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All right, guys, welcome back. Shout out to Houston, Shout out to the great state of Texas. We are enjoying ourselves, thoroughly enjoying ourselves here. We had a crazy, tremendous networking event. Everybody came out and it's just really good, really good to just feel the Southern hospitality. Everybody's going out of their way. Everybody's so nice and for.
Us, yeah, I feel like they got the message. They heard La was crazy, Atlanta was crazy, Brooklyn was nuts, and they were like, we got to show him how was really done down here.
And so it's a very progressive town.
I've noticed a lot of people doing well for themselves, a lot of entrepreneurs. Everybody we met at the networking events like I got the largest real estate black owned real estate company, I got a construction company, I got you know what I mean, Like everybody's trying to do something. So shout out to Texas.
We are.
We are enjoying ourselves and part of our Texas run is that we're highlighting people in the area and some of the heroes doing their thing, your hometown heroes for sure. So along those lines, we have a very special guest today, t Brown Zone. Thank you, thank you for joining us.
Thank you this when I say Houston, yeah now, thanks for having me, I appreciate it.
No, for sure, for sure. So Mike is a is an interesting guy. He has a lot going on. He had a career first and foremost as a football player, football star, A two year All American at Duke, and he was an academic standout as well, four point zero high school student.
Student athlete University, which is one of the.
Top academic schools, and then had a career in the NFL. Played three years in the NFL as well. But now he's doing his thing in the tech space and some other stuff we'll get into. It is very interesting, But can we talk about football first before we talk about what you're doing in the entrepreneurial world. So you grew up in Texas. You're from Texas and from Houston, right, we're part specifically a leave.
We call it the SWAT for anybody that knows it, and uh, yeah, we were proud.
Of that shot to shout out to the SWAT.
Yeah.
When I heard the SWAT was my brother used to live in Atlanta. That's still for southwest Atlanta. Yeah, so it's like.
Texas is southwest side of Houston, all right.
So you're in the league, right, and we've all shout out to the to the NFL because well the NFL players, because a lot of the guys follow us on social media and we connect with so many players in the NFL and they're really into financial literacy, right, now, But when you was in the league, was that prevalent, Like did you guys talk about investing in savings and tech.
Like real estate?
And because we've all had this horror stories of athletes going broke, so many athletes going broke, like eighty percent of NFL players go bank up bobbies after they get finished playing, how was it from the from the inside in as far as you know, the conversations of financial literacy, if that was going on.
I mean, I would I'll just say that it's certainly made some leaps and strides, you know, towards where I think it should be. I mean this we're talking when I was you know, nine to twenty twelve, and I remember, like, you know, having the formal sit down, you know, with within the team meeting room with a guy from you know, Merrill lanch or whomever will come in and talk about,
you know, different things. But I think, you know, honestly, that was that was probably it, at least for me, you know, And and you know, I guessaid my journey was a little different, as you know, I'm trying to
I'm trying to stick and stay off the bubble. But you know, they're internally and honestly, for me, there was a lot of conversation about not necessarily financial literacy, but guys would talk about what they're doing with their money, and it seemed like everybody was trying to find their way.
And it was like, I know, at the time, restaurants was kind of the kind of the move and you know, obviously we kind of know how that that works out, but and some real estate stuff and you know, I just remember having and again this is a part even part of my personal story that really led to me being where I am now is having these conversations and coming up with these ideas and talking about different things.
Now I wasn't necessarily tech, right, but it was just different ideas of businesses or different you know, ways to kind of make more money if you will. But it wasn't specifically investing necessarily. So I think now there's a lot more kind of programming related to getting players to understand kind of how to how to you know, leverage your money to work for you beyond the field. And one of the things that was I remember they always they were telling that they were really heavy on protecting
your money, right. I remember they talked about like not like understanding that the tickets that you're giving aren't free. So like when you're giving tickets to people to come to the game, that's actually deducted from you, and like you yeah, you look up and you got you know, ten to fifteen worth the tickets.
They give you, like four tickets free.
Yeah, it depends like home game, away game, and like what you can get beyond that. But you know, they I remember as rookies, they were like, like everybody's gonna want tickets, and you need to understand how to say no. And like they would tell you, like, you know, you need to point people to somebody else who can be your no guy. Right, So it was things like that,
you know they said, you know, I remember saying. One of the guys told us was, you know, ten thousand dollars seems to solve everybody's problem, right.
It's like everybody need ten bands to like do something.
I'm hurt right now.
I got this basic idea.
You know what I'm saying, I just need ten k investment, and it's just like, you know, that's that's how you go, bro.
So it was that kind of stuff.
But I'd imagine now that there's a much more robust you know, programming around what to do with your money, how to how to manage it. I know actually a couple of financial advisors that work with a number of players. I know a pretty good financial advisor. Yeah, that probably should work with some players.
We've got a lot of relationships with. So all right, so can we talk about tech? So after you're done playing, le play about three and a half years in the league, which is a good amount of time. I think the average you said two and a half years and a half until you're right on average.
That's bouncing. Yeah, that's trying to make it happen. Yeah.
So all right, so you go into the tech world with Draper University. Right, so this is a life.
Changing experience for you, right, life changing? So can you talk about that?
Yeah?
And so the way the transition happened, you know, like I mentioned, we were having a lot of business conversations. So what a lot of people don't know is that I was prepared for law school. I graduated with a public policy degree, graduated early, take the l sat ready to.
Go into law. Go play.
Now I'm like, okay, I think businesses is where I want to go. So I said, I'm gonna go get an NBA. Right, That's what I figured. You get an NBA and figure it out from there. So came home, was actually about to go to Rice and a friend of mine, former teammate at Duke who's now in the league at that time, told me about a program Draper University. And I'm like, what's that. He's like, it's a new thing in Silicon Valley and I'm like, well, what's that.
Is?
Exactly?
This is twenty thirteen, And you know, honestly, I thought, and this is gonna sound very ignorant, I thought he was talking about breast, you know what I mean, like Silicon.
And you know, the crazy thing is like when you said draput like I know Houston Like yeah, So I'm like, oh no, you're talking about Tim d But you want to talk about who he is before?
Yeah?
Yeah, So Tim Draper is a legendary venture capitalist in Silicon Valley. And let me just also give y'all some name. Silicon is how you said Silicon? Everybody watching just thank me later. It's Silicon Valley, Silicon, Silicon. This is not doctor Miami. And I learned this when I got out there and then and people were telling me, They're like That's how you know who's actually in tech and really really in it is by the way they say the actual name Silicon Valley.
Don't embarrass yourself, Silicon Silicon.
So you know, Silicon Valley like legendary VC venture capitalist but from a lineage, so DFJ is their fun but his father, his father's father's father, like they were actually apparently like some of the first vcs.
Ever you know in that Bay area? Can playing with VC is yeah.
So VC stands for venture capitalists and essentially what they're doing they're investors. But the difference is that they're investing other people's money essentially. So a VC will go out and essentially they have to raise a fund. So they got to go out and convince people that they can
identify the best companies. And usually they're able to do that through a track record or they get people to believe in them, right or whatever, or you know, and probably Tim Draper's you know experience, right, he had a family that was doing that and so he was able to ride that. So you raise money from you know, big wealthy families, endowment funds. You know, you're raising that money and then you're investing that money on behalf of
those investors, which are called limited partners. So LP's in a fund mean I'm giving this money to this person to go invest on my behalf and then when the return comes, like the company gets acquired, then the LPs make money, right. But it's the general principle the gps general partners that are, you know, going through the process of finding the companies, vetting the companies, making the investment.
Uh.
And so when you build a track record of finding very successful companies, then more people it's much easier to raise a fund. And so Tim Draper is like an early investor in Yahoo or I think all his portfolio early investment, Sky, Tesla, Twitter, Space, some companies you might have heard of, right right, a few and so you know he and then in twenty thirteen he starts this
entrepreneurial school. Essentially it's a program called Draper University. Now it's not like in a credit the university to get credits. I don't think maybe they've gotten to that point now, But at the time it was just basically a crash course through Silicon Valley for aspiring tech entrepreneurs. And my friend told me about I don't even know how he knew about it, but he told me, and I was like, all right.
It's in Silicon Valley.
I've never heard of that, but you know, I applied, and then Tim Draper himself ended up calling me. And it was a very unique situation because I wasn't really not sure I would even be able to go, you know what I mean, like in terms of wanting to go, because it was just so foreign. I'm like, I'm here about to go to rights families here, you know, I'm
gonna just do that. And so what I ended up, you know, once he called me, I was like, all right, Tim Draper, who had learned a lot about at that point, Yeah.
It is.
And I honestly it was the first batch. I thought he was calling everybody. It wasn't until I got there and it was fifty something other students and we're all talking about how we found out about Draper and and I'm like, yeah, you know, and Tim called me, and.
Everybody's like what.
I thought.
I thought it was just you know, it's the first batch. He wanted to welcome everybody, and you know, well but whatever. So that was like that pivotal moment because if it hadn't been him and you know, the other kind of standard process. I may have not decided to go because it was out of my comfort zone, but I've been wanted to step out of there sometimes, So go out there, and essentially it's nine weeks.
I mean, we're learning. I mean it was just jam.
We're going through how to build a company, how to you know, grow a company. We're learning from founders of companies that Tim had invested in.
And I remember meeting, you.
Know, a little twenty three year old agent kid that you know just sold a company for five hundred million, and I'm like, you ain't tackled nobody out here sitting good. And so that's when it really triggered on me. Was like, I'm learning that people are literally building and creating, you know, the technologies that we're using every day, and I had never even heard about it. And you're talking about a guy that had a four point zero president of the
engineering club. You think I would You don't think I would have been coding if I know about that when I was seven or eight years old, Like some people that I had met out there had been coding, had been building things. And so I was like, Okay, I'm late to the game. But I'm here and we're gonna get active. And so I ended up finishing number one in the program. And for me that I was like halfway through the program, I knew. I said, I'm moving to the Bay and I'm gonna start a tech company.
And so was grinding through that and was really really optimistic. And and you know, after that, went home and uh, you know, told my then fiance that we we're going to the Bay and out of here, and you know, shout out to her because you know she I could have told her I want to build a staircase to the moon and she would start chopping down trees, like let's let's start building and uh.
And so you know, we we took that big leap of faith.
That gets overlooked man, because like, obviously I have a wife and it's like, like, how are you able to do all these things? And I'm like, YO, strong support, no tru support, and believe.
You know, for me, it's uh, I don't even realize to your point how rare it is. I never take it for granted. I never take it for granted. And shout out to my wife, by the way, what's up, you know she and for me it's like, uh, that is the only way I'm able to really do it now that.
We're really really in the game tech game, and.
You know, when we look back on I mean, that was you know, five years ago though, which which is crazy, where I didn't even know what the thing was and and here we are fully immersed and actually doing well. And her early support is really what even encouraged me, you know what I mean during that time where it's like I don't know what I'm I don't know what I don't know, but I know I want to get into it, and I don't know it either, but let's
let's go. I believe in you, so, you know, went home, and that's when I spent time.
Learning how to code. We had had a daughter, and I'll.
Be honest, we was living in my mama garage, you know, not the garage, but I was in the garage.
It sounds better, I was.
I was coding in the garage. We weren't living in the garage, you know what I'm saying. We have no infant out there, but we was in the house. But I would be in the garage like literally banging out code and like learning and teaching myself. So I created a curriculum and and for me, it was like I'm hearing that people know how to code and this tech thing and and like, you know anything, I want to put my time and effort into. I want to be the best. And so boom we we. I'm like, we're
going to going to the Bay. We get out there, and you know, I got one goal, start a company, and and you know, get out there is not a lot of me, not a lot of folks that look like me. But you know, I'm coming also from Duke, so you know, I was, I was, I was okay in that environment.
I could navigate.
Uh.
And so I ended up working at a startup because I said, you know, before I jump out there and try to build something, let me at this point, I only had about nine weeks super program and some lines of code behind me.
Uh.
And so I was like, let me go work at a company. And that's where I got hired, actually at a company called keep uh in the Bay area, you know, your traditional Silicon Valley tech startup. They had raised about ten million dollars at that point, and they were actually ranked higher than Airbnb at that time.
And uh, another Silicon Valley.
Exactly Uh, no, it was it was it was you know, shout out to them because they gave me an opportunity.
Again, I have no experience, but they you know.
I came on basically entry level on the growth team, and within about five or six months, you know, based on my performance, I was now in leadership, you know, and that was one of the things I loved about tech is well, now, there's a lot of issues and things that still need to be addressed, but when it came to merit based kind of promotion and moving up, as long as you're creating.
Value in that in that company, because.
Again it's all early stage and you're trying to exist, you're building something that has never existed in the world. That's my definition of a pure like true tech startup. Like an entrepreneur. You can open up a barbershop or you know, food truck or whatever, but to be building something that hasn't existed in the world. There ain't no googling how to do X, y Z, how what's the business model for this?
It's interesting that you say that because in the next segment we're going to go into what you're doing now and your trailblazing. You're kind of trailblazing your own set. But it's a backstory how that came in about. So we're going to go into that in the next segment. All right, So now he ain't going segment two and we're gonna talk about your company, Win Win. But before we do that, so all right, we gotta talk about fantasy football.
Right.
We have briefly talked about fantasy football, but it's a billion dollar industry, right, and fantasy sports, well fintasy sports, but football is the biggest sport in America. Yeah, and so it's the biggest fantasy sport. But yeah, fantasy sports in general. So all right, you find out about the power of fantasy and then this kind of leads to some ideas for you, right, so can you talk about that because you kind of told us a story off camera, but yeah, it's interesting now for sure.
So you know, I'm in the bay, I'm in you know, working at a company, and again my goal is to start a company.
And I'll just say real.
Quick, one of the things that changed in my mindset being in Silicon Valley was the fact that people approach problems differently, right, or they took it further. Anybody and everybody usually can identify a problem or pain point something they don't like. What I recognized was that people out there in particular were taking it further and saying, what could I do about that?
Right?
How could I solve this pain point just for myself? And then turns out millions and billions of people have that same pain point. Now you have, you know, a company going.
Same pain point. That's a that's like what does that mean?
Yeah?
And that's not like a physical pain I get back hurt. I mean that could lead to some innovation, but it's like, you know, I don't like how these mics like it's you know, I needed to be able to do something else, like my back hurting because and like you know, if you could, how could I change that versus just you know, doing like all right whatever.
I just got to get used to it.
It's like, let me look at this microphone, let me you know, you start kind of analyzing a little bit because this pain point of always having it again.
I'm just using a round example.
It is a point.
You know, there we go, let's let's.
Let's get the whiteboard out and this thing out, and so you know, it's kind of taking that next step and saying, Okay, what can how can I how can I hack something together just to make it better for me?
Right, It's usually how it happens, and then you know, from there you start to really develop something now. And so that was what kind of was new for me as I was looking at different problems and a big problem that jumped out for me in particular.
And these pain points are usually specific.
To your own experience, right, Your pain points may be different from mine because we walk a different path or whatever. And so for me in particularly when you look back at my history, right, I'm a former athlete, and so their athletes, current active, former all have a special place in my heart because you know, we have that common bond. And when I looked at fantasy sports, right, I started to learn a lot more about it. I always told people, you know, I didn't play fantasy. I play reality, and
you know, I never was into that. And but what I did recognize, you know, particularly in FanDuel and DraftKings, you know DFS, which was kind of new compared to traditional season long fantasy. You know, I was like, wait, these companies are making billions of dollars, right, And at the time I was talking to a lot of friends in the league asking them, how do you feel about, you know, fantasy, And overwhelmingly the answer was I don't give a damn about it, you know, because I'm not
making any money whatsoever. And I learned that the companies are making billions of dollars right, and the players plastered across their platform aren't getting any money out of that, and I just didn't That didn't sit well with me. That was the pain point that I was like, all right, that's somebody has to fix that.
I have a pain point that revolves around fantasy sports. It involves me losing.
A lot of monkey.
Well, you know, we're gonna solve that pain when I'll show you exactly how we do that. But uh, you know, and that was something where I was like, okay, that's that something's not right there. And then on the other side, I started to learn about fantasy from the consumer standpoint.
A lot of guys I was working with were.
Really into fantasy and they were telling me about I started to learn actually why people were playing more or less because you're losing money. So you ain't playing for money, right, You're playing because it's fun. You can, you know, talk smack with the friends, you know, things like that, and like a whole culture, right, exactly exactly, and because.
It's addictive, right, it's addictive, especially like when it was the season long one, it was okay, right, you talk trash, you know, probably like Monday morning, Tuesday when the week is over. But the daily one, it was like, ooh, I gotta have my lineup in by seven. I gotta have my lineup in by six thirty, or yo, I got to have my lineup in for the eight thirty game. It was like this never stops. And because it just became an addictive thing.
I mean, it is gambling, yeah, let's be clear, but well you.
Know it is.
Yeah, it is no way around yeah and now and that was where you know, for me, I recognized a problem, right, particularly for athletes who weren't getting any value out of this thing. I saw that it was highly you know, engaged by sports fans, right, and so I said that was where the idea for when when even came up, Right, I started talking to players, I started talking to the consumers the users of these platforms, and I was just getting a sense of you know, they're losing money, but
it's fun. They're competing it's addictive. And I basically proposed the question to one of my coworkers one day, and I said, what if the money that you're losing, what if that money could go to something more impactful, like
a charity that let's say an athlete cares about. And instead of competing to win money out of that pot because it's gone to charity, what if you could win something that money couldn't buy, right, like a game or on autograph jersey or you know, dinner with your favorite player. And it was an overwhelming Hell, yeah, I do that, you know. And it was like okay. So then I go call my my buddies in the league and I say, hey,
what if I could get your fans? I know you care about your charity and your foundation a lot.
Uh.
And this was another unique insight that I had because I had a foundation as well, and I knew that players, we want to use our platform for good whenever possible, if it's easy and efficient, right, And so I said, what if I can get your fan base to, through this game of sorts, support your charity by donating to it. Is that valuable enough for you to you know, sign a couple of autographs or call somebody on face Simon.
It's like, yeah, that's easy. You know, we do that already through certain things.
So you have your own five one C three.
Yeah.
So outside of like the company and our and we we got a for profit and a nonprofit. But before I even started when when when I was playing, I had a nonprofit called Team Guinea. A good friend of mine, Toby Nwigwe probably one of the fastest growing artists right now coming out of the SWAT. He and I started it with another friend of ours, Jeff, and you know, we were you know, making purpose popular was our was our mission. So we understood the pain points around trying
to raise money. So took that experience along with my athlete, my athletic background, and that's where we came up with this you know concept of win win where I said, okay, we're gonna leverage gaming right and we're gonna now drive more value to what the players truly care about, right,
which is their philanthropic efforts. And that was the birth of win win and how we how we started that was the end of twenty fifteen and I was working at a company when I came up with it, and so I just started to do market research, and like I said, I'm learning how to like what the steps
are you take to build a company? I'd never known so through through Draper, and like at that point I had built the network of other founders, particularly black founders that I was really like, we were all lifting as we climb, you know. I knew even at that time, I knew I would see three four founders boom, jump out there and go start something. We knew folks like you know Deshaun the founder of Maven, you know, shout
out to DeShawn. He you know, a brother out of Oakland, you know, is running Mavin, one of the largest hairwave kind of tech companies uh in the in the world probably, And so you know, to see guys like that just continuing to push the envelope.
You know, really motivated me. And so I was like, this is this is why we're here.
I was actually my wife, I should say, it was getting comfortable with kind of that tech check and uh, you know, we were in the bay, you know, living that living that life, and it was like, that's gonna have to stop because it's time to get active.
So you have you have an idea. But one quick thing about fantasy. You has said one percent of fantasy players win ninety percent of the money.
Is that true?
Yeah, So in that in that research that I was doing less than one percent at least at that time, right this is twenty fifteen, when you again you couldn't get a away from a FanDuel of DraftKings ad. You know, less than one percent of the users on those platforms were winning over ninety eight percent of the money. And again that was for me, it was mind boggling that you know, you're just continuing to lose money while you playing.
And that was where I started to dig into what the real kind of so we you know, for us, we want to pull out the best parts of gaming and gambling and combine.
It with giving.
But that was kind of the data I was learning. And then you start to learn about the algorithms that the scripts that people are writing. They can create, you know, a thousand lineups just like that, you know, and they can bankroll the actual tournament by you know, being able to cover all those entry fees knowing that they're going to take everybody's money. We're calling them sharks, where they're coming in and scooping up all the menos probably right.
Yeah, listen, man, one, I'm telling you. One day, I literally went through every game that I had lost and saw the same names, and I just compiled a list of twenty people and I called my boy up, Larry. Out to Larry, he's.
Another guy who does Fanta fantasy legend.
Fantasy leg is a fantasy legend. Actually he actually did win some money. But it's the thought that I could win because like you might get, like you go into these low level entry games is gambling two dollars games and you might win one hundred dollars. I actually want a few times. But in the long run, right, those sharks they always flood the rooms, So it's like, you know what, I can't beat them.
Because the sharks always eat fish. Yeah, in life, you're either a shark or your fish.
I was a gold fish. I definitely quick, real quick.
So let me ask you this, all right, So, okay, so you actually.
Have a really good idea where you you like you said, you you take the the best part of if there is the best part of gambling, you take the best part of gambling, and you take charity, which is always a good thing, and you kind of cambind it with sports, which everybody loves and you're having center bonuses. It's a really good idea, right, So what's the next step as
far as putting together? Were gonna talk about funding in the next segment, but before we've been talking about funding because you said you didn't have any background and building a business. You went to Draper University. That helped out a lot. So what steps did you take to actually build out the platform? And obviously you loved your relationship with the players in the league, So how did that look as far as your business plan and actually putting that together?
Yeah, no, great questions.
So you know, for me again, when I moved out there in August twenty fourteen or June twenty fourteen, there was one goal. So even as I was working at that company, I'm gleaning as much knowledge and information as I can, like, hey, how did y'all you.
Know, who's y'all's lawyers? Like who did y'all say? Who set this up?
And you know, just building a network of other founders that were you know, far ahead, you know, just started you know, other people that had ideas and it was just like, so what did y'all do? Because again, the thing is it ain't no Google for this stuff. Now, you know there's some information out there for sure, blog posts,
different things. But you know what I was mentioned in earlier is like a tech entrepreneur is very different from a recor entrepreneur typically because you know, entrepreneurship is broad. You could go, you know, open up a food truck or barbershop and you're an entrepreneur and that's more power
to you. When you're tech entrepreneur is a little different typically because you're creating something a technology that has not existed in the world yet, right, And so there is like you can look up all the literature you can on you know, the business model for a barbershop and where you get the clippers and how much you're charging boothrin and all these things, and that's great, right, that
roadmap is there. When you're building something that hasn't existed, that that's not there, so all you can really do. And I talk a lot about these data points that I call them, and it's really insights. It's conversations that you're having with different people. And for me, I want to be a founder. I want to start a company, so I'm going to ask and talk to other founders and see what they went through, how they're doing different things.
Now it's going to be very different for me, likely because we're running totally different companies, right because what they're building hasn't existed.
What I'm building hasn't existed.
And so I'm taking these very relevant data points, right, So I'm not talking to some guy that's you know, doing something in you know, West Palm Beach, Florida, that you know, it's not relevant to tell me what I should do to start win when I'm talking to folks in the midst of it all. And so I was just cleaning that information. And really, those data points allow you to make the best decision, the best informed decision
you can. So you know who what's the first hire I should make, or you know, how do I set up a pitch deck, what's the story of the of the company, how do I set up the business model?
Right?
None of this stuff existed, and so you have to make You have to make the best decisions you can.
That's why there's.
A ton of mistakes that are made, and those data points. Surrounding yourself around with great advisors, people that have done this successfully helps you. You're never gonna be perfect but it definitely helps you minimize the number of mistakes because if you can minimize the mistakes, you have a much higher chance of reaching success. And that's what I learned in the first few years of any company. It's really not about reaching success, it's about survival.
How many people are on the team.
I got five people right now and through that process.
So what was the selection process for them? Was it people that you knew or you sought these people because you saw or knew the history of their work.
So a lot of the early hires, you know, they come through referrals, right because other people like love what you're doing, and they may know people. That's usually the best form of finding a great hire because people that you're close with came highly recommend you know, can highly recommend somebody, I'll be honest. One of the big learning curves for me and starting Win Win and happened very
early on. It's a very expensive lesson was hiring. And that was the thing that you know, I didn't have a process in place at first, and I didn't go through the proper procedures.
To really vet them.
I literally hired like two or three people because they went to do and like that that was it.
You went to duke.
Oh, Okaymni.
We're out here though.
But you know, and it was more or less that we weren't ready to have I mean, we had ten people full time pretty much for we ever even launched the thing, and we went in with a lot of assumption so that the hiring process is key.
And now you know, we learned it was a very.
Hard lesson to learn, an expensive lesson because you know, we're paying Silicon Valley salaries too, and uh and that ain't no joke. And so you know, change course, you know, corrected it, and now we're going we're literally in that process now that we've moved back to Houston. We got we got recruited to move to Houston and be a part of Houston's tech boom that's happening now.
Uh and so we're thrilled about that.
And so now we're implementing a real, real thorough process, you know, in vetting people, making sure and we have a much better understanding of what we actually need too because we've been doing it. So now we have a very clear road map. We have governance, We have board members folks that weigh in on these decisions. So but you gotta you gotta get to that point. And so it's a very very tough road. And I applaud anybody,
any entrepreneur. First of all, Right, just because there is a road map doesn't mean it's gonna be an easy way to get there. But actually those that are building something that hasn't existed, right, who have to create that road map and then worry about somebody else, you know, trying to take over and beat you out. So a lot of respect for anybody that's gone through that process because it is it a taxing one for sure.
Governance very good word, very key word to understand in business, Very very key word to understand business.
All right.
So so okay, so can we talk about how you've leveraged your relationships because so a lot of times people are putt in situations and they don't fully maximize their relationships, right, and this is key to anything. You can work in Walmart, but you have a relationship with somebody, So you with NFL in an NFL, but you didn't squander your time in the NFL. You build key relationships and now you're using the relationships to help in your business. Right, So
you talk about that because obviously. I think that that's a key component as far as the success of what you're planning with.
You have the ability to do things that the average person doesn't.
Yeah, no, for sure.
And you know, I think one thing I always remember learning learning at ducat at is that your your network is your.
Net worth, right.
And I've always taken approaching And it wasn't until recently where I was reading a book called Give and Take by Adam Grant, and it's a phenomenal book that talks about you know your relationships and you know who you are.
Are you a giver or you're a taker? Right?
And for me, I realized that I've been a giver because when I talk about like networking, you think about somebody who's like, I'm going to network or I'm going to meet somebody really just looking to see what I can get out of them, right, and I usue them coming. And I've noticed it's by myself. I want to fear how can I help you? You know what I mean? Like, I look to build very authentic relationships, right, I don't want nothing from you, Right, I'm grind and trying to
make it happen myself. I don't want to come in and just be trying to extract value. I always want to add value. And so even when it came to the players right as I like, I got a handful of players that I remember talking to during that time, and you know, I'm just it's really like it was a bad back and forth, like real just authentic conversations about man, this tech thing is crazy, Like I'm literally in the middle of it, and they're like, man, like,
tell me about that. And so we're just having these conversations. It wasn't like I was hitting them up with a direct you know, motive, like hey need you, I need to leverage you.
That's the only reason I'm calling you.
Like, I have authentic relationships with these guys that you know, again, we talk about life and all these things. So when it came time to talk about when when and develop and even including them in the development of that idea.
You know, it was it was a natural, you.
Know, a fit for them to say, yeah, bro, like let me know, like I'll definitely host a tournament or whatever, you know, whatever you need.
That sounds dope, you know what I mean.
And so it's building those relationships, and you know, my whole thing is We want to add value even from the business, not even just me personally. I guess that goes into the business, but you know, we want to be adding value to all the partners that we work with. And we were starting with athletes, right, but I've now been talking about this expansion map that we've already laid out and have already begun to where we're now going
to start working with entertainers, artists, influencers, teams, universities. We really built win when as a platform that will help any entity of influence mobilize an audience in supportive of cause.
You know, so one win Obviously, fantasy is huge in the NFL, but you are you crossing over to other sports.
So we you know, today we have one hundred and fifty athletes across the NFL and NBA.
And to be clear, we've been in our beta phase, so we've been very much so under the radar, you know, testing making sure. That was one of the things that I learned in this kind of tech flow, right, is that you got to you gotta secure what they call product market fit, right because in your mind it's, oh man, it's a perfect idea, right, and then you know you may even do some surveys or asks me, would you buy this if this was available?
Oh?
Yeah, for sure. But soon as that, soon as that paywall come up.
In the credit card, what had happened?
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And so now you didn't know went out and invested in all kind of stuff to build this thing without ever really properly testing it in the market live, you know what I mean. And so we had to really go that rigorous testing process and shout out to our early players because we couldn't guarantee what was going to happen with their tournament in terms of like we can't say, oh, you're gonna raise you know, one hundred thousand dollars for your charity, like we don't know, because we were like
testing this thing out. And so you know, these guys actually ended up becoming investors because they saw like the grind. They saw the trajectory and uh, you know, so we're expanding across all sports. Very soon, we'll be scaling vertically to now working with you know, Spike Lee could host a win win tournament for NBA. Pick them, you know, you join, donate to Spike's charity of choice, and now you get to win.
You know, of course, I see to.
The or like a phil Ivy, he's like the world's greatest poker plays black, so he do like like a World Series of Poker, but for charity something like that, you know what I mean, something like that?
Yeah.
Is it a traditional fantasy format where performances based on a skill I mean, on a scoring point system and then at the end, whoever has the most points because it gets the is the winner or do we do like head to head or is the twenty style?
Great question?
So, first, to be clear, it's not what people would consider or most people would think of fantasy. It's not daily fantasy, it's not FanDuel DraftKings. In terms of the game, we like to call it fantasy style game. So it's you're making predictions essentially of who's gonna win the game. So in short, how it works is you know, players hosting a win win tournament, promoting it off to fans when they come to the platform, click the link in the bio they come, and then they're joining the tournament
by simply predicting who they think is gonna win. You know this upcoming weekend's games, right, there's sixteen seventeen games on any given week in the NFL, So you're just literally predicting the winners, nothing else, and you're everybody who joins that tournament. We're all on a leader board and we're ranked based on the accuracy of those picks that
we've made. And upon joining, you're then given an opportunity to make a donation fully tax deductible to the players Foundation of Chill, and there's other perks and benefits that you can unlock by doing that. We have what we call Karmel coins. So for every dollar you donate, you earn these Karmel coins. You can unlock other perks and benefits.
But when those games kick off, you're earning points not based on the size of your donation, which is you know, that would be like a raffle, you know, and so you're earning points based strictly on the accuracy of your prediction. So you're going up and down on the leaderboard as these games are happening in real life. And something unique is that the leaderboard is changing every five seconds, not based on who won or lost the game, but who's winning or losing at.
That very moment.
So as you got five or six games happening, I mean, the score is going up and down, and you're just I mean, it's it's going crazy, and we keep and that's that's what I said.
We're taking the best part of that kind of gambling.
How many people in the twenty at a time.
That varies, there's no max, and you know it can vary varies based on the player, the level of promotion, things like that. But the key is that they're not competing to win money, right, So those are the those are the visceral kind of feelings that we took out of gaming and put it into win win, And they're not winning money, right, they're winning experiences that money can't buy, like having dinner with the player after the game, or
court side seats or autograph jersey whatever. I mean, we've done, We've done a private jet ride. Patrick Peterson took the top three winners on the leader board and flew on a private jet with him to baton Ruge for the LSU Versus Alabama game course. I mean a sideline passes locker rooms the whole nine. And those guys collectively were on average, I think donated about thirty thirty five bucks, but they were the top three winners based on their scores and lead on.
The leader board.
And that's what we call Game of five giving, and so that's you know, everybody's competing, but the unique part is that everybody wins. Also, it's not a one winner take off, which I think is you know, if you're in first place, you get the jet ride, tenth place, you get the FaceTime call, one hundredth place, you get an autograph jersey all the way down the last place where you'll get twenty dollars in free lift credits as your prize. So as a fan, you've competed, you've contributed,
and you've won something. And for us, we didn't go with that model really because it sounds good. We did it because it's acquisition and retention driving behaviors. Again, we're building a profitable, a for profit company that is looking to return capital to our investors ten x, which means, you know, somebody comes scoop us up for seven hundred million dollars or whatever.
That's the goal.
And so we have to think very strategically about the business model, about what are these triggers that will get people to come back and donate. What it'll get people to come So acquisition, if you know, you see your favorite player hosting a tournament promoting it, knowing that you're guaranteed to win a prize, you're more inclined to actually join right versus joining the raffle.
I'll win something right.
But more importantly, if you look at your predictions, and let's say you got one of the brand sponsor prizes like lift credits, you're gonna look at it, you're gonna be happy about it. But then you're gonna say, man, if I would have made these seven different picks, I would have been in Tier two.
I would have got the autograph football. So what do you do?
You come right back next week and try again donate boom And so now retention, acquisition, you know, these are the things that really drive a business as we look to, you know, drive revenue and evaluation them.
All right, So in the next seven, we're gonna go into the most important part of any business funding. But it's a little different, a little different. We're gonna talk about equity crowdfunding, something that most people aren't too familiar with, so we haven't covered it yet. So yeah, we're gonna go into it, all right, So now we're gonna talk about something very interesting and something Actually when you when
you contacted us, you brought up a good point. He's like, I don't think you talked about this, but you know what, we haven't talk about it, right, so, yes, equity crowdfunding. Right, so people might not be familiar with equity. Well, crowdfunding in general is a way to raise money from large amounts of people, right, So, like the most popular form is Kickstarter. People things like that, right, It's kickstarter where you it's kind of like a donation kind of charity thing.
Sometimes you can give people like T shirts, but it's pretty much they're not getting nothing in return for that except for just good will they want to support you. Right now, Equity crowd funding is something that is new that came about from President Obama's.
Jobs build up.
I'm not yeah, the Jobs Act, and yeah, so can you talk about that, because it's pretty interesting.
Yeah.
No.
So you know, one of the any business, right particularly within in tech companies, right, you have to raise funding and for for you know, decades.
Now, right. The way you do that is go to an investor. Right.
You pitch your vision to that one individual usually or a fund, and you know, they make a decision on if they're going to give you the startup capital that you need to go build this thing, and in exchange, they get equity, right, they get ownership part ownership in the company. And that's how it's been done for ages.
Now. One of the things.
That it has created is a very big gap in terms of wealth and the access to generate wealth.
Right when you talk.
About angel investors, right, and again, trust me, like I've learned all of this stuff in the last five years. I didn't, Like I said, I didn't even know what Silicon Valley was or the word and so this was all things that I had to learn on the go. But when it comes to angel investors, these are basically wealthy individuals that are investing their own capital, like at their bank account. They they're investing in the companies getting equity.
Uh.
And then when those companies go on, they do very well and get sold or I po then those angel investors, those wealthier, those wealthy volks get even more wealthy, right
because they get a return on their capital. And so it was creating this gap, and and you know, shout out to Obama because he you know, saw that there was a disparity there and thought that anybody should be able to have access if they can access that deal, right, because there's there's there's part access, but then having the capacity to even get involved, right, And so he created the Jobs Acts. Right, it's jumpstart our business startups, and it is you know, it's it's actually a whole lot
of different things. But one of the things in there is equity crowdfunding. And what it does is it gives founders of companies the ability to open up the fundraising to what they call non accredited investors. So that angel investor that I mentioned is going to be an accredited investor.
And to be an accredited investor, you have to make two hundred and fifty thousand dollars a year or more at least for the last three years as your tax you know, paperwork will show or have a million in liquid assets.
Yeah, we can see how that could be a problem. Like, especially in the communities we live in. It's like, how many people do we know that make two hundred and fifty thousand as a combined family, one person make it.
And as a group, actually you can. You and your spouse collectively have to make three hundred thousand, right, And so they even make that bar go a little higher. And so or have a million in liquid assets.
That's it. That's the only requirements two million in assets.
Or a million in liquid liquid. So it can't but it basically it can't.
They got to be something like a retirement account on bank or stock stuff like that, things that you.
Can liquid that, yeah, quickly.
And so that's you know that and and honestly or like what I looked at in the research option done, that's about eight or nine percent of Americans, right, And so the ninety one percent, essentially right, can't can't even access that deal even if they know the founder of X y Z company. They can't you know, invest even if they haven't have some load of cash that they came across or whatever. But so what Obama said is, you know, through the Jobs Act, now anybody should be
able to access that. So in twenty sixteen is actually when they went through, and now you started to see the rise of.
These equity crowdfunding platforms.
So the thing that you have to know is like if I run a tech company or startup, just because you know the Jobs Act exist doesn't mean you could just walk up and give me some money and say I want to be an investor. The companies have to go through, so this is all sanctioned by the SEC. You know, there's a lot of kind of formal time ters I won't bore you guys with, but you have to go through a very extreme vetting process.
So first there's the platform.
So you brought up a good point Kickstarter, Indie, go go, right, these are forms of crowdfunding. Go fund me is a crowd is a crowdfunding platform, right, And again to your point, you're raising money for something from a large crowd of people, hence the name.
The original of the crowdfunding itself was based on a rock band like yeah, they couldn't get money to go on tour. Oh yeah, so their fans came together to say, like let's fund them to at least have a tour to perform.
Hence crowdfunded Troy always comes with It was like a white elephant always comes with like these little known Alright, all right, so we're back to the crowd but.
Yeah, so you know, crowdfunding as in and of itself exists, right, It has existed for some time, all the way back to the rock band, right and to your point, equity crowdfunding came in right when you and let's just draw a comparison.
Let's take Kickstarter for example.
This is a Kickstart is a company that enables you to run a crowdfunding campaign, right, and so you can put up your project, whether it's a film, whether it's a whatever it is, right, and you can basically promote it and people will buy in and maybe you have perks. Like you said, now, the difference, right you talk about equity crowdfunding, there are also platforms, right, so republic is one that is probably one of the more popular ones.
There's others called we funder, you know a few others that you know allow you to have an equity crowdfunding campaign. Now they have to go through a rigorous process to even be set up. But the big difference between those two platforms is that on Kickstarter, if I'm not mistaken, Basically anybody can set that up. You can go in there, fill out the thing, and then boom, launch a campaign
and it's up to you. And you have to raise a certain amount to even access to the capital for equity crowdfunding because these are technically public offerings right of shares in a company and a private company, it has to be sanctioned.
By the SEC.
So it's a very rigorous process, right, I mean, they dove deep into the financials and all the history of the company, and then that's how you're able to even be accepted on one of the platforms, right like Republic for US and then and really it's a it's a because basically I don't even know if we said it. What it means is equity crowdfunding enables anybody, not accredited investors to invest into private companies for as little as you know, I think legally the minimum is like ten dollars.
Yeah, now that's something that all right, So I don't want people to not understand this, so cause I get this question of my DM so often, like when I post stuff about like Beyond Meat and like Lift and all of these stuff, and I post stories about like Knas and like how he invested early, and people like, well, how can I invest in these companies early? For the most part, you really can, right, like you said, I mean especially on that level.
It's like angel investors and vcs.
But even on the small levels and credited investors, So you have to be like a special kind of person for lack of a better word, to actually invest. But now it allows the general public. Crowdfunding allows the general public to invest in companies on the ground level because, like you said off camera, one of the main disadvantages is that you're getting people that can invest in these companies and then when they go public, their percentage goes
up like a thousand percent. But by the time the general public gets it in the stock market, they've already made their money that they're out. They're out the day, right. And it's interesting because probably the most famous in our community person that has done that is Jay Morrison. He did a real estate crowdfunding with the Tulsa Real Estate Fund and he same thing. He raised money from the crowd and I think like over ten million dollars in a very short period of time. So it's a very
successful real estate crowdfunding fund campaign. But it's something for people to understand from two aspects of it. From a business owner, it's a way to raise money, right because financing is extremely important and it's hard to get bank loans, it's hard to get outside financing. So this is a way for business owners to raise large amounts of money. Now you're giving up equity in it, and we'll talk about that. But you know, you don't get nothing for something.
You always have to do something. So and it's also a way for investors to invest in companies that they believe in and they think that can blow up because now you might put in ten thousand dollars on a company, but in five years that company, that percentage might be worth one hundred thousand because you got it on the ground level. And you guys said something about Ben Herwitz right forwardz If anybody's not familiar, he's a tech giant, VC giant, and he's good friends with NAS. He's one
of the reasons why NAS is really blowing up. He's kind of like mentored him. I read some stuff about that. If anybody's not familiar, Nias is doing this thing with Queensbridge Bridge. Yeah, and they invest in like lifting ring pill pack all a lot of these companies, and so Ben is really into hip hop. He's like a hip hop head, and it was maatic from what I understand, is like one.
Of his favorite albums ever.
So he just he developed and Horror Black by the way, no no, no, if you didn't know about the name.
If you so he just took the barbecue.
So you were saying that it was crazy because roughly he invested like two fifty into Instagram and then like two years later it was worth like eighty million or something like that.
Right, Yeah, I mean, so I don't have any facts
on this. Actually shout out to Chamellionaire if you know, Chamellionaires is really really been winning this in Houston's own ride Dirty and you know he's been winning in the tech game and just real quick, you know he I mean, we were talking about a situation that happened I think twenty seventeen finals, right, and this is where it actually came out that you know cha millionaires yeah because he because he yeah, he was you know, he was court side, yeah,
and like in the background of a picture and it's how many ring tones did he sail hit the finals game game five? You know, court side and people came and said, no, he's been early investor in Lyft, early investor in Ring, you know, early investor in a number of companies that have done well. And so you know, actually Chameleon I was the one that kind of you know, put this, put this kind of this data out. Now, I don't know you know, the details and specifics on it,
so let me make that clear. But there was a very sizeable return you know in the in the eighties of millions of dollars, you know, based on that initial investments from what I hear, but it shows the power of equity ownership, right, and now was a I think the with the real point that he was making is that you know, you have to be able to get in on the ground level. And for so long the price was so much higher than you know, most of our folks in the community could ever even think about investing.
And so with the equity crowdfunding, that's where because it's coming from a crowd of people, you can make that price much lower, you know what I mean. And so for like for win Win for two hundred and fifty dollars, you can own equity, right, I'll be it a smaller portion compared to somebody that's putting in twenty five grand
or two hundred and fifty thousand. But you know, it's all about having a slice of that pie, particularly if you believe in the company, if you believe in the mission, if you're going to be a consumer of it, right, and that to your point, the ninety one percent that aren't that are non accredited investors. They have to wait until it's already publicly traded to even you know, have some ownership, right, imagine being able to do that on the front end.
But now you actually can.
And that's where the equity crowdfunding, to your point, comes in, where we can raise money, particularly as black founders, we have now an alternative avenue to raise money from the crowd versus having to go to a very particular specific demographic of vcs and people.
I'm glad you brought that com millionaire story up because it highlights a problem in the community. So it all started with the It was like the Golden State Finals. Anybody knows finals tickets, they cost a lot of money, like hundreds of thousands, Like it's crazy, now, hundreds of thousands, but a lot of money, a lot of money. So he's front row at the finals, and it's like a joke.
It's like, damn, how many how much ringsols? Did he sound like he has somebody here doesn't belong where fifteen years But little do they know the guy's been making millions of dollars and investing in companies long after his musical career was over. So when they find that out, it's like, now it's not funny anymore. Right, So it's like a lot of times we highlight celebrities and entertainers, but like even if you look at that, you use
Jay Z and Beyonce at the front row. Everybody knows them, but they're probably middle class for everybody else in the front row. Like the guy that got into the fight, nobody knew who he was. You worth eight billion dollars just a random billionaire. It's like, how many people that you don't know are just billionaires. The one person that you do know just became a billionaire. Not not you know, no disrespect to James b We love them, but that just goes to show you how much money is out.
There, right, yeah, right, And you know, and that's why I'm glad you brought that up, because when I was in the bay, right, one of the things that I really actually appreciated, you.
Know, relative to l A right, is that you didn't know who you was talking to or what you were doing.
Like the money was just shown way differently, you know what I mean.
And you just have people that were just grinding and hustling and building companies. And you know, you meet a guy just randomly looked like you know, random guys like yeah, man, you know, just so my second company Amazon word, you know what I mean, and drinks on you. Then you know what I'm saying, And it's it's just a different it's a different mindset. And to your point, like you know, like I said, it wasn't funny no more, you know
what I mean. And you know, I think that I love these examples where you look at you know, a Chamellionaire who and and that's a great friend. Shout out to Cam And and by the way, he's he's an entrepreneur as well as an investor. He started his own tech app, tech company called Convos, which I you know suggests everybody go check out and download. And he's been building and feeding into the community, giving back, you know,
and and and you gotta you gotta love that. But you look at you know, the Beyonce situation right where uh if For those who don't know, you know, she essentially passed up a cash offer to perform at a big Uber event, passed on six million dollars, as the story goes, and wanted equity in exchange, and they gave
it to her. And then they just recently iPod and supposedly it's worth somewhere in the three hundred million dollar range, right, And again that's the power of equity because you know the IPO, you own shares of the company and now you're able to cash that in. Now granted that's on paper, right, that that worth, but she can cash that in and make it.
You know, who else has a good equity story? I told this story before, but I never told her on the podcast. Some might as well tell fifty Curt shout.
Out to fifty. We don't we don't owe him any money? Oh yeah, yeah, So.
Everybody knows fifty cents vitamin water he made like they say, ninety eighty million dollars, right, because what happened is that they he had equity, I think like ten percent equity stake in the company. Then Coca Cola brought it for a billion dollars and then his ten percent was worked like one hundred million. What they don't know is that so vitamin water, they got some vitamin water dif from Queen Queens Queen, so yeah, so fifty Queens gets the money.
So fifties from he's from the South Side. And you know who else is from Queens Metal World Peace Rhest. Yeah, he's from Queensbridge, home with nas and mob Deep and a bunch of other people. So when the guys that started Vitamin Water, they was looking for somebody from queens hometown and they wanted a celebrity, so they approached run our tests about being like the face of vitamin water. Right, he's an athlete, sizeable nags, it's you know at that time.
So they offered him the same deal ten percent equity steak, and he wanted two hundred thousand dollars. They didn't have two hundred thousand dollars to actually pay him, so they told them, well, we can't give you two hundred thousand, but we can't give you ten percent. He turned it down, fifty cent took the deal. Just so happened. One year later, Coca Cola bought them for a billion dollars and a
ten percent turned into one hundred million dollars. So rhin our test gave up one hundred million for two hundred thousand.
Education. He didn't fully understand the power of equity. He's like, no, pay me.
You try to pull a fast one over, right, but it all comes down to education. So now you hear Beyonce say pay me in equity. So we're starting to fully understand this, and especially in the VC world and Silicon Valley, Oh that correct, Silicon Silicon.
Valley, they're gonna know now.
Well he was gonna know anywhere. So that's something that's been going on for years right where it takes time and the back end is always more profitable than.
The front end.
So now we fully understanding this, and we need to be fully aware of this. So in that vein being that you have run a successful equity crowd funding campaign, you're actually still running in it. You're still running it right now. All right, somebody has a business and they want to take the same route that you did, right.
What are his steps?
Actually?
Because I know you said it's a whole process with the SEC they got to get approved and all that stuff.
Like, what's the steps.
Yeah, So the steps is, you know, you you have to you essentially can apply I believe to the company.
Now we were a little rare.
We actually you know, companies reached out to us, like Republic and how that got set up. So, but there is kind of a submission process, I believe where you can be considered. They actually have people on their team that are looking for companies and they're trying to say, hey, we think you should do an equity crowdfunding campaign because you know their model is they make a percentage of what you ultimately raise, right, So they're looking for great
companies that they think will be successful. So if you end up finding yourself in a position where you know, you reach out and there's alignment, they do a vetting process themselves, then you're you're kind of in the game. You gotta go through the process of you know, pulling all your financials, right, you got to go through.
It's just like I said, it's a very rigorous process.
And you I think the thing you have to make sure that you understand is what you're what you're kind
of getting yourself into. Right Because now, and this goes back to even uh and this is probably a whole nother podcast just around the types of funding and who gets that type of funding, right, because if if you you know, depending on your business, right, there are only a certain type of business, certain types of businesses that should be raising money from venture capitalists, right because these vcs want to see ten x return like hockey stick growth, right,
and that's why they're giving you that money. If you ain't, if you ain't getting that way, which is fine, right. You have other companies that just grow steadily profitable, you're making money. That's a great business, but you shouldn't be taking money from kind of the the investors that we're talking about right in terms of their credit.
Because there's a there's an expectation there.
But when you when you go back to you know, looking at your business and where you are, right. I think one of the things that is key to look at, and we looked at this even in our own decision, is how attractive and understandable will it be to the crowd, right, because you gotta you gotta resonate with people, and we're building something that we believe touches everybody.
Right.
You talk about uh, sports and philanthropy and entertainment, right. My good friend Don Dixon said the other night that you know, she invested in our company as well, and she said that, you know, when win operates into recession proof businesses, entertainment and sports, people could be doing down bad and all across life, but you're gonna watch that game.
You're gonna find a way to you know, get in in that into that experience, and so you know, you got to think about is this going to be attractive to the average consumer. That was one thing that I had to really kind of even adjust how we talk about the company because I'm so used to talking to sophisticated you know, investors.
That this is what they do.
So there are terms in terminology that we can use that they understand very quickly, whereas you're talking to the crowd right through communication or whatever. You got to kind
of break that down. And I've been learning to your point, like the the big gap and knowledge of what equity it actually is, even even to the point where on the hiring side, one of the things for startups is you have little capital usually, so you can offer early employees equity, right, and that's where you get big time companies like uh, you know, big time engineers at Google, for example, who will leave Google right a very cush job and go work at a startup because they're getting
some percentage in the equity. So they're saying, I'll pass on that you know very well to do job, to take equity because I'm going to help build this thing to become whatever that is. Even as we've now come to Houston, there's been conversations with potential employees that who
don't necessarily even understand. They're like, NA, like, you know, we need this much money, and it's like, well, you know, we'll be a little under market, but we want we can comp that with equity, which now I found myself having to explain, actually, how valuable that that's that that you're the fact that you even have an opportunity to have equity is a big deal. And that's what That's why I love these pop culture examples.
Beyonce a chameleion there, you know.
Fifty that everybody knows that they're showing that, you know how powerful that is. And now the fact that anybody can get in on that equity, I think it is a game changer for not only are communities you talk about generating generational wealth and you know create what you guys talk a lot about financial literacy. When you know better, you do better, right, And I think this is changing the game and opening up those opportunities.
One of the things you said, and that's extremely important, is like even if it's a small right, one percent in equity, Right, Let's say it's two hundred and fifty dollars, Like that's the initial investment to own a percentage, Right, that could turn into fifteen thousand, right if you if you had more, obviously it turns into more of a profit, but that fifteen thousand can be the startup for you to invest in something else, like your first piece of
real estate or your first restaurant. How it may feel fit for yourself. It's a beginning, right. A lot of people think like they're so small, I can't do it in Houston, right. You said something earlier about it becoming a tech hub, like it's going to be the Silicon of the South. How's the vision for that? Right? And who's are either the forefront of it or are the people out here that are going along on that? So with you?
So we're excited.
I mean, like we just got down here, you know, two months ago, or not even and to be coming down. You can sense the kind of the fervor in the air of like, you know, this is exciting, right because even with the investors, we got some new investors Shout out to them, you know here in Houston that have typically invested only in you know, oil and gas and energy. So now to have some you know, innovative, fast growing tech company opportunities has been great for those you know,
kind of traditional investors. But what I'm more proud of is that we can bring this opportunity to everybody from Third War to the Swat, you know, to downtown in the gallery, anybody across the city, in the in the country, and really the world. That's the great thing about equity crowdfunding. Also, you can invest from anywhere in the world. I mean, we got investors in Canada, Australia, Africa that.
Have come through in our campaign.
And it gives everybody that opportunity to gain that equity we've been talking about.
It's powerful.
Man.
One, thank you for coming in. We appreciate you.
How can the people contact you social media, your website, any initiatives that you got going on when win information?
Yeah, what's what's what's the deal with that.
Yeah, hundred percent. First, appreciate you all for having me first and foremost. You know, go get you some equity. Www dot republic dot co uh backslash win hyphen win uh and you'll be able to see our campaign is live. We don't we actually do know. So you're limited on the time. So we only have a limited amount of time. And once that door closes, then there's no more you know, non accredited investors that will be able to invest. So I encourage everybody to go check that out again www
dot republic dot co. Backslash win dash when you'll learn everything about the company, nice video and all that good stuff. Me I'm underscore Mike T. Brown on Instagram, on Twitter, you can find me on LinkedIn. I'm pretty active there as well. And yeah try when when the is the website, but just go to republic dot co win win and you'll be able to find all the information.
Yeah.
Shout out to the good people of Samoa. Samoa, right, Samoa. That's another way you got to say a lot of people just say Samo and Samoa Samo and just like Silicon Okay, I'm gonna get you all right with they.
Might not familiar I used to I used to live in Hawaii and so familiar with the Micronesian Islands and Polynesian islands and very rich culture, very prideful people and make up a lot percentage wise NFL.
Yeah, I think.
I think, like literally, if you were born in Somemo, played football in some in high school, like the chances were like thirty if you if you went to college and play, you probably was going to the league.
That's what's crazy. Yeah, it's crazy.
So yeah, yeah, shout out to all you guys. Appreciate you, Troy.
Yeah, shout out to everybody on patreon dot com, back Slasher and Aalisia. It has been amazing all our patrons, especially the ones from Houston. They have shown out and laid the carpet out for us out here. And that's that's what Patreon's about. It allows us to travel, allows us to experience. This allows us to highlight hometown heroes and different types of cities. So thank you to everybody that's ow proud to pay program. As you know, we
have five different tiers. You can subscribe at any tiar There's some bonus features, but the real part is being able to connect with people and coming to cities and talking to some hometown heroes who who need to be highlighted, right because we said even at the event, when we leave, the relationships that you forced it with the people who are at the event will last a lot longer than
just that one night we were there. So shout out to everybody on Patreon, everybody that supported earni Leisure dot com and bought some merch. We had some mercher there last night. It flew off the tables, man, So shout out to everybody that has the merch. And we got some more stuff coming.
We got one outstanding Patreon member in Houston.
Oh yeah, we shouted out Danida on last episode, but Anita.
Is outstanding member.
Outstanding man, she's our number one supporter. We hung out with Danita and her crew out here and it was she.
Didn't let us pay for anything.
Yeah, and that doesn't happen when we're from like even like our crew were like they were like, look, man, this is different, Like we don't get treated like this, especially like women don't buy drinks for us and that's just not culture. But they said, welcome to Texas.
Said your money is no good. It's no good here Welcome to Texas. Welcome to Texas.
So I said, this is that that southern hospitality that that they've been speaking about. So we about to go get to it right. She's an entrepreneur out here too, so shout out to her. And she said her mom is a huge fan too, so shout out to her mom and her whole crew.
So my books hit for the week is Hard Things About Hard Things by Ben Harwitz.
We actually just spoke about.
Him and once again a lot of times people hit me up about my financial advising business.
So my calendar is on Ernilisia dot com.
You can book a thirty minute consultation for retirement planning, business planning, and state planning. You got to inheritance investment stuff like that. So thirty minute free consultation. My calendar is up there. And we got to give a shout out to executive producer of our show, somebody that you might not have ever seen before, but Michael McDonald.
He actually does a lot of stuff.
Behind the scenes, and he's helped me out with my Instagram page and he does he has his own company, Michael Media Group. So if you need any videos done or pictures or social media consultant or any type of stuff like that.
Check him out.
He does it all.
Yeah, Michael J. McDonald on Instagram and yeah, check him out. So thank you guys for rocking with us, and we'll see you next week.
Peace.
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