Jay: Hi everyone, welcome to The First Customer podcast today. I am lucky enough to be joined by Scott Berman, probably the only NBA statistician I have had or will ever had, for your, Philadelphia 76ers, co founder of multiple cannabis companies, venture capitalist guy, co founder of The Panther Group, co founder of a company called Audience Partners we're going to talk about a little bit.
Jay: Scott, how you doing, buddy?
Scott: I'm doing great, Jay. Thanks for having me on.
Jay: You're welcome, man. I love your background. It's all over the place. but let's talk about. Where you started, where did you grow up, and kind of, did that have any impact on you being an entrepreneur?
Scott: Yeah, for sure, man. I grew up in Philadelphia in the suburbs, and my father had a business in Center City, Philly, manufacturing jewelry. So I kind of grew up in the jewelry business and, you know, a lot of hustling in this town. You know, people just are always on the go. There's a lot of businesses. There's a lot of different types of companies.
Scott: So I grew up in the city basically working and really seeing that environment. And, you know, it definitely, I learned a lot as a young guy and I'm still learning today.
Jay: Did you, are you a fan of Uncut Gems, that movie?
Jay: Did you see it? it was a,
Jay: I feel like, I don't think my heart has still, calm down from the intensity of that movie. was it at all like real life?
Scott: It was a matter of fact, it was especially relevant for me because of the connection to basketball and jewelry.
Scott: And so like NBA players coming into a jewelry shop to buy jewelry, I had that experience when I was, you know, a young kid.
Scott: And so it was very, it was especially relevant from both of those sides.
Jay: Wow. I did not even think of that connection, but that makes a lot of sense. I think you went to University of Maryland, right?
Jay: what'd you go there for?
Scott: I went there for business mostly. Yeah.
Scott: Business major. I like to say I majored in my fraternity though, um, to be real about it. but I had a really great, unbelievable experience there. So it's a great school and I have a lot of lifelong friends from it.
Jay: Beautiful. so,I see, you know, obviously, heavy in the cannabis space along the way. we talked a little bit beforehand. Talk to me a little bit about the NBA statistician thing. I mean, I think you're almost at 35 years or something being there. How did that start? Where did you, how'd you get into that?
Scott: So, my father was actually the shot clock timer for the 76ers starting in the late fifties, actually.
Scott: So I was born into it. And when I was a young lad, he would take me down to the games and, he would be working and he would hand me the program, you know, and I would just, he's like, keep score. So I would just keep points and rebounds and stuff in the book.
Scott: And over the years I worked with a guy named Harvey Pollack, who's actually a famous statistician. and. I just love doing it. And then when I got out of college, they said, you want to work here and work the game. And I was like, you're going to pay me to do this? Okay. I've been doing this for fun for years.
Scott: So I just sat down and they put a computer system in and some of the older guys that had been working there weren't really that great with a computer. They had been doing things by hand.
Jay: Mm hmm.
Scott: was able to learn the computer program pretty quickly, so I just earned my way into the, to the spot.
Jay: Wow. Where did you where do you sit at the game?
Scott: Well, I used to sit right down in the middle of the table
Jay: Mm hmm.
Scott: floor, but a number of years ago, they actually put in high roller seats there and they moved us upstairs. So
Jay: Okay. All
Scott: sit across the court like 20 rows up now.
Jay: Okay. Very cool. Favorite sixer of all time, I'll have to
Jay: ask you.
Scott: Oh, that is
Jay: just have to do it, I have to do it too.
Scott: man. I mean, Julius Serving, I guess, would be the, you know, because my childhood, Dr. J was probably my favorite. Um, I loved Iverson, too, and, you know, I, but I would say, if you have to pick one, it would be Doc or Charles Barkley.
Jay: Hmm, alright. Yeah, I love how much he puts his foot in his mouth these
Jay: days. Not even for like anything political, just like stupid stuff. He's like the best, like he's the best for soundbites like you'll ever find. So, yeah.
Scott: He's a super duper nice guy, too, by the way, on the side. he's a real gentleman. What a great guy,
Jay: Yeah,
Jay: he feels like he would be a, a stand up guy. all right. So talk to me a little bit about, how you got into venture stuff and how you, so, I mean, I saw, let's maybe kind of meander a little bit,
Jay: kind of fast forward through some of the, from your business, you know, you did the NBA statistician stuff, but you also did all this other stuff.
Jay: Like, how did you, how did the other stuff fit in?
Scott: So I, while I was in the jewelry business, I learned how to do AdWords, Google AdWords to sell jewelry, and I really liked AdWords a lot. In fact, it was a lot like basketball stats, actually. Click through rates and conversions are like field goals and assist and stuff So I really enjoyed doing that and I started doing AdWords for a lot of different companies and then in 2008 co founded an agency to do politics and health care using digital marketing And so I sort of transitioned out of jewelry into the advertising world Became really interested in ad tech lots of different types of ad tech programmatic marketing and publisher site buys and all that sort of thing.
Scott: And then through the politics of that business, that's how I originally got into cannabis.
Scott: We worked on a lot of political issues, and I got a cannabis client that was working on ballot initiatives in different states. And running ads, you know, vote yes on cannabis. And I started to see after the votes happened, what would happen in that state.
Scott: You know, first it was. Colorado in 2014 and then Oregon and Alaska and one by one these states started to legalize cannabis. So my partners and I started seeing a big opportunity to invest in that space. So I started going to trade shows and I found a lot of good opportunity. And so we started to invest in companies.
Scott: We started one company in Oakland, Cali. and then in 2017 I got into the venture fund side of it. to really look across the whole, you know, scope of cannabis.
Jay: Mm hmm. Interesting. so I guess Jersey was the latest one around here that went full recreational, right? So, what's PA's timeline on that, do you think, to go full recreational?
Scott: it's a good question. So what's happened now that's interesting is not only New Jersey, but you also have New York, you have Delaware and Maryland,
Scott: you have Massachusetts, you have almost all of the East coast now flipping from medical to adult. So
Scott: Pennsylvania is now surrounded by adult use states.
Scott: And I know a lot of people now that are driving across the Ben Franklin bridge here. And buying weed in Jersey from a retail store,
Scott: you know, and they don't have a PA medical card. So I believe that that's going to put pressure on PA to do it soon. Hopefully by next year, you know, like, it's an election year and Governor Shapiro is in favor of it.
Scott: So I think it'll happen. But, you know, Pennsylvania is known to do a little, do some weird stuff. You know, we have some weird alcohol laws here too. So you never know.
Jay: You just started seeing Beard Wawa like
Jay: not too long ago,
Jay: so that was,
Jay: sorry to talk to me, a little bit about Audience Partners. I mean, you, you co founded that company. you know, how did you, was that the 2008 company that you,
Jay: after the, okay, so how did you pivot from, the jewelry business?
Jay: And I'm sure you learned a lot about business and like I said, AdWords and a bunch of marketing stuff in there, but how, Running, working at a company, or, you know, being in marketing at a company is a totally different thing than going and starting your own business, obviously.
Jay: How did you make that pivot, and kind of, what was the process to starting your own business?
Scott: Well, you know, I'd love to say it was smooth and easy, Jay, but it wasn't. you know, the jewelry business was not great. and my father unfortunately had a lot of illness during those years. And so I was trying to figure out different ways to help the business. And I realized that the online stuff was working better than anything.
Scott: You
Scott: know, a couple hundred dollars on AdWords was going a long way. So I started to do AdWords for other companies, you know, to hustle and make money. And I realized that I could do that for any vertical. I just had to look at the website and pick out keywords,
Scott: and then I could get into AdWords. And so, a couple of friends of mine decided to do this political business, and they needed, like, the, ad tech guy. And so they said, Hey, we wanna do poli AdWords for politics is really how it started.
Scott: And in those days, which, you know, it was right before Obama ran for president, and he changed the game for online advertising for political campaigns. In those days about two to three percent of a political ad budget was spent On digital most of it was direct mail and television and radio
Scott: we we guessed that it would be grow it would grow and you know It has of course grown a lot over the years.
Scott: So You know, we just saw we saw an opening we knew that political advertising was sort of antiquated You had to buy a pen a television do you, what am I thinking? I was like, the area that you buy, I lost track of the name of it.
Jay: Yeah.
Scott: something. What is it called?
Scott: Like,
Jay: Yeah, I'm blanking. Right.
Scott: but you had to buy like more than one state is what I'm trying to
Jay: Mm hmm.
Scott: you want to advertise for a fill a congressional race in suburban Philadelphia. You had to run ads in New Jersey too. Cause it's
Scott: the Delaware Valley TV. We figured out that you could do zip code advertising. and targets, you know, zip codes and you could look at every voter who lived in that zip code and tailor the message to that audience.
Scott: So that's, we knew there was an opening there. So we formed our company and very quickly we, we got new business because we knew that people like wanted this stuff,
Scott: they just didn't understand it. So my job was to go explain it to people in Congress and tell them why this was better than them spending millions on television.
Jay: So who was your, and you don't have to name names, but who was your first customer? How did you? How did you actually get them to buy your service for the first time?
Scott: So, yeah, this is a cool story. We went down to D. C. and we, we did a, panel. We did a speech somewhere. I forget what the event was, but we talked about using Google AdWords for political campaigns. We actually had a guy from Google that was a guest of ours and we put together this great panel and there was a lot of political operatives in the meeting, you know, in the audience.
Scott: And so afterwards, you know, they came up, a bunch of them came up to us and said, I really need to learn more about this.
Scott: So I then me and my partners, we made up, we set up appointments with people in down in Congress and we brought down, you know, spreadsheets and, you know, PowerPoints and stuff. And we showed them how much more we could do with a limited budget, say 25 or 50, 000 bucks, you know, as opposed to millions on TV, we could reach every voter in your district and send them six messages, right?
Jay: Mm hmm. Right.
Scott: And we could also personalize the message. So the Republican female would get one ad. And the Democratic male would get a different ad. And so at these, you know, and it was like, for me, it was, you know, simple zip code targeting a congressional district to them. It was revolutionary. Like you could do that.
Scott: And I'm like,
Jay: Hmm.
Scott: we will test that all the time.
Scott: So we basically, the idea was that we brought a technology that had been used for many years, you know, in a lot of other verticals and we applied it to an underserved vertical in politics.
Jay: Wow. and you were doing the statistician stuff at the same time?
Scott: Yeah. Yeah. I've always done that. That's always been my night job.
Jay: Now, do you use that at all in your pitches or anything for your other businesses? Do you kind of bring it up that, you know, that you're part of that world?
Scott: That's funny. I usually don't have a people know and people want to talk about that more than my other jobs,
Jay: Right. Right.
Scott: But it does add some. It adds a little bit, I think, of some credibility to who I am. I mean,
Scott: like, you know, because I have that understanding of data and analytics. I think I did get a little bit more trust from people on that.
Jay: Mm hmm.
Scott: it was also, as I mentioned earlier, though, I love learning about this stuff. Like,
Scott: I'm really love ad tech. I read newsletters every day. I love AI. Now I'm really interested in, and so it really helped me like be at the subject matter expert when I went into a meeting that I was interested in how the analytics would affect your business or AI.
Jay: Right now you can say, I'm talking about artificial intelligence, not, Allen Iverson, right? That can be your, that's, I would use that all day, but it's, it's an, I mean, it's a good point though, it's a fair point where, like, if you have something interesting, it's an opener sometimes, or it's a separate, it's a conversation that, like, as long as you're weaving things in and out and you keep it about what you're talking about, you can kind of express some of your other experience.
Jay: Like, I have, It's very purposeful that this picture is behind me, because people see it and they go, Oh, that's a cool picture, and I say, that's the first one I ever had printed of the stuff I shoot. And they go, you shot that? And that starts the whole thing about astrophotography, right? And it's just, it's not, I'm not saying go out and do cheap sales tactics, but if there's things that you're passionate about and you're interested in and you're part of, there's no reason why you can't use that to add credibility to, to your other things.
Scott: You see, I don't know if you can see this, Jay, but right over my shoulder here is a little statue of Will Chamberlain,
Scott: who,when he scored his a hundredth point, a hundred point game in
Jay: Yep. Yeah,
Scott: a little thing of him and I'm like, yeah, you know, like I just put that in my background, you
Jay: dude, I, that's, there's no reason not to, and honestly, that's way cooler than like the ten different degrees on the wall, which like
Jay: doesn't really do anything for anybody anymore. If you've got a cool little thing that like,
Jay: you know, either in person or in virtual that you can bring up, there's no reason not to do it.
Jay: so, Tell me a little more about The Panther Group like you, you mentioned you kind of like venture funding stuff and you're kind of feeling out the industry as a whole. Like how did it just from a 50, 000 foot view, how does that work when you're like, you know, you've worked at a business, you started a business, you kind of, and I think it's a natural progression.
Jay: I see it a lot. You know, everybody kind of does the, and they go to venture because it's kind of like you get to touch a lot of different things. how did you make that transition and like, what does your day to day with the venture kind of side of thing looks like?
Scott: So what happened was we started investing in these companies, and at this point we have over 30 investments in cannabis companies, and we're in 20 different sub sectors. and and everything, every company is different, obviously, but the state that they're in is different, if they're a technology or if they're a plant touching business. And a lot of them are immature companies. and, you know, that's just because the industry is new and especially new in, in certain states. And so they need a lot of support. They need capital. Everybody needs capital to get going. But what we realized was after the capital came in, they needed a lot of other executive level support. So they would need, this could be financing help, you know, like a CFO. certainly, you know, a marketing director, advertising solutions. And so we didn't want to just be the venture capital guys that just gave money in and said when's our return coming We want to actually help you with the journey And it's important like because there's a lot of things that that encompasses, you know, certainly Helping them grow to the next level raise more money in two years, you know Maybe do an acquisition in four years.
Scott: Maybe have an exit in eight years, you know We help you do all of that stuff. But in between we also help you just get more customers So I like to do a lot of business development. I have a big network in the industry, so it's like, you know, I have a guy that sells lights. I'm going to introduce him to a grower. I have a guy that sells software. I'm going to introduce him to a retailer, you know. or I have a brand that I think is great, and I'm going to get them exposure online or something like that.
Scott: So I found that there was a lot of other things that we can do. We also act as, you know, like senior leadership, mentors. I like to think of us as therapists sometimes because cannabis is wacky. It's not an easy road. So, you know, a lot of times I'm working with entrepreneurs to manage the ups and downs of the industry. So it's a good thing about being a little older. Jay is like, I have a little bit more, you know, wisdom of being in and out of businesses for all these years,
Jay: Right.
Jay: very interesting. If, if you, this is a little bit past the vein that I normally go, but since I have somebody with your level of experience, and expertise on it, if you were going to tell somebody that's interested in getting into the venture world, what would be step one for them? Mm
Scott: good question. So first of all, I would step one would be to, out a vertical that's, you know, let's say you've already figured out that vertical. Then I would certainly try and meet the already, whoever's doing venture well in there, try and meet them. That's one thing and learn from other folks.
Scott: That's one smart thing that I did early on in the venture days is I got together with a couple of guys who had 25 years experience doing venture capital in different industries. And I listened very closely. I was, for a couple of years, I was on, how do you, work with an entrepreneur that's trying to raise money? How do you like read a pitch deck and financial report, or projections and really understand what's going on? So you know, and I did a lot of homework on businesses. So like when I would get a pitch deck in from a company, I would look at, see who their competitors were. You know, what's the differentiator and what state are they, are they operating in,
Scott: you know, and so just, you know, really before you make any decisions, you really got to understand the landscape of the business you're looking at and the specific sector that they're in.
Jay: Interesting. Yeah. and how would you suggest. People find, or is it just reaching out, you know, to people that you find on LinkedIn, or if you're looking for people in a vertical for virtual, you know, say it's, whatever, you know, say it is cannabis, you know, are they going on, you know, the forums to find, the venture folks?
Jay: Are they going on LinkedIn? Are they going to networking events? Are they going to conferences? Like, where would you start trying to find those people?
Scott: First, I would say all the above because everything you mentioned is very relevant. Certainly the conferences in cannabis are specifically are very good. Every conference. I mean, I used to. advertising conferences and I did really well there too. So going to conferences and listening to speakers, you know, talk about what's going on in that industry and then meeting them and then making friends with them is really important.
Scott: But when there's not a conference going, then the next best thing is LinkedIn, I think, you know, and following people and seeing the articles. I read so much stuff on LinkedIn, like, and I follow a lot of my VC buddies. And they'll post something about an investment that they made or the state of the industry. I read that stuff and I like to see who, you know, what they're investing in and what deals they're looking at and how well their track record is so I can make better decisions for our fund.
Jay: Yeah, no, I like that. I, it took me a while to understand how to attend conferences properly. Like you go there for the first few and you're just like, I don't even know
Jay: what I'm supposed to be doing here. But I mean, as you said, like the more you go to, you kind of get a rhythm, you get, figure out what you're going for, who you're going to talk to.
Jay: And I think, the advice to. Go, somebody said, the other day, I think it was somebody used to work for Chris Sarah who owns, ArcRab in Philly. He said, Chris always says to rush the quarterback when, you know, the talk is over, right? Like just go right for the
Jay: guy, don't let anybody get in your way.
Jay: Go talk to the guy that everybody was there to see, introduce yourself and try to make that connection because that's probably the most powerful one in the room. which sounds kind of similar to what you're saying.
Jay: So,
Scott: done
Scott: that many times.
Jay: Yeah, I'm going to Toronto for the collision conference this weekend, and I think I'm going to try to do the same thing.
Jay: I'm going to do a lot of rushing the quarterback this weekend,
Jay: hopefully.
Scott: My other tip for conferences actually is happy hour.
Jay: Yeah, yeah.
Jay: Mm hmm. Mm
Scott: I'm always strategic about what am I doing after the show floor closes at four or five o'clock? Where am I going to have drinks and who's going to be there? Cause there's always, you know, events and then gather 10 people, six people and go to a dinner together and eat break bread
Scott: with important people and make friends with them. And then when you're done, you're closer to them and they say, Hey, I'd love to learn more about your venture fund. you know, can we connect on a call? So the social part of the show is more, is important as well as walking around from booth to booth.
Jay: Right. Yeah. And there's so much noise, I mean, physical noise, and just like... Attention noise at
Jay: those conferences during the day, so I think it's a really good point too, is
Jay: get some people where it's quiet, where you can talk about stuff, and listen to what people, you know, have to say. Because nobody gives a shit what you're selling at these conferences, like, everybody's there to sell their own stuff, that was one of the, you know, biggest things I learned.
Jay:
Jay: So what, what are three kind of health things that you're focused on? Mental, physical, whatever it is. Like, what are the three kind of your biggest, health things you're going after as a entrepreneur and, you know, a co founder and a founder and all these different things. Like, how are you keeping yourself tuned up for the long run?
Scott: You mean health, like physical
Jay: Physical health. Yeah. Yeah. Physical mental health, whatever it is.
Scott: Well, it's a very good question for me because I focus on that a lot. I mean, I focus on mental health, um, every day, you know, meditation, mindfulness. I study Buddhism. I've been practicing for years now. I have a Zen Buddhist teacher, that, actually we're launching a podcast actually
Jay: Oh, there you go.
Scott: I'll
Jay: Oh, that's beautiful. I would love to, I'm like, I'm dying to know more about. Buddhism because I'm a huge meditator and, I feel like the worlds have to collide at some point.
Scott: they do. And so I met, my Zen Buddhist teacher during the pandemic. Actually, I'm sitting at home like, you know, wasting time really. And I'm like, let me do something productive here. I read a bunch of books about Buddhism and then we connected and he's a coach for entrepreneurs.
Scott: And so I was like, you know, I have, there's always issues in business.
Scott: So, you know, this is just a good suggestion anyways, talk to other people that are business men and women and tell them your, what's going on with your life. It helps a lot.
Jay: Mm hmm.
Scott: during the course of this, I realized that this was helping me with my life and my business, you know, and that's also in addition to the therapist that I have a therapist for a long time, since I got divorced about 15 years ago. I really appreciate my therapist, you know, and work with him. And, you know, then it's just I like the gym. I walk a lot. I swim. I'm really into the gym. And working out and hiking and things like that. And, you know, the older you get, the more you have to just increase your effort.
Scott: Mentally. And try and eat healthier too.
Scott: So I think about it literally every day. Of how I can be a little bit healthier than yesterday.
Jay: Mm hmm.
Scott: And, I'm still here, so it's good.
Jay: I like that. A little bit healthier every day.
Jay: alright, so, I call it the mystery question. what would you do outside of business? Non business related. What is something you would do if you knew you couldn't fail?
Scott: If you knew you couldn't fail. Okay. That's a great question. I,I would say off the top of my head. I love the water and the ocean. And I love boating and I think I would take a ridiculous boat trip of some kind, like sail somewhere crazy,
Scott: you know, if I knew I couldn't, I mean, I probably would be worried about failing that, but if you said, Hey, you're not going to have any trouble,
Scott: uh, on your boat trip around the world in a sailboat or something,
Jay: that would be awesome. That would be cool. I like
Jay: that. I like that a lot. Every time I ask that question, I've recently started to think swimming across like a major, you know, like something crazy, like
Jay: the ocean. You know what I mean? Like from America to Europe would be, you know, if you couldn't fail, that would be pretty cool.
Jay: But I love, circumnavigating the globe on a, on a sailboat. That's cool.
Jay: I like that. alright, we'll
Scott: with a nice big cabin and a kitchen and
Jay: Yeah, yeah, not like a, no, you're not roughing it. You're not roughing it in
Jay: this hypothetical. You're like, you
Jay: know, you're comfortable on
Jay: this non failure trip. Yeah, alright, well dude, you're awesome.
Jay: I love
Jay: this. This is great. I, you know, I had no idea what to expect. A statistician, I didn't know, you know. I'm not a numbers guy. Like, so thank God there's people like you on earth who enjoy numbers. I love your story. I love the venture funding and all the different stuff. So I hope somebody picks, you know, some pieces up from this and, and, you know, learns a couple of things from it.
Jay: If people are looking to reach you or Panther Group or any other, you know, organizations, now's the time to plug it, who, how do they get in touch with you or your organizations?
Scott: I would say the best way is really LinkedIn. Just, you know, I'm easy to find there. I'm on it all the time, so just look me up. Scott Berman, Philadelphia PA. the new thing that we're doing, the Game of Zen podcast, we'll be promoting it soon. We have a YouTube page now for it, but, we don't have it officially out there.
Scott: So, I'd love for people to check that out. And yeah, I mean, I'm always happy to talk to people, especially entrepreneurs that are looking to do something in cannabis or other verticals. You know, I love talking to new people. So.
Jay: Awesome. Well, you're an awesome guy. I can tell the, You can tell when you talk to somebody. That practice is mindfulness. And, you know, just I mean, look, I got five kids I got a lovely wife, but And I run my own business and this podcast So, I'm certainly, you know That's why they call it practice, you know?
Jay: Cause you're always practicing And, but it's very nice to meet Someone with such a
Jay: cool story And a calm demeanor, so Keep spreading the love, man I appreciate you. alright, well It's been great, man. Scott, be good and We'll catch up soon, alright?
Scott: Thanks a lot. Jay was, this was a lot of fun.
Jay: Thanks, man. See ya.