thoughts of like, what, what all have you done in the past? I
want to know, I want to know like the details of that.
Yeah, absolutely. Jackson, happy to happy to share what my history
is, and then what what I'm doing today. So just quick background,
you know, I was in the Navy in 2012 to 2016 joined. So my
father was an entrepreneur, he had started a company in 1999.
I joined them, you know, getting out of the military started at
the bottom, it was a it was an IT staffing company, companies
doing about 12 million in revenue at the time started as a
recruiter and worked my way up through the company over four
years. We ended up selling that company in 2020. When I was a
chief operating officer of the company. So and at that time, we
had grown it to 65 million in revenue. And we took some a few
actions that really got us there. And we made the company
more data driven. So we just doubled down our investment in
the right places that automatically scale that revenue
behind it, which is really cool to watch the company grow and it
went exponential. So that was kind of my first, I would say,
experience with entrepreneurs.
That's a big first. That's a big first way to start off in
entrepreneurship. And thank you for your service, by the way, in
the Navy.
Thank you. Yeah, absolutely. It's great experience. And my
dad's a fantastic sales guy. He can he can sell you on anything.
And that's how he built the business. What I find in a lot of
entrepreneurs with the various skill sets is they're really
great sales, they love their, you know, whatever they're going
after their vision. But sometimes internally, you need
some professional management to come in to really organize and
help them build that, you know, the foundation for skill. And I
think that's where I was able to complement what he was doing is
I was a finance guy in the operations guy. And I would look
at a where's the resources going? Where's the investment
being? But are we wasting any money? Anywhere? Is everyone
doing their job? And that really facilitates some of that skill
which is pretty cool.
That is super cool. And it is fun to see a visionary and
integrator come into contact that harmonize, you know, and it
can very much help when it's family. I, I heard an old friend
the other day talk about how he doesn't do business with family
members. And my heart is in Oz, I've heard people do that. It's
like you're cutting off the people that you trust the most
in life. And his case, he comes from an excellent family. And
other other families were, yeah, you wouldn't want to do business
with family. But we don't, you know, I think it's just so silly
to cut off your potential resources, based on an arbitrary
belief, without exploring what might be possible. And you and
your dad just did that you explored it, you hit it, and you
reap the benefits from joining forces. That's super cool. What
about that? If there's a book, a series of books, three, three
books or resources that you recommend for visionaries on
and what, what, what would they be?
Yeah, so I have a couple that I've changed my mindset, I would
say. So that was more brute for sales tactics, a company had
already scaled. So we were already doing 12 million, right?
It wasn't a small forming company. And we scaled into 65
million, we had the people that were there. So now I'm starting
a new company. And the way I'm going about it really is the
way I like this key personal influence by Daniel priestly. So
I've met Daniel at a conference through my network, spoke to
him, and it's a really cool book. And basically, he says,
you know, there's tons of businesses in every industry,
but how, how do you stay on top? Or how do you stick out? Right?
How do you become that key person of influence in that
industry, so that all the really cool deals come to you? Right?
Or to those few key people of influence? And there'll be a
bunch of them in each community, you go to a conference, you see
the same five speakers, well, you found your key people of
influence. So how do you get there? And that's the one I'm
actually looking at now with new business. So just just going
back to Jackson, so we exited that one in 2020, started a new
company in 2020 called ITT digital, which is an IT services
firm, you know, we scale that up to 8 million in revenue in three
years and exited that at the end of 2023 as well. And that was
again, very brute force sales, right? It's like a business that
wasn't a key person of influence, you're really
spending a top dollar and doing all the whining and dining to
open those clients, even though you have fantastic offering and
a fantastic team. And then that's why this new kind of way
of going about it is really, really exciting to see if that
really makes a difference when you when you look at, you know,
your business and scale.
I can tell you right now makes a huge difference. Never heard of
the book. I'm a massive advocate of the concept. I've experienced
that firsthand. So when I went from my first couple startups to
working with Jake Larson at video power marketing, Jake is
known was known as the YouTube ad expert of the world. The
founder of YouTube called him on the phone asked him to represent
YouTube as before it launched. And then Ryan Dice put him on
stage at traffic and conversion and called him the YouTube ad
expert of the world. So when you got digitalmarketer.com and
YouTube's founder endorsing you, and you run with that, it
creates an excellence and a distribution that that you know,
you want to capitalize on. Well, we were doing ads for people who
could who had a minimum ad spend budget of $10,000 a month on
YouTube ads. And so here we were doing ads for entrepreneur on
fire, Johnny Dumas, Dan Martell, SaaS Academy, Michael Hyatt, T
Harvick, or even pagan. You know, all these people you talk
about were on stages, Billie Jean marketing. Oh, I'm forgetting
so many good ones. Dr. Eric Berg. These are influencers who
it was so easy to promote and sell for them because people did
know like and trust them. There's a ton of proof out there
regarding it for Jake. My first phone call was somebody who said,
I just wanted to make sure you all spoke English. And I said,
Yes, we do. How can I help you? And he said, My name is such and
such. I'm with this and I shouldn't do this. But I heard
Jake on stage, take my money. That was a sales call. I had
never experienced anything like that in my life. Right. So you're
you're spot on and the entrepreneur visionary is
listening in, whatever you can do to make sure you know, figure
out what you do well, and then build your authority or
credibility or social proof will go a long ways to helping you
get in the door and provide your service to people. So yeah,
yeah, absolutely. What else? Yeah, you got two more books. I
won't go off on them. I promise. Oh, yeah, yeah, absolutely. I
mean, you know, the those are all 80 hour 100 hour kind of
work weeks, you're you're you're really grinding. And, and now I
look at what I want my future to be. And now that's when I think
a very famous book for our work week kind of comes into play. And
that is, yeah, of course, you know, a doctor and a lawyer and
okay, they make 100k or a million dollar salary. But but
when you look at the hours to compensation ratio, isn't that
much better in real life. And that's also really got me
thinking, what do you look at your life later on? Is it, you
know, when you're going to your grave, is it playing with your
grandchildren? Or, you know, and having a good family balance?
And, or is it and traveling the world? Or is that, hey, I saved
so many patients or fought so many lawsuits, or whatever it
might be for you, right? That one is the switch into is like,
hey, how do you, you know, how do you maximize and 20% of our
actions determine 80% of that program? So how do you figure
out what those 20% you know, actions are, and even when you
look at something as small as email, which is one of the
concepts he had in the book, is that, hey, we check email, like
it's text message, and I mean, wake up, check the email, you
know, but if you just put a one hour blocks and only doing it
now, you're so much more efficient, you get so much done,
you just turn off all your notifications. And it was kind
of a pretty eye opening when when you look at how much more
efficient you become when you do some of the small things, which
is absolutely
you got another one?
That was the second one, I'm trying to think of what a third
one would be. I mean, I'm a huge Elon Musk fan in general, I
think the new book that just came out, I think six months ago
was is very eye opening for any visionary or entrepreneur kind
of the craziest success story you would hear in the world. So
that's I think a must read for everyone. But there's a lot of
those like if you love Disney, I like, you know, right of a
lifetime was an awesome book on how he went through acquisition
through growth. And they bought, you know, they bought Star Wars
and Lucas art, and then they bought Marvel and then how they
scale that. So it's pretty cool to see how these guys go about
it. And then the type of deals they make. Yeah, a lot of
learning.
I think you hit you hit something big on the head there,
too. It's not just about the book, but the author behind it,
right. And I like that you said it's a it's a must read. So have
some fun with that. But yeah, see, you know, when you can get
behind the book itself to the author and start to learn from
them as an individual and seek them out as a potential mentor
as well. It's amazing what types of opportunities that come your
way and accomplishments you can have. So I definitely recommend
going to the source of the information and extracting what
you can. We got many I think all three of the ones you mentioned
are all live to this day. You know, why not take the
opportunity to dig in any of you listening in knows how to contact
or is his friends with Elon, send him our way. We'd love to
we'd love to get to know him. So we'll take a quick break. And
we'll come back we'll talk about on and Narayan I'm gonna I'm
gonna match this name to make sure I haven't mastered. So
Narayan such a cool last name to rising Oh, Ryan, that's my son's
middle name, by the way, pop quiz for people later. And but
while we're while we're taking the break, consider commenting,
subscribing. Also consider leaving a review for the podcast
and we will see you on the other side for on uns vision. All
right, welcome in to vision pros live with Jackson Calame. I'm
your show host, we will be doing interviews for visionary
entrepreneurs and guest leaders who are building fantastic
visions out there.
Hey, what's up, everybody? Welcome in for another, another
vision pros live episode. I got a little distracted because I
was like, man, when I was playing that I was gonna go shut
that door and I totally forgot, we'll leave it open. You can see
my house. So San Antonio Riverwalk sign in the background.
But anyway, without further ado, we're going to dive right into
writing value for each of you. My first point of value being
forgive yourself when you make mistakes. Second point of value
being in the form of sponsorships up here. We're gonna
start with Melissa Gray from the law spot. Melissa Gray runs the
law spot.com. We've actually just finished the blueprint with
her as well. She is one of our clients, by the way. And the
blueprint we've created helps magnify the reality that law
does not have to be complicated. I'm really a big fan of what
she's up to. We've got an event coming up, by the way, if you're
in the Dallas area on April 16, we're gonna be doing a mixer
mastermind networking event. I know it's gonna it's gonna go
really, really fast. And it's also coming up super, super
soon. But we're excited about that. And, you know, I'm the
type of business owner who went through a $20,000 trademark
lawsuit. And we won. But did we when we lost $20,000 in the
process of trying to keep our name. In addition to that,
Apple patented our software, same exact company, as long as
the restaurant connect. And one of the things that I could have
done better sooner in my life as an entrepreneur is consider the
value of being a wise steward and making sure that I had talked
to lots of different options, and really, really built out my
vendor network, that would have put me in a better position to
have the right type of attorney by my side in those situations.
I hope you do the same. That's all just consider her as you look
at your opportunities to protect yourself. But also knowing that
when you find the right lawyer, they can also help you on your
merger and acquisition opportunities and negotiations
as well. That puts you in a stronger position to grow and
build. You got to find a lawyer who actually cares about your
growth beyond just the times when you're desperate for it.
Then there's Andrew Sosin of recovery unplug. I love what he's
built. If this helps one person fantastic, but helps everybody
well, congratulations on being self aware. Recovery unplugged is
an addiction recovery program. And so many people suffer from
all sorts of levels of addictions. I see too many
people beat themselves up in this category as well. Too many
youth who think that they're addicted to something because
their parents freaking out. Again, I'll digress back to the
entrepreneurship application here for those who don't have
kids, just finding the right resource of a professional who
can help, especially one that understands the power of the
power of virtual support. COVID pushed Andrew into the position
of needing to go from five physical locations to being able
to provide this program online to individuals. I think it's one
of the greatest things that could have happened for this
world. They now have a 24 seven hotline that you can turn to.
They incorporate music into the process as well. And they have
over 400 team members who work with them on this. Now, I always
like to add they're very aligned with Tony Robbins programs as
well. Andrew has been 22 years in a row to that program. So if
you happen to align with Tony's philosophies as a leader and
what he does and how he does things, then this is definitely
a program worth taking a look at and tacking onto your own
personal development or something you may want to
recommend again to friends and family who don't know where to
go for help. Again, I hope this helps at least one of you out
there. And then there's the water project. The water
project is our go to recommendation in terms of
causes. There's millions of people in this world who don't
have access to clean drinking water. That's something I've
never suffered from. And I'm so blessed to ever have have
suffered from not having water. So why not pick a cause that we
can support where there's millions of people who don't
have this and try to inspire the world to give back. Now, if
you're not in a position to give back, then please just share
this message with others who might be able to because you
never know who in your networks going to be the person who
drops 500,000 or or maybe $5 to the last one of these
communities. The cool thing is if you do contribute to a
specific community, you're actually going to get an email
that helps you know like what's going on and what happened with
your money. What did they create? They sand them. Did
they create a borehole? Well, you get to see the effect that
you have on this community. So we have the opportunity to
create generational impact by giving back to this cause. And
if you have a cause that you'd rather see a support or
something that's just kind of drawing on your your heart
strings, you know, or maybe maybe have a family member who
has a crowdfunding Kickstarter, do us a favor. Just drop that
in the comments. We're happy to see if we can support and help.
There's eight billion people in this world who need help in a
lot of different ways. This is our our way of trying to give
back to them. So without further ado, I'll bring Anand
on stage. We'll talk about his vision and we'll dive into all
things capital markets, entrepreneurship, and how to be
fruitful as we build. Welcome to the stage, Anand. Thank you so
much for joining me today. It's my honor to have you, man. Yeah,
thanks, Jackson. Really appreciate it. Looking forward
to it. Absolutely. Let's let's go into this first question
here. So, Anand, what's your vision for those that you serve
with? And this could be in Kenobi Capital. What would your
venture? This could be outside of that. I'll let you take us
from here. Yeah, I think there's this two main visions. I'll
start with Kenobi Capital and and and why I'm doing this. So
I've gone through the sale of two companies and and and some
of the small sales in between and and what I really found
through this exiting process is that the the incentives for a
small business owner to exit are not aligned with the
traditional people in that market. If you look at
traditional private equity, you know, their business model is
buy sell buy low sell high and and that doesn't align with
the small business owner that's really built this whole company
taking a lot of risk and and 80% of employment is with small
business owners. Right? That's where most of us are are
employed. So, they they're taking a lot of risk but
they're not able to exit from their companies at the value
they deserve and the second thing in this market is that
you have a lot of business brokers which also you know
they their job is to to help you exit but they don't you
know necessarily understand your business. They don't know
how to increase the valuation of the business or how to
present it to that potential buyer. So, the the first thing
that I'm I'm really trying to do is help small business owners
exit with the maximum potential value on the best possible
terms with peace of mind and and the real reason I'm I'm
going after this is in the first exit that we had, you
know, we we were owners, we were operators, we made a lot
of mistakes and and unfortunately when we actually
exited that went into a lawsuit. It was bought by a
private equity firm and then you know we found out the whole
business model was to do this. They will just stop payments,
you know, they will extend it because you as a small
business owner don't don't want to get into legal. You're not
used to getting into kind of a legal battle. Right. Big
decision. So, you can imagine a 65 year old man or woman
entrepreneur has a family, kids, maybe grandkids on the
way and and all of a sudden this baby they've grown over
20 plus years is something they hate. They're fighting a
lawsuit over this company because they're not getting
paid for it and and that's real like heartbreak to see
happen and and it's something we've gone through and it's
it's really unfortunate and happens to a ton of small
business owners that are that are to expand on that. I
want to know if you don't mind what are some of the
details of you you mentioned that the business model is
kind of designed to make that happen. What do you mean by
that? Yeah, sure. So, let's look at simply okay when you
when you make a deal and they they approach you, they they
give you an unbelievable valuation. It's something
that you first didn't imagine you can get, right? So,
that's that's the first thing and it was a red flag for us.
We've we've talked to a lot of people but it it seemed
reasonable for you know, we're doing about 65 million
revenue at the time and it seemed reasonable based on the
revenue numbers but maybe not on the profit margin. So, you
get enticed with this really nice offer but then they say
something like, hey, they'll pay you 25% upfront and then
you know, you get this kind of payout and it'll be over three
to four years and then you have some earn outs and some
employment contracts and and all that that need to continue
and even when you hit these benchmarks, the payments get
delayed and and that's it was right and they're paying you
quarterly or every six months or every year, that payment
starts getting pushed saying, okay, we're having trouble,
right? We'll pay you in the next, we'll pay you the whole
thing then that mark hits and then again, the the sum exceeds
to get paid or they pay you something small like a token and
then just starts getting the payments pushed. Now, you as
the entrepreneur, you you don't buy and sell companies.
You're not really well versed with the legalities of the
whole thing. You you're an owner operator. So, you postpone
your time frame to make it a lawsuit, right? And and that's
the real mistake is is you don't want this to become a
lawsuit. You're very positive. You're very hopeful that
things will work out the way that you want and
unfortunately, that's not the case in most of these
scenarios and you eventually do have to go into a lawsuit and
we spent over half a million dollars fighting this lawsuit
and took three years and we finally won about four months
ago because we of course, we were in the right but if you
don't go through that exercise and what if you give up, right?
You spent you know, quarter million and you give up and
you don't push it all the way or you don't have a great lawyer.
There's a lot of things that can happen. So, the real
question is who do you trust, right? That's the real
question. You are a small business owner. You are looking
to exit your company and retire or sail into the sunset.
You do this once in your lifetime. Who do you trust and
how do you really negotiate properly and who's on your team
and those are very hard questions to answer and that's
what we had to learn the hard way. That's huge. I'm glad you
shared that. There's so many business owners that are going
through this right now and the market is getting hotter and
hotter because of the baby boomers, right? So, a lot of
businesses are in the process of moving towards the exit and
planning for it and preparing for it. So, as that the cool
thing is as that conversation heats up, the younger market is
starting to pay attention a little bit more. We're all
starting to take a look at it. I'm seeing people in their
20s now starting to really plan around the exit strategies and
what's there. So, there's going to be people who come in and
just want to make a quick buck and it's very important to be
aware of what red flags should we look for, what good things
should we look for at the same time and we're not going to use
all the time today to talk about that. We're going to shelve
that. We might come back to it towards the end but I'm just,
I'm actually really happy to have you on my radar. I want to
get you and Melissa talking as well because I want to see
where the gaps are, right? That exists between y'all two
different brands and knowing how that affects, you know, if I
know my gaps and I know her gaps and I know your gaps, then
when I run into different opportunities and situations, it
gives me a better chance to know who to call to involve in that
process and say, hey, here's where we're at. Here's where
our opportunities exist while also making sure I mitigate
risks for the brand. So, awesome job. Your vision, what
about you personally? What is your vision? Yeah, so one thing
right now I'm looking to do is get this company kicked off, of
course, and start helping these small business owners but in
general, what I really want to do is to be able to help a lot
of people on more of the financial management aspect,
especially with, you know, America's debt levels and
overspending that we have today. I think a lot of people are
maybe not well educated on how do you manage personal
finances, right? So I think there's multiple visions and
this is one is first, how do you help the small business owner
get their exit and make sure they get the value for that? But
then how do you protect that money and invest it where you
get a proper return for that money? And that's, that's, of
course, that may be a higher end of someone exiting for a
couple million dollars. But how do you help people that are
maybe not as well off or as lucky that can start a business?
How do you help them do the right things? And I know
there's a lot of things in today's market that help people
do that. But I don't think it's touched enough people. There's
still a huge, you know, problem with credit card debt, right?
Living paycheck to paycheck and how do we change those things?
So this small things you can take advantage of that people
don't know about. So eventually, that's really where I want to
get into and I already do it for my friends and family. I'm
like the money guy for all of them. But how do you scale it
and make it more affordable to masses? I think is a good
question. I know there's a lot of fintech startups trying to
do it. But yeah, how do you really get that scale and help
people? Yeah, I'll roll my eyes at the market, not at you. At
the market. You know, there's a lot of noise in the market. But
noise and music are two different things. And there's a
lot of crappy providers out there. And so we really need to
look at, you know, it's who really knows what to do? Who
knows how to help in these circumstances? And I think
people are very frustrated with the types of service providers
that they have in certain industries, one of them being
finances. And it's like, I mean, I'm tempted to ask every
financial advisor that I meet, like, what's your net worth?
That's the first question.
It's like, man, I already know you don't have a net worth. Like,
why are you doing trying to manage my finances?
That's the first question I ask for everything, right? If you
want someone, if you need someone to advise you on
something, you need to know that they've been there and done
it in some capacity. Otherwise, it doesn't exist.
Lots of capacities. Yes, it is very important. And granted, I
will digress on that. My heart surgeon does not have to have
done heart surgery on himself, right? In order to do heart
surgery. But there's just not enough reference checks. People
don't know how to ask about it. They don't know how to
interview. It's too dangerous of a game because of the lack of
transparency, or rather the lack of quality education that
exists. And if we create transparency and we create
quality education, then it will help people start to think
about things that seem too complex for them to perhaps want
to understand. So we're in speaking of on that note in the
entrepreneur world, let's shift gears away from just the
traditional advising. But why do you think leaders hide from
funding their visions? I mean, a lot of them that have pipe
dreams. And when I say that, you know, it's, it's people who
say they have a vision, but they're not willing to take
action to fund it. You know, or they're scared to talk about
funding their visions, not with me in general, they're just
scared to approach the subject. Why do you think that is?
Yeah. Well, one thing I would the first thing I think about
is, of course, having the steady income and salary. Right. It's
like, are you really going to give up something that's stable
to try to go after this thing where, you know, one in 10
people or one in 20 or one in 100, really, you're going to
take like 1000. I'm with you. It's a very low percentage of
who wins an entrepreneurship. Exactly. So it's like, you see
all those kind of social media posts, like your salary is kind
of like a drug, to some extent, right? It keeps you from
going after your dream. And I think that's an extreme way of
doing it. I think a lot of people or most people need that
stability. And that's one reason they don't fund it. And even in
my case, I've quit my full time job, I'm full time in this. I
don't, you know, it's still getting formed. It's all growing.
But I've done two companies before, and I understand the
risks of doing that. And I require you're willing to
support the lifestyle, which is a big idea. Those are very,
very important aspects. And that that actually goes into the
next question, which is how, how do leaders lean into funding
their vision? So you mentioned a couple things you mentioned
having a partner who supports your lifestyle. I love that. I
love that you mentioned the caveat of that. And two, you've
been there and you've done this a couple of times now. So you
also recognize the value of having that stable income
source to help fund the project or the vision. So how else do
leaders lean into funding their vision? Yeah, I think it's very
important to test the idea. So I had a co founder when I was in
Cornell, and we started a different company who's a doctor.
And we were trying to go after kind of an async in this
business model. And we were testing that out. So we
actually pitched to 300 400 angel investors. And when I mean
angel investors, just friends and family, okay, to see if, hey,
are you willing to even put $5,000? Right? Because if your
own friends and family are not willing to put $5,000 or $10,000
to some fundraising around, then the idea probably sounds a
little crazy. Right? That's at least one way I would go.
I just have to clap for you on that one. I have to clap for
you on it. There's the world that the world of small
businesses have never been on Shark Tank. And they usually
don't think about the angel. They don't know about the angel
world, which like you said, is very simplified. It's just a
word for friends and family. Yeah, willing to invest in you.
And if you cannot get that, you're going to have a very
hard time with your market. Yeah. If you're not even able to
convince them on the idea you're going after or put yourself,
make yourself vulnerable, right? Because nobody wants to
fail. Right. And now I know it's getting a little bit more
accepting to fail. And people talk about failure, but people
talk about failure already pretty rich and kind of made it
right. It's not the regular person that's talking about, oh,
I failed in this or this venture or that venture. So you
have to be willing to put yourself out there and fail.
Right. And are you willing to do that? Because if you're not
willing to do that, how do you plan to grow this company? It's
not going to go from zero to 10 million where you can talk.
Right. It's really the struggle in between that's the hardest.
Right. And the, you know, there's so much of will this
work? Right. And you're going through your head and
constantly thinking about it. And that's the hardest part to
get through is that self-doubt in the whole thing. But you have
to put yourself out there. You have to talk about the idea.
You have to convince yourself it's a great idea and convince a
few others. The other cool thing I think, Jackson, that a lot of
people don't do is see if you can find a co-founder that's
going to come on for equity. Right. That's if you can convince
somebody else and all my co-founders that are coming on
are equity based. They're all keeping their full-time jobs for
now to decrease their risk. But I'm giving them all a portion
of the company and a pretty big chunk of the company. And that's
another belief idea is, hey, can I convince one person or two
people to come on for whatever percentage you're willing to
give up that they believe in this idea and they will join when
they can make a lower salary, say a hundred thousand dollars.
Maybe they're making 250 today and you need that kind of
person. But you're like, Hey, when I can pay you 100K, you're
coming full-time. Otherwise you lose the whole thing. And if
they join, if they believe in that, you have a validated idea
again, that, Hey, this makes sense and a reliable team. And
that's a pretty cool way to go about it.
I love that. And again, I don't hear this talked about often
enough. It's very rare. I should say often enough, Anand,
you're one of the few people who has ever talked about these
subjects openly. And we practice this first class business,
you know, huge shout out to Zach. Zach Gagnon is my right
hand man who only is available when as a needs basis, he has
5% of the company and he's been doing that based on, you know,
and he could have more and he might have more later down the
road. But the efforts he's put in to help us build while
maintaining what he needs for work right now, where he's like,
he's really happy with where he's at. He's happy with what
he's doing. We can renegotiate at any time. You know, he knows
that. And at the same time, he wants a benefits package. Get
that. And we both understand that. It's like, okay, keep your
job, you know, it's to keep your current contracts that are
going. When we get to the point where we're negotiating
benefits packages and we have that baseline salary, then you
can come over and spend more time with us. But he's just a
backup for now. And he helped me establish the brand when we
first got started. We have similar contracts with other
people and I've brought on business partners. Again,
seriously, thank God that they did not take advantage of the
opportunity. You have to be careful that you align with
values. But I had one business partner come on. I gave him half
my equity and then half my equity after months of working
together and we knew each other for years. I said, let's do it.
When we have investors at the next level come on board and
our cash flow is positive, I'm going to be giving up one
percentage point and you're going to be giving up one
percentage point for that equity transaction to take
place to get the investor money. And he said, cool, that's
awesome. Well, fast forward three months. It didn't go well.
We both weren't happy with the situation, but we were both
friends and he also gave me 50% equity in his venture at the
same time. We decided to just call it a wash. We both took
our equities stakes back and we moved from that experience
back to what we were originally doing without each other.
They're not all negative experiences out there when it
comes to equity exchanges. And I just want you to realize that
those who are listening in that these types of negotiations
and discussions can take place and the better you become at
healthy relationships and healthy boundaries, the more
likely you end up talking to somebody who doesn't take
advantage of you, but is a great way to lean into funding.
And there's many ways to do just that. Do you have anything
else to add on the subject before we move to the next
topic? Just one quick thing I can say on funding that I've
learned recently. So I've joined this program called
Veblen Director Program. Pretty cool. It's like, how do you
become a board of director of a company even if you don't
maybe feel that you have the experience? And a lot of
entrepreneurs do have that experience, but what if you are
an employee in senior management, middle management,
how do you become a board of director? But what I got out of
the program is when you're starting a company and you're a
small entrepreneur, setting up an advisory board is like a
very cool way to raise money because you might set it up and
you have nothing, right? But you have eight people, but you
make sure that all those eight people are following your
story, you're communicating. You don't have to have meetings
and take a lot of time, but make sure you're sending an email
out every two months. Hey, this is what I said I'm going to
do. This is what I've done. This is where I am. And make
sure their networks have big pockets. And then the thing you
approach and say, hey, I'm looking to raise money. Well,
if you said what you're going to do and then you've done what
you said, right? That's a lot of credibility. A lot of people
don't even do that. And that's a really cool way to raise funds.
It's a very important way. I absolutely love it. Was just
talking to a nonprofit organization about six weeks ago
and the founder of it, she has 36 people on her board.
And it feels validating. But, you know, yeah, it is a lot. But
I told her, I said, how many of them have invested in what
you're doing? And she said, none. And I said, that's your
greatest challenge right now. I was like, you don't need 36
chiefs. Yep, you need people who are on your board that are
willing to put their money where their mouth is. So it's time
to get she's a well, they're all going to give $100. And I'm
like, come on now. I was like $100. Like, you know, anybody
in the street will give you $100. If you just go with a
sign for a little while. Yep. These are people who that you
want to be directors, they really need to dive in and
support you bigger on this if they're going to have that type
of a role. Or they need to be contributing to the
growth process process in order to to be worthwhile on on
that board. So anyway, those are I love that you talked about
it. Those are incredibly important thoughts. What was
the name of the organization? Veblen director program. How do
you spell that? Yeah, V E B L I N. Sorry, is a V.
Evelyn. I got it. Veblen director program. A lot of
a lot of letters in that name that. Yeah, Veblen directors.
Yeah, perfect. I've got that now. And we're going to dive
into a dark subject. What is the worst leadership experience
that you've ever had? Yeah, for me personally being a leader
and kind of a mistake. So it goes back to my my previous
story with the first sale. I mean, I was a pretty
significant component of that and vetting the organization,
putting together all the deals, you know, discussing all the
red flags that were going on and and still made a mistake
there, right? And maybe we didn't have the right advisors
in place that were more from a litigation M and A standpoint.
We might have, you know, we went with people that were
helping us from a corporate corporate law standpoint. And I
think we should have done a little bit more due diligence
or at least three read three books on how do you sell your
business and how do you look for these pitfalls or something,
right? Yeah, which is something we didn't do. There's a really
cool deal on the table, much higher than the value we thought
we were going to get for the company. And we kind of I guess
we should have seen that as a red flag in the first place.
Why are they willing to pay more? And they do this in and
out and they do a good job at it, right? So they know how to
how to play the game. But either way, I think that was the
worst, you could say, kind of outcome from being in a
leadership position that you could have is not stopping that
from happening. That's definitely the biggest one.
That's well said. You know, our conversation earlier reminded
me of a friend, we were talking about the funding aspect and
worst leadership decisions to, you know, like, not sharing
what you're up to, because you're scared somebody's going
to take it. Right. That's also one of those common realities
of why people don't go get funding. I was 16 years old, I
believe at the time, when a friend's dad was, he was super
hesitant to tell me about this app that he wanted to develop.
You know, because he was worried about somebody stealing it.
You know, this is a family friend who's extremely close to
us. And I'm like, I'm looking back on that, like, wow, like
he struggled to tell me as a 16 year old, you know, about the
app, because he was so worried somebody would build this game
and he's never built the game, you know, it's now 20 years
later, and it never came to fruition, you know, it died on
the vine, probably, it's my guess. But I think it's, you
know, we get so worried about about fear that we don't take
action. I'm glad you guys took action, you learn so much in the
process of the cell that you had and every future cell that
you're ever involved in or part of, you're going to be that
much more prepared to go look for that resource. And I'm sure
you've found resources since as well, that can help you and
that's selling the business like that's one of those that, whoo,
you know, when I get to that point for my businesses, I'm
going to, I have a feeling that people that I consult with,
and the people that I consult with, are not going to be very
happy with how many different things I have to drag them to
make sure that we do it the right way. Yep. All right. So
moving into the next question, what is your best leadership
experience ever? Yeah, I think I've had two really rewarding
experiences. One was when I was young, I was 23 in the Navy,
and my ship was deployed outside of Syria when the
chemical weapons, when Syria had chemical weapons against
Syrian citizens. And that's a red line for the United States.
And, you know, my ship happened to be the one that was
deployed already there. We were the first ones that came out.
Yikes. And they called it Operation Numbul Warning, which
was a pretty cool name. But, you know, we were in combat 20
hours a day. We had this team and, you know, that team was
always on call. We were pretty much sleeping there and getting
ready to shoot, right? And we were kind of in a, you could
say a battle zone. We knew, you know, kind of what was going on
in the arena. And that was a pretty rewarding experience
because I was a strike officer on the ship. And you're under a
lot of pressure. And you need to act and make decisions under a
lot of pressure. And this is pressure for like 25 days. It's
not like pressure for a couple hours. You get to go back and
sleep. It's like ongoing pressure with the team. And you
got to make sure they're rotating, everyone's motivated.
And, you know, the whole ship is kind of on red alert there. So
that is kind of, I would say, the most rewarding. Being the
leader in that scenario, keeping the team cool and learning
along that very young leader, I guess, at the time. And yet 20
people kind of following you doing this. So pretty cool. But
as you look at the business side of the house, it's definitely
exiting the last company, right? You know, growing this small
company from nothing, completely root-struck with a
couple founders. And we grew that company and were able to
exit. And I was the one pushing for the exit at the time,
because I saw the way the market was flowing. And, you know, big
tech was laying off. And I was like, hey, maybe this is the
time we want to exit. We're not going to be able to exit for the
next couple of years. So kind of convincing everyone and pushing
that exit and all worked out, which was great. So I think kind
of two examples there on that.
Yeah. I'm going to go back to your military days, because a
lot of people who want to be great leaders shy away from
those experiences or consider them some of their worst
experiences, when in reality, you know, the greatest leaders
that I know, they run into that head on. They appreciate the
fact that they are learning, they are growing. This is the
experience that it's all meant for. And that mindset shift is
something that's super helpful for business owners to consider.
I mean, we all have an opportunity, even at any given
point, to shift how we tell a story, right? To shift how we
feel about an experience or a story. This is one of those that
I would highly recommend people considering is what element of
pressure or difficult situation have you been in that you can,
or is coming up or you're in right now where you can be like,
you know what, I'm going to own this. I'm going to own this and
dive wholeheartedly into it and make things happen. And you did,
you talked about doing that very well. If this was the last
chance, Anand, for you to share a powerful experience with
others, you know, specifically with visionaries, what would
the powerful lesson be that they can learn from your
experience? Yeah, I would say never, never giving up. I think
that's a very standard answer that a lot of people say, but I
think the one the people that do succeed just, you know, they
have that resilience to keep going. And if 10 people say your
idea is bad, and you're able to create that kind of commotion or
or however, however you want to word it, then you're probably
doing something right. Right? If you know, it depends on who
you're talking to and what network you're talking to. But
if the network that is not in the entrepreneurial mode has no
idea what you're talking about, then you're probably doing
something right, to some extent, and then people that are in
what you're doing can relate to it. Then that's, you know,
that's, that's kind of what you're looking for. So you'll
always have people that are maybe you could say bringing you
down or making it much harder for you to be successful, but
you need to get through that and, and decide who you're
going to listen to, right? And then have that close circle as
a circle you're listening to. Just, you know, don't don't
listen to everybody else. Yeah, I think that's the toughest
part. Otherwise, we won't have things like Airbnb. You know,
right, if people did that, and it goes back to what your point
was, I'm not sharing ideas, I think it's important to share
ideas, because Airbnb got copied when there were 400
people company, this other company, the whole business
model is to copy these startups, these moonshots. And
then they went back to Airbnb and say, buy me, or I'm going to
compete with you. And they talk about how they didn't buy the
company, they the other company eventually went bankrupt,
because it's not what they wanted to do. They're just
trying to get a quick buck by copying this company, but
sharing ideas, get that validation and, and get the
validation from people you know are in the same industry, or
or doing something similar in the entrepreneurial mode is
important. We were we were guilty ones of doing something
similar to that. I won't I won't lie about it. The R&D
research and development ripoff and duplicate model, those
concepts. I think there are there there's a fine line,
there's an importance to have like, I look at firelin and
firefirelin, Firestone, Michelin, Goodyear, you know,
they didn't invent the wheel. Yeah, you know, and so they
that one could say that they've cheated, you know, and hold
that concept. And whether it was couchsurfing.com, you know,
or something similar that was kind of going after Airbnb or
Uber and Lyft, right in a battle, the taxis existed first
to write, there's there's some realities there. But I like
what you what you talked about in terms of, you know, if
people are saying you're doing it wrong, or you have
something that's kind of that's innovative or different or
changing the game, especially if it's Blue Ocean territory.
Well, I mean, that's why it's called Blue Ocean. You know,
nobody knows that it exists, you know, they're they're just
finding out and they're trying to decide, do I want to go
there to want to go to the beach where everybody else is
that, you know, there's there's different personalities and
different realities you have to deal with when you go down that
path as an entrepreneur. But when I was at home local, which
is written about in Alex Hermosy's book, 100 million
dollar offer, we, we had an opportunity where one of the
it's one of the most public failures of all time, because
they were so close to being one of the best companies and
marketing of our generation. And that was when Groupon CEO
was dumb enough. Sorry, dude, it was a dumb decision to turn
down a multi billion dollar offer by Google to buy it. And
he thought they were going to be able to do better without
them. What was he thinking? I don't know. But within six
months, there was 230 companies that all launched with the
Groupon business model, including
Google. We did my tech team did it Lloyd was in charge of it,
right. But I mean, I think it was overnight, we made like
36,000. Yeah, it was really big for us as a startup. And we
were working with newspapers already to distribute the word
about that. And so it was, it was definitely a it was
definitely worthwhile model and that that did help us grow and
expand a little bit. So you also got to be careful that
whatever your idea is, you got to be the best at it.
Yeah, Mark Cuban said that talking to Tai Lopez, like,
you've got to be if you're not the best, somebody's going to
come along and you're going to kick your booty and he didn't
say the word, but they're going to come along and they're
going to destroy what you're doing. Your intellectual
property is only as good as your ability to continue to
make it make it impress the market and help the market
benefit from it. So those are just I just want to double down,
never give up for sure. And keep keep building, you know, and
don't be scared to to model what's out there because the idea
probably does exist. Yes, I agree. And I think you should,
at least I feel that we should talk about the ideas because
it's all about execution in the end of day to become the best
possible. And once you see a success story, of course, a lot
of people are going to go copy it. Right? That that is like,
you know, saying that you became successful. That should
be validation that a lot of people are coming after you to
chip away at the business. And that's natural. But hopefully
you have the scale at that point in time to do it. And if
you're the small business, hopefully you have that rigor to
go after that big company, which a lot of people are, of
course, trying to chip away at Microsoft and Google and and
everything that they're doing because they're so successful.
Absolutely. But the concept, why not? Right? Yep. So creating
fruitful outcomes. All of these concepts for entrepreneurs
apply to creating the fruitful outcomes. And we didn't touch
much on capital markets, at least as a as a layman. I don't
think so. I mean, that's not my forte to dive into terms that
that go that high up the the intellectual chart. But what
what would you like to add in terms of fruitful outcomes in
capital markets on it? Yeah. So I think there's a lot of value
with scale in today's market. So when we talk about Kenobi
Capital and going back to what we're trying to do and how
we're helping founders, this is an aspect of one is cleaning
up the business that makes it highly valuable because it's
you're looking at EBITDA multiples in small companies. So
first you go kind of through an accelerator, you clean up the
business, but when you have scale, you get a much higher
valuation. And that's when the capital market play comes comes
in. So you're doing say 5 million revenue with half a
million dollars in sales versus 50 million and 5 million
dollars in profits, right? It's a big difference. And that's
when capital markets get more enticed with your business. And
they will actually create their own bidding war in this, which
jacks up the price automatically, which is pretty
cool. So that's that's when capital markets come come into
place when you have scale, you're looking to exit and you
have five or six companies together that make it really
attractive. And it unlocks that value because capital markets
really want to get into small businesses, right? How else do
they grow as they want to acquire a lot of these
companies? And that's how capital markets come into play.
It's it's unlocking the value between, you know, small
businesses and capital markets. And I think there's a lot of
value to be unlocked there with this generational shift right
now with boomers retiring, selling companies and, you know,
it's the wealth transfer that's going on. It's tremendous.
That's awesome. Absolutely. So anybody who's in that position,
of course, feel free to reach out to Ana and Orion and see
what's going on. We're going to put the action steps as well as
part of this episode down below the show. So, you know, which
action steps make the most sense for you based on where
your brand's at. Also, we have a call to action on the page in
the top right corner. It's going to say be our guests. If
you have a vision you'd like to share, we'd love to hear your
vision on Vision Pros Live. Don't hesitate to apply. I'll
take you through a pre-show process where we get to talk
behind the scenes about what you're up to and if it makes
sense to have you come on the show for both parties. And of
course, we'll look at what we're going to do to distribute
your voice, make sure that you get heard. Anybody who also has
a comment or a question, feel free to drop those in the show
and let us know. We'll make sure that Ana gets access to
those. And lastly, if you feel inspired by the show,
subscribing, liking and sharing with others, that's super
helpful for all of us. We really appreciate everybody
who listens into the show. And I'm going to let Ana finish
us off. Ana, anything you want to share before we go?
Yeah, just thanks for having me on, Jackson. Really
appreciate it. It's been fantastic chatting with you and
love to hear what other entrepreneurs are doing. And I
think you're showcasing a lot of other people's visions here.
So that's fantastic to learn what others are doing. And
yeah, anyone that just wants to connect, network, be in that
group of people who can bounce ideas off of happy to help in
any capacity, whatever that might look like to see those
ideas work, if we can get in front of investors and just
help people with the entrepreneurial journey.
That's perfect. Vision Pros, we will see you on the next
episode. Take care, everybody. Bye bye.
Thank you for being here today. I'm really happy that you
tuned in to Vision Pros Live. I'm looking forward to seeing
your reactions as these episodes continue to move
forward. This is going to get more and more fun. We'll have
more and more engagement as well. We'll invite people to
participate in the show. And thank you for giving us your
time and attention. Have an excellent time building out.