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