EYL #172 Black Owned Equity Crowdfunding Platform

An illegal alien from Guatemala charged with raping a child in Massachusetts. An MS thirteen gang member from Al Salvador accused of murdering a Texas man of Venezuelan charged with filming and selling child pornography in Michigan. These are just some of the heinous migrant criminals caught because of President Donald J. Trump's leadership. I'm Christy nom the United States

Sponsored by the United States Department of Homeland Security.

My graduates from my school being forced back drop drop drop.

Drop.

All right, guys, welcome back, e y l. We are in our Atlanta headquarters. Yes, yes, yes, So this is episode that is going to be extremely educator. I already know off the rip. So we talk about funding a business. A lot of times people hear about like venture capital or they know, like you know, just liquidate the money that they have. But equity crowdfunding is something that we spoke about a while ago. Shout out to Mike Brown. He think it was the first person on our platform.

The last Lewis, He's going by Lewis now.

And first and foremost, thank you for joining us.

Appreciate it. We said, La, but specifically Compton.

Yeah, well since we Compton, Long bea chairs my dad is from Compton.

We wanted we got to make that I want I want the Polly eyes.

So like when you're from LA, like the delineating factors, where'd you go to high school? Like really like dudes, like you said, like where'd you go to the Poly High? I'm like a long beach kid, thro and through. As you mentioned, I was in New York for for ten years. I was a banker at Goldman. As we talked about, I never got rid of my California I d uh, yeah, man, it's just kind of like ears of the Streets always

But we can talk about that.

Let's talk about that now, let's get into it. So all right, so coming from from a Long Beach and that's a long way from Wall Street. Yeah, so how'd you make your way from from California? And he was working at Goldman Sachs right, correct, What was your exactly?

Yeah, So I think I think what's important life, man, is like when you hear about these stories like what can be replicated, people tell you like, oh, I did this all that, So you're like, let me know how you started, so I can know if it's like attainable to me. So I went to public on the Polly High four thousand kids on MLK to kind of give you perspective, right right next.

To the poly apartment.

It's like projects at the time, went to Long Beach State undergrad public school. I went to University of Virginia for business school, right, and so got an MBA. So that allowed me to pivot to banking. But before that, man, when I was an undergrad. I was a social science major. I wanted to be a I was a psychology anthropology major. I wanted to get a PhD in psychology, like health the community.

And I was like my first job out of undergrad.

Actually, so when I went to business school, that's when I found out about banking, investment banking, and you know, on the West Coast, banking isn't dig at all. It's like, I know, entertainment and so forth. Had a bank account at a regular bank. But like you know, even today, my parents still don't understand what bank is, my sister. But to answer your question, I managed money when I was in when I was in New York, so I worked at Goldman. I was in their investment management division.

Like so my firm.

My first account was he was a Frenchman. He's probably that I was. I'm not French. She thought I was friends who thought about this, you know, the last thing may have but shout today's out there. But nonetheless he thought I was French. But he was a founder of a publicly traded company.

Ex.

McKenzie guy like real cerebral. He would call it a desk bro and he would literally say it's Pierre there. It wasn't like any of the older white dudes was like this Pierre. So I was this guy was trading de rivert this form, managing markets and so in that seat though, it allowed me to see so much deal flow and from a context perspective. You know, at that time, in my group there were about four hundred of US advisors. They're probably about fifteen black advisors. I was one or

It was being helpful to everybody.

So when there was when it came to like having a relationship at Goldman, it was like Pierre was one of the first guys you would reach out to, even if it wasn't a fit, just to be a resource.

So you know, it was.

It was a great experience to that extent in terms of being a resource for the people, but in terms of managing money for a profile that was drastically different than mine, Like that was I wasn't going I wasn't going to the Hampton's one.

I didn't roll crew. Yeah, like you know, it's very different.

So like when you said fit, that's automatically thinking right, Like you have a salary with your managing millions and billions of dollars, so like going to work on a daily basis, Like what's that like? Because a lot of us have never even seen that type of money and I had to manage it, So what's that life?

So when I got the gig, I had to literally describe it to my home and my friends like, yo, it's like the equivalent getting drafted by the Lakers, because dudes don't really get like they didn't really get it right, Like all the people that like are b school, like all the book smart dudes, like they get it. Like all you work at moment one of the best firms at the time, Like I got to say, like it's like, you know, getting drafted by a Lakers.

So for me, I was just happy to be there. Also, the challenge was.

Like, especially within our community, like I don't want to I don't want to mess things up, right, It's like you kind of like keep your head down. You're not really loud and vocal. So it was more of a

Flow, you saw that the black house black companies weren't being funded.

Yeah, yeah, so yeah, So my friend network man literally is like older black man from like fifty to seventy and like a bunch of my young boys and obviously our peers, our age group. And the reason why I bring that up is that when I was in New York, like I used to work with a bunch of like senior partners at law firm because I was always giving them, like a firm reach out to me.

It's like, hey, I'm doing seven million dollars on revenue.

Came home at IPO me and it was like, now you finally need like two zeros behind you. But I can introduce you to a middle market banker, or I can introduce you to you know, an attorney, right they can like actually structure the deal. So I was always given out opportunities that weren't necessarily a fit for the firm. And you know, when you think about the minimums in terms of transacting, and they were looking at deal on a hundred million dollar companies, right, and like we don't work not in.

That space yet.

Minimum yeah, yeah, because they got to get their fees in terms of like the investments.

Right.

So my group is always about trading on information, like literally positioning people to get deals done. So the goal is you help them sell their business and then when they sell their business, they bring the money back to you and you manage it. But I saw so many businesses, man,

So in terms of funding, right, we got golden up here, one hundred millions to the minimum.

But what's that mid rate?

It did like a number a scale that that like wealth managers use that like if it's ten million, it has to be this level.

Bank it's fifty million, so it's this level.

Yeah, So let me let me differentiate it too, so to having your assets managed. At the time, it was like twenty million dollars a liquid network, right. But then when you think about a business that may not even be liquid yet that wants to sell their business. They want to sell that NOTEPAC company for three hundred million dollars, it has to be at least one hundred million dollars transaction, right, So,

It has to be worth a certain amount, it has to be worth their time.

But there are tons of middle what's called middle market bankers, right, So the middle market bankers are typically you know, regional smaller banks still notable, Maan, I think there's like excellence everywhere, right, you don't got to be at a certain firm.

I think there's like brilliance.

Everywhere, but nonetheless they're situated where they can take on those size deals. But yeah, but there's just like in the equal you got to see more deals than I do now. But right, like in the eCos, like there's so many interesting companies out there that are looking for access to capital, and it's been a challenge, right and for a number of varying reasons we can dig into, but that when I worked in that capacity, it was more so like I have a company that's worth a hundred million.

Helped me sell it? If you help me sell it or your firm sells and not bring you the asset.

So all right, so talk about let's get into equity crowdfunding conversation. What made you want to start set at the table?

Yeah, man, it's I think I caught the interview with the brother's name was Mike.

I think I caught the interview. Like, yeah, I think I caught that interview.

Mat.

It's like I was randomly in a.

Starbucks and I was just frustrated because like I would always when whatever I get it, whenever I would get a deal, I would reach out to my network of angel investors, wealthy individuals.

It's a small handful.

Why, it's not a lot of us, And I'm sure they got tired of receiving They appreciated the call, but you know, we all get tired of being hit up at the same time. So I spent a year working at a commercial bank, so it was different about like commercial banking, thinking about like a Bank of America where you have your deposits or whatever. Right, I worked at a commercial bank on the West Coast, Like, well, I'm

And I realized how hard it was in that space, right, So I was watching it. So I was at Starbucks. I was frustrated.

I was watching like YouTube videos, and like randomly, equity crowdfunding poppeduble I knew nothing about it. I've never even invested in equity crowdfunding portal before that. We all, I mean, most of our community knows about gofund me and kickstarted for varying reasons, right, but equity clowd funding was different

For guil flow.

So gather the group of my friends who call family with the process of getting approved by the SEC and FENRA. So like all the portals are listed, they're approved. It's like equivalent to explain with FINRA's yeah, thank you, because sometimes you get caught up ye wait yeah. So FINRA is the regulatory agency, right, So like any investment bank that is our chartered bank has to deal with the regular So the SEC is the Securities Exchange Commission. FINRA

So that's what they do. So they basically regulate the process.

Can you talk about what equity crowdfunding is for people that might not understand?

Sure?

So I mentioned uh, Kickstart and go Homeie. Those are donation based crowdfunding sites. And actually, you know what I should mention fun Black Founders is another donation I've got to start thinking about us, right, I continue to think about fund Black Founders is another donation based crowdfunding site. And what they do is that they'll donate. An investor can donate, us as a community can donate to the companies that we like.

And when you donate, you may.

Get some swag or like a T shirt, right, just like some kind of like perks.

Right.

But with equity crowdfunding, you literally own a piece of the businesses that you're investing in.

Right. So so it's when President Obama was in office, he signed what's called the Jobs Act. Jobs Act took many different forms.

One of the benefits was it allowed for non accredited investors now describe a credit versus not non a credit investors to be able to invest in businesses. So historically, when you think about you always hear people talk about VC like I want to give mention capital access, private

So equity crowdfunding is more broadly.

Is the ability to invest in companies that lower dollar amount too, So you can come to the portal see at the table. You can invest in a company for a little as one hundred dollars per investment. Two hundred fifty dollars per investment are one thousand dollars per investment, which is different from the old world when you have to cut a twenty five thousand dollars check to be

So when you are non incredited is there it's still a limit amount of assets.

So fin or sec is on it.

So typically like ten percent of of your income or your net worth. Right, So like when you go to sea at the table, there are a couple of questions and they'll ask you, like what's your networth? Have you invested in equity crowd funding in the past? Because you are capped, they tracked that information as well. It's such a new space equity crowd funding. So last year companies can raise up to a million dollars. This year you

And it may feel heavy candid at times because you do.

It all without breaking a sweat, and you do it all in style, from being a boss exec to getting the kids ready for school, checking homework, family dinners, lunches and brunches with your day ones, trips to the salon,

Like why don't want to be limited?

I want to invest all my bread in this particular startup, but they want to make sure when you think about venture capital that this is my just recommendation that you only invest what you can afford to lose and not

Fund, because like venture capital, what we've been learning is that most of the time it's not going to work out at all. Like if you invest in ten deals, nine might not go anywhere, but the one that does work out that can make up for all of the ones that don't work out within even more so.

So.

So you know, my day to day I work with venture capital firms and like due diligence and like look at help them evaluate the comings that they're getting ready

Yeah.

So, like as far as for people to have an understanding, like when they're actually invested in equity crowdfund, can you talk about like a safe note.

Or like yeah, so I think so there's there are two audiences, right, So there's the investors that come to the portal that want to invest in startup ideas, right when you come to our portals, primarily diverse, unpacked entrepreneurs. And then there are the entrepreneurs themselves that are trying to raise capital. So what you were just describing is a vehicle a safe note. It's a vehicle to race cap. So you can do a safe note, you can do a revenue note, you can do it. You can do

It's going to be in the form of a safe note.

So it's basically, I forgot what the S is for, but it's up for agreement for future equity, right, And so it's a document that says, hey, you invested.

Ten thousand dollars.

Right, it's all contracted up and you know what's important on a safe note. This document you can go to y combinator dot com. They have them available for companies that are thinking about issuing THEBLE. It outlines the specifics of the investment the company is worth ten million dollars. That's often considered a valuation cap.

Right.

It has a conversion trigger a million dollars, right, and then has what's a conversion yep, and it has your investment ou so a ten million dollar company, right, evaluation cap, you invest ten thousand dollars, right, or you invest one hundred thousand dollars.

Right, I'm a ten million dollar company.

What you'll do is you'll take your investment amount and you'll do buy by the valuation cap, and that's your ownership.

Right.

So it's you know, it's that one hundred thousand dollars to buy to buy ten million. That's so much of the company that you own. But you're not on what's considered to be the cap table, Like you're not listed as an owner until it actually converts into real equit. You just have this document that the safe note that

Right.

Sometimes when people raise capital, they literally let you come in and be on the cap table, right, and you are like from day one, an equity owner.

What's hard about kind of cap table management.

It's a very expensive process because you have to get evaluation on it.

Right.

So when many startups are starting their business, they don't want to pay forty fifty k to get the business our thirty k. Howe you work the math to get the business value. They rather extend these safe notes, which allow me to say, hey, I'm able to raise capital. It's a contract between you and I that says you're entitled to the x amount of dollars of exposure right cap because you have that evaluation cap. But it's something that just documents the process. So there are other ways

Revenue note, right, are just a debt note.

So what's interesting to me in the space is that so when you think about your business, right, you can go to you can try to go to the bank. I want to talk about that process. You can try to go hit a bag and get a loan and they'll give you their terms or whatever the case and be. They'll look at your financials for two years and want to make sure that you have reoccurring revenue and so forth,

Right So, and you guys know this better than I do.

Like, as as a debt holder, you are constantly worried about paying that the monthly payment or whatever whatever the payment may be on that ten percent. Right, with a revenue note, you can often structure the repayment based on

Percent to paying down the debt. Right.

And so for entrepreneurs that are just getting started that are cast strapped, it's like, all right, when money didn't come in, I still got to pay the bank. That's ten percent. It alleviates that burden where it's like you're only paying based when based on the amount of revenue

You said something about evaluations and process and how expensive that is.

We've spoken about evaluating before in terms.

Of how profitable it could be if your company has all these things in terms of how they'll be evaluated.

But what's the actual process, Like, yeah, I think it's I think it's worthwhile.

I managed to talk about like the entrepreneurs process and turns the game to access to capital because.

It's hard man, Like, it's it's I think you know.

We are encouraging entrepreneurship, and I will continue encourage entreprenship entrepreneurship for the people that it works out for.

But there are four main verticals.

One is we exhaust our own savings form one case, credit cards, balance sheees, and so forth.

Right.

Two is that if you are fortunate to have like a robust friends and family network of wealthy individuals, you'll tap your friends and say, hey, I'm doing this friends and family around. We're doing it via a safe note. We'd like to raise one hundred thousand dollars.

Right.

Third is that you go to a bank and you're like, hey, I have this business that's revenue generating or not, that's profitable or not the things like that's great, but there's no recourse, there's no assets to serve as collateral, like if the loan were to fall apart, how does the bank get paid back?

Right, So it's a very frustrating process.

They want to see like two years of income statements, right, And like with any instance that they can bank, you'll say, okay, well you can put your house up as a former recourse, and we still need a second signature as well as well. So like access from a banking a traditional banking perspective is very challenging. And then fourth is venture capital and so with VC we talk about it often, but it's hard for anybody to get VC capital, and it's particularly

In equity crowdfunding.

If you raise zero to two hundred and fifty thousand dollars, it can be self reported financial so like, hey, I'm the CEO, this is my income statement, this is my balance sheet, and so forth. When it's two fifty to a million, it has to be CPA reviews. So you have to pay a CPA to review it over the

Right, and then there are some other you know, ancillary costs.

Well, it's a very expensive process in addition to the fees that any equity cloud funding portal will charge.

You for providing space to facilitate that transaction.

Right, So you know you may raise and this is like getting talked about the legislation how expensive it is for folks in general to raise capital, especially for you know, startup companies and diverse entrepreneurs, Like we just don't have the cash available. Like we're in this process as we as an entrepreneur, we're in this process to get access to capital. But now in order to get it, I got to pay out so much, so much. And in all fairness though, you know, when you go to a bank,

Process is the same. But at the same.

Time that we are not asked particular about who we allow them to access capital, right because once again we're just a platform that allows individuals to raise from their network.

So and that's one thing we didn't talk about.

It's like the beauty of equity crowdfunding is that it allows you to monetize your customer base your followers as well. Right, if you're a popular person and you have a business or an idea, it's like, yeah, you can go to a bank or try to go VC, because that's what we're talking to people, like why not.

Start at home?

And like, now you know, many black folks haven't been in a position where we can literally call that wealthy. I don't have a wealthy uncle, right, But it's like you don't necessarily call that wealthy all, like call your friends as opposed to doing a three hundred dollars dinner for a person, like have.

Them investing in your company, right, And then.

What's also beautiful about it, beyond actually raising the capital, is that now you get a form of add you can see, right, So it's like, now you have you think about your your customers. They love your product, they love your show. They're gonna listen no matter what right, they're going to consume it. But imagine how vocal somebody would be to say, you know what, I love the show. I love the product. You should love it too. But also I'm an investor in the show. I'm an investor in the product.

You should love the product, and you should think about investing as well. So now you've got.

People carrying the flag on your behalf, right, as opposed to getting one check from one individual and like the money is good, Like.

There's no advocacy.

So I think that when you think about how to drive new customers new following, equity crowdfunding.

Is a very is a viable like a viable outlet.

In terms of from a dollar perspective and like a crowd you know, mobilization perspective.

So you spoke about ancillary fees and you said that the the equity crowdfund platform that's hosting charges you have the platformt So is there like an industry standard that they charge to.

Have your host So typically, based on research that our team is that it's about seven percent. It can range from five to ten, you know, but seven percent on average. I see at the table, we charge seven percent. The way that we do it, though, is a bit different from the industry. So let me kind of talk about the nuances of seat at the table. So I see the table or a portal like any other equity crowdfunding porto.

But we tout this concept of family.

Right, So when you go on the website, you'll see you twenty to forty different profiles, and so the family members consist of bankers, attorneys, people that worked in CpG for twenty years, you know, marketing, like the industry experts people that had exits on their end. So when you, as an entrepreneur, you come to the portal you're trying to raise capital, we provide you with access to the family.

So now, if you have a.

Haircare product, there's somebody in the family that worked at you know, are a make up probably somebody worked at like a Lorel for twenty years, so they can help you think through logistics, operations and things of that aguor So we charge seven percent just like anybody else does. But what we do is, if you're raised a million dollars, seven percent of the amount that's raised, you're raising a million dollars.

That's seven thousand dollars in fees. Right.

What we'll see that the table does that fifty thousand is a check, is in cash to see at the table. The other twenty thousand is in the form of equity, the same safe note that you extended to your community. Because what see this thinking is that hey, we are long term investors and we are long term partners with our community.

It's not about the one off transaction.

We're putting so much sweat equity and we're making so many introductions that we want to see you be successful beyond the actual like raise itself. So they answer your question seven percent standard I see the table, it's seven percent, but it's five percent cash and then two percent in terms of like equity two percent of.

The raising out in terms exactly.

So as far as for people that are looking to invest, what is some of the education they need to know?

Like as far as to.

You invest one thousand dollars, what does that equate to? As far as like a percentage breakdown, when should you expect to get your money back? How you know, just to kind of because I think a lot of times people, especially equity crowd fund, it's important for people to be educated, sure, so they don't have misleading expectations.

I mean that's that's what's dope about your shows about education and like us, all I'm doing educating So funny shout out to the teacher I taught. When you're a high school math Domingus High School and Compton. Uh yeah, like holoiticing CHAML Yeah, exactly, a bunch of a bunch

Right. It's not like a stock. You know, you're not tracking the ticker on a daily basis. Right.

You know, typically with private and you got to think about, like with private investing in general, it's something that you're going to hold onto in perpetuity or hold on to forever, right, and so the way you get paid back. And this is like one of the questions you were like what should people think about You should always, regardless of if you're doing pe vc, any type of investments, you want to ask the person, like what is the exit opportunity?

How am I getting? What does that look like? Right? If you're going to invest in a company.

So typically it's either you know, the company that you've invested in has gotten bought by a strategic right that a company that's already in the space that says, hey, you're doing something really interesting, let me buy you. Are like more notably, we know like people call IPO right, are in many instances companies fail, right, And it's like that's like, so you have to like literally lock in on the possibility, a strong possibility that the company won't be successful.

Right.

So that's why the disclaimer about and that's only what you're willing to part with, know that you can't trade it. There's no secondary market. Like it's not like I buy a piece of my favorite coffee shop. I invest in a piece of my favorite coffee shop. I can sell it to you that the industry isn't there yet, they're still evolving, right, but it's like the benefit to me is like, hey, I own a piece of this coffee shop.

It's really like two ways. How like in the VC world or in this world, you really make money, right so that a company goes public or a company is purchased Yeah, yeah, I.

Mean our purcha by strategic Yeah, so and.

So Amazon boys PillPack for a billion dollars not make some money. Or a coin base goes public nots makes money.

Yeah, And there's so many company there's so many transactions, man, that are occurring that you would never even know. Or another option is like a private equity firm comes in and they they buy eighty percent of your company. You're still selling to them, right, It's like, but there's so many in those like those transactions often don't get they're not in the press.

Right.

We hear about the big names and the IPO companies that are doing transactions, but there are businesses. I think it's life for an entrepreneur manager to have a business doing a million a rev, ten million a rev. Whatever the case can be employing people like which is a big you know, kind of like delineating factor, having a decent lifestyle and maybe selling it to another you know, strategic for thirty million dollars whenever you choose to right, I mean that ever make the press, but like that

Okay, Yeah, so you said employing, and so I know that's something that you know that you guys do very This episode is brought to you by P and C Bank. A lot of people think podcasts about work are boring, and sure they definitely can be, but understanding a professionals routine shows us how they achieve their success little by little, day after day. It's like banking with P and C Bank.

Earners. What's Up?

You ever walk into a small business and everything just works like The checkout is fast, the receipts are digital, tipping is a breeze, and you're out the door before the line even builds odds are they're using Square? We love supporting businesses that run on Square because it just feels seamless. Whether it's a local coffee shop, a vendor at a pop up market, or even one.

Of our merch partners.

Square makes it easy for them to take payments, manage inventory, and run their business with confidence, all from one simple system. If you're a business owner or even just thinking about launching something soon, Square is hands down one of the best tools out there to help you start, run and grow.

An illegal alien from Guatemala charged with raping a child in Massachusetts. An MS thirteen gang member from El Salvador accused of murdering a Texas. Man of Venezuelan charged with filming and selling child pornography in Michigan. These are just some of the heinous migrant criminals caught because of President Donald J. Trump's leadership. I'm Christy nom the United States

Be protected sponsored by the United States Department of Homeland Security intentionally.

Yep. Right, So you hire banker's attorneys.

Talk about that process of not only investing in the community, but hiring from the community.

Yeah, I'm all about us.

So my dentist is blag, my attorney's are black, My state planners are black, my real estate you know, mortgage

So I see the table.

The family is you know thirty to forty people that are industry experts, that are like well worked, resourced individuals, and we literally are bringing entrepreneurs into our ecosystem. Right, Maybe you didn't go maybe a neighborhood dude, you need to go to you know XYZ school, right, and you don't have access to like all these individuals. Like we make sure that regardless of what your background is, that we're actually inserting you into our ecosystems and the network that we have.

That was going to be Earns.

What's going on this Black History Month? McDonald's is kicking off Future twenty two, a campaign celebrating twenty two gen Z leaders across the country who are making an impact on their communities. Right now, this generation may have the largest influx of young leaders since the Civil Rights Movement. They're starting their own organizations, finding ways to empower youth

My next point was like, is there a criteria to be on the platform? Right?

Maybe I didn't have this background and maybe I'm just started my business, my first business.

Is there criteria to be on the plus? Yeah? We are we are we are a bit more. We are not a bit more.

We are definitely more patient and friendly in terms of, you know, our process of onboarding companies. So I would like, we are tapped into the community. We are intentionally created for the community.

Right.

So when I say that, because there are other equity power funding portals that are very stern about seventy thousand dollars in revenue right before you before that you're able to come onto the portal. We don't have revenue minimums, I would say, And there's no education credentials or anything like that that's required.

We are process is.

That you'll apply, you come on the portal, your create a campaign. It's it's your submit your business plan or your pitch deck. We were viewing internally with our diligency. There's a bunch of interviews back and forth. We circle it up among the family and everybody can kind of like talk about the idea and then it was you know.

Assess their interests and then we on board you.

But like there's a lot of handholding that does not exist among other portals as well. So to go back to your question, there's no profile requirement.

I find that.

Companies that are like direct to consumer or e commerce companies perform better in equity crowdfunding more broadly because it allows for that advocacy fact, like not only does it taste good, right, like you should like it, it taste good as well, like.

I'm also an owner in it. When it's like, yeah, it was that that shirt you and earn it? Yeah exactly, yeah, yeah.

Like when it's B to B, it's like you can't really see it, right, and you can't really mobilize your base. So like if it's an app, I think apps work really well because now you already said, like I got one hundred thousand users, Like the first people you should be asked for capital is your one hundred thousand users, right, But the mindset is, yeah, asked for capital. But really,

So like, what was the steps that you did to start? I know you had some speaking of funding, you had some like Baron Davis, friend of ours, Ryan from the gathering spots. What were the steps that you took to get seated at the table off the ground in the up and running.

So a shout out to to Baron Davis la noble, like a.

He's a human, like a normal like normal people man, Like I walked and yeah, I shared the room with many different people. And I think what's important in life, man, is that when you are not in the room, like how people are talking about you.

If you said, like, oh I met Pierre, ninety.

Nine percent of the time, they're going to say he tried to be helpful to me without asking anything back, and Barness, you know, equally yoked in that respect. No, A couple of other ball players, like it's another guy in Anthony Tolliver's known.

Hooper played for a while in the league.

And then the other investors are family, are just folks like us, like literally bankers, attorneys. Right that said like, hey, I know there's tons of entrepreneurs out there that want to get access to capital. How can I be of help? Right, So that's what that family looks like. Those are the vest For me. It was me finally making an ask of my network and saying like, hey, this is what

Man.

And so when you come and you partner with Seed at the table, it really does feel like you are sitting among family, like the handholding is needed. And it's true because I said, you know, being an entrepreneur is such a lonely part. There's so many things that you don't know, like I didn't know anything about the space right as an entrepreneur, and so like the best way to avoid pitfalls is to ask somebody that I already went through the process right and get to learn from their experience.

So that's what the Seed family really serves. That.

So they're not just like investors in terms of seed, but they're also the network that is available to every issuing company and available to me I got there.

They're my sounding board as well.

So navigating the platform from two different perspectives, I must if I'm a business owner, I want to get on your platform, what do I do?

All? Right?

So I created user name, passport log in, so I have to do like a bio of the company. I have to say, like how much money I'm looking to raise?

Exactly? What's what's you have to say?

Much money you're looking to raise, whether it's going to be debt or whether it's going to be equity, right, which investment vehicle you're gonna use, whether it's a safe note or a revenue note or whatever the case may be.

Right.

What we're really trying to assess is do you understand that it is an active process in turn of raising capital? So are you structured your thought process? Do you have your document your documents in order? Do you have the story in order so you can go out there and successfully raise capital?

Right?

Because the challenges for many entrepreneurs is that we think it's easy, got the best idea, are not the best business and you should believe in your business, because nobody's gonna believe in your business more than you will, right, but we often are. We're often there's a misconception that you know, I'm gonna go out there and put my name on this portal and people are going to rush and droves. It's raising cab Like, nah, you gotta hand

Four seasons or any other kind of venue.

Right when you go to we go to WE funders, when you go to their their ballroom, it's going to have more people there because they are like they've been known for a while, but you.

Don't really know what the music is going to be.

Right when you go to see the table, it may be less, but you know they're gonna be playing nas They're gonna play a little bit of Kendrick right, a

To report to your investors once a year for two years.

You just have it's your annual investor letter, like this is how the business is operating, this is what you know, what we're doing. You have to do that for two years and that's filed with the SEC. And after that you're done. And so then also excuse me, also as an entrepreneur, you can raise up to five million dollars. But for example, if you raise if you want to kind of get your feet wet and say, like, you

You can go back and raise another five million, right.

So that's the dynamical the structure of how things are situated, you said, and Charlie said this.

He said, it's two ways in this business. Right, you're gonna get bullet. You're going to IPO and we haven't really fled all feel.

Filfl to work.

It has to work, it has to yeah, right, And so we don't really see many black and brown companies I po yep. And so when you're on brown in an event, are you looking at the company saying yes, this potentially you can sell one day or be bought one day or are you looking at it or in addition to are you looking at like I could see this company IP on one day?

Right?

Yeah, So I mean nine percent of all businesses in America are small businesses. That means that they're not like public trader, right. Yeah, we're definitely for companies that we believe in. The hitters we were. We understand how hard it is to get to that point, you know, hard like, So we're not saying we're not We're not only and that's always getting We're not only onboarding companies that we think are gonna be hitters, right, We're onboarding companies that

Strategic So is there any scenario where somebody is investing in a company and they can make money if the company isn't purchased or if it doesn't go public, like if the company just still remain private. But yeah, extremely profitable business like dividen Like, yeah, there's any scenario where you can still make money if the company is not purchased or if there's not co public.

So twofold, So we.

Decided to start a bar bar you know, whether whatever barrow you want to be in New York.

But we just started to start a bar in Brooklyn. Right, we're gonna have everybody to go there.

As owners, we can say like we're gonna do distributions, right, like you know, monthly distributions based on the revenue. So as an owner, as an as a as a founder, you have that.

Ability to do distributions as well.

I'll give you a more a better example when you think about like they're really you can do real estate through equity crow moundy as well. You're like you can think about all the people that are in that space, and you guys both know are better than I do. Right. It's like, hey, I want to go buy property outside of Tuskegee, Right, I want to buy a.

Thirty million dollars ten million dollars you know, fifty unit it you piece of property.

Right now, you can aggregate your friends and say, hey, we're going to buy this structure. We're going to raise but I know that is equity, get the rest in debt, whatever the case may be. We're going to create this entity to get to raise the equity. We're going to buy this property, and so the rent roll right can be sent out as distribution. So yes, you can do

I came to you. I'm like, hey, I own this bar, all right, Like how do we get paid?

Well, we get paid by distributions back to the investors as well.

So and then from all right, so we talked about it from a business owner, but from an investor.

The process.

They go on the website, yep, they create a using any password, they fill out a list of to make sure that they're not hurting themselves by doing stuff that's too risky. I like that if they unlimited, how how many companies they can invest in?

Yeah, it's a answer the last question.

First, you can invest in many companies that keep people below that threshold based on your income right ten percent of whatever case may be. But the process the reason why I kind of got excited because.

I'm just reminded.

So when you go to the when you go to any portal, you're going to send you popular, your name, your birthday, They're going to ask you for your social right.

And I'm many in our commune like yo, like why do they ask.

Me for my social Like camps go on Amazon and go buy like and I was like buying a product on Amazon is different.

And the reason why they ask you for your social because they.

Are KYC laws like know your client laws right, and moneylaundrink and so forth. Once again, this is a thinra sec government process, right, So we want to make sure that the money is coming from exactly who they're who's supposed to be coming from and it's all in good standing. So they'll ask you for like that demo information. It's all safely secured. And then you go on the portal

Is there a number of companies that you're looking to have a whole each year? Yeah, like a quota like we this is the goal for the year, we want to have this many companies.

So the family wanted to have ten, so they had ten this year. Who's the family?

So the family is of thirty or forty individual So it's literally the network, right of people or resources that are available to every issuer.

Right.

So like there's a leadership team of seven like cmos you know, chief onboarding person and so forth. But in terms of the collective network, right, what they want to do, and like I said, it's like what you should think about it?

Man.

So I'm from I'm from La or Long Beach specifically, my parents, my grandparents came from Texas.

Right when it came from Texas.

My grandfather was a World War two vat when he came to when he came to Long Beach, they all pass I hold, people from Texas and his community all pass the hat to build a church, right, and so like the family effectively passed the hat to build the church. Seat at the table, right, and it's like a place where we can call home and so forth. So that's what I mean by that. Gotcha? So but no, what was I'm sorry, what was the question that I was

Yeah.

So the goal was initially to have ten in the first year, and we've accomplished that. In twenty twenty two, we want to have at least twenty. Now with this show and some of the other media that we're starting to do, it's gonna be crazy, right, And so like I said, we are we're we're we're not going to tell people know without reason or wealth for well said, you know, probably it's not the right time. You got to think be a little bit more thoughtful about how

So like that it's a fair balance with ideally twenty twenty companies for this year.

So I just want to ask a question about your day to day job. Yeah, you do venture capital, diligence evaluation or portfolio. Can you just talk like what exactly is that?

So?

Yeah, So so my day to day is it's pretty cool man a sense that like I'm no longer wearing a student tie.

I'm like, hoodie, get to show my tattoos, airbag.

I mean like, So, we're going to a digital marketing agency and they have this machine AI like that's been around for nine years, and what it can do is it can forecast revenue growth with ninety percent accuracy. So what it does it it'll latch onto a company's analytics like Google Analytics, Good Email, Shopify and so forth, and it'll say, based on this data, if you invest this dollar amount or this timeframe in digital marketing, it's going to produce ten x and dollar figures right return with

Right.

So now it takes the guests work out of like how if we bought this company, how much we have to put into digital marketing?

Right?

And so what's pretty what's cool about it for entrepreneurs and you know, we make sure that the seed family seed entrepreneurs that coming to the portal, they have access to that technology at.

A discount and rate.

Of course, what's cool about it is it takes the guest work out of your use of proceed slide. So when you think about like an investment pitch bus, I'm sharing you guys have seen plenty of them. They're typically like ten to fifteen slides. There's always that one slide where it's like use of proceeds, and like the US to proceed slide is like this pie chart's like, hey, I want to raise a million dollars, fifty percent is going to go towards head account, twenty five percent is

Of that investment.

So you're raised a million, you're putting two hundred fifty thousand towards digital marketing. NOVA will tell you that if you put the two hundred and fifty thousand that you put into marketing, it's going to return a million dollars, like a four return or two million dollars.

Right.

So, now you go to your investors and you're trying to raise cap when you're asking them for money, like, hey, so the investor knows that if I cut you a check for one hundred thousand dollars, twenty five percent of that is going towards digital marketing and it's going to result in you know, two hundred thousand dollars or whatever. Do whatever the row ass or the return on adsmen, maybe, so Nova is strong. AI been around for you know,

Maybe we go to the gathering spot, we go to hilltop in.

La right, but like we announce the winning back once again. It's like you guys are worked with so many entrepreneurs, so you know it's an opportunity for them to get their use of proceeds slide together.

Run this technology. If it's like a.

B to B company, it can approximate lead leads like the lead lead generation with ninety percent accuracy as well, so it doesn't have to be e commerce D two C.

It can also work in the B to B space.

But to see the table family would like to cover the costs of one of the nova diligence for one of your students.

So I appreciate that.

I appreciate that.

What we'll do with somebody from EO University because you have like twelve other people in there, so a lot of business owners in India, So we'll find a way to kind of see who would be the best fit. Sure, and then yeah, well we'll extend that and connected dots on it.

Yeah, and I would say tap in with us seat to the table dot com. I'm at seat of the table on all social media platforms. You can find me on LinkedIn Pierre Leveo, L E, Space v A u X. I'm pretty active on there. If people don't know me that I'm always like about passing information, passing the balls, Like there's some way I can be helpful, even if it's not a fit for seating the table. Like, there's so many people in the network that I think that

There are tons of other resources that I know of.

For example, the company that worked the nine to five Power Digital, we have an accelerator, right that I helped.

I was instributed on creating.

We're taking slots, like I've been positioning all my friends to get an accelerator, Like you know love takes send that to your network. So with that accelerator, what they're doing is they're the digital Marketing shop is donating two hours of free digital marketing services per month, right, and so like now you can talk about your paid search, paid media and you can like get.

The expertise or have access to expertise.

So we're taking, we're taking participants for that accelerator. There are tons of like resources that I've come across and then in the network as well, So I want to make sure that I continue to be an extension of all of you and extension of everybody else that's.

In your network too.

I appreciate that. So what's next? What's next? Seed at the Table?

Man.

We're trying to you know, onboard as many companies as possible, help them raise capital. You know, I can't go into too much detail in terms of like the financial trajectory of the firm, but ideally, you know, we think about our premises making space for the community to participate in the products that they are consuming. Ideally we will make space for the community to participate in you know, the economics of seat at the table. So that's definitely forthcoming

Always got to give up this slavor.

Right.

But also a company is coming to the portal that are raising capital and then you know, they raise capital and we continue to be helpful to them after the raise. Right, So five years from now we can say that we launch, or even three years, three or four years, we launch one hundred companies and one or two are bangers in a sense of like an IPO or maybe they need like a like a crazy series A for twenty five million or a B for fifty million.

And I know that I was able to provide a platform.

We were able to provide a platform where the community was able to like participate in that journey.

Like that is success.

It's the only black companies blackroun so you know, like anything of the diaspora.

But but that said, we're opening.

And so I just got an email from a gentleman who's like, hey, you know, I'm not a diverse entrepreneur, Can I come to the platform, Like, yeah, you definitely can. We're open to it. But we are just very intentional about making sure that there are space for focuses for

They're like, oh, just go ask your friends.

It's like there's a lot of things that that business excuse me, that demo takes for granted, right, that isn't really relevant to our community. Right, It's like, oh, like legal costs are only fifty thousand dollars, Like that's expensive, Like don't I don't have that right now?

Right?

And so we're a bit more patient in the sense that we understand like how burdens some are expensive that community. So we're going to try to provide a resource to you that is a little bit more cost friendly, right as well, But yeah, anybody can come to the portal. We just I think it's important, man. It'd be like, you know, intentional about the service that we're providing and that the community that we're focused on. And this is so what's crazy that this is before all the uprising

And we were anxious.

We wanted to go to go to market, but we were very intentional on our end to make sure that the user experience flawless is very similar to like working like with the Goldman, right in a sense that we didn't want to rush the market and have any mishaps or any glitches. So we were very patient and and want to make sure that everything was in place the right way before we.

Went to market.

So opening anybody, but we were int to make sure that the community knows that we exist.

Yea, rather than asking for a seat at the table, created the table literally and planning the seas yep.

Literally, that's like that is that is the goal man and the name resident randomly. I mean, you know, I appreciate the album, like the or the song, but like the name resonate, like we literally don't have any seat at the table. And so when I was a banker in New York, I used to see so much, like I said, I used to see so much deal flow and so many opportunities to generate.

Well, but I was the only dude in the room, right, and I didn't always have a.

Bag enough to participate, right, But like I knew so many people that could, and I felt I.

Was just frustrated by it.

And I think that you know, now we're in a position that continue to ask you know institutional excuse me, ask the institutions for calvil. You can go that route,

That's dope.

So I encourage everybody at least just to check it out for educational purposes. Go on the website, look, read, do get due diligence. You might say, okay, this this is a sports company. I find it's interesting. I find you know, this is a company that's specialized in how to you know, bring farming to the new age technology. You know, it's a good education Because I'm as soon, like they have bios you can actually.

Read and you interface with them and everything. It's all like all so the pump, the comments have to be public sec can so like and I encourage you to go on you know, talk to the companies, ask them what their exit plan is, right and like I like ask us like get up to speed, educate Like you guys are all big about education, Like educate yourself. And you have the ability to interface on the portal as well. Yeah, go there and learn reach out to us. We are

As a better fit.

So please continue to you know, keep us in mind when you know that when that person is asking you, like when your friend is asking to raise capital, say hey, have you ever thought about raising through sea at the table? And it's a great resources session for people that get hit up all the time in terms of being investors, Like now you have a platform where you can raise a word, entrepreneurs.

Can raise among their community, their friend networks and so forth.

Appreciate it. Brother, can you tell them again.

Like the West, Yeah, man, Www dot C at the table dot com. It's a seed S E E d on I G LinkedIn. It's at seed at the table. You know you can email us email us at info at sea to the table dot com. Uh, you know, I see all the emails. The team sees all the emails, but tap in with us.

Man. We are we are among the community.

You know, we are everywhere in terms of the family, like you know, you know, we're we're here to be a resource and I and that's one thing.

And like I'm glad you know we're talking about this out a lot.

We're trying to do more media right because we've been like very stealth bone and turns like you know, black posts work really hard, work really hard, and I'm show them in the end right now, or you know, making sure that we kind of show them now because it's important for us the community to know about us as opposed to one the competitors.

Like had I known how to work with Sea at the Table. Yeah, see the table dot com at seats the.

Table in all you know forms of social media. Please email us if you have any questions. Want to get up to speed. I want to learn a couple of things, and you know, do your research, you know, understand the risk of equity cloud funding, and just you know, make sure when you're talking to entrepreneurs you always.

Ask, like what is the exit opportunity? Appreciate it.

But I got a good feeling that those emails are gonna yeah after this, Yeah.

I love it, man Like, I don't say that, Like I said, even if it's not a fit. Man Like, there's like there are other either donation based cloud funding portals or like incubators that I think are worth you know the conversation. Right, So, and there are tons like even like positioning firms to work with, you know, giving them access to besides the one that we were sponsoring for.

You guys like them access to Nova. Right.

It's like when man, when I was in banker at Goldman, like they let me in the shop. I used to always try to quoe uquote hook people up and put them in like to conferences that they part historically wouldn't been able to be in our rooms.

That the historical wouldn't been able to be in.

That's the same way like I navigate see at the table, that's the same way I navigate.

You know, nova technology, Like.

If I can be helpful and I know that, you know it's going to add value to somebody else, like and I know that the person I'm giving it to is gonna be responsible and it's not gonna be a waste.

I'm gonna plug you for sure. Man. So shout out to the family. Yeah, shout out to the family.

So like a mafia, right, It's like, Yo, it's almost like a syndic Yeah, shout out to the family.

Shout out to all the ernest on Eyo University. I know we love y'all.

It's over twelve thousand members there, so I definitely I'm sure they're gonna check theirself.

And I shout out to the entire merch team.

Obviously, you see, we got some some fripful ourselves might be who's been hooking us up with that We got some some real cool stuff coming and uh yeah, man, love is love.

Thank you for all the support. Man. We'll be back with y'all next week.

Gradulate you both on what you've accomplished and like I said, we we we we've come across each other and we like shared similar spaces. But what I mentioned what's important is like what people say outside of you, right, and it's like obviously you're doing this, but like at the same time people are like other good dudes. It's like humans. Right, It's like like that's like that's capital, that's welcomed me now.

Like I saw that.

I saw a form of aspect of the bag when I was working on washing, like I got little ones. Man, it's all about that legacy. Like you know, I want somebody to pull up on my son and my daughter like, yo, I need your dad. He was he did X y Z and didn't ask in the back man. So tend my hat to what you guys are accomplished and actually what's in store. So definitely want to make sure I'm tapping into Yeah.

Shout out to my man lou Tucker once again, Lewis Lewis, Nice Eli, l Lewis, Thank you.

Guys for rock West. Will see you next week.

Peace, peace, my graduates from my school being forced bad drop drop drop drop drop.

You just realized your business needed to hire someone yesterday. How can you find amazing candidates fast easy. Just use Indeed. Stop struggling to get your job posts seen on other job sites. With Indeed sponsored jobs, your post jumps to the top of the page for your relevant candidates, so you can reach the people you want faster. According to Indeed data, sponsored jobs posted directly on Indeed have forty five percent more applications than non sponsored jobs. Don't wait