How to get your startup funded

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Welcome to the Did You know Podcast by Varisource, where we interview founders and executives at amazing technology companies that can help your business save time and money and grow. Especially bring awareness to smarter, better, faster solutions that can transform your business. 1.3s Hello, everyone. This is Victor with Verisource source. Welcome to another episode of the Digital podcast. So today we have Sean Gold. Sean is an Amazon number one bestseller for a book called Better Be You. You should definitely go get that book. He's a storyteller at OpenVC App. He's an advisor for countless startups. He's number one on Google. Search for a few different terms, but welcome. I try to hype you up as much as possible because Sean is one of the best hype artists I know in the startup community. So welcome to the show. 

U1

Thank you. I was the best until you took over. Wow. What do you charge for big jobs? You need to be the hype man. To the hype man. 1.3s

U2

Yeah, exactly. I think I'm going to be your opening act from now on on all your events. But no, Sean, obviously you're well known in the the startup community, but your story is fascinating, so really appreciate you coming on to us. Share not just a little bit insights, tips, but I think people love to learn a little more about you. 1.7s Tell us a little about your background, 

U1

Sean. Yeah, sure, sure. Well, first off, thanks for having me, and thanks for the hype. What an intro. If there's an applause track on this podcast, hit the button, because that was very good. Essentially, I'm a lifelong entrepreneur. I used to call myself a serial entrepreneur until I realized the only people that have that moniker are serial killers. 2.7s I changed that around. But I've been just an entrepreneur all my life, ever since I was a kid. And I had my first e commerce business right about the time I turned 13. Then I had educational assistance business, and then I got into nightlife around 17. And that's kind of what I became notorious for, was the Miami nightlife scene, where I did all the fun nightlife stuff that you can imagine when it comes to Miami parties on yachts and mansions and penthouses and nightclubs and dayclubs and pools and celebrities and athletes and all that for almost two decades. Wow. And it was through doing that that I started writing my books. I started lecturing at different universities, I started advising startups, I started getting into the VC realm. I started getting into screenwriting and comic books and all that stuff. So it's really a nontraditional background because it wasn't the usual. I went to Stanford, and I got into an internship here, and I worked with this start up, and I was the 97th hire at Snapchat. Like, it was the complete antithesis opposite of the vast majority of people in the starter community and usually how they break in and how they choose to do it. I'm an outlier, oddball, misfit, and that's what I'm most proud of. Couldn't even locate Stanford on a map if I tried. Yeah, 

U2

but look at where you are now. Yeah, right. We'll look up where it is together. 4.9s Yeah. So, you know, this is maybe a little off topic, but just based on what you said, that two decades of in that club scene or just that world, who is your favorite celebrity, maybe that you've met or hung out with? What was kind of like if you have to name one, do you have 

U1

one? To be honest, it was more of like handshakes and saying hi because they came to kind of have fun, you know? Yeah, 1.9s I have a lot. But at the same time it was just more of just like 

U2

stark by any specific celebrity. You're like, wow, 2.3s

U1

not particularly. Just because I've never been that crazy about it. 1.6s Especially 1.8s even before Instagram and everything. I never really cared about it. So even now it's like, who do you follow? I don't really follow anybody. I'm only really interested if we're going to possibly collaborate on something or if they're a client. But it's nothing that really determined my value or like, oh, man, look who I was hanging out with. Because I've had a lot of dinners and I've had a lot of pop ins and I've had a lot of shaking hands and all that stuff. But it really didn't matter to me. What mattered to me was giving good service and doing whatever needs to be done. It's the people that thought they were celebrities that were the ones you have to watch out for, which in Miami is everybody. So it's like, hey, you know that new Avengers movie? Well, my brother is going to go watch it. Go get them in. 1.8s It's never really been a thing for me to hype up and brag about. I mean, I was more concerned with building my business, building a reliable client base, giving good service and whoever showed up, showed up. And if I took some pictures, I took some pictures. But a lot of times, again, if I'm having an intimate dinner with someone and their staff or their crew, I don't want to be like, hey, can we do a video and get a picture? I want to be that person. I'm trying to be on an equal footing or at least a non fawning footing where we can just relax and talk and not be like, oh my God, he can't believe who am with. Because I don't really have anything to prove to anybody of who I'm eating with or who I know or anything. Because at the end of the day. You know, it doesn't matter. You know, it's the same for startups. It's like you can know a billion people, but unless you have one of them that's going to actually add value or one of them that's going to make the right introduction or change your, your life or trajectory, it's just, it's there. It's it's just nothing. It's it's a nice story to tell or it's a nice name to drop, but it's nothing that is, again, something that is like, oh man, look at all this. Because I'm sure, you know, it's a big deal for me for having dinner or doing something with a top movie star or whatever. But to them, they probably do that seven nights a week. 1.9s

U2

We're definitely going to get into kind of that startup side a lot more. But I guess being in that world, which is super fast paced too, right? What did you learn maybe, or what did you pick up from that you feel like helped you or in this kind of startup world? Because to some degree it's also very fast paced and there's a lot of urgency and things happening in the startup world as well. So whatever you learned, maybe skill wise or things you've learned on the other side that you felt like has helped you maybe deal with startups or in the startup 

U1

world now, a few things. One, I got like a kind of PhD on the street of human psychology. 1.6s From dealing with bankers, VCs, high net worth individuals, celebrities, college students, I mean, everybody, everybody across the spectrum on a given night. 1s So you begin to kind of learn how the archetypes and that was before I learned about the archetypes by Carl Jung. But you begin to learn how people think, what their archetypes are, how they relate, how they end interpreted information, what drives them. 1.2s And two, which is also equally important, is just the amount of fast paced execution. We had a saying in nightlife that you're only as good as your last party, so you can be on top of the world on Friday night and at the bottom of the world on Saturday. So it's a constant grind. And I feel like startups are the same, and I feel like you're either quick or you're dead. And a lot of people just don't get it, you know, they don't understand. So with nightlife, I mean, I was always on point. It was a kind of a 24/7 gig. If I didn't answer my my texts or my emails quickly, then I would lose a client and or I would lose an event, and that one event or that one client can make or break you. So you had to really be on point. So when it comes to startups, it's the same thing. So I'm able to kind of see through the BS of everything. 2.5s

U2

That's a superpower there, right there, for sure. So obviously I've met you and heard about you and learned from you from OpenVC. First of all, maybe for those in the audience that may not be familiar with or know about OpenVC, I think it's an amazing service platform where they're really democratizing helping the startups find investors and meet investors and hopefully get funded. Right. But maybe you can kind of talk a little bit about what OpenVC is. And one of the most fascinating thing, again, where I kind of learn about you and here you hype things up is what you guys call the pitch deck roast. Right. It's like a shark tank version, but instead of investing in these companies, you're telling them how bad their pitch decks are. That was awesome in a way of just learning. Right. If you can kind of take criticism but turn that into positive, that's always helpful, but kind of walk us through that whole thing. 

U1

Sure. Essentially, openvcapp is the URL and what it is we're trying to be the number one resource for startups. You know, not only to search our database for free of close to 5000 different venture capitalists that you can segment based on industry, vertical, stage check size, geography, whatever the case may be. But, you know, we have a blog which has other venture capitalists that share either their stories or how to construct a portfolio or, you know, how to develop a thesis. We have articles that I'm primarily responsible for, which include everything from city guides for different cities around the world, where to go, who to know what to do and advice which are from contributors from around the world who live there and breathe it and build in those scenes to what's a precede around the history of venture capital. Essentially, this is a one stop shop for founders. You're really serious about building a truly great startup, then this is your number one resource because it provides everything. The pitch deck roast is something that we do, which we take three decks from three consenting founders. Doesn't matter on the vertical or the industry, doesn't matter on the stage, and we just rip them apart. It's myself, and it's usually a predominant venture capitalist that. 1.7s He's predominant in their field. So the last one we did was mostly B to B with a small B to C focus, because it was the GP of a firm in Toronto Forum Ventures. That's what they invest in. So this would be what happens if you submitted your deck in the current state to that firm and how they would kind of rip you apart. But it's all actionable because most founders, I feel, they make a deck and they show to, I don't know, their roommate or their mom, and they're gonna say, oh, wow, you're awesome. This is the best thing ever. And these are people that don't have any knowledge of pitch decks or how investment works, and they just ship that out, and then they realize how much, you know, they realize that it might not be the best, but no one's calling them back. And no one's calling them back because the deck is it could be a variety of different issues. But let's say it's too long. It'll be 45 slides when the average deck should be ten to twelve at the most. 1.3s It's way too wordy. It's not designed well. I mean, there's so many different structural problems, you know, more structural problems than the Leaning Tower of Pisa? Yes. No, but we we go in there and we just, you know, we make it an entertaining kind of show for founders and investors. Lies to ask questions, and for the founders that submit to actually take advice, which is all good advice, and they're easily changeable. For instance, don't use these colors. For instance, cut this deck out. Just cut the slide out. Things that you can change within ten to 15 minutes and have something that's much stronger to pitch. So we do that. We also just did our first GP roast, where we had a limited partner of a fund of funds roast three decks from three VC firms that are trying to raise money so they can make investments. So we gave the VCs a taste of their own medicine. So going forward, we'll be doing GP roasts, we'll be doing startup roasts. 1.1s There's always people that essentially want to get feedback, and they want to be entertained, and they want to see what they're doing wrong. And we're here to deliver it from people that, again, would open their deck if they were actually submitting it to a firm or an investor for money. So, yeah, it's definitely a fun thing. And again, it's a great resource. And I tell every founder and investor, or would be founder, would be investor to just add it to their favorites and check it out, because we're always adding new features. There's always new articles dropping every week, there's always new events. There's always a lot of stuff coming. So definitely, if not the best, one of the best. Top three resources for entrepreneurs on the Internet. 1.1s

U2

Yeah. So obviously, first of all, I think you make the whole pitch roast, pitch deck roasting so much more entertaining. Just thank you. Entertainment. And also, it's very memorable. It's not just another webinar. So I highly, highly, personally recommend that anybody who's in startup or not, to just check it out, because I think a lot of times what you see is the VCs, the investors, they're people, too, and of course, they have different ways of looking at things than the startup founders. So you can learn a lot. But a lot of it is because I've been through a couple, and as you guys talk about, like you said, take out the slide or a VC is really giving you their insights on how they see things. Because oftentimes, as a founder, this is kind of like your baby and you just maybe to some degree want to share more than you should or just share. You feel like you need to share all this information because people want to know, and then you share it, but the person on the other side doesn't look at it that way, and you're not treating them like a person, right? You just throw so much information. So why do you think that is? That obviously you've seen a lot of pitch decks and how they go wrong, but if you're you had to. 1.4s Come up with one or two main reasons why you think they do that. Is it because lack of knowledge? Right. Is a lack of understanding of investor, how they think? What do you think that is? 

U1

I think that for a lot of founders, they just think that, you know, I see it all the time as just that, oh, well, I know someone or I heard a story of someone that raised millions of dollars on just an idea by betting on the person. And yeah, that does happen, but you have to be that person that people want to bet on. 1.3s That's the reason why Adam Newman can go raise like billions of dollars or hundreds of millions of dollars even though he failed at WeWork, but they bet him on him as a person because look at how he scaled it and created this. If Mark Zuckerberg or Elon Musk wants to start something, everybody will bet on them as a person. 1.3s The average individual, even though they might have a lot of accolades if they've never done something in startups or raised before or had an exit or even a failure, it's a lot harder to bet on them. So there's a notion of, oh, well, it's about the team which, yeah, the team plays a part, but it's also about what's the product is this product working? Is this scalable? Is this an actual venture backed company canopy? Because a lot of companies and a lot of businesses just they're not going to make hundreds of millions of dollars and that's okay. If you could start a business for $20,000 and have it make $800,000 a year and you're the only employee, then be happy with it. You don't have to take outside money and scale it to 80 million a year because it's very difficult to do. But a lot of people don't realize that. They don't realize that their idea or their business can just be a cottage industry. They don't realize that it could be just a small business. They automatically think that I need a million dollars or 5 million or 10 million or $500,000 to do this. And in actuality, most of the time, one, you're not going to get funded and two, you can probably do it on your own. You could just self fund it or get a loan or use your network to build something. And the proof of concept is there the biggest proof of concept is paying customers. That's it. That's the biggest kind of metric. Unless you have massive growth and a really good idea that people are excited about. But there's so many ideas that just aren't that it's kind of the same thing. I mean, I see it all the time. It just people are trying to not build a better mousetrap, but trying to build a similar mousetrap. And we wanted VCs want ideas that, you know are going to be really scalable and are going to make them a lot of money. They're not investing in the company because the company is going to do okay. They're investing in the company so they can buy a yacht in five years or less. You know? Yeah, that, that's what it comes down to is that we, we need to we want 100 extra turn, 200 extra turn, 500 extra turn. We don't want three times our money back. You're, you know, your, your, your college roommate, if he gives you $30,000, will be happy with $100,000 back. You know, venture capital firms don't. So that's another thing founders have to kind of realize as well is who who, why do they need this money? You know, is the VC the right move for them? And if so, then are they the right people to really scale this to those high numbers? Because we want high returns. That's what it's all about. It is. With great investment comes great returns. 

U2

Yeah, I feel like I've heard that before. I'm going to start calling you Spiderman for 

U1

Uncle Ben. 2.3s

U2

Just remember 

U1

Uncle Ben. The wise words of Uncle Ben. 

U2

Uncle Ben did an end well. So I'm not sure. Okay, you want to be, but no, 1.6s obviously 1.3s so excited that you have an Amazon number one bestseller again. The book is called Better Be You. It's an entrepreneur crash course. So you talked about in that book seven Powerful Lessons to Survive and Thrive. But of course, part of the value of the podcast is for me and you to provide, share valuable insights and tips for the audience. So if you were to just pick two or three some of those lessons that you would say, startups entrepreneurs need to survive and thrive, what would you say those are? John? 

U1

So I'm not going to use the lessons from the book because the book is already five years old and I've learned a lot since then, sure. So I'm going to give new lessons. But the book should be a good supplementary book for all entrepreneurs to have. So with that being the case, I'd say some lessons right now. Number one, don't fall into founder conformity. And what do I mean by that? I mean, do your own thing. Don't build something because everyone else is building something. Case in point, web three. There are too many people trying to do something in web three and they're all trying to do the same thing and no one really gets it. And it's a really fun thing to get into because web three is hot. But if you have no interest in web three and you don't know anything about web three, don't focus on it. It's much better to follow an opportunity that is near to your experience and something that personally excites you and something that you want to be personally involved in because you're going to spend a lot, lot of your time building something or researching or trying to make things happen in that specific vertical. So don't follow what everyone else is doing. You don't have to go to an accelerator or an incubator. 1.3s Or a paid retreat or whatever the case may be. You can do pretty much all of your research and all of your networking from your computer or your phone, and it's better to go the wrong way on your own path than the right way on someone else's, because you'll learn a lot more and you'll have a lot of knowledge and experience from it. Two I think the greatest entrepreneurial skill is the ability to endure long periods, periods of nothingness. There's going to be long stretches where nothing is going to happen. You're going to be sending out emails, you're going to be making calls, you're going to take meetings that probably get rescheduled. You're going to not really see any traction. And it could take months, it could take years, but that is part of the process. It's very rare to create something that instantly goes, is viral, and instantly scales. If it was that easy, every single company would be Facebook or would be Google. There's only a few heavy hitters in the industry, so keep that in mind. And I think this also goes with it would be a third lesson, is just the ability to be patient. 1.9s Patience really is a virtue and. 1.5s I know most founders, they want to get stuff done immediately, but you have to be patient if you're raising money. You know, it takes anywhere from nine to twelve months, if not longer, to raise money. You have to be patient when you reach out to people because they're on their own schedule, not on yours. You have to be patient when you take meetings. You have to be patient when you start interviewing people if you're going to bring them on your team. You have to be patient when when you're building something and waiting for feedback, or when you're talking to your potential with customers. 1.9s It's really something that people it's not talked about because everybody's in a rush to get a Lamborghini and get on Tech Crunch and everything takes time. I've done a lot and I have a lot of accolades, and you talk about my background and everyone was like, wow, you've accomplished so much. And look at all the different things you've done. And you have to remember that that also has periods of months, if not years of failure, and things just not happening. So if you can't spend at least two years or three years on building something before making any money, then I don't think being an entrepreneur is for you because it's going to take time. It's very difficult to create something that can start generating revenue immediately and can start getting you investment immediately. It's going to take a lot of time to whether you have to code it or find the people to code it, or whether you have to talk to your customers, or whether you have to just make changes. Everything takes time, and you have to be patient when it comes to that. 1.1s So another question that I was going to ask you, that a lot of people were won't even ask you is talking about mistakes. Right? Obviously, like you said, a lot of people talk about their successes and looking at their now, but they don't know actually sometimes some of those mistakes they've made maybe help them get to where they are or even that's where they part of the learning. But based on what you said, the lessons. 2s So if I were to ask you, what would be kind of three mistakes that you see typical founders or entrepreneurs make that are basically game over scenarios? Like you try to avoid these main ones or common mistakes that you see people make that are really impactful for them? 

U2

Sure. Could you think of two or three? 

U1

Of course, I mean, I could think of more. 3.3s Yeah. I think one 1.6s again, this notion and social media has played a role in it is this notion that your company is going to change the world. You have to get that out of founders and entrepreneurs heads. Is that yeah, it's great if your company can change the world, but at the end of the day, let's change yourself. Okay, let's start a company to change your career, to change your environment, to change who you are as a person. That's that's number one. OK, enough of let's, I'm just tired of we're going to change the world, we're going to change the world. Companies aren't meant to change the world. Individuals are meant to change the world. So build a company. That the number one goal of the company is for you as an individual, is to not have to work for someone else or to be mentally healthier because you're working from Starbucks and you don't have to go to an office and deal with people that are very toxic to you and ultimately to make money. I mean, companies are here to make money. You don't start a company to change the world. You start a company to hopefully scale it, provide a nice living for yourself. If you take investment to have a huge exit for your investors and yourself, it's not about changing the world. And then once you have that money, then yeah, you can change the world. Save the whales, do whatever you want. So that's number one because it's so cliche. It goes back to what I said about founder conformity. I think the average person doesn't want to change the world. I think they just want to make money. And that's fine for being in business and being an entrepreneur. And if you really want to change the world, there are people that are changing the world. And they're not founders, but they're in universities, they're in government, they're at the UN, they're at think tanks and the laboratories and they're changing the world. They're actually doing it. They're not just boasting on their LinkedIn. I'm building the next company that will change the world because it's very cliche. I like 

U2

that one. I like that one. Very psychological. Yeah, I like that. 

U1

Yeah. So that's number one. Number two. 1.4s Is learn the basics. We all hear that the cliche phrase of you have to crawl before you learn to walk, which is true. But I think at this point, you have to learn how to function and the basics of entrepreneurship before anything. And what are the basics? How do I incorporate a company? 2.8s What kind of structure do am I going to have a partner? Do I need a co founder? How do I build a deck? What should be in the deck? Do I even need a deck? Because a lot of times 1s the point of a deck is to raise money. And a lot of times you don't need to raise money because you're way too early, because you don't have a business yet. So learn the basics. Figure out what you want to do and test it out. Test it out and try and make money and just use what you have to showcase what you can do. That's kind of a big thing. Because everybody's in such a race to get on Shark Tank and walk away with a deal based on nothing but a story and a prototype, and it just doesn't work that way. 2.5s Used to be maybe that way, where you can raise millions of dollars at the PreSeed level or even before precede. But bootstrapping is an art, and some of the biggest exits ever came from people that didn't take a dime of investor money, such as MailChimp, such as spanks. I mean, isn't it cooler to build something that's for a billion dollars and do it on your own so when you sell it, you owe 99.99% of it instead of owning 17% of it because you had to keep taking investment and keep taking investment. So that's another mistake. I see. And I guess the third mistake would also be is thinking that you can be an entrepreneur because it isn't for everyone. It's a cool thing to say. I mean, I've been in the game a long time. When I was a teen, I was an entrepreneur. And then when I was a teen, it was still considered I don't want to date myself, but this is like the.com era, but it was still considered kind of like a crank position. Kind of like, why are you being an entrepreneur printer? Why are you doing that? And why are you even here in school if you're already making money? And that was kind of a question I got when I was in high school. And that was a question I got when I was in college, is why you even here? And it was a question I got when I graduated. Why do you even go to school? 1.3s So kind of understand why you want to do it and what it is you want to do and if you're capable of it. Because some people, people need to obey others. They need to have direction. 1s Other people don't want to obey others, myself included, and want to, you know, obey themselves. And it's very difficult because instead of having a boss that's going to berate you for being late or not doing your work, you have yourself to berate. And you know, most people won't yell at themselves or push themselves into a position. They need someone to tell them what to do and what time to be at the office and what time the meeting is at and what we're going cover and how to write the memo and that's fine. But for me that's not the life. For me, it never has been, never will be. So I had no choice but to become an entrepreneur and I still have no choice but to be an entrepreneur and to make things happen. And that's just kind of the story of my life, is just making things happen and doing it on my own and just being that nonconformist and being that outlier and just focusing on my own path. And 1s I'll end it with a quote that I give to a lot of entrepreneurs, is that speaking of being on your own path is that you shouldn't take advice on your journey from someone who has never left home. And 1.2s that's kind of a mistake that people make is they listen to people that have had 30 years in corporate or 20 years in corporate or have done stuff in academia, but they've never actually been out in the streets or on the field and had to do it. So you have to kind of follow your own course and learn on your own or seek people who have more knowledge than you and try and work with those people and try and network with those people and see what can happen because it's really not going to happen for people that are outside of what you're doing. I mean, that's why there's so many hackathons. People that go to hackathons are hackers and tech people. 1.6s People that work in banking don't really go to hackathons. Same thing if you go to an investment summit, it's usually investors. It's not a hacker. 1.4s You want to go where your tribe goes and you want to stick with them, but you can also kind of go to all of these if that's what you want to do and network and learn from everybody and make that year your basis for crafting your business and essentially your life and essentially your future. 1.4s

U2

Yeah. So, no, these are great advice, Sean. I can see all your psychology has come into play, especially also with your experience. But two last questions for you as we wrap this up. So obviously we have a lot of audience are in the startup community, founders and just being part of startup. And so obviously getting funded is one of those trillion dollar questions. They're just not the exact answers. There are so many variables, but based on your experience, you've seen so much. If you were to say 1.5s if you were to give some advice to startup founders on what can help them, obviously, other than having traction and customers and proof, what are some good tips for them to maybe build better relationship with investors, 1.6s be able to get funded, improve their chance, let's call it, of getting funded. And then I want to follow up that with you do have a consulting service that you do help some select startups and you help them. How do you help them and what do you help them with? If you want to talk about that? 

U1

Yeah, sure. So, again, like. 1.1s People shouldn't approach investors unless they're ready to get funded. And you have to be ready to get funded. You have to show that the demand is there. How would 

U2

you know if it was startup? How would how would they know, Sean, if they are ready, like you 

U1

said? Okay, well, one, they have a they have an actual product or service that's already in the market. Two, they have X amount of users. So, you know, if we have 100,000 free users, that's better than having ten users. If you have revenue, that's a huge thing. But if not, if you have, again, 100,000 users and you're going to turn on the button and this is a very early round of investment to help turn on the button to monetize it, that could be appealing, but essentially it's all about kind of crafting the story. I mean, how much much did it cost to build this already? If you self funded it and you put $5,000 or $10,000 in and the market is proving you that, wow, look at what I've done with this, but I need $100,000 to really do it or 200,000 to really get to the next level. That's interesting. 1s And 1.6s I feel like a lot of people, again, they make the mistake of just having a cool idea, but they have nothing to show besides a logo and a website, and the website is still not functional. 1.3s It's like, I need the money. I hear this a lot. I need the money to build the app. And I was like, well, no one's going to give you the money to build the app because you need to have the app already functioning and you got to have users and data so we can see that we're not going to put the money in and nothing's going to happen 1.3s again. You have to kind of be out in the streets and get beaten up. You have to take the blows and you have to know what your customers want because you have to make the mistakes with your own money before someone else gives you money to make mistakes. We want to know that this is the best thing ready right now that you have, and you need the money to scale up and do this. So, you know, if you're I think if it depends for it's different for for everybody. It depends on the vertical. It depends on the who's part of the founding team. It depends on, you know, what they've accomplished from, you know, inception to the date, whether if it's a year, whether it's six months, whether it's two years. Because nobody wants to, you know, invest, especially when they're in the Valley of Death, which, you know, that's kind of a so Silicon Valley term which means that you've launched your product, but nothing's happened. 1.7s It's there. It's live. You can click a button and sign up for 995 a month, but no one's signing up, and then no one knows what to do. So you really have to go get through all that, so you're ready, and you really have to have an exciting proposition for outside investors to come in, because, again, if they're going to give you a million dollars, we want to exit for 100 million, 50 million, 200 million. We don't want to exit for two. I saw a deck that we're going to roast probably in the next roast, where they want $2 million of investment, and their projections three years out was for 1.5 and their best year. So it's kind of like, okay, I'm going to give you two, but you're only going to make 1.5 in the best case scenario. So it makes no sense. 1.2s Right. So again, make sure you have your financials that are exciting and they're real. You know, it goes back to the mistake. Don't say we're going to make $300 million in year two when we're making, you know, not even 3000 in year one. 1.2s Don't say you're going to get 5 million users when you have barely 50, not 50,050. You know, these are just common kind of errors that are assumptions people make. And you can make assumptions, but again, if you have 1000 now, maybe by year two, you can have 10,000 that's kind of doable not 1.5 million, and 750 of them are paying 595 a month. 1.9s It's a wake up call, for sure. And I think a lot of and it may be just because of the last few years of how the startup war has gone, right, where people with no money, no user ID on a napkin are getting money, or at least that's what they've seen on the news, right? Maybe 

U2

media has a little bit to do with that. Again, 

U1

people like those kind of sexy stories. But who do you know? It's very easy to raise money if you're in the Silicon Valley Circle and your network includes all these top people, and you have Alfred Lynn Sequoia on speed dial, and you've worked in, say, startups for ten years, and you know everybody here, you know, you've worked in Adventure. So it's much easier, you know, if you have those relationships. But if you don't have those relationships, it's much harder. You know, I've I have a founder, you know, I'm working with, you know, I'm helping them out. And 20 years ago, he had a business doing $100 million a year before he had a major ex it. And even now, because it was 20 years ago, people now are like, okay, well, that's good, but you're still too early for us. 1.9s It really depends. 3.4s You have to be ready. And being ready, to me, is. 1.2s Hitting actual milestones, having an actual user base, having people that like your product, having revenues, and being able to kind of build this on your own to the level that you actually are only taking investment because you absolutely need that kind of money to scale and do it quickly. 1.3s So that's things to keep in mind. And then second for the workshops. Yeah, I mean, I have a bunch of different and executives, including other VCs and including people that are experts in their field, that we work with different startups and do these two hour workshops once a month or even they could be one time things that really get things in order so that the startups don't waste six to eight months of their time raising funds or trying to raise funds, building a product that nobody wants and analyzing it from a VC perspective, analyzing it from a marketing perspective, analyzing it from a financial perspective, analyzing it from a tech perspective from people that have done it than people that are in the game. And it's much better to spend the money, which is nothing compared to nine months of your time where you just have nothing to show for it. I mean, life is short and you know, startups startup life is even shorter. So with that being the case, you know, you need every advantage that you can get. So we just try to provide advantages to founders that really need it and really could benefit. And then, I mean, I also personally just work with a variety of different startups just as a consultant, not so much as an in house advisor or anything. Just because I don't do that, it's not worth my time. And there's a lot of demand for me to put my time into things that are going to really benefit me and allow me to really keep the lights on, so to speak. And allow me to focus on the stuff I like doing than telling, you know, a startup that wants me to be an advisor in a vertical I know very little about, but they want to have me to feel cool or to use my connections or to use my cloud. And I just it's not a good fit because I don't want to waste anybody's time, whether it's my connections or whether it's their time. So 1.2s I'm always available. Hit me up on LinkedIn, include a message. I don't accept connections. I don't know without a message. I'm always open to talking to people and seeing how I can help them and plug them in and whatnot. Just because I've been through the grind before, I know how hard it is and I know again, you need every advantage that you can get. 1.5s

U2

Yes. So, no, I think any founder, any startup should reach out to you and look at that workshop. I think it's a tremendous resource. So as we wrap up with the last question that we usually like to ask the guest is you've seen a lot, you've done a lot, and you've given out already a lot of, I think, great tips and insights. But if you have to give one advice to people out there, whether that's a personal advice or business advice, what's something that you're most passionate about? It could be anything, but what was something that you really believe in or whether it's startup or not, just something you're really passionate about and that matters a lot to you? What do you think that 

U1

is? Do you want me to give advice or just tell you what I'm passionate about? 

U2

Yeah, advice. Advice? Yeah, advice. But that you're really passionate in an area that you really passionate 

U1

about. Okay. I'm passionate of a lot of different areas just because I'm a polymath like that. So I do a lot of different things. But I think the one piece of advice that I always quote, that I give in every speech and panel from the German poem Ranier Marie Vilka, is that the goal of life is to be defeated by greater and greater things. 1s So that's kind of what I tend to tell people because a lot of people hear a lot of the same fluff. It's like passion as power and dream bigger and all that. And now that's great. We've heard it. It's very cliche. But when the fluff meets the actual streets, 1.6s it doesn't really hold up to the obstacles you will face. Whereas the vocal quote, that's what it is. It's to keep trying and to keep going and to keep actually not only dreaming bigger, but executing bigger, but anticipating that it won't work out, anticipating that you will face defeats, but you won't be defeated. I'd rather have a life where I went out and I tried all the things I had an interest in and if none of them worked, fine, but I didn't have to wonder, what if? And I never had that mentality in me to be like, oh, well, what if it doesn't work? What are they going to think of me? I don't care. I mean, you're talking to the guy that was on Jeopardy that failed in front of 10 million people. So, you know, it's I'm still here rocking. I'm in the pool for another game show. It's not going to stop me. So again, failures actually strengthen you, especially as a founder. And as long as you learn something and as long as you come back, you'll be more resilient, you'll be mentally stronger, and you'll be able to handle more and more challenges and obstacles, 2s as we can tell from this interview. I'm just very blunt and I'm very to the point, and I don't like to fill people's heads with just kumbaya nonsense. I want to fill their heads with it's going to be hard, it's going to be difficult. It's a rough road. In fact, there isn't a road. And it's your job to pave the road as you walk it. And it's going to be hot, humid, full of blood, sweat, tears, defeats, and denials and failures, but it is still your obligation to create that path and walk it and emerge on the other side. 1s And that's what being, you know, involved, I think, in life, is. I mean, people can take the easier up through life, and 99% of us do. But I feel that the 1% of us who want to be founders and want to be entrepreneurs and who go our own way, you know, they just they have to throw the dice every day, and they have to keep going no matter what. And and that's how it goes, you know? And some people find success on their first startup, others, it takes 3456 attempts. But as long as you, you know, keep climbing, you just keep going and nothing will stop you. 

U2

Yeah, spoken like a true entrepreneur, man. That's a great way to leave this. Really appreciate all your time. Look forward to obviously partnering up on a lot more things. So I really appreciate it, Shaun, thank 

U1

you for having me. 

U2

That was an amazing episode of the digital podcast with Varisource. Hope you enjoyed it and got some great insights from it. Make sure you follow us on social media for the next episode. And if you want to get the best deals from the guests today, make sure to send us a message at sales@varisource.com.