way they to do, and I actually enjoy that because the way I'm built, I wanted to be David and Goliath, and I want to be the one throwing the rock. But then we have the other side where startups are coming out and doing the B B thing and we're like cool, like great,

They're they're going directly after the best vice too. I think more people in the game helps us topple the big players. So I'm appreciative of kind of the players that are doing it differently. But from a startup a standpoint, Um, I would imagine, and I could be wrong because I'm I don't know your whole business, but I would imagine the warranties are like the face value opportunities, and that there's some rabbit hole to where you can build a

stronger lifetime value of this relationship. Um, how do how do you get deeper relationships with your customers beyond just you know, ensuring their iPhone? So you would be amazed that the average household by seven new devices a year and has over fifty connected devices in their home. So when you look at how do we build a relationship, it is not just protecting your iPhone. It's about how do we protect your TVs, how do we protect your laptop? And then how do we continue to get deeper and

deeper in your life? So what happens on me? We got customers where they got fifty devices protected under us. Everything in their house is protected with upseat. And then where we see ourselves going is going vertical. Right. So auto warranties is another place where there's a big opportunity, twenty billion dollar industry in the United States where we think that eventually we're gonna end up playing that game too. Um.

And then it's about latching on. Um, Hey you bought this iPhone, you can also get this specific case for your phone because we know everything about your device. Um. So we see all these different verticals going in the products where we play. But taking a step back, I tell investors all the time, we are extremely focused on being the best warranty selling company in the United States, and then we'll let this other stuff come, you know, kind of as as as a customer kind of pulls

it out of us. You know, in your story, I was reading you used to work for a trucking company and is a time where you said you negotiate a new contract an increased revenue by two while managing ten people. Um, so you had chops right. And so this is before you started up obviously. And there are many people who are great at their jobs. They work for, you know, a big corporation or their own and upward trajectory in their career. They're not yet founders of their businesses, but

they want to start businesses. But they're finding success. Those success indicators are apparent at what they do, um, but they're afraid to take that entrepreneurial leap. You weren't afraid, apparently. What do you say to those folks who are sitting on ideas? They're so good at delivering for their employer, but they don't know how to step out in being the employer. My advice to go back to what I said earlier. You have you gotta get out and just

do it. It is scary, it sucks, it's um. You know, you gotta trim your life back to a to a place of where you're bare minimums. Um. You know you hear the stories about the ramen noodle diet a month entrepreneurs and like no cars like literally, my wife and I we like I had a nineties six seed bring the air conditioning and the heat didn't work. So in the wintertime in Minnesota, I would literally like have blankets

in the car, but he's driving with blankets over me. Um. And in the summer, I would be stripped down to my undershirt and my underwear in the car until I got to my destination and then put my suit on when I got there. Um, like we were down to like bare mineral, no going out to eat, no vacations, no nothing, because we knew. We were like, we want to sacrifice now. I got this same either you're gonna sacrifice now or you're gonna sacrifice later. You're gonna do it,

You're gonna sacrifice, You're gonna sacrifice. And oftentimes entrepreneurs were like, well, I'm at this corporate gig, I'm making six figures. Life is good. I got the house in the car and data die. But this entrepreneur game is one you have to sacrifice all of that if you want to do it the right way, Like you can't come out of that make a bunch of money and yeah and live the best life that you want to live. Um. So I would say, like, you have to do it and

you have to understand you are going to sacrifice. But I can tell you if you ask my wife, if you ask my friends, like where we're at today versus where we made all the sacrifice, it was all worth it. I would do it again. Black Tag Green Money is a production the Black of the Afro Tech on the Black Effect podcast Networking My Heart Media is produced by Morgan Dubard, me Well lucas well at the SIP production

support by Love Visa and Marissa Lewis. Special thank you to Michael Davis since the cars when you you know like the wine. Yes that's his real name. Learn more about my guests and other technis rup as an Innovatives at afrotech dot Com. Video version of this episode will shop to Black Tech Green Money on YouTube next week. It's up tapping enjoining Black Tech Green Money. Leave us a five star rating on iTunes. Go eat your money, Peace in love. M h m hm, m hm m hm