Latest / Earn Your Leisure / EYL #280 Homeless to VC Millionaire: Arlan Hamilton on Raising Capital, Investing in Start-Ups & Mark Cuban Arlan Hamilton

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EYL #280 Homeless to VC Millionaire: Arlan Hamilton on Raising Capital, Investing in Start-Ups & Mark Cuban Arlan Hamilton · Earn Your Leisure

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  Speaker 1: An illegal alien from Guatemala charged with raping a child
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  Speaker 1: in Massachusetts. An MS thirteen gang member from Al Salvador
• 0:07
  Speaker 1: accused of murdering a Texas man of Venezuelan charged with
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  Speaker 1: filming and selling child pornography in Michigan. These are just
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  Speaker 1: some of the heinous migrant criminals caught because of President
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  Speaker 1: Donald J.
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  Speaker 2: Trump's leadership.
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  Speaker 1: I'm Christy nom the United States Secretary of Homeland Security.
• 0:25
  Speaker 1: Under President Trump, attempted illegal border crossings are at the
• 0:29
  Speaker 1: lowest levels ever recorded, and over one hundred thousand illegal
• 0:33
  Speaker 1: aliens have been arrested. If you are here illegally, your
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  Speaker 1: next you will be fined nearly one thousand dollars a day, imprisoned,
• 0:41
  Speaker 1: and deported.
• 0:42
  Speaker 2: You will never return.
• 0:44
  Speaker 1: But if you register using our CBP home app and
• 0:47
  Speaker 1: leave now, you could be allowed to return legally.
• 0:50
  Speaker 2: Do what's right. Leave now.
• 0:53
  Speaker 1: Under President Trump, America's laws, border and families will be protected.
• 0:57
  Speaker 3: Sponsored by the United States Department of Homeland Security.
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  Speaker 4: All right, guys, welcome back U I L We're back
• 1:03
  Speaker 4: home in the headquarters and we have a very interesting conversation.
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  Speaker 4: You know, anytime that we get to talk to entrepreneurs, investors,
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  Speaker 4: it's always insightful. But today we have Arlen Hamilton, found
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  Speaker 4: of Backstage Capital and investor in diverse founders so venture capital, right,
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  Speaker 4: So VC is something that we've been talking a lot
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  Speaker 4: about recently as far as they're not being a lot
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  Speaker 4: of black vcs firms and how little of the VC
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  Speaker 4: and private equity capital goes to black founders. I think
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  Speaker 4: it's like one point five percent goes to women and
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  Speaker 4: minorities combined every single person, So I would assume that
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  Speaker 4: black people will probably get way less than that, right,
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  Speaker 4: So literally fighting for crumbs in the billion dollar industry
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  Speaker 4: when it comes to venture capital and private equity. So
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  Speaker 4: there's obviously a lot of issues with that. Then you're
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  Speaker 4: also an author, you have a podcast called Your First Million, right,
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  Speaker 4: and really just champing you know, the tech industry and
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  Speaker 4: the VC side, startups and entrepreneurship. So I'm sure there's
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  Speaker 4: a lot of things to talk about. So thank you
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  Speaker 4: for joining us, appreciate.
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  Speaker 5: It, thanks for having me.
• 2:18
  Speaker 6: I also thought you was gonna say it's about Damn Town.
• 2:20
  Speaker 6: Oh yeah, I thought I thought he's gonna go there
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  Speaker 6: first book. But it's about the time we've been we've
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  Speaker 6: been seeing and running to each other throughout the years.
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  Speaker 6: Watching you has been incredible. Watching your Instagram has been
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  Speaker 6: even more fulfilling. Uh, And I love it. I love
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  Speaker 6: the initiative, a thousand new millionaires. I feel like, you know,
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  Speaker 6: there's a new class. And we talked about it, you know,
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  Speaker 6: numerous times, about this financial revolution and everybody that's doing
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  Speaker 6: the work and everybody doing that part. So I just
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  Speaker 6: want to let you know that we're watching the work,
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  Speaker 6: We've been studying the work, and we salute you and
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  Speaker 6: everything you've done. So thank you for being here.
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  Speaker 5: I appreciate that. Thank you.
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  Speaker 4: So let's where does this start for you? So we
• 2:58
  Speaker 4: talked about the things that you're currently doing, but where
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  Speaker 4: does the journey begin and specifically, how do you get
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  Speaker 4: into VC world.
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  Speaker 5: Yeah, I'll take you back about a decade ago, about
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  Speaker 5: eight and a half years ago. I was sleeping on
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  Speaker 5: the floor of the San Francisco airport. That was where
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  Speaker 5: I lived, was at the airport. And it wasn't because
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  Speaker 5: I was tryna, like you know, I was being cue.
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  Speaker 5: I put my stuff in storage and was going after
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  Speaker 5: the dream. It was because I didn't have anywhere to live.
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  Speaker 5: It was the safest place I could think of originally
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  Speaker 5: from Dallas, Texas, born in Jackson, Mississippi, but raised in Dallas, Texas.
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  Speaker 5: Consider that my home. I live in LA But at
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  Speaker 5: this point I had been in mostly in Parland, Texas,
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  Speaker 5: right outside of right as a part of Houston, and
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  Speaker 5: then I made my way to San Francisco to be
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  Speaker 5: in Silicon Valley. But I at that time was was broke,
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  Speaker 5: as they say, the technical phrase for it is broke
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  Speaker 5: and before that, so the reason I got into it,
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  Speaker 5: and I'll tell you like if you fast forward today,
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  Speaker 5: so nobody feels sorry for me. I've invested in more
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  Speaker 5: than two hundred companies led by underrepresented underestimated founders. We
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  Speaker 5: have the largest portfolio in the country by number of
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  Speaker 5: portfolio founders when it comes to diversity. And I personally
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  Speaker 5: invested in thirty different venture funds that are led by
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  Speaker 5: women and BIPOC founders or general partners that were started
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  Speaker 5: after backstage capital my fund started, so we have inspired
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  Speaker 5: that as well. But it was probably twenty eleven twenty
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  Speaker 5: twelve where I was early thirties, still broke, and this
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  Speaker 5: is before the San Francisco and I had figured out
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  Speaker 5: what a startup was because I'd seen people like Troy Carter,
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  Speaker 5: Lady Gaga's managers, a black man, Yeah yeah, Justin Bieber
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  Speaker 5: and Ellen DeGeneres and Ashton Kutcher. They were all making
• 4:57
  Speaker 5: these small investments in a place called Slicon Valley and
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  Speaker 5: they had stickers and shirts they were wearing, and I
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  Speaker 5: was like, what is that? So I was interested in it,
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  Speaker 5: and I had been on the road actually with musicians
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  Speaker 5: at that point. It was a whole another story. But
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  Speaker 5: I was seeing them make investments like ce Lo and
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  Speaker 5: Tony Braxton and a few others, and I said, oh, okay,
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  Speaker 5: these are my people, like Silicon Valley startups, entrepreneurs, that's
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  Speaker 5: what I am. I just never knew what to call it.
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  Speaker 5: I didn't know I was a founder. And I also
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  Speaker 5: saw people like what like Brian Chesky from Airbnb and
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  Speaker 5: Richard Brandson, of course I knew for a long time,
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  Speaker 5: knew of And I was like, that resonates with me.
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  Speaker 5: That's what I feel like. I'm sure y'all can relate
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  Speaker 5: to that. You feel like this entrepreneurial spirit just never
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  Speaker 5: had a name for it. And so I said, I'm
• 5:45
  Speaker 5: go out and raise a million dollars because that's what
• 5:47
  Speaker 5: you're supposed to do. So I started researching how do
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  Speaker 5: you raise a million dollars for a tech company? And
• 5:53
  Speaker 5: that's when I found out that less than ten percent
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  Speaker 5: of all venture funding in the United States goes to women,
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  Speaker 5: people of color, GBTQ plus I identify as all three,
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  Speaker 5: and so I said, that doesn't make any sense when
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  Speaker 5: white men make up only thirty percent of the country,
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  Speaker 5: they're getting ninety percent of the funding. So instead of
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  Speaker 5: raising a million dollars for fuck my company, I said,
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  Speaker 5: what if I could raise a million dollars and invest
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  Speaker 5: it in those three categories and what would that do?
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  Speaker 5: And what if I could build that over time? So
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  Speaker 5: I set out for several years to try to do that,
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  Speaker 5: didn't get any traction, but then fast forward to sleeping
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  Speaker 5: on the floor of the airport, making mice way to
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  Speaker 5: Silicon Valley, knocking on doors, finally getting that first investment,
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  Speaker 5: and then I went from there.
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  Speaker 6: What was that that that process? Like, right, so you're
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  Speaker 6: sleeping on the floors. In my mind, I'm thinking of a
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  Speaker 6: suit of happiness, but this.
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  Speaker 5: Is well, actually, yeah, right, So that's I mean. Queen
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  Speaker 5: Lativa said the same, like the same thing that.
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  Speaker 6: I mean That's the story, right, just that hunger and
• 6:52
  Speaker 6: that belief of I'm going to make it. I'm going
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  Speaker 6: to figure this thing out. Yeah, I mean there's a
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  Speaker 6: certain level of character that you have to have and
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  Speaker 6: integrity as you have to continue to pursue it. But
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  Speaker 6: how did you get the first investment? Did you even
• 7:04
  Speaker 6: know how to pitch? Did you like networking while you
• 7:08
  Speaker 6: were going to and from the right.
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  Speaker 5: So two things that I did while I was broke
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  Speaker 5: hungry that I encourage every entrepreneur to do no matter
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  Speaker 5: where they are, is I kept up with my customer
• 7:20
  Speaker 5: or my would be customer, and my customer is the
• 7:22
  Speaker 5: entrepreneur because I'm gonna be investing in them. And I
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  Speaker 5: also learned every single day, because there came a point
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  Speaker 5: where I was like, I can't control what's going on
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  Speaker 5: in my life. It's been like this my whole life.
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  Speaker 5: In one way or another. I can't control. I'm so down,
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  Speaker 5: you know. But what I can control, like I can
• 7:38
  Speaker 5: control if we I'm going to sleep, can't control where
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  Speaker 5: I'm gonna eat necessarily, but I can't control if I
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  Speaker 5: learned something new today, And so I made sure to
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  Speaker 5: do that. So I call it being money because money
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  Speaker 5: attracts money, but what if you don't have it, you
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  Speaker 5: become it. So I learned so much that I knew
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  Speaker 5: how to talk to investors and I because I studied it.
• 7:58
  Speaker 5: And then when I the reason the first invent said
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  Speaker 5: yes was because I had more information than she had money, essentially, right,
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  Speaker 5: So she had a lot of money and I had
• 8:09
  Speaker 5: a lot of information, and I could help teach her,
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  Speaker 5: like we would sit on the bench at this class
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  Speaker 5: we were in and we would I would just teach
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  Speaker 5: her like, this is how you do due diligence on
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  Speaker 5: a company, this is what you look for. And I
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  Speaker 5: was homeless at the time. She just didn't know it.
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  Speaker 5: So she had this money and she wanted to do
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  Speaker 5: something in the world. She wanted to invest, but she
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  Speaker 5: didn't know exactly how. So then when I taught her,
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  Speaker 5: she said, Okay, let me actually back you. You go out
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  Speaker 5: and find the companies and let's see what that becomes.
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  Speaker 4: So as far as what was the first investment.
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  Speaker 5: That you made, the very first investment I made was
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  Speaker 5: in a company called Cairos out of Miami. It was
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  Speaker 5: a facial and emotion recognition company. This is two hundred
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  Speaker 5: companies back so I had to think about it. And
• 8:51
  Speaker 5: Brian Brackeen is the founder, black man who came from
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  Speaker 5: Silicon Valley but wanted to go back to Florida to
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  Speaker 5: build this company. Put his own two hundred and fifty
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  Speaker 5: thousand dollars into the company, was working on deep tech
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  Speaker 5: and AI at at a time when most people weren't
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  Speaker 5: talking about it, could not get investors, and I just
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  Speaker 5: happened to find him on a YouTube video talking about it,
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  Speaker 5: and so we worked together before I had money, and
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  Speaker 5: then I you know, wired him as soon as I
• 9:17
  Speaker 5: had a twenty five thousand dollars. He went on to
• 9:20
  Speaker 5: have his mostly whiteboard push him out after a few years,
• 9:25
  Speaker 5: and they thought that that was going to be the
• 9:27
  Speaker 5: end of it. He turned around. He built a fifty
• 9:31
  Speaker 5: plus million dollar venture fund to invest in people like himself,
• 9:35
  Speaker 5: which I became one of the first investors in that.
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  Speaker 5: And then and now he has, you know, an incredible
• 9:41
  Speaker 5: sprawling empire essentially in Cincinnati and in Saint Louis for
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  Speaker 5: black and brown founders.
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  Speaker 6: The first investment twenty fifteen, bas Stage Capital is founded.
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  Speaker 5: That's right.
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  Speaker 6: The first investment happens when.
• 9:56
  Speaker 5: A couple of days later, like right, yeah, right, because
• 9:58
  Speaker 5: I had been working with founders right, like I kept
• 10:00
  Speaker 5: up with my customer, I kept so I knew the
• 10:03
  Speaker 5: cue that I wanted to invest in. I was just
• 10:05
  Speaker 5: missing out. Every few weeks it was like, oh, you know,
• 10:07
  Speaker 5: the opportunity was gone.
• 10:09
  Speaker 6: So how are you? How are you finding founders to
• 10:12
  Speaker 6: invest in? I know you said YouTube was a video.
• 10:14
  Speaker 6: Were you looking at incubators? Where you're looking at hy Combinator,
• 10:18
  Speaker 6: all these things resources and not how are you figuring
• 10:21
  Speaker 6: out which people and where they were acting to invest in?
• 10:23
  Speaker 5: So although I knew Sam Altman at the time because
• 10:26
  Speaker 5: I found my way to him, I was not looking
• 10:28
  Speaker 5: at why Combinator because y Combinator was not looking for us.
• 10:31
  Speaker 5: So I was not looking at I was looking at
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  Speaker 5: Like when I was in Parland, I went to different
• 10:36
  Speaker 5: places where it would be mostly white founders, but you
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  Speaker 5: would find the women. You would find the people of
• 10:43
  Speaker 5: color who were the only ones in the room, and
• 10:45
  Speaker 5: I would work with them if I found something online,
• 10:48
  Speaker 5: if I read the right article at the right time,
• 10:50
  Speaker 5: and I would just reach out to them early, early,
• 10:53
  Speaker 5: early and just offer to help. Can I help brainstorm
• 10:56
  Speaker 5: with you? Can I help make some introductions even though
• 10:58
  Speaker 5: they weren't. You know, my networks so different now. But
• 11:00
  Speaker 5: it was like I would make an introduction to maybe
• 11:02
  Speaker 5: some press if I could find the email address. I
• 11:05
  Speaker 5: was just trying to be valuable to them. So they
• 11:07
  Speaker 5: would then tell their friends who were starting companies, and
• 11:10
  Speaker 5: I would look through the companies and say, this one
• 11:12
  Speaker 5: has potential to let me really see if I can
• 11:14
  Speaker 5: help before I have the money.
• 11:17
  Speaker 4: So when you really start to hit your stride and
• 11:20
  Speaker 4: start to take off in the VC.
• 11:21
  Speaker 5: World, I think so. I had a viral medium post
• 11:25
  Speaker 5: in twenty fifteen, actually while I was still living at
• 11:27
  Speaker 5: the airport before the first investment, called dear White Venture Capitalists.
• 11:31
  Speaker 4: So why let's talk about this a little bit. Why
• 11:33
  Speaker 4: were you homeless? Because you obviously you went to Silicon
• 11:37
  Speaker 4: Valley for a reason, so you're educated enough to understand
• 11:40
  Speaker 4: the dynamics of what's going on. So I think it's
• 11:42
  Speaker 4: important to speak about that. A lot of time people
• 11:44
  Speaker 4: look at homeless people and they think that if you're homeless,
• 11:47
  Speaker 4: you're on drugs, you have a mental illness, you're lazy,
• 11:51
  Speaker 4: you don't want to work, or it's just very uneducated
• 11:55
  Speaker 4: and kind of you know, they don't look at somebody
• 11:57
  Speaker 4: that can actually be like, it can.
• 11:59
  Speaker 5: Happen to you, right, Yeah, you're right.
• 12:01
  Speaker 4: You could be educated, you could go to college and
• 12:03
  Speaker 4: then a couple of things happen and then before you know,
• 12:05
  Speaker 4: you're homely. So you talk about your like, how did
• 12:08
  Speaker 4: you end up in that point?
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  Speaker 5: I had never, like many of us, I had never
• 12:12
  Speaker 5: really learned about finances as a child. And I know
• 12:17
  Speaker 5: that's not the case for y'all, but that's y'all are teachers, right,
• 12:19
  Speaker 5: y'all are teaching at other people, but many in your
• 12:22
  Speaker 5: audience wouldn't have. And so my mom is an amazing person,
• 12:25
  Speaker 5: but she just didn't know how to make ends meet.
• 12:29
  Speaker 5: She had like two or three jobs and it was
• 12:31
  Speaker 5: just never working out. So I kind of went out
• 12:33
  Speaker 5: of that again, like a lot of black households, my
• 12:36
  Speaker 5: credit was not right as soon as I was eighteen
• 12:38
  Speaker 5: because it was used by different people and the family,
• 12:41
  Speaker 5: you know, do the thing, and so I kind of
• 12:44
  Speaker 5: just started. I was just never ahead of the game.
• 12:47
  Speaker 5: And on top of that, I'm highly unemployable because I
• 12:52
  Speaker 5: would go and work places and I would have like,
• 12:54
  Speaker 5: you know, seven dollars job, and I would be telling
• 12:56
  Speaker 5: the owner what to do, because that's how I saw it.
• 13:01
  Speaker 5: I was like, you know, you could really put this
• 13:02
  Speaker 5: over here and then more people would see it, and
• 13:04
  Speaker 5: da da da da da, And so I got into
• 13:06
  Speaker 5: a lot of arguments that fights with people. At the
• 13:09
  Speaker 5: same time, I also didn't have a wardrobe. Now I
• 13:12
  Speaker 5: still don't, but people don't care when you have receipts, right,
• 13:16
  Speaker 5: So I didn't have a wardrobe to go and like
• 13:18
  Speaker 5: I could type one hundred words a minute and I
• 13:20
  Speaker 5: could go and get like these temporary data entry jobs,
• 13:23
  Speaker 5: but I would wear the same thing, almost the same
• 13:25
  Speaker 5: thing every day or you know, same shoes for seven years.
• 13:27
  Speaker 5: So it was a lot of that and just not
• 13:29
  Speaker 5: getting out of it and also having this entrepreneurial spirit
• 13:34
  Speaker 5: whereas I always trying something in the lab I was selling.
• 13:36
  Speaker 5: I sold like thousands of T shirts in my twenties,
• 13:39
  Speaker 5: but I never made any profit because I didn't understanding
• 13:42
  Speaker 5: in economics. So I had a lot of potential and
• 13:45
  Speaker 5: I was really really bright, but I didn't have that
• 13:49
  Speaker 5: you know, that right path. That's why it's so important
• 13:54
  Speaker 5: to me today to provide that path for people, not
• 13:58
  Speaker 5: just about investing in people, because it's not about going
• 14:00
  Speaker 5: out and just handing money to people. It's about teaching
• 14:03
  Speaker 5: a person to fish. How do you get out of that,
• 14:06
  Speaker 5: you know, on your own, saving them years of their time.
• 14:08
  Speaker 5: So that's where I was. And then I had been
• 14:12
  Speaker 5: living actually with my mom in a hotel. She was
• 14:15
  Speaker 5: in her sixties at the time. She's seventy four. Now
• 14:17
  Speaker 5: I was in my thirties. I was like, I mean,
• 14:20
  Speaker 5: it was it was dark, you know, it was not cool.
• 14:24
  Speaker 5: And I just sent her back to Mississippi to stay
• 14:27
  Speaker 5: with her sister on a couch because I was like,
• 14:29
  Speaker 5: I can't watch my mom out here like this. And
• 14:33
  Speaker 5: so I went west, sent her east from Texas. And
• 14:37
  Speaker 5: that's when I said, like, I'm putting a clock on this.
• 14:41
  Speaker 5: There has to be something that happens, because I don't
• 14:43
  Speaker 5: know how I'm going to live like this for too
• 14:44
  Speaker 5: much longer.
• 14:46
  Speaker 6: Yeah. So in terms of I know, you want to
• 14:50
  Speaker 6: make sure that underrepresented founders have capital. I wonder what
• 14:54
  Speaker 6: the investment philosophy was for you at the beginning, right,
• 14:57
  Speaker 6: What were you looking for in founders? It sounds like
• 15:01
  Speaker 6: they number one had to be inquisitive, I feel like,
• 15:03
  Speaker 6: but they had to have a willingness to learn what
• 15:05
  Speaker 6: were the initial things that you were looking at in
• 15:07
  Speaker 6: a founder to say this is somebody I think has
• 15:10
  Speaker 6: some growth.
• 15:11
  Speaker 5: The over arching idea thesis was underrepresented. And we say
• 15:17
  Speaker 5: underestimated now because we've coined that phrase at backstage, but
• 15:20
  Speaker 5: underrepresented at the time. I was saying, like in my
• 15:23
  Speaker 5: pitch deag and when I was talking to investors, we
• 15:26
  Speaker 5: have done so much with so little. What happens when
• 15:29
  Speaker 5: we have more? That was like the overarching thing. So
• 15:32
  Speaker 5: when I was looking at founders, first of all, obviously
• 15:34
  Speaker 5: if it's like just the product or service itself was compelling,
• 15:38
  Speaker 5: that was something. And then I would look at because
• 15:41
  Speaker 5: I can't really I can't really measure them on their traction,
• 15:45
  Speaker 5: so to speak, because a lot of them don't have
• 15:47
  Speaker 5: the same resources at the time that someone else might have.
• 15:52
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• 16:23
  Speaker 6: three inch HD touchscreen infotainment system of the twenty twenty
• 16:26
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• 16:31
  Speaker 6: stream your adventure playlists, or send messages hands free, all
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  Speaker 6: twenty twenty four Nissan line aren't just SUVs. They're your
• 16:50
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• 17:05
  Speaker 5: Today, I'd say, what have you done with the resources
• 17:10
  Speaker 5: you have up until this point before you met me?
• 17:12
  Speaker 5: And I would measure it like that, kind of fairly,
• 17:15
  Speaker 5: and in that way it became a level playing field
• 17:19
  Speaker 5: and a meritocracy because then I can say, oh, well,
• 17:21
  Speaker 5: this person I didn't go to college. I certainly got
• 17:24
  Speaker 5: into colleges, but I didn't going to college because I
• 17:26
  Speaker 5: didn't want to leave my family broke. But I could
• 17:30
  Speaker 5: certainly say, oh, this person didn't go to college, but
• 17:33
  Speaker 5: they have this all lived experience or there. You know,
• 17:36
  Speaker 5: a lot of times it's like for women, they'll get asked,
• 17:39
  Speaker 5: like I've seen it happen. They get asked, well, how
• 17:41
  Speaker 5: are you going to run your company with the child
• 17:44
  Speaker 5: or are you planning on having kids or whatever, And
• 17:47
  Speaker 5: I'm like, no, the opposite is true. They're a multitasker.
• 17:49
  Speaker 5: They know how to, you know, look at things in
• 17:51
  Speaker 5: a different way. They know how to make ends meet.
• 17:53
  Speaker 5: So I would just look at things from the point
• 17:55
  Speaker 5: of view of the women and the people around me
• 18:00
  Speaker 5: who I grew up with, and what their potential really was.
• 18:03
  Speaker 6: Because just a follow up, because I'm thinking it's kind
• 18:06
  Speaker 6: of double side right, Like it's almost like the interview
• 18:08
  Speaker 6: process for you, but also for them because at the
• 18:12
  Speaker 6: initial stages you don't have anything that you're invested in either,
• 18:16
  Speaker 6: so they figure out how to is this somebody that
• 18:19
  Speaker 6: I shouldn't have.
• 18:19
  Speaker 5: On the capit well, that's why at the beginning, before
• 18:21
  Speaker 5: I had money, I've just made myself valuable to them.
• 18:24
  Speaker 5: And then by the time I came around to invest,
• 18:26
  Speaker 5: they were running around saying, she has to be somebody
• 18:29
  Speaker 5: give her some money because she is finding all these
• 18:30
  Speaker 5: great companies and she's so helpful. So I had, like
• 18:34
  Speaker 5: it was like a groundswell of support by the time
• 18:36
  Speaker 5: I got that first check. And that's how I was
• 18:38
  Speaker 5: able to keep going and keep raising because those those
• 18:42
  Speaker 5: they called limited partners are LPs. They would reach out
• 18:47
  Speaker 5: to some of the founders and say, you know, talk
• 18:50
  Speaker 5: to us, you know, backchannel. And I had just a
• 18:54
  Speaker 5: reputation for being helpful even when it didn't make sense.
• 18:57
  Speaker 5: And there are plenty of times where I could have
• 18:59
  Speaker 5: invested if I had the money, but I didn't have
• 19:01
  Speaker 5: the money. And those companies have gone on to sell
• 19:04
  Speaker 5: to Amazon or do all kinds of crazy stuff. So
• 19:07
  Speaker 5: those early days, there's a lot of there are a
• 19:09
  Speaker 5: lot of receipts.
• 19:11
  Speaker 4: So okay, so let's soap about VC. So what do
• 19:13
  Speaker 4: you look for investing in a company?
• 19:16
  Speaker 5: So I look for what their product or service is
• 19:19
  Speaker 5: just interest because all of it is got at the
• 19:22
  Speaker 5: end of the day. Obviously, you can do all this
• 19:24
  Speaker 5: projecting and all kinds of modeling, and we do that
• 19:26
  Speaker 5: at Backstage Capital. But for me, I go back to
• 19:28
  Speaker 5: my roots of you know, I treat a little bit
• 19:31
  Speaker 5: like American idol or the voice or something. It's like,
• 19:34
  Speaker 5: what is what am I feeling from this? And my
• 19:36
  Speaker 5: instincts have been pretty good so far. And then today
• 19:40
  Speaker 5: at forty three, I say, can I if I had
• 19:45
  Speaker 5: ten years, could I do this on my own? Could
• 19:47
  Speaker 5: I do this myself? If the answer is yes, it
• 19:51
  Speaker 5: still may be a great company, but it's not as
• 19:53
  Speaker 5: compelling to me because time is limited. But if the
• 19:56
  Speaker 5: answer is no, I could not personally figure this out
• 19:59
  Speaker 5: of my own do it, then I have my attention
• 20:02
  Speaker 5: because then I can live vicariously through them. I can
• 20:05
  Speaker 5: live through what they do and I can say, Okay,
• 20:07
  Speaker 5: that's like a moonshot. That's like a that could change
• 20:10
  Speaker 5: the world or change lives. So it doesn't have to
• 20:13
  Speaker 5: be an impact company, but it has to be something
• 20:16
  Speaker 5: that is so compelling that it would I couldn't personally
• 20:20
  Speaker 5: do it.
• 20:21
  Speaker 6: What were the emotions like when you as you were
• 20:24
  Speaker 6: speaking and knowing that there's a company that you know,
• 20:28
  Speaker 6: is going to be one of the substantial pieces of
• 20:32
  Speaker 6: the future of the world. Yeah, and you see it
• 20:34
  Speaker 6: at the doorset, but you don't have the capital to
• 20:36
  Speaker 6: be a part of it.
• 20:37
  Speaker 5: I can tell you an example.
• 20:39
  Speaker 6: I mean, because and I'm think twenty fifteen, I'm thinking
• 20:42
  Speaker 6: the Ubers of the world, the Airbnbs of the world.
• 20:44
  Speaker 5: Yeah, you know, I'll tell you an example. Patreon Patreon
• 20:47
  Speaker 5: Patreon's words. I don't know how many billions right now.
• 20:51
  Speaker 5: I would if there's emails that I have where I'm
• 20:54
  Speaker 5: talking to Jack and Sam, the co founders, the first
• 20:57
  Speaker 5: day they premiered, and I'm talking and I do what
• 21:01
  Speaker 5: I do. I'm writing because I was writing to all
• 21:03
  Speaker 5: kinds of founders, mostly black and brown and women. But
• 21:06
  Speaker 5: I reach out to them. I said, I love what
• 21:08
  Speaker 5: you're doing. I used to be in the live music space.
• 21:10
  Speaker 5: I know what this is. It's creator space, you know.
• 21:14
  Speaker 5: Let me get you coffee, let me help you connect
• 21:16
  Speaker 5: with angel investors, whatever. And they came back. There's email
• 21:20
  Speaker 5: thread of this where they're like, cool, thank you, We're
• 21:23
  Speaker 5: not looking to it raise right now, but cool. Then
• 21:25
  Speaker 5: a week later Sam writes back and he's like, actually,
• 21:28
  Speaker 5: Jack does want to raise can you help us raise
• 21:30
  Speaker 5: a million dollars? So I go out. I send them
• 21:33
  Speaker 5: all these investors because I've been talking to investors who
• 21:35
  Speaker 5: weren't investing in me, but I was like, you got
• 21:37
  Speaker 5: to look at this. It's like Kickstarter, but it's different,
• 21:40
  Speaker 5: you know. And then they talk to the angel investors.
• 21:45
  Speaker 5: Then I send them to a top tier venture fund
• 21:48
  Speaker 5: that's a very well known venture fun in Silicon Valley.
• 21:51
  Speaker 5: Send it to them. The venture fund says it's interesting,
• 21:55
  Speaker 5: but it's not that interesting. They say, we love it,
• 21:58
  Speaker 5: you know. The company says, yep, please introduce it. So
• 22:01
  Speaker 5: I introduce. I introduced them, but it doesn't go anywhere.
• 22:03
  Speaker 5: Two months later, I open up or maybe read online
• 22:07
  Speaker 5: a Forbes article that VC fund led their round. And
• 22:12
  Speaker 5: so since then, honestly, since then, I have been calling
• 22:15
  Speaker 5: them out publicly, and I've been saying either the venture
• 22:20
  Speaker 5: fund CRV, I'll say, who was Charles Rivers CRV, I'll
• 22:24
  Speaker 5: say it right to them. Or Patreon should do the
• 22:28
  Speaker 5: right thing. And there's things called scouting fees and finders
• 22:34
  Speaker 5: fee like that kind of thing. They should, I believe,
• 22:37
  Speaker 5: give Backstage Capital, my venture fund, they should give them.
• 22:41
  Speaker 5: Give the fund itself some equity and Patreon because I
• 22:46
  Speaker 5: give right to CRV And I said, hey, what happened here?
• 22:49
  Speaker 5: How did you all end up going from you didn't
• 22:51
  Speaker 5: like it to you're leading their round? And they were like, oh,
• 22:55
  Speaker 5: you know, making all these excuses, but they recognized that
• 22:59
  Speaker 5: it was my introduction. So that's an example of it
• 23:03
  Speaker 5: kind of being a negative and I hope you know,
• 23:06
  Speaker 5: they do right by us at some point. But when
• 23:09
  Speaker 5: it came to people like Jewel burks with part pick,
• 23:13
  Speaker 5: I worked with Jewel for a while. She had a
• 23:17
  Speaker 5: company that you can identify parts of, like you know,
• 23:22
  Speaker 5: auto parts and nails and different things on your phone
• 23:26
  Speaker 5: and then find it for you. And this was again
• 23:28
  Speaker 5: AI before everybody was talking about it. She was having
• 23:31
  Speaker 5: a hard time raising because everybody else talking to you was.
• 23:34
  Speaker 5: I helped her with a bunch of stuff and then
• 23:37
  Speaker 5: I just didn't have the money to invest, but I
• 23:39
  Speaker 5: wanted to invest a few months later, she went on
• 23:42
  Speaker 5: to sell to Amazon and she became a millionaire overnight.
• 23:45
  Speaker 5: And she's a really interesting person. She's an investor herself now.
• 23:48
  Speaker 5: She invested in my fund after that happened. But that's
• 23:51
  Speaker 5: one of those things where I'm just so happy for her,
• 23:55
  Speaker 5: and so happy for Nashally Cephiz who was her CTO,
• 23:58
  Speaker 5: her chief technology office, who also became a millionaire that day,
• 24:03
  Speaker 5: and whoever else, you know, multiple other people who did
• 24:06
  Speaker 5: And I just look at that and say, I just
• 24:08
  Speaker 5: told y'all. I mean, I was just telling all the
• 24:10
  Speaker 5: investors you should invest in this, and it went on
• 24:12
  Speaker 5: to do well. So I don't look at that as
• 24:14
  Speaker 5: I don't get too emotional about that one. I think
• 24:16
  Speaker 5: more it's just pride.
• 24:19
  Speaker 6: Is it like a hunger that I got to get
• 24:22
  Speaker 6: to this? Is there a part of it too?
• 24:24
  Speaker 5: Or so I would say, like the first I'm gonna
• 24:26
  Speaker 5: be just real honest with you. The first seven or
• 24:29
  Speaker 5: eight years, so twenty fifteen, twenty twenty one, I was like, shark,
• 24:35
  Speaker 5: you know, I have a joint venture with Mark Cuban.
• 24:37
  Speaker 5: I'm always working on things. I've lost that a little
• 24:42
  Speaker 5: bit when it comes to investing for a number of reasons,
• 24:46
  Speaker 5: a little bit of it being that I am, you know,
• 24:49
  Speaker 5: to say the truth, I am a trailblazer here and
• 24:52
  Speaker 5: so a lot of daggers in the back right, a
• 24:54
  Speaker 5: lot of scars from that, and it's been very difficult
• 25:00
  Speaker 5: to do and I love the progress that's been made,
• 25:03
  Speaker 5: and I love to see all of the seeds planted,
• 25:06
  Speaker 5: like you know, bearing that fruit. But it wears you out.
• 25:10
  Speaker 5: It wears you out when you when you're doing that.
• 25:13
  Speaker 5: So I'm I'm very competitive, but I think it's not
• 25:18
  Speaker 5: all about investing. Like I'm competitive in different arenas now.
• 25:22
  Speaker 4: So like, what are the economics and you investing into
• 25:25
  Speaker 4: a company, Like, how does that work? As far as
• 25:27
  Speaker 4: you go you say, I have one hundred thousand dollars,
• 25:29
  Speaker 4: I want ten percent of your company, and then they
• 25:31
  Speaker 4: come back and they say, no, well, we want only
• 25:34
  Speaker 4: give up five percent. How does this work as far
• 25:36
  Speaker 4: as you going in and actually offering to buy somebody's
• 25:39
  Speaker 4: company and.
• 25:40
  Speaker 5: Buy some equity? Yeah, usually they have around that they're raising.
• 25:44
  Speaker 5: So the company usually itsel says we want to go
• 25:47
  Speaker 5: out and raise a million dollars and they know how
• 25:51
  Speaker 5: much they want to raise for the reasons that they
• 25:54
  Speaker 5: figured out internally. And then they go to investors and
• 25:57
  Speaker 5: say what you know, what change where you do for
• 26:00
  Speaker 5: a million? Then you'll have the In a good scenario,
• 26:03
  Speaker 5: you'll have two or three you know, lead investors come
• 26:06
  Speaker 5: back to you with a term sheet that says, Okay,
• 26:09
  Speaker 5: we'll buy that on a five million dollar valuation, meaning
• 26:12
  Speaker 5: that's twenty percent d and then the next one may say,
• 26:15
  Speaker 5: we'll do it on a six million, so it's better
• 26:18
  Speaker 5: for you. You get a little less diluted because we
• 26:21
  Speaker 5: want the deal so bad. And so usually, like the
• 26:23
  Speaker 5: best case scenario is you have two or three lead
• 26:26
  Speaker 5: investors vying for to lead you around, and you take their terms,
• 26:32
  Speaker 5: and you don't necessarily take the terms that are most expensive.
• 26:34
  Speaker 5: You take the terms that you feel like, that's the company,
• 26:37
  Speaker 5: that's the fund I want to work with, that's who
• 26:38
  Speaker 5: I want to lead and represent. So we have that,
• 26:41
  Speaker 5: and then you have other investors around it who are followers,
• 26:46
  Speaker 5: who like you know, follow whatever terms have been created.
• 26:50
  Speaker 5: So it's it's usually that negotiating. So most of the
• 26:53
  Speaker 5: time backstage does not lead just because of the amounts
• 26:58
  Speaker 5: that we're putting in, but we always advice, so it's
• 27:01
  Speaker 5: almost like we act like we're on their board, even
• 27:04
  Speaker 5: if we're not on their board, like with their help, well.
• 27:07
  Speaker 6: What are some of the because you brought up challenges earlier,
• 27:11
  Speaker 6: and I'm thinking to myself, we've heard about what it
• 27:14
  Speaker 6: is to try to be a founder in race Capital,
• 27:17
  Speaker 6: but actually having a VC and representing three categories, right
• 27:22
  Speaker 6: like yes woman, yes, LBGTQ, yes, underestimated popula, uh population.
• 27:28
  Speaker 6: What is it like from that end? What are some
• 27:31
  Speaker 6: of the challenges that you face and how have you
• 27:33
  Speaker 6: dealt with it? How you overcome them.
• 27:35
  Speaker 5: A lot of a lot of people who just you know,
• 27:39
  Speaker 5: they talk, they say they're going to do something publicly,
• 27:42
  Speaker 5: they get the picture or whatever, but they really don't
• 27:44
  Speaker 5: do anything. But then there's really more like people actively
• 27:49
  Speaker 5: trying to not like, to stop what I'm doing. So
• 27:53
  Speaker 5: I had a white investor. I have a lot of
• 27:56
  Speaker 5: white investors, and I had one guy who is like,
• 28:00
  Speaker 5: I don't know, I think he's kind of like mafia
• 28:02
  Speaker 5: in in Silicon Valley. Like he truly he's interesting and
• 28:06
  Speaker 5: I don't think he's literally mafia, but he can he
• 28:07
  Speaker 5: can make a phone call and stuff gets done and
• 28:10
  Speaker 5: stuff goes away, right. And he called me in the
• 28:12
  Speaker 5: middle of the night one time a few years ago
• 28:15
  Speaker 5: and he said, I just want to let you know,
• 28:16
  Speaker 5: I just left a closed door, like you know, poker
• 28:19
  Speaker 5: game essentially with a bunch of guys who are very powerful,
• 28:24
  Speaker 5: and there's an understanding that you're not going to raise
• 28:28
  Speaker 5: more than you know, ten or twenty million dollars ever
• 28:32
  Speaker 5: in Silicon Valley. And I was like, okay, that was
• 28:36
  Speaker 5: a conversation. Y'all had time for that. And he's like, no,
• 28:38
  Speaker 5: I'm serious. He's like you the powers that be are like,
• 28:42
  Speaker 5: there's only a few of us. And the conversation, he's like, I,
• 28:45
  Speaker 5: you know, I said what I could, but I had
• 28:47
  Speaker 5: to be able to not say certain things so I
• 28:49
  Speaker 5: could come back and tell you. He's like, they don't
• 28:51
  Speaker 5: want you to win. And look, we've raised I've raised
• 28:57
  Speaker 5: thirty million dollars maybe twenty five, twenty four that has
• 29:00
  Speaker 5: been like direct LP money to invest in other companies.
• 29:04
  Speaker 5: We should buy our track record by the trailblazing part
• 29:08
  Speaker 5: of it, the groundbreaking part of it. We should be
• 29:10
  Speaker 5: at least one hundred million dollar fund, if not ten
• 29:13
  Speaker 5: times to what we are at least And so I
• 29:17
  Speaker 5: believed him when he said it, But I always thought
• 29:19
  Speaker 5: I could break through that. I think that I think that, yeah,
• 29:25
  Speaker 5: there's there's you see like Elon Musk and like how
• 29:28
  Speaker 5: he he's directly going after Cuban talking about DEI is
• 29:32
  Speaker 5: racist and all of that. That's what was happening behind
• 29:36
  Speaker 5: the scenes. That's who I deal with. I've had so
• 29:38
  Speaker 5: many conversations behind the scenes that are like a movie.
• 29:42
  Speaker 5: They're like, I can't believe this person is saying this
• 29:44
  Speaker 5: out loud to me, or somebody calling me and saying,
• 29:47
  Speaker 5: you know, you need to shut up. You need to
• 29:49
  Speaker 5: stop being so vocal about stuff. It's not good for you,
• 29:53
  Speaker 5: like I've had. So I had what was Paul Graham
• 29:57
  Speaker 5: at YC speaking of YC. So I'm friendly with Sam Almon.
• 30:00
  Speaker 5: I think he's cool. I've invested in Open AI, very
• 30:02
  Speaker 5: happy about that. Paul Graham, his mentor and the founder
• 30:06
  Speaker 5: of YC, I do not like very much. And it's
• 30:10
  Speaker 5: because he sicked his minions on me on Twitter and
• 30:15
  Speaker 5: I had to get security before I should really have
• 30:18
  Speaker 5: had security because I said something he said about his
• 30:23
  Speaker 5: wife and I said it was very sexist and chauvinistic
• 30:28
  Speaker 5: and said I just commented myself on it, you know,
• 30:31
  Speaker 5: on Twitter because I'm outspoken, and he just like came
• 30:35
  Speaker 5: after me. And it's happened a lot, like with different
• 30:39
  Speaker 5: different people of note, that's happened because I'll just speak
• 30:42
  Speaker 5: up when I want to speak up. I feel like
• 30:44
  Speaker 5: I have the moral high ground to speak up because
• 30:48
  Speaker 5: I'm actually doing action and I'm not just pontificating and
• 30:53
  Speaker 5: criticizing from the sidelines, Like I feel like we could
• 30:56
  Speaker 5: all be better, So I'm trying to be better. Why
• 30:59
  Speaker 5: can and this billionaire be better?
• 31:03
  Speaker 4: So as far as like valuations, right about valuations, a
• 31:06
  Speaker 4: lot like how do you guys look at the valuations?
• 31:09
  Speaker 4: Because we were talking to one of our friends, John Henry,
• 31:11
  Speaker 4: and he was saying a few years ago, like, depending
• 31:13
  Speaker 4: on what kind of company it is, it has a
• 31:15
  Speaker 4: different valuation, right, Like if it's a hair company, the
• 31:18
  Speaker 4: evaluation might be a lot different from a media company.
• 31:21
  Speaker 4: That might be a lot different from artificial intelligence technology
• 31:24
  Speaker 4: based company. So and then part of raising the money
• 31:28
  Speaker 4: is you have to raise on evaluation. That's one right, Yeah,
• 31:31
  Speaker 4: So how do you know, Okay, this is a fair valuation,
• 31:33
  Speaker 4: this is this company's overvaluated, this company is undervaluated. Yeah.
• 31:37
  Speaker 5: John Henry is a good friend and I've invested in
• 31:39
  Speaker 5: his company and after he became a founder.
• 31:44
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 31:45
  Speaker 5: So a lot of it is just like what the
• 31:46
  Speaker 5: market will bear. A lot of it is a lot
• 31:48
  Speaker 5: of people just deciding just to say what what what
• 31:52
  Speaker 5: can I push across the table and somebody says yes
• 31:54
  Speaker 5: to essentially, and it's kind of a joke in the
• 31:57
  Speaker 5: industry because it's like every year it's different. In twenty
• 32:00
  Speaker 5: twenty two and twenty twenty one is super frothy, super
• 32:04
  Speaker 5: everything was valued so high, ridiculously not sustainable, but everybody
• 32:09
  Speaker 5: was like, okay, cool, sounds good, more money for us.
• 32:12
  Speaker 5: And then when second half of twenty twenty two and
• 32:14
  Speaker 5: twenty twenty three, everything came crashing down because you could
• 32:17
  Speaker 5: understand that yeah, go you go ahead and y'all. So
• 32:23
  Speaker 5: the the so the valuations, but the reason that the
• 32:27
  Speaker 5: valuations are different is because the multiples on an exit
• 32:33
  Speaker 5: or a purchase are usually much different. So a hair
• 32:37
  Speaker 5: care product or a CpG company is gonna sell different
• 32:42
  Speaker 5: multiples than a SaaS AI company, Meaning like a you
• 32:50
  Speaker 5: might for something CpG, you might have like a one
• 32:53
  Speaker 5: and a half x to six x multiple on your
• 32:56
  Speaker 5: on your on your net revenue. If somebody buys you
• 33:02
  Speaker 5: on a SaaS AI you may have like twenty x
• 33:05
  Speaker 5: or ten x. So when someone's valuing you to invest
• 33:09
  Speaker 5: in you, all they're doing is projecting. All they're saying
• 33:11
  Speaker 5: is okay, if I put a dollar in what's the
• 33:14
  Speaker 5: best what's the best guess I can make as to
• 33:18
  Speaker 5: what your will sell for based on how you're doing today?
• 33:21
  Speaker 6: So is that from from your perspective? Is what a success?
• 33:26
  Speaker 6: Is it a company to exit? Is it to create
• 33:29
  Speaker 6: more millionaires? Is it to create more opportunities for founders?
• 33:33
  Speaker 6: Again from the three categories that we spoke about, how
• 33:37
  Speaker 6: do you determine to measure success?
• 33:38
  Speaker 5: I love that question. To me, it's all three, that's it,
• 33:43
  Speaker 5: right For very very sharky investors, they don't care about
• 33:48
  Speaker 5: impact and they don't care about like people coming up. Yeah,
• 33:51
  Speaker 5: that's just not important to them. That's not necessarily bad,
• 33:54
  Speaker 5: but it's just not my vibe, right. They're like apples
• 33:57
  Speaker 5: to apples? How much am I getting back? So that
• 34:00
  Speaker 5: is a juggle thing. But I say, and many of
• 34:03
  Speaker 5: us say, you can do both. And I just want
• 34:06
  Speaker 5: to say one thing you said earlier that there are
• 34:07
  Speaker 5: not a lot of black investors. So there's so many now,
• 34:10
  Speaker 5: which I'm so excited about. You know, like ten years
• 34:12
  Speaker 5: ago it was so different, but today like that, like
• 34:15
  Speaker 5: John Henry and I can be in a room and
• 34:17
  Speaker 5: it's just back to you know, back to back. Still
• 34:19
  Speaker 5: not enough. But so you have within black investors, you
• 34:24
  Speaker 5: have some like six four or five ventures. Aaron and Nyambi,
• 34:30
  Speaker 5: they are two black men. They've raised I don't know
• 34:35
  Speaker 5: how much more than one hundred million dollars. I can't remember,
• 34:37
  Speaker 5: maybe two or three hundred million dollars. And they're like,
• 34:41
  Speaker 5: let me put it into this spreadsheet and do these
• 34:43
  Speaker 5: numbers and see what this company might or may not make.
• 34:46
  Speaker 5: And I don't care. You know, it doesn't matter to
• 34:48
  Speaker 5: me if you're a woman or if you're purple. I
• 34:51
  Speaker 5: want to do that because my success as a black
• 34:53
  Speaker 5: man is then going to be my success story and
• 34:57
  Speaker 5: help others write. So I'm on the cat and so,
• 35:00
  Speaker 5: which I love that, by the way, I'm on the
• 35:02
  Speaker 5: category of I only get this one shot. I'm going
• 35:06
  Speaker 5: to just make this more well known to people like
• 35:09
  Speaker 5: you all are doing with your education, like more like
• 35:12
  Speaker 5: being a bridge to understanding this with my audience, which
• 35:15
  Speaker 5: is mostly women of color. And I'm going, so's that's
• 35:19
  Speaker 5: impact and success that I have a video right now
• 35:22
  Speaker 5: that I put up today. A black woman comes up
• 35:25
  Speaker 5: to me. She's crying, she's saying that she's essentially saying
• 35:28
  Speaker 5: that she felt she felt heard and represented and scene
• 35:31
  Speaker 5: because of the work that I do, And she said
• 35:34
  Speaker 5: it tangible, something that happened. That to me is like
• 35:37
  Speaker 5: the biggest that's the legacy, that's the thing that you
• 35:40
  Speaker 5: can't take away. But I also not only want to.
• 35:45
  Speaker 5: I feel like I have to make a lot of
• 35:49
  Speaker 5: money from what I'm doing, even though I even though
• 35:51
  Speaker 5: we're not funded enough, I want to make multiples for
• 35:56
  Speaker 5: our investors so that it serves as an example that
• 35:58
  Speaker 5: you can do both. And that's it's high pressure, but
• 36:03
  Speaker 5: I also agree that it should be high pressure.
• 36:06
  Speaker 4: So you said you raised thirty million. What's the processes
• 36:09
  Speaker 4: of raising money? Like, how do you who is in
• 36:12
  Speaker 4: your circle of investors? And how do you network and
• 36:15
  Speaker 4: promote your fund to actually get money into it? Yeah,
• 36:18
  Speaker 4: the earners, what's going on? Listen?
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  Speaker 1: An illegal alien from Guatemala charged with raping a child
• 39:08
  Speaker 1: in Massachusetts. An MS thirteen gang member from Al Salvador
• 39:12
  Speaker 1: accused of murdering a Texas man of Venezuelan charged with
• 39:16
  Speaker 1: filming and selling child pornography in Michigan. These are just
• 39:20
  Speaker 1: some of the heinous migrant criminals caught because of President
• 39:24
  Speaker 1: Donald J.
• 39:24
  Speaker 2: Trump's leadership. I'm Christy Noman, the.
• 39:27
  Speaker 1: United States Secretary of Homeland Security. Under President Trump, attempted
• 39:31
  Speaker 1: illegal border crossings are at the lowest levels ever recorded,
• 39:35
  Speaker 1: and over one hundred thousand illegal aliens have been arrested.
• 39:39
  Speaker 1: If you are here illegally, your next you will be
• 39:42
  Speaker 1: fined nearly one thousand dollars a day, imprisoned, and deported.
• 39:47
  Speaker 2: You will never return.
• 39:48
  Speaker 1: But if you register using our CBP home app and
• 39:51
  Speaker 1: leave now, you could be allowed to return legally.
• 39:55
  Speaker 2: Do what's right.
• 39:56
  Speaker 1: Leave now under President Trump, America's laws order and families.
• 40:01
  Speaker 2: Will be protected.
• 40:02
  Speaker 3: Sponsored by the United States Department of Homeland Security.
• 40:05
  Speaker 5: It started out with that woman who It started out
• 40:11
  Speaker 5: with that woman who didn't have a lot of network,
• 40:15
  Speaker 5: and so she worked at a big company and then
• 40:18
  Speaker 5: she had some money from that, so she put in
• 40:20
  Speaker 5: like an angel investor. But then she introduced me to
• 40:23
  Speaker 5: her friend who happened to just be in a network.
• 40:25
  Speaker 5: That friend happened to be like a tech person from
• 40:27
  Speaker 5: Facebook who knew a man named Lars Resmussen who co
• 40:33
  Speaker 5: founded with his brother Google Maps. So that third investor
• 40:37
  Speaker 5: in twenty fifteen or the top of twenty sixteen. That
• 40:41
  Speaker 5: and he's a very early investor in Canva. So he's
• 40:44
  Speaker 5: just very very successful and he sees things early. But
• 40:48
  Speaker 5: that that was kind of like the first like that
• 40:52
  Speaker 5: I could see, Oh, I'm going to be talking to
• 40:54
  Speaker 5: people who have a lot of money and you know,
• 40:58
  Speaker 5: connection here. So I just spent you know, every day,
• 41:02
  Speaker 5: every waking hour, reaching out to people, working with people.
• 41:05
  Speaker 5: Then like maybe mid twenty sixteen, Stuart Butterfield reached out
• 41:11
  Speaker 5: the founder of Slack. He just saw what I was
• 41:12
  Speaker 5: doing and he wanted to be part of it. I
• 41:15
  Speaker 5: reached out to Mark and Dreason because he said that
• 41:19
  Speaker 5: something I wrote was interesting, and I use that as
• 41:21
  Speaker 5: an opportunity to ask him to invest and he ended
• 41:23
  Speaker 5: up investing in three of my funds, like the smaller funds,
• 41:27
  Speaker 5: which was has been really cool. He has also blocked
• 41:30
  Speaker 5: me on Twitter, so that tells you my life, Like, really,
• 41:34
  Speaker 5: I have no idea to ask him. I don't know
• 41:36
  Speaker 5: I should ask what Chris? I should ask Chris any Yeah,
• 41:40
  Speaker 5: you should ask Chris. I know y'all are friendly with him,
• 41:42
  Speaker 5: but Mark is he blocks everybody. He blocks everybody. But
• 41:45
  Speaker 5: I must have said something one day that upset him,
• 41:47
  Speaker 5: because I will call like, I will call people out,
• 41:50
  Speaker 5: like I call out Peter Till, I'll call out people
• 41:53
  Speaker 5: who are like friendly, I'll call out and dreason I've
• 41:56
  Speaker 5: called them out before. I've had conversations with Chris about
• 41:58
  Speaker 5: what did you call him off for? And when George
• 42:01
  Speaker 5: Floyd was murdered, Andre said, Horowitz, which is a multi
• 42:04
  Speaker 5: billion dollar fund, announced their cultural.
• 42:07
  Speaker 4: Fund, culture Leadership Fund.
• 42:08
  Speaker 5: Yeah, and then they also, I mean they also announced
• 42:11
  Speaker 5: this like one or two million dollar fund, and I
• 42:16
  Speaker 5: just it hurts me to say that word because it's
• 42:17
  Speaker 5: not to me a fund that invests in black people.
• 42:22
  Speaker 5: I know what it's like to put together a million dollars,
• 42:25
  Speaker 5: so I'm not saying it's nothing. But when you have
• 42:27
  Speaker 5: multiple billions under management and your response to a black
• 42:31
  Speaker 5: man being murdered on TV is to say, here's this
• 42:36
  Speaker 5: penny less than a penny, I was offended as someone
• 42:40
  Speaker 5: who had invested at that point in maybe one hundred
• 42:43
  Speaker 5: and forty companies led by underrepresented founders. I still am
• 42:46
  Speaker 5: offended by it. And in fact, I mean I know
• 42:49
  Speaker 5: the people who are all part of it. It's not
• 42:51
  Speaker 5: like I'm over here just like mad at them and
• 42:53
  Speaker 5: yelling at them. I've talked to all of them. I
• 42:57
  Speaker 5: appreciate the work that Chris is doing. I appreciate the
• 42:59
  Speaker 5: work that Nate did black you know, black men in
• 43:03
  Speaker 5: these organizations. I just think that the organizations are it's
• 43:07
  Speaker 5: really interesting to me that they're run by white people,
• 43:09
  Speaker 5: white men, and they, especially Ben Hurwitz, wants to be
• 43:14
  Speaker 5: so close to the culture. And if he's your friend,
• 43:16
  Speaker 5: I'm not trying to offend you, but he wants to
• 43:18
  Speaker 5: be so close to the culture. But tell me, besides,
• 43:21
  Speaker 5: like two founders that I can think of right now,
• 43:23
  Speaker 5: how many times do they put more than ten million
• 43:25
  Speaker 5: dollars to a black founder's company when there are those
• 43:29
  Speaker 5: two invest in. That's their business, it's their money. But
• 43:33
  Speaker 5: just like it's their business to not do that, it's
• 43:36
  Speaker 5: my business to talk about it and to say it
• 43:39
  Speaker 5: out loud.
• 43:40
  Speaker 6: To the overall goal for backstage capital, you said you
• 43:44
  Speaker 6: raised thirty million, should be valued at one hundred million.
• 43:48
  Speaker 6: Is there a number? Should it? Are you looking to
• 43:50
  Speaker 6: be a billion dollar fund?
• 43:51
  Speaker 8: Like?
• 43:52
  Speaker 6: What is the goal, right, because obviously as you have
• 43:54
  Speaker 6: more capital you can deploy it. Yeah, it won't be
• 43:57
  Speaker 6: a thousand millionaires, it'll be yeah million.
• 43:59
  Speaker 5: Well, a thousand new millionaires comes from me teaching people
• 44:01
  Speaker 5: how to fish. That's straight up. It's not about how
• 44:04
  Speaker 5: many people I can invest in. But I think I
• 44:07
  Speaker 5: think for everyone involved, our founders, for the LPs who've
• 44:11
  Speaker 5: already invested in, the ones who could invest based on
• 44:14
  Speaker 5: the deal flow that we have, the people we get
• 44:16
  Speaker 5: to see, the access we have. I just told you
• 44:19
  Speaker 5: I invested in open Ai. Nobody else got to invest
• 44:22
  Speaker 5: in open Ai, you know, directly through them, right unless
• 44:28
  Speaker 5: you had like one hundred million dollars fifty million dollars
• 44:30
  Speaker 5: this year? Yeah, just yeah, I mean, you know, obviously
• 44:34
  Speaker 5: wish it was sooner.
• 44:35
  Speaker 6: But it's the.
• 44:36
  Speaker 5: Thing though, It's like when Troy invested in Uber and Lyft.
• 44:41
  Speaker 5: But anyway, I think for everybody involved, we should be
• 44:47
  Speaker 5: at least the three hundred and fifty five hundred million
• 44:51
  Speaker 5: dollar fund under management within the next five years. That's
• 44:56
  Speaker 5: what we should be because we can deploy it. We
• 44:59
  Speaker 5: have the access, we have the skills to deploy that.
• 45:04
  Speaker 4: All.
• 45:04
  Speaker 5: You don't always have to have so much money, Like
• 45:07
  Speaker 5: Robert Smith has billions under management, your friend, right, because
• 45:11
  Speaker 5: he's a private equity investor, so he's making investments that
• 45:14
  Speaker 5: are so much bigger than the kind we're making. So
• 45:16
  Speaker 5: we don't have to be a billion dollar fund to
• 45:18
  Speaker 5: be super successful. But I think that a three hundred
• 45:23
  Speaker 5: four hundred million dollar assets under management is something that's
• 45:27
  Speaker 5: exactly where we should be in the pocket.
• 45:29
  Speaker 4: So what's your track record for your fund?
• 45:32
  Speaker 5: The track record is that we're about well, it's called
• 45:35
  Speaker 5: TVPI total value paid in. That means that for every
• 45:38
  Speaker 5: dollar that you've put in, what is that dollar worth
• 45:41
  Speaker 5: on paper essentially, So we're somewhere around one point four
• 45:45
  Speaker 5: to one point five x hovering across two hundred companies,
• 45:48
  Speaker 5: which is pretty hard to track. But across that so
• 45:52
  Speaker 5: we haven't had any major exits. We have like three
• 45:54
  Speaker 5: exits that have been small or aqua hires. We invest
• 45:58
  Speaker 5: at the earliest stages, but if you look at the
• 46:01
  Speaker 5: enterprise value of our portfolio, it's in the billions, which
• 46:04
  Speaker 5: is incredible. Hundreds, if not thousands of jobs created directly
• 46:10
  Speaker 5: from our investment and revenue is in you know, the
• 46:14
  Speaker 5: hundreds of millions.
• 46:15
  Speaker 4: So what will be your pitch for investors to invest
• 46:18
  Speaker 4: in your fund? Like, what's the main thing that you.
• 46:21
  Speaker 5: Would I certainly cannot pitch to investors. I can tell
• 46:24
  Speaker 5: you hypothetically because I'm not allowed by the SEC to.
• 46:31
  Speaker 4: What makes your fun attractive in your opinion?
• 46:34
  Speaker 5: We were you know, the thesis that I had ten
• 46:37
  Speaker 5: years ago or twelve years ago played out. I said,
• 46:40
  Speaker 5: you can either be you know, we've done so much
• 46:42
  Speaker 5: or so little. You can either be crashed by the
• 46:44
  Speaker 5: way that's coming or you can ride it. It's everything
• 46:48
  Speaker 5: I've said has happened. It's a video of me in
• 46:49
  Speaker 5: twenty seventeen talking about what happened in twenty twenty two
• 46:53
  Speaker 5: and twenty twenty one. Like it's just it keeps happening.
• 46:57
  Speaker 5: So it's been proven out. On top of that, there
• 46:59
  Speaker 5: are multiple funds that have been created after us and
• 47:04
  Speaker 5: with our mandate in our blueprint that are have gone
• 47:08
  Speaker 5: on to do well and who look to us for guidance.
• 47:11
  Speaker 5: So we actually have all of the touch points. We
• 47:14
  Speaker 5: have all of the the deal flow and the network
• 47:18
  Speaker 5: and the infrastructure that we've built manually essentially, so everything
• 47:24
  Speaker 5: that they're looking for for those to find the companies,
• 47:28
  Speaker 5: they don't have to do a thing, you know, come
• 47:30
  Speaker 5: find the companies through us. Then we nurture the companies.
• 47:33
  Speaker 5: They don't have to do that either, and then we
• 47:35
  Speaker 5: are able to the way we've already done source the
• 47:38
  Speaker 5: companies that then go on to have high enterprise value.
• 47:42
  Speaker 6: Brought up some of our alumni Troit Carter Chris Lions,
• 47:46
  Speaker 6: who has been on market mondays. Another alumni who's been
• 47:51
  Speaker 6: on both is Mark Cuban. Yeah, he invested five million
• 47:54
  Speaker 6: dollars into six six million dollars into your fund. Talk
• 47:56
  Speaker 6: about how that relationship transpire in his belief in you.
• 48:02
  Speaker 5: Yeah, I mean again, probably have to ask him. I
• 48:04
  Speaker 5: don't want to speak for him, but I'll tell you
• 48:06
  Speaker 5: what happened. I grew up in Dallas, so I've known
• 48:10
  Speaker 5: about Mark for twenty years, and I also watched Shark
• 48:14
  Speaker 5: Tank when I was, you know, broke, and just always
• 48:18
  Speaker 5: pretended I would pretend I was a fifth Shark or whatever.
• 48:22
  Speaker 5: So just really admired him and Twitter at the time
• 48:26
  Speaker 5: before it was X they asked us to speak on
• 48:29
  Speaker 5: a panel like on a like fireside together at south
• 48:32
  Speaker 5: By Southwest because we both use Twitter in an interesting way.
• 48:36
  Speaker 5: So that was twenty nineteen. We went out and I
• 48:40
  Speaker 5: was toe to toe with him, you know, I wasn't
• 48:42
  Speaker 5: He doesn't like as you know, he didn't like anybody
• 48:44
  Speaker 5: kiss his ass like he he likes to talk to
• 48:46
  Speaker 5: you like normal, and that was that's how we roll.
• 48:48
  Speaker 5: And you know, he got to meet my family, was
• 48:50
  Speaker 5: very kind to them, and so after it went really well,
• 48:53
  Speaker 5: I said, hey, will you invest in my fund? And
• 48:55
  Speaker 5: he said no, And he said I don't like to
• 48:57
  Speaker 5: invest in other people's funds for the most part, because
• 48:59
  Speaker 5: I like to invest directly into companies, having too much
• 49:01
  Speaker 5: fund doing that. So I said cool. You know I've
• 49:03
  Speaker 5: had multiple nos, so I was very respectful to him.
• 49:08
  Speaker 5: A few weeks later, there was an article that came
• 49:10
  Speaker 5: out in like Silicon Valley Press whatever tech Crunch, or
• 49:13
  Speaker 5: it wasn't tech Crunch, it was Axios actually, and it
• 49:17
  Speaker 5: said it had like a really unflattering picture of me,
• 49:20
  Speaker 5: as they do, and it said that my fund had
• 49:22
  Speaker 5: failed because I wasn't able to raise it yet raise
• 49:25
  Speaker 5: this certain fund I was raising, so thirty six million
• 49:28
  Speaker 5: dollar fund that I went out to raise and I
• 49:30
  Speaker 5: hadn't raised it yet and then so for some reason,
• 49:33
  Speaker 5: they just on this day decided to write that. And
• 49:36
  Speaker 5: that article, it didn't really accuse me of anything. It
• 49:40
  Speaker 5: just said that I was a failure and that people
• 49:43
  Speaker 5: had lifted me too high, said I was too good
• 49:46
  Speaker 5: before they should have. And because of that article, a
• 49:50
  Speaker 5: couple of our main LPs pulled out because they were like,
• 49:53
  Speaker 5: what's going on back there. I'm like, there's literally nothing
• 49:55
  Speaker 5: I have. The DM of the guy who wrote me
• 49:59
  Speaker 5: asked about this. He was so nice to me, but
• 50:01
  Speaker 5: I didn't know he's gonna write that, so I didn't
• 50:03
  Speaker 5: do anything. Mark wrote to me. He sent me a
• 50:06
  Speaker 5: DM and he said I saw the article and he said,
• 50:11
  Speaker 5: here's a million dollars so you can just do whatever
• 50:14
  Speaker 5: you need to do, like make whatever investment you want
• 50:16
  Speaker 5: to make. And he said, what we need to do
• 50:19
  Speaker 5: is make you independently wealthy so you don't have to
• 50:22
  Speaker 5: deal with this shit. And it's like, you are right,
• 50:25
  Speaker 5: you're right, you were correct, and I appreciated him. Not
• 50:28
  Speaker 5: only did he do that, he said, I said, okay,
• 50:31
  Speaker 5: you want to do it like a press release. He's like, no,
• 50:33
  Speaker 5: nobody needs to know this. It's cool. You do whatever
• 50:35
  Speaker 5: you If you want a press release, do it. If
• 50:36
  Speaker 5: you don't, don't. He wasn't trying to get the accoltes
• 50:39
  Speaker 5: on top of that. Usually, when you when you have
• 50:43
  Speaker 5: a fund, especially a joint fincher like that or all
• 50:45
  Speaker 5: the funds, you have two and twenty called so two
• 50:48
  Speaker 5: percent management fee that you get every year. It's just
• 50:51
  Speaker 5: like standard. It could be varied, but you get two
• 50:53
  Speaker 5: percent management fee and then twenty percent carry which is
• 50:56
  Speaker 5: carried interest short for carried interest, which is the profits
• 50:59
  Speaker 5: you make off of your winnings. That's really standard. He said,
• 51:05
  Speaker 5: management fee whatever, you know, UTU, you operated, but we'll
• 51:10
  Speaker 5: be thirty percent profit share because this is a true JV.
• 51:14
  Speaker 5: And I mean he offered that, and I just couldn't
• 51:16
  Speaker 5: believe it because it's so it's the kind of management
• 51:18
  Speaker 5: fee that Enries and Horowitz can command because it's so high.
• 51:22
  Speaker 5: So I just thought that was there was a lot
• 51:24
  Speaker 5: of integrity on his part, and it was almost like
• 51:27
  Speaker 5: that was the thing that told me this is in charity.
• 51:30
  Speaker 5: I was like, this is actually him just like I
• 51:34
  Speaker 5: don't know. It was just really interesting. So then a
• 51:37
  Speaker 5: year later, a year. Some months later, George Floyd was
• 51:42
  Speaker 5: murdered and I just got an email from Mark. Of
• 51:44
  Speaker 5: course that had been talking the whole year. We talk
• 51:46
  Speaker 5: about deals, we talk about whatever. I got an email
• 51:49
  Speaker 5: from him and it just said the subject said do
• 51:52
  Speaker 5: you want to do? You want to do more? Opened
• 51:54
  Speaker 5: up the email and said, I'm going to be transferring
• 51:57
  Speaker 5: five million dollars into our GV so we can. You know,
• 52:02
  Speaker 5: he was he was livid about George Floyd's murder and
• 52:05
  Speaker 5: the and the way that it was handled, and he
• 52:08
  Speaker 5: wanted that was his way of acting. That was one
• 52:11
  Speaker 5: of his ways of acting because he knew I was
• 52:13
  Speaker 5: you know, we were already there. We had the infrastructure
• 52:15
  Speaker 5: to handle that. And let me be real clear, like
• 52:19
  Speaker 5: Marc is, he's very blunt. So he he doesn't sit around.
• 52:25
  Speaker 5: We don't sit around a giggle like, we don't sit around.
• 52:26
  Speaker 5: And he's like, oh, you're doing such a great job.
• 52:28
  Speaker 5: He's like, where is like, where's the where is the
• 52:32
  Speaker 5: path to me getting an ROI on this return on investment? Right?
• 52:36
  Speaker 5: He says that very he's very specific. He treats me
• 52:39
  Speaker 5: like he treats every other investment, which is I'm investing
• 52:44
  Speaker 5: in you so he can give me money back. It's
• 52:45
  Speaker 5: not a charity, right, He just makes sure that he
• 52:49
  Speaker 5: spends his dollars the way he wants the world to be, like,
• 52:53
  Speaker 5: he wants to put his dollars a certain way. So
• 52:57
  Speaker 5: I asked him after that, first of all, I do
• 53:00
  Speaker 5: want to do a press release. He said, okay, we
• 53:02
  Speaker 5: can do a press release only if you go through
• 53:04
  Speaker 5: this Black Woman. I'm sorry, No, a Woman of colors,
• 53:09
  Speaker 5: very indie publication that I invested in. Only that's the
• 53:12
  Speaker 5: only way. I don't want you to go to tech
• 53:13
  Speaker 5: crime for anybody else USA today, which I could have,
• 53:16
  Speaker 5: which again one more step of like, oh that's really
• 53:20
  Speaker 5: that's just really doing it is intentional, right, because honestly,
• 53:26
  Speaker 5: I know, six millions dollars a lot of money. But
• 53:29
  Speaker 5: Mark could have if he wanted to, he could have
• 53:31
  Speaker 5: like used that been on every like mentioned it every
• 53:35
  Speaker 5: time he had an interview, and he would have made
• 53:37
  Speaker 5: six million dollars back in some sort of marketing, you know,
• 53:40
  Speaker 5: something that would have come back to him. I just
• 53:43
  Speaker 5: think he really just wanted to do it. So finally
• 53:45
  Speaker 5: I asked him why he did it, and he said,
• 53:48
  Speaker 5: you're in rooms. I'll never be in. So it's just
• 53:52
  Speaker 5: the right play for me. And I you know, I
• 53:56
  Speaker 5: get court sided. I mean I buy court side seats
• 53:58
  Speaker 5: and to Mavericks. That's the only one because I love Mavericks. Now,
• 54:01
  Speaker 5: I just I usually the Mavericks. I usually. I used
• 54:03
  Speaker 5: to not know who Luka Doncic was. So there's like
• 54:08
  Speaker 5: a podcast episode from like two and a half years
• 54:11
  Speaker 5: ago where we're talking about I'm with Mark talking about
• 54:14
  Speaker 5: it and he's like, do you know, I was like,
• 54:16
  Speaker 5: I don't know who that is. So I started watching
• 54:19
  Speaker 5: after so many years. I know people are killing me
• 54:21
  Speaker 5: right now and I'm obsessed now, so like I'm I'm
• 54:25
  Speaker 5: oh yeah, yeah, oh yeah. And I'm always you know,
• 54:29
  Speaker 5: of course i'd or get a suite or whatever. And
• 54:31
  Speaker 5: anytime I see Mark, it's it's all, it's all good.
• 54:34
  Speaker 5: But my brother just ran into him at the NBA.
• 54:36
  Speaker 5: We were there. I just was in a hotel room
• 54:38
  Speaker 5: at the NBA All Star Game, and you know, there's
• 54:41
  Speaker 5: love for my brother and my mom and he's just
• 54:44
  Speaker 5: really kind and there's some most of the companies she's
• 54:46
  Speaker 5: invested in, he's never met the person. So for him
• 54:49
  Speaker 5: to like four or five six times make an effort
• 54:53
  Speaker 5: to come over and hug me and just like say
• 54:55
  Speaker 5: how you doing. In addition to all the emails that
• 54:58
  Speaker 5: we do, I just really appreciate that. I'm not intimidated
• 55:03
  Speaker 5: by him, and I argue with him quite a bit
• 55:06
  Speaker 5: because I don't think he's right about a lot of
• 55:07
  Speaker 5: stuff he says to me. But you know, when someone
• 55:11
  Speaker 5: argues with you and they do it respectfully, like you
• 55:14
  Speaker 5: can tell like it's like a fair fight, you know,
• 55:18
  Speaker 5: especially someone who has a little bit more power than
• 55:20
  Speaker 5: you do. That's that's what it is.
• 55:24
  Speaker 4: So where's what's the roadmap too? You said, you know,
• 55:29
  Speaker 4: getting to where you want to go? Is it more pressed?
• 55:31
  Speaker 4: Is it just bigger checks from wealthier investors? Are you
• 55:35
  Speaker 4: targeting athletes and let you go to the games? Now? So, like,
• 55:38
  Speaker 4: what's the roadmap to get to that one hundred million
• 55:40
  Speaker 4: dollar three hundred million dollars whatever your goal is to
• 55:43
  Speaker 4: break break that ceiling?
• 55:44
  Speaker 5: Yeah, we have been in great conversations with major banks Goldman, Sachs, JP, Morgan,
• 55:51
  Speaker 5: Bank of America. Bank of America is already an investor
• 55:53
  Speaker 5: of ours. Again, I'll say, when we're I get into
• 55:56
  Speaker 5: arguments with them. So that's part of it right, But
• 56:00
  Speaker 5: I think Bank of America kind of broke the mold
• 56:03
  Speaker 5: for us by investing seven figures because then Goldman Sachs
• 56:09
  Speaker 5: and JP Morgan and SVB and the rest of them,
• 56:11
  Speaker 5: can you know, understand what it is. So I think
• 56:14
  Speaker 5: it's going to be that. I also think it's going
• 56:16
  Speaker 5: to be a lot of family offices. So you know,
• 56:19
  Speaker 5: I think that that's where we play best because it
• 56:24
  Speaker 5: isn't it isn't super traditional.
• 56:25
  Speaker 6: Can you talk about that? So a lot of people,
• 56:28
  Speaker 6: even in some of the conversations we've been having over
• 56:29
  Speaker 6: the past since twelve months, the words family offices have
• 56:33
  Speaker 6: come up in conversation, but for a lot of population,
• 56:36
  Speaker 6: they have no idea what it is. Just break that down.
• 56:38
  Speaker 5: Family office is essentially like a fund within a family
• 56:42
  Speaker 5: or a group of families. It's treated as a company
• 56:46
  Speaker 5: or an entity, a funding entity. And so you might
• 56:50
  Speaker 5: have like Jay Z, for instance, he's he's making investments
• 56:54
  Speaker 5: out of his venture fund and that's kind of specific,
• 57:00
  Speaker 5: but he has people working there and that it's very specific.
• 57:03
  Speaker 5: LPs are in but he probably also has the Jay
• 57:07
  Speaker 5: Z and Beyonce family office where they make their own
• 57:10
  Speaker 5: investments and they have somebody at least one person, if
• 57:13
  Speaker 5: not seven people running that, running the numbers on that,
• 57:16
  Speaker 5: and treating it. And it's it's just your own allocation.
• 57:19
  Speaker 5: Like for instance, one of my major one of my
• 57:22
  Speaker 5: major goals, and you know maybe by the time I'm
• 57:25
  Speaker 5: forty five, I only have a couple of years, is
• 57:27
  Speaker 5: to have a family office. Is it's just it's different
• 57:31
  Speaker 5: from angel investing because we're talking usually millions of dollars.
• 57:34
  Speaker 5: You can't have a family office with like five hundred K.
• 57:37
  Speaker 5: You're talking millions of dollars, if not tens or hundreds
• 57:40
  Speaker 5: of millions of dollars, and you're investing directly out of that,
• 57:44
  Speaker 5: and it's productized and has organization around it. And so
• 57:50
  Speaker 5: those are the reason we don't know about them is
• 57:52
  Speaker 5: because they're real stealth. They're a purpose. They're meant to
• 57:56
  Speaker 5: you know, if somebody knew that a certain it doesn't
• 57:59
  Speaker 5: have to be like a celebrity. If anybody you have
• 58:02
  Speaker 5: a family office that can deploy fifty million dollars a
• 58:07
  Speaker 5: year or twenty million dollars a year, they're going to
• 58:10
  Speaker 5: be hounded because they don't have that shield of this
• 58:14
  Speaker 5: is an entity of business over here. So like a
• 58:16
  Speaker 5: family office sounds very intimate and accessible, so they don't
• 58:20
  Speaker 5: want it to be so they're not going to put
• 58:22
  Speaker 5: up a website. Most likely they're not going to do that.
• 58:25
  Speaker 5: And what a lot of times a family office is too,
• 58:28
  Speaker 5: is like the they'll realize that they can only do
• 58:31
  Speaker 5: so much as a philanthropist, you know, they can only
• 58:34
  Speaker 5: do move the needle so much. But if they instead
• 58:37
  Speaker 5: of putting or in an addition to putting their money
• 58:40
  Speaker 5: as you know, into charity, if they put it into companies,
• 58:44
  Speaker 5: it can be evergreen. So if a family has you know,
• 58:48
  Speaker 5: a big family has one hundred million dollars that they
• 58:51
  Speaker 5: want to spend over time, and they're used to putting
• 58:54
  Speaker 5: eighty million of that into charity, that goes away because
• 58:57
  Speaker 5: it's spent and they just and it just kind of
• 58:59
  Speaker 5: goes away. They have to refill the coffers. But if
• 59:02
  Speaker 5: they have a family office that's making a return on
• 59:04
  Speaker 5: an investment over five, seven, fifteen years, they never have
• 59:09
  Speaker 5: to replenish that if they play it right. So that's
• 59:11
  Speaker 5: what they're going after. And a lot of times you'll
• 59:13
  Speaker 5: see these rich families combine their family offices so that
• 59:17
  Speaker 5: it's one group like five to ten people who are
• 59:21
  Speaker 5: hired by them to run four or five ten family
• 59:26
  Speaker 5: offices at once.
• 59:28
  Speaker 4: So as far as you personally, you have other stuff
• 59:35
  Speaker 4: that you're into. So you have the podcast, you have
• 59:38
  Speaker 4: the book. Different campaigns talk about that, and like, you know,
• 59:42
  Speaker 4: a lot of times people only focus on one thing.
• 59:44
  Speaker 4: What made you want to go in and start doing
• 59:48
  Speaker 4: other things? Was it to raise visibility for your fund
• 59:51
  Speaker 4: or was it just something that passionate that you just
• 59:53
  Speaker 4: wanted to just do.
• 59:54
  Speaker 5: It was when I was learning about venture, I didn't
• 59:58
  Speaker 5: see anybody who looked like me teaching, Like all my
• 1:00:01
  Speaker 5: teachers from books and things were white men who now
• 1:00:03
  Speaker 5: are investors on my fund are friends, right, But I
• 1:00:06
  Speaker 5: didn't see me. So that was part of it. It's
• 1:00:08
  Speaker 5: like again, like every day of my life, I get
• 1:00:10
  Speaker 5: this feedback. Something I did in twenty eighteen helped this, right,
• 1:00:13
  Speaker 5: So it's that visibility. But then before, even like the
• 1:00:17
  Speaker 5: Creator economy was a big thing, I looked at it
• 1:00:20
  Speaker 5: at twenty fifteen and I said, when I did that
• 1:00:22
  Speaker 5: blog post, and so many opportunities came my way, for
• 1:00:25
  Speaker 5: my for the people I was helping, I have to
• 1:00:29
  Speaker 5: be visible. You know, if you have decades and decades
• 1:00:34
  Speaker 5: of mostly white men in an an eighty or so
• 1:00:38
  Speaker 5: year old industry who have all of the purse, drink,
• 1:00:43
  Speaker 5: the control all the money, they control everything, and they
• 1:00:47
  Speaker 5: also control the voice of this industry. We got to
• 1:00:51
  Speaker 5: have other people talk. And that's why John Henry did
• 1:00:54
  Speaker 5: his show, you know, that's why he's all over social
• 1:00:57
  Speaker 5: when you when you know, you're back and forth there.
• 1:01:00
  Speaker 5: So I looked at that twenty sixteen and I said,
• 1:01:03
  Speaker 5: I'm going to be I'm going to take some of
• 1:01:05
  Speaker 5: the stuff I learned in previous lives where I was
• 1:01:08
  Speaker 5: jumping on you know, MySpace and you know, had blogs
• 1:01:13
  Speaker 5: and all kind of stuff. I'm going to use that
• 1:01:15
  Speaker 5: to bring opportunity Again. I didn't have that much money,
• 1:01:19
  Speaker 5: so you become money. So that's what it was. And
• 1:01:22
  Speaker 5: I think the you did ask me before, I don't
• 1:01:25
  Speaker 5: think I answered it completely, which is like, what do
• 1:01:28
  Speaker 5: I want beyond the money? I do want to be.
• 1:01:31
  Speaker 5: I do want the work that we have done at Backstage,
• 1:01:35
  Speaker 5: our founders and my story to be known by more
• 1:01:39
  Speaker 5: people because I see the impact it has. You can't
• 1:01:43
  Speaker 5: deny the impact like we have helped create countless you
• 1:01:48
  Speaker 5: as you know this, we were just talking about this, right,
• 1:01:49
  Speaker 5: you know what this is like. We've helped create countless
• 1:01:53
  Speaker 5: companies and you know, get people hired and change their lives.
• 1:01:58
  Speaker 5: So of course I want more and more people to
• 1:02:00
  Speaker 5: know about that.
• 1:02:02
  Speaker 6: One of those ventures is a higher Runner dot co. Yeah,
• 1:02:05
  Speaker 6: can you talk about that?
• 1:02:05
  Speaker 4: So High Runner dot Co.
• 1:02:07
  Speaker 5: So for seven years I ran backstage, still do but
• 1:02:10
  Speaker 5: I ran backstage and I had to hyper focus. You
• 1:02:13
  Speaker 5: have to hyper focus if you're going to do something big, right,
• 1:02:15
  Speaker 5: So I focused on that. But I'm also an entrepreneur
• 1:02:18
  Speaker 5: and that's I was that first, and so I kept
• 1:02:20
  Speaker 5: having this calling back to I want to do something
• 1:02:25
  Speaker 5: where I can at least be out there and like
• 1:02:28
  Speaker 5: be in the trenches with the founders i'm investing in,
• 1:02:30
  Speaker 5: because that also helps me become a better investor. So
• 1:02:32
  Speaker 5: I said, what would what would be aligned so that
• 1:02:35
  Speaker 5: it's not pulling away from what I'm doing. So I
• 1:02:38
  Speaker 5: thought about the things that I get asked for the most.
• 1:02:41
  Speaker 5: The number one thing I get asked for, I'm sure
• 1:02:43
  Speaker 5: you can imagine, is money. Every day of my life.
• 1:02:46
  Speaker 5: Like the I think the driver pitched me on the
• 1:02:48
  Speaker 5: way here, Like I had my headphones on and I
• 1:02:50
  Speaker 5: was like oh okay. I get pitched every day, all
• 1:02:53
  Speaker 5: day long, just like you all probably get pitched to
• 1:02:54
  Speaker 5: be on your show. I get pitched can you invest
• 1:02:58
  Speaker 5: in my company? But then number two very close after that,
• 1:03:01
  Speaker 5: I need I need help, like I need to hire
• 1:03:04
  Speaker 5: somebody or I don't know what I don't know. And so
• 1:03:06
  Speaker 5: it's about people. So hire runner dot Co helps connect
• 1:03:10
  Speaker 5: fractional mostly fractional meaning part time and kind of gig
• 1:03:14
  Speaker 5: economy operators like executive assistants, chiefs of staff, coos, et cetera,
• 1:03:20
  Speaker 5: with companies of all sizes. So from the solopreneur to
• 1:03:24
  Speaker 5: the Fortune five hundred company, we have them all this customers.
• 1:03:28
  Speaker 5: And then in about a month and a half we're
• 1:03:30
  Speaker 5: launching our app, which will be kind of similar to
• 1:03:34
  Speaker 5: what fiver does, or in fiver, I would say that's
• 1:03:39
  Speaker 5: the one I want to compared to where you can
• 1:03:41
  Speaker 5: go on the app you have something that you need,
• 1:03:43
  Speaker 5: maybe you need an EA for a month, you go,
• 1:03:47
  Speaker 5: we find if we find the person for you, we
• 1:03:49
  Speaker 5: match you and then you're off to the races and
• 1:03:51
  Speaker 5: you can start the next day.
• 1:03:52
  Speaker 4: Were you sure, thousand millionaires? Was that? I?
• 1:03:56
  Speaker 5: My goal is to help create and catalyze one thousand millionaires.
• 1:04:01
  Speaker 5: Ubs says that in twenty seventeen or by twenty seventeen,
• 1:04:06
  Speaker 5: there will be eighty million millionaires in the world. They're
• 1:04:09
  Speaker 5: about fifty seven million today, and so that's like ten
• 1:04:12
  Speaker 5: million plus over the next year, is plus the ones
• 1:04:14
  Speaker 5: that'll fall off, and you know, so that's at least
• 1:04:17
  Speaker 5: ten million, maybe twelve million a year. I know a
• 1:04:19
  Speaker 5: thousand for some people feels like a low number, but
• 1:04:22
  Speaker 5: I say a thousand because I juxtaposed it against the billionaire.
• 1:04:27
  Speaker 5: So we have we know, we all we have billionaire friends.
• 1:04:30
  Speaker 5: We know that they're cool, but I don't know if
• 1:04:32
  Speaker 5: anybody needs that much money. And so like, what if
• 1:04:35
  Speaker 5: a thousand people had the same amount of money just
• 1:04:38
  Speaker 5: as a as as to get started, right, it's not
• 1:04:41
  Speaker 5: doesn't mean I want to stop there, but just like,
• 1:04:43
  Speaker 5: what if a thousand people had that had had like
• 1:04:47
  Speaker 5: enough and had more than enough? What could we influence?
• 1:04:51
  Speaker 5: What could what you know, policy could we influence? Quality
• 1:04:54
  Speaker 5: of life would be lifted. I believe that's my thesis.
• 1:04:58
  Speaker 5: So that a lot of people are like, why isn't
• 1:04:59
  Speaker 5: a million a million? And I say, I want to
• 1:05:02
  Speaker 5: track it. I want to literally be able to tell
• 1:05:04
  Speaker 5: you the names of the people that I helped and
• 1:05:06
  Speaker 5: we helped create million you know, turn into millionaires by
• 1:05:10
  Speaker 5: teaching you how to generate revenue and all the things.
• 1:05:14
  Speaker 5: And if I said a million, a million, a lot,
• 1:05:17
  Speaker 5: it would just be this sort of pie in the
• 1:05:18
  Speaker 5: sky thing that is more inspirational than tactical.
• 1:05:23
  Speaker 6: Is there a global initiative or plan to expand globally
• 1:05:27
  Speaker 6: for both Backstage Capital and hire Runner dot co?
• 1:05:31
  Speaker 5: So both of them. So backstage investment outside the country,
• 1:05:34
  Speaker 5: we have six companies we've invested in that out of
• 1:05:37
  Speaker 5: England who are African founders, and we don't have a
• 1:05:40
  Speaker 5: mandate on where we can invest, I think for us,
• 1:05:44
  Speaker 5: so we had a we had an open location in
• 1:05:46
  Speaker 5: London for half a year in twenty nineteen. We were
• 1:05:49
  Speaker 5: going to expand and then COVID happened and so we
• 1:05:52
  Speaker 5: stopped the expansion. But I think for us it's just
• 1:05:55
  Speaker 5: always been about resources, Like we get asked to go everywhere,
• 1:06:00
  Speaker 5: and like you can imagine, we get at like any
• 1:06:04
  Speaker 5: any country in the world, you can imagine the same
• 1:06:05
  Speaker 5: thing is happening for some some group of people. So
• 1:06:08
  Speaker 5: they're saying can you come here, Like in France, we've
• 1:06:11
  Speaker 5: had can you come to to Paris and like build
• 1:06:14
  Speaker 5: something in Paris or can you come to the outskirts
• 1:06:16
  Speaker 5: in France that nobody has heard of. But we can
• 1:06:18
  Speaker 5: do the same thing here because we're not getting it India,
• 1:06:22
  Speaker 5: parts of Asia, Australia, all of everybody, indigenous people have
• 1:06:25
  Speaker 5: asked us to come. My thing is I want to
• 1:06:28
  Speaker 5: do that, and I would love to do that with
• 1:06:29
  Speaker 5: the resources, and we will. But I also know that
• 1:06:32
  Speaker 5: there are incredible companies in Saint Louis who are being overlooked.
• 1:06:35
  Speaker 5: I also know that they are incredible companies in Jackson, Mississippi, Chicago, Seattle, uh,
• 1:06:41
  Speaker 5: you know, North Carolina, all the things, and there's we
• 1:06:44
  Speaker 5: I for the rest of my life, I could do
• 1:06:46
  Speaker 5: this work and I would. I would not, you know,
• 1:06:48
  Speaker 5: scratch the surface. So I think that there's definitely a
• 1:06:52
  Speaker 5: strategy to there's a strategy that we need to deepen
• 1:06:58
  Speaker 5: our well and we need to keep in our well
• 1:07:00
  Speaker 5: by over the next two or so years at least
• 1:07:04
  Speaker 5: tripling our assets under management, and then we can kind
• 1:07:08
  Speaker 5: of sprout from there all of the different things that
• 1:07:10
  Speaker 5: I've wanted to do.
• 1:07:11
  Speaker 6: I think you sit in a unique position right, if
• 1:07:13
  Speaker 6: you've invested over two hundred companies predominantly in tech. So
• 1:07:17
  Speaker 6: I wonder from your vantage point, what obviously we know
• 1:07:20
  Speaker 6: AI Jennaly of AI. Are there other trends that we
• 1:07:23
  Speaker 6: should be looking for in technology? And if so, how
• 1:07:26
  Speaker 6: should entrepreneurs be using it to their advantage and their businesses?
• 1:07:30
  Speaker 5: Yeah, I think I think AI is. I don't think
• 1:07:34
  Speaker 5: anybody quite has. I think everybody's underestimating the power of AI.
• 1:07:41
  Speaker 5: I always just try to keep up with the best
• 1:07:45
  Speaker 5: I can. I've never been good at like trend like
• 1:07:49
  Speaker 5: looking for trends. I've been good at telling like seeing
• 1:07:52
  Speaker 5: around corners. So for instance, I couldn't tell you. It's
• 1:07:56
  Speaker 5: the same thing with like clothing and fashion, Like I
• 1:07:58
  Speaker 5: don't know what's cool, but sometimes accidentally find things that
• 1:08:01
  Speaker 5: are cool and they're like, oh, your shoes are incredible,
• 1:08:03
  Speaker 5: and I accidentally picked these up because they're pretty, you know.
• 1:08:06
  Speaker 5: So for me, when I think about like just how
• 1:08:10
  Speaker 5: like just the way people who are let's even say
• 1:08:16
  Speaker 5: fifty plus, it's probably even lower than that, but like
• 1:08:19
  Speaker 5: fifty is not elderly, but like elderly people, then people
• 1:08:22
  Speaker 5: who are retiring, and then people who are leaving their
• 1:08:24
  Speaker 5: businesses and they don't have anybody to hand it off to.
• 1:08:28
  Speaker 5: People who are in companies. Anybody who's a fifty over,
• 1:08:32
  Speaker 5: they're just discounted. You all are probably too young to
• 1:08:35
  Speaker 5: remember the Dinosaur TV show on ABC. You remember that,
• 1:08:39
  Speaker 5: You remember the episode? Yes, there's an episode where they
• 1:08:42
  Speaker 5: had like the grandma, who is a trip by the way,
• 1:08:44
  Speaker 5: I think the grandma was black, But anyway, that the
• 1:08:46
  Speaker 5: grandma was that it was a tradition that when you
• 1:08:49
  Speaker 5: get at a certain age, you just throw the grand
• 1:08:50
  Speaker 5: people like grand people off into the tar pits. And
• 1:08:54
  Speaker 5: it was just like a tradition. And the husband was
• 1:08:55
  Speaker 5: real excited because it was like that day, you know,
• 1:08:57
  Speaker 5: and they did something to kind of turn it around
• 1:08:59
  Speaker 5: so that she didn't have to get thrown into the
• 1:09:00
  Speaker 5: tar pits. But I kind of think that's what we
• 1:09:02
  Speaker 5: do with like older people. And obviously the older I get,
• 1:09:05
  Speaker 5: we all get older. But the older I get and
• 1:09:09
  Speaker 5: the higher in age I get, the more I'm like,
• 1:09:12
  Speaker 5: what's going to happen, Like, what's going to happen to
• 1:09:14
  Speaker 5: me in twenty years and whatever? I'll probably be okay,
• 1:09:17
  Speaker 5: But I think there's so much that we are discounting
• 1:09:23
  Speaker 5: and missing out and underestimating when it comes to older
• 1:09:26
  Speaker 5: people and the wisdom that they have and the skill
• 1:09:30
  Speaker 5: that they have. And so I think there's going to
• 1:09:33
  Speaker 5: be I think that things that are both for like
• 1:09:37
  Speaker 5: entrepreneurship for older people like that help with that, and
• 1:09:43
  Speaker 5: things that are for you know, end of life, like
• 1:09:46
  Speaker 5: everything in between. I think that's where I would be
• 1:09:49
  Speaker 5: putting a lot of money.
• 1:09:52
  Speaker 4: Well, thank you for coming. How can people follow your
• 1:09:56
  Speaker 4: journey with your social media handles in any other information?
• 1:09:59
  Speaker 5: Yeah, thank you so, Arlen. Is my name A R
• 1:10:01
  Speaker 5: L A N. And I'm at Arlin. Was here on
• 1:10:04
  Speaker 5: Instagram's where I spend most of my time. On LinkedIn too.
• 1:10:08
  Speaker 5: But you can go to backstage capital dot com the
• 1:10:10
  Speaker 5: cur portfolio check that out. You can also apply on
• 1:10:13
  Speaker 5: backstage capital dot com. Most funds don't let you apply
• 1:10:15
  Speaker 5: on their apply for investment if you think your company
• 1:10:18
  Speaker 5: is viable for.
• 1:10:20
  Speaker 4: The minimum to be an investor.
• 1:10:22
  Speaker 5: To be an investor usually something around fifty k. But again,
• 1:10:26
  Speaker 5: I'm not I'm not I'm just gonna say this. I
• 1:10:28
  Speaker 5: am not allowed to say that, like talk about it
• 1:10:31
  Speaker 5: in that way. I am not soliciting, but hypothetically that's
• 1:10:36
  Speaker 5: in the past, when it's I'm just saying, it's just
• 1:10:39
  Speaker 5: you know, because there are some funds that I have
• 1:10:42
  Speaker 5: that we've had in the past that you can talk
• 1:10:43
  Speaker 5: about impress they're just a different designation. And then there
• 1:10:47
  Speaker 5: are others that you can't and you know, sec you
• 1:10:50
  Speaker 5: don't play, they just don't.
• 1:10:52
  Speaker 6: Play awful, but boys do not play any more. Books.
• 1:10:55
  Speaker 5: Yeah, so I have It's about them Time came out
• 1:10:57
  Speaker 5: in twenty twenty. Your First Billion Million came out this year.
• 1:11:00
  Speaker 5: Please pick that up because I think I think that'll
• 1:11:02
  Speaker 5: explain everything and it kind of the bigger picture. And
• 1:11:05
  Speaker 5: I know I've talked a lot about myself today, but
• 1:11:08
  Speaker 5: my thing is, like I could just drop the mic
• 1:11:10
  Speaker 5: right now. I want us to win. I want so
• 1:11:15
  Speaker 5: many of us who don't understand how valuable they are
• 1:11:20
  Speaker 5: or we are, to win. So the book is really
• 1:11:23
  Speaker 5: meant for that. So Your First Million, and then I
• 1:11:25
  Speaker 5: do plan on putting out a third book in the
• 1:11:27
  Speaker 5: next couple of years. Another thing I just want to
• 1:11:28
  Speaker 5: make sure everybody knows is that I have an event
• 1:11:30
  Speaker 5: coming up April ninety through the twelfth in Los Angeles.
• 1:11:33
  Speaker 5: It's called Your First Million Live. We have Isa Ray.
• 1:11:36
  Speaker 5: We have Rich Paul again, y'all, just a lot of
• 1:11:40
  Speaker 5: stuff that, yeah, exactly. We have Humble coming through because
• 1:11:43
  Speaker 5: we talked about y'all a few days ago. Yeah, and
• 1:11:48
  Speaker 5: we have Sheila Johnson, the first black woman billionaire. We
• 1:11:51
  Speaker 5: have TLC's closing out the event. It's at the Peacock
• 1:11:54
  Speaker 5: Theater where the Emmys were held a few days ago. Yeah.
• 1:11:57
  Speaker 5: So it is your first million. It's just going to
• 1:11:59
  Speaker 5: be real. We wanted to be super informative and there's
• 1:12:03
  Speaker 5: a lot of financial literacy there. It's about getting your
• 1:12:06
  Speaker 5: coin right, but it's also this inspirational place where we
• 1:12:09
  Speaker 5: can convene. The networking is like crazy. I just want
• 1:12:13
  Speaker 5: to say, I know I'm taking up a lot of
• 1:12:14
  Speaker 5: else time, but I just want to say just watching
• 1:12:17
  Speaker 5: I watched your event two years ago from my home
• 1:12:21
  Speaker 5: because I just I wasn't traveling, but I watched it
• 1:12:23
  Speaker 5: on like the big screen, and I was just like
• 1:12:27
  Speaker 5: I was just I just couldn't believe it. It was
• 1:12:29
  Speaker 5: just so inspiring. And then this next this follow up, right,
• 1:12:35
  Speaker 5: I just think it's definitely was an inspiration for for
• 1:12:37
  Speaker 5: what I wanted to do an event for years. But
• 1:12:39
  Speaker 5: it's definitely seeing you all and seeing the impact, and
• 1:12:42
  Speaker 5: it's hearing about it, you know through the great A
• 1:12:44
  Speaker 5: lot of your your followers kind of follow what I do.
• 1:12:48
  Speaker 5: Just hearing about it. I asked people when they were
• 1:12:50
  Speaker 5: their how is it going? You know? It really inspired
• 1:12:53
  Speaker 5: me and I just there's nobody else. You all know this,
• 1:12:56
  Speaker 5: but there's no one else who can put together what
• 1:12:58
  Speaker 5: you had to twenty thousand people. Yeah, but even the
• 1:13:01
  Speaker 5: year before was a tip. Yeah, even that to me
• 1:13:05
  Speaker 5: was just like that, that was like your moment. I
• 1:13:08
  Speaker 5: was like, oh, this is crazy. And I said, I
• 1:13:11
  Speaker 5: heard y'all say on stage on this last year. You
• 1:13:15
  Speaker 5: said why isn't like why aren't these major sponsors in
• 1:13:19
  Speaker 5: the room? And I said, out loud, I was by myself,
• 1:13:21
  Speaker 5: I said, out loud, I'm not how to make that happen,
• 1:13:23
  Speaker 5: Like you know that sponsors are coming to my event,
• 1:13:26
  Speaker 5: Like I let's bridge that gap, you know, like, because
• 1:13:30
  Speaker 5: there's no reason these sponsors like you have great ally
• 1:13:33
  Speaker 5: and all these sponsors, but you there's no reason most
• 1:13:36
  Speaker 5: of the people I work with shouldn't know what you're
• 1:13:39
  Speaker 5: doing because it's incredible and there's nothing like it here Toronto, London.
• 1:13:44
  Speaker 5: There's nothing like that.
• 1:13:46
  Speaker 6: We appreciate that, Dan appreciate it.
• 1:13:48
  Speaker 4: Definitely. We could collapse, sure, for sure, for sure. Well
• 1:13:51
  Speaker 4: make sure you go April.
• 1:13:53
  Speaker 5: Nine, April ninth through the twelfth. If you only can
• 1:13:55
  Speaker 5: make a couple of days, go to tenth and eleventh.
• 1:13:58
  Speaker 5: This was gonna be amazing.
• 1:13:59
  Speaker 4: What's the website?
• 1:14:00
  Speaker 5: Your first million Dot Live, your.
• 1:14:02
  Speaker 4: First million dot Love. Get your tickets now, ladies and gentlemen,
• 1:14:05
  Speaker 4: and thank you guys, rocking onners. We see you next week.
• 1:14:08
  Speaker 1: Peace pease an illegal alien from Guatemala charged with raping
• 1:14:12
  Speaker 1: a child in Massachusetts. An MS thirteen gang member from
• 1:14:15
  Speaker 1: Al Salvador accused of murdering a Texas man of Venezuelan
• 1:14:20
  Speaker 1: charged with filming and selling child pornography in Michigan.
• 1:14:24
  Speaker 2: These are just.
• 1:14:24
  Speaker 1: Some of the heinous migrant criminals caught because of President
• 1:14:28
  Speaker 1: Donald J.
• 1:14:29
  Speaker 2: Trump's leadership.
• 1:14:30
  Speaker 1: I'm Christy Noman, the United States Secretary of Homeland Security.
• 1:14:34
  Speaker 1: Under President Trump, attempted illegal border crossings are at the
• 1:14:38
  Speaker 1: lowest levels ever recorded, and over one hundred thousand illegal
• 1:14:42
  Speaker 1: aliens have been arrested. If you are here illegally, your
• 1:14:46
  Speaker 1: next you will be fine Nearly one thousand dollars a day.
• 1:14:49
  Speaker 2: Imprisoned and deported, you will never return.
• 1:14:53
  Speaker 1: But if you register using our CBP home app and
• 1:14:56
  Speaker 1: leave now, you could be allowed to return legally.
• 1:14:59
  Speaker 2: Do what's right. Leave now.
• 1:15:01
  Speaker 1: Under President Trump America's laws, border and families.
• 1:15:05
  Speaker 2: Will be protected.
• 1:15:06
  Speaker 3: Sponsored by the United States Department of Homeland Security,