Latest / Earn Your Leisure / EYL #152 Entrepreneur turned 97 No’s into a Million Dollar Empire

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EYL #152 Entrepreneur turned 97 No’s into a Million Dollar Empire · Earn Your Leisure

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  Speaker 4: All right, guys, welcome back e y L at L Edition.
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  Speaker 4: this this was an interview that we actually we're supposed
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  Speaker 4: to do this before. Okay, yeah, scheduling didn't really kind
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  Speaker 4: of work workout, but I'm glad we got a chance
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  Speaker 4: of do it now. It's perfect time and actually what
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  Speaker 4: everything that's going on. So Ryan Wilson is a young
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  Speaker 4: entrepreneur that's killing the game right now. The Gathering Spot.
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  Speaker 4: If you if you're from Atlanta, I'm pretty sure you've
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  Speaker 4: heard of the Gathering Spot. It's a big deal. And
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  Speaker 4: so now there's actually three locations. One that's just got built,
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  Speaker 4: I believe in d C, one that's being built in
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  Speaker 4: l A. And uh, the mothership here in Atlanta. So
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  Speaker 4: the Gathering Spot is kind of a mix between co
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  Speaker 4: working space, event space?
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  Speaker 2: Is that give it the title? It's the hub of culture.
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  Speaker 3: It has civic engagement and it's a birthplace for entrepreneurism.
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  Speaker 4: Okay, can we go with that. I'll rock with that
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  Speaker 4: if it works. Yeah, it's like a hub. It's a
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  Speaker 4: hub for creatives to come to work, to build with
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  Speaker 4: each other, the network, to meet people. It's a whole
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  Speaker 4: cultural experience. And Ryan's thirty years old. He's from Marietta.
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  Speaker 4: I grew up and married it. Yeah, Marietta. And then
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  Speaker 4: he went to George Georgetown, Georgetown, d C. So yeah,
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  Speaker 4: DC roots and he came back home and uh, yeah,
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  Speaker 4: young entrepreneurs just killing the game. So we've got to
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  Speaker 4: have a very enlightened conversation. We're going to talk about,
• 3:45
  Speaker 4: you know, obviously, how COVID nineteen has affected things. You know,
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  Speaker 4: how he started the business, ideas behind the business, monetization,
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  Speaker 4: all of that stuff. So I'm excited. Thank you for
• 3:55
  Speaker 4: joining us, first and foremost.
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  Speaker 6: Hey, it's an honor. I appreciate youall. This is a long, long.
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  Speaker 2: So nothing happens before it's time.
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  Speaker 4: Yeah, for sure, for sure. All right, so let's get
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  Speaker 4: into it. All right, So how do you how does
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  Speaker 4: this all start? Because obviously you know you're young and
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  Speaker 4: it's a big idea. So what gives you the vision
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  Speaker 4: to start this and how did you go about starting it?
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  Speaker 6: Yeah, So it's funny. I never wanted to be an entrepreneur.
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  Speaker 6: My my parents are entrepreneurs, and growing up I saw
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  Speaker 6: what it took to be in business for yourself every day,
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  Speaker 6: and my dream was to be a lawyer. So I
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  Speaker 6: went to Georgetoun for undergrad. I was super focused on
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  Speaker 6: making sure that I did everything possible to get to
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  Speaker 6: law school, and so I stayed in DC, went to
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  Speaker 6: Georgetown Law, and the summer between my first year of
• 4:45
  Speaker 6: law school and my second, I was back here working
• 4:48
  Speaker 6: at a law firm. It was the same summer as
• 4:50
  Speaker 6: the Trayvon Martin case, and I'm sure everybody remember George
• 4:54
  Speaker 6: Immerman gets acquitted or Trayvon's murder. And I got an
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  Speaker 6: email from some friends doing some community organizing work in DC,
• 5:01
  Speaker 6: and they sent me email on the subject was what
• 5:04
  Speaker 6: are we going to do? And I sat on it
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  Speaker 6: for a second, but then I responded back to them
• 5:09
  Speaker 6: with this idea that we needed to have a place
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  Speaker 6: where we could have the conversation I really missed. You
• 5:14
  Speaker 6: think about like high school and college, like those are
• 5:17
  Speaker 6: one of the last environments where you can you could
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  Speaker 6: just have people that are studying different things, people come
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  Speaker 6: talk about different things, and I missed that. So I
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  Speaker 6: wrote back to them, this was July of twenty thirteen,
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  Speaker 6: saying I think we should build a club basically for
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  Speaker 6: black folks in DC where we can get together. And
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  Speaker 6: I couldn't shake that idea, and so from that day
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  Speaker 6: forward I worked on trying to build TGS. I sent
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  Speaker 6: the plan to one of my roommates from college the
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  Speaker 6: next day, and that was July sixteenth, twenty July sixteen,
• 5:46
  Speaker 6: twenty thirteen.
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  Speaker 4: We worked every day after that to try to make
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  Speaker 4: it happen.
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  Speaker 3: So, but you went to school to study law, right,
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  Speaker 3: so this is like a complete career change. Did you
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  Speaker 3: have to battle with that side of it? Like, Yo,
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  Speaker 3: I went to school, my dream was to be in
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  Speaker 3: the law field, and now my heart.
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  Speaker 2: Is calling me towards something else. Yeah.
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  Speaker 6: No, I mean it was a real it was a
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  Speaker 6: real thing. I mean I called my parents and I
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  Speaker 6: was like, hey, I don't think I'm going to be
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  Speaker 6: a lawyer. And I mean they're entrepreneurs, but even they
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  Speaker 6: were like, what I mean, I'm on like a fifteen
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  Speaker 6: year journey to become a lawyer at that point, and
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  Speaker 6: I'm finally I mean, I finished my first year, I've
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  Speaker 6: got two years.
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  Speaker 4: Left and then I'm there. And I couldn't.
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  Speaker 6: I mean, but this idea, I don't really know how
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  Speaker 6: to explain it any better than it just like it
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  Speaker 6: felt like it needed to exist. And so I told them,
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  Speaker 6: I was like, look, I'm going to graduate. I will
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  Speaker 6: finish my law degree. And so I was scheduled to
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  Speaker 6: graduate in twenty fifteen. But every night TK, who's my
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  Speaker 6: business partner, he would come to my apartment and we
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  Speaker 6: would work that second shift all night long, just working
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  Speaker 6: on the business, and so between twenty thirteen when I
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  Speaker 6: wrote their initial plan to twenty sixteen we'd actually open.
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  Speaker 6: Until twenty sixteen, we worked each day. But people thought
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  Speaker 6: I was nuts. I mean, I'm at a very good
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  Speaker 6: law school and I'm the president of the Black Law
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  Speaker 6: Students Association. I'm doing all this stuff that was leading
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  Speaker 6: me in the pact like direction of being a lawyer,
• 7:07
  Speaker 6: and so to come out on the other side of
• 7:09
  Speaker 6: that and be like, I mean, I was telling people
• 7:10
  Speaker 6: at graduation like now I'm not going to practice, and
• 7:14
  Speaker 6: they would look at me and be like, spend all
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  Speaker 6: this time and all this money to not practice law?
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  Speaker 4: What kind of law were you studying?
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  Speaker 6: I went there and it's interesting where this how this
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  Speaker 6: is shifted. But I wanted to be a civil rights attorney.
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  Speaker 6: For me, it was about trying to do something that
• 7:29
  Speaker 6: was the best way to help people. So that led
• 7:31
  Speaker 6: to a lot of education kind of related classes in
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  Speaker 6: law school. But people thought I was crazy. I mean
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  Speaker 6: all the way to the like the very very I
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  Speaker 6: feel like for some people it didn't start making sense
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  Speaker 6: until twenty eighteen we had been open, and folks were like, okay,
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  Speaker 6: it actually division, Yeah, Like I could support myself.
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  Speaker 4: By then.
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  Speaker 6: I mean that was another part of this journey that
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  Speaker 6: folks didn't know early on.
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  Speaker 4: Like we were, we were broke, broke, broke, So how
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  Speaker 4: did you all? Right? So twenty sixteen you say you
• 8:01
  Speaker 4: open it? You opened the spot right twenty sist and
• 8:03
  Speaker 4: so so you finished law school and then right after
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  Speaker 4: law school you decide to open it.
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  Speaker 6: So I'm working that whole time, and so I graduate May.
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  Speaker 4: What'd you work at?
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  Speaker 2: Well?
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  Speaker 6: I was working at law firms, so I would just
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  Speaker 6: go bounce between different law firms. But I graduate May
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  Speaker 6: of twenty fifteen. We moved the next day to Atlanta.
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  Speaker 6: We got we packed our apartments up. TK was working
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  Speaker 6: in finance in DC. He quit his job to kind
• 8:25
  Speaker 6: of time at the same moment. We got in the
• 8:28
  Speaker 6: car and drove to Atlanta overnight. And from that day,
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  Speaker 6: I mean, it was about just trying to figure out
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  Speaker 6: how to make this plan we've been writing for two
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  Speaker 6: years happened.
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  Speaker 4: So how'd you so with the brick and mortar businesses,
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  Speaker 4: it's a lot going overhead and expenses with just intnet business, right,
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  Speaker 4: So it's like you got to build out the spot.
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  Speaker 4: I'm assuming it's a lot different things go into it.
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  Speaker 4: So where'd you get the how'd you get the finance
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  Speaker 4: and to do that?
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  Speaker 6: So that was that was one of the more painful
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  Speaker 6: parts of this whole process. The first number we got
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  Speaker 6: back was a million dollars and I remember looking at
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  Speaker 6: TK and being.
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  Speaker 4: Like, oh, I'm about to go practice law.
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  Speaker 2: I don't know where we got to get this moody.
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  Speaker 4: I'm like, I don't know what's about to happen.
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  Speaker 6: And we had a really important conversation with my dad
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  Speaker 6: and he said something that we still say in TGS.
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  Speaker 6: He was like, son, small ideas will keep you small,
• 9:15
  Speaker 6: and so you have to fight for the best possible
• 9:17
  Speaker 6: version of what this business could be. And so we
• 9:21
  Speaker 6: kept dreaming, we kept pushing, and one million ended up
• 9:24
  Speaker 6: becoming two million that we needed. Two million became three
• 9:28
  Speaker 6: and we would just go around town trying to pitch
• 9:31
  Speaker 6: people the concept. We counted though it was ninety seven
• 9:37
  Speaker 6: straight people that said no before the first person say yes.
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  Speaker 6: I mean and I'm talking about painful notes. We would
• 9:43
  Speaker 6: go to these restaurants and like, I've sat in the
• 9:46
  Speaker 6: lobby of the Ritz guess what used to be the
• 9:49
  Speaker 6: writs in Atlanta. Nobody come I've sat at dinners with
• 9:53
  Speaker 6: people you pitch for four hours and I kid you not,
• 9:57
  Speaker 6: this dude said, so what is it? After four out
• 10:00
  Speaker 6: four straight hours? And so we kept going though, and
• 10:04
  Speaker 6: we would ask people, even when they told us no,
• 10:05
  Speaker 6: to refer us to people, and so they did and
• 10:09
  Speaker 6: kept going and the number kept growing, but kept using
• 10:12
  Speaker 6: that same advice like small DIDs will keep you small,
• 10:15
  Speaker 6: and that's how the I don't know the site kept going.
• 10:18
  Speaker 3: So when you're trying to get the finance and my
• 10:21
  Speaker 3: mom thinking like, what's that process like? Because you're trying
• 10:23
  Speaker 3: to get fine some answer for something that isn't really
• 10:26
  Speaker 3: here yet, and you're trying to tell people like this
• 10:28
  Speaker 3: is what it's going to be, So how do you
• 10:30
  Speaker 3: convince them?
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  Speaker 2: What's the conversation?
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  Speaker 4: Like it was, it was.
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  Speaker 6: A crazy Chicken or the egg problem because you needed
• 10:36
  Speaker 6: investors in order to get a building, but you needed
• 10:39
  Speaker 6: a building.
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  Speaker 4: To get investors.
• 10:40
  Speaker 6: Because you would go to people and be like, yo,
• 10:42
  Speaker 6: so I have this idea and they'd be like, well
• 10:43
  Speaker 6: where is it. You'd be like, well, if you give
• 10:44
  Speaker 6: me some money, I'll find out where it is. So
• 10:47
  Speaker 6: we were we got to a point where we kind
• 10:49
  Speaker 6: of like talked about both things happening at the same
• 10:51
  Speaker 6: time where we would like we had found a spot
• 10:54
  Speaker 6: where we are now, and we just kept like believing
• 10:59
  Speaker 6: that we would have the money necessary by the time
• 11:01
  Speaker 6: we needed to. And they were kind of all these
• 11:02
  Speaker 6: different dates where you had to have different amounts of
• 11:05
  Speaker 6: cash and fortunate enough that like those those numbers came in,
• 11:10
  Speaker 6: I mean, and they were they were big numbers that
• 11:14
  Speaker 6: we needed. I mean it was half a million or another
• 11:16
  Speaker 6: half a million to make different deposits. But that was
• 11:20
  Speaker 6: that ninety seven, just like all over town pitching people
• 11:24
  Speaker 6: like just I mean, I was talking to anybody that
• 11:27
  Speaker 6: I could about Tjes.
• 11:28
  Speaker 3: I read that your slogan became, hey, you got anybody
• 11:31
  Speaker 3: else that can tell us no, We're looking for more people.
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  Speaker 4: Yeah, truly, like.
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  Speaker 6: It was not a personal thing when you told us no,
• 11:36
  Speaker 6: because I believed I believe then and now that like
• 11:41
  Speaker 6: if I talked to you and you didn't get it,
• 11:43
  Speaker 6: that that was actually a sign that we were headed
• 11:45
  Speaker 6: in the right direction, because I'm like, anything that's disruptive,
• 11:49
  Speaker 6: like you're not supposed to understand. And that's how we
• 11:52
  Speaker 6: It wasn't personal. Folks would say no, and I'd be
• 11:54
  Speaker 6: like all right, cool, like you have another friend that
• 11:55
  Speaker 6: would say no, and a lot of times they did.
• 11:57
  Speaker 4: So you had to raise three million dollars roughly. Yeah,
• 12:01
  Speaker 4: So who was your first big break that was like,
• 12:03
  Speaker 4: all right, I involve invest in this. It was a
• 12:07
  Speaker 4: guy that nobody uh knows knows here, Yeah, just like
• 12:10
  Speaker 4: a low key businessman. It made some money in the
• 12:14
  Speaker 4: stock market. I guess we bugged him enough and he
• 12:18
  Speaker 4: was like, I'll give you twenty thousand in Our first
• 12:21
  Speaker 4: check was twenty thousand. So was it is it like
• 12:22
  Speaker 4: a shark tank? Are you giving up equity?
• 12:24
  Speaker 6: Like yeah, yeah, so yeah, no, yeah, there's no debt
• 12:27
  Speaker 6: in the business at all. It was all equity and
• 12:29
  Speaker 6: so yeah, we were selling parts of the company to
• 12:33
  Speaker 6: get the money.
• 12:35
  Speaker 4: And how long did it take you to get the
• 12:37
  Speaker 4: full hmount?
• 12:39
  Speaker 6: Nine months of like when since like from the time
• 12:42
  Speaker 6: we moved back here, it was nine months.
• 12:44
  Speaker 4: Until we had it like fully funded.
• 12:48
  Speaker 6: And even that is kind of strange because like it
• 12:51
  Speaker 6: truly wasn't like you read these stories where it'll be
• 12:53
  Speaker 6: like we got all the money and then we started.
• 12:56
  Speaker 6: That wasn't what we were doing, Like we would get
• 12:58
  Speaker 6: some money in and like sometimes y'all, I didn't even
• 13:02
  Speaker 6: have the cash for I don't even know if it
• 13:04
  Speaker 6: like officially hit our bank account because I'm telling you
• 13:07
  Speaker 6: that money we'd be gone, so we'd be on the
• 13:11
  Speaker 6: phone with the bank, like, look, I wrote a check,
• 13:14
  Speaker 6: and so there's some money that's about to hit our account.
• 13:17
  Speaker 6: I need you to clear the check that we deposited
• 13:21
  Speaker 6: because it's like it's coming out the same dayady, yeah, Like,
• 13:25
  Speaker 6: I mean, we learned all the different ways that you
• 13:28
  Speaker 6: can develop relationships with banks and really try to like
• 13:34
  Speaker 6: speed up the process because we weren't funded, like how
• 13:36
  Speaker 6: folks talk about doing stuff where you just have millions
• 13:40
  Speaker 6: and sitting on cash. Like I remember this article came
• 13:42
  Speaker 6: out that was like Ryan Wilson opens three million dollar
• 13:45
  Speaker 6: private club, and it was it almost made me want
• 13:48
  Speaker 6: to cry because like we had no money when that
• 13:50
  Speaker 6: article came out, and we were truly I used to
• 13:52
  Speaker 6: call TK on Mondays and be like, y'all, how much
• 13:55
  Speaker 6: money do we need to make to make it to Friday?
• 13:57
  Speaker 6: And that was that was really how we lived and
• 14:02
  Speaker 6: how do you make it to writing?
• 14:04
  Speaker 4: So all right, so you raise the money, you open
• 14:07
  Speaker 4: a spot, but that's only half the battle because now
• 14:11
  Speaker 4: I'm assuming now you got to have staff, you got
• 14:14
  Speaker 4: to start to pay back the investors on a certain level,
• 14:16
  Speaker 4: or just have some revenue come in period. So now
• 14:19
  Speaker 4: what's the next step after that to actually build it
• 14:22
  Speaker 4: out and generate revenue. Was it to bring people in
• 14:25
  Speaker 4: as members first?
• 14:26
  Speaker 6: Or events? What would you do first? So there's three
• 14:28
  Speaker 6: parts of our business. So yeah, members are kind of
• 14:31
  Speaker 6: the core part of it, and then we have a
• 14:33
  Speaker 6: restaurant and bar, we have events, and so we still
• 14:36
  Speaker 6: do those three things to this day, but early on
• 14:39
  Speaker 6: it was trying to get good at all of those
• 14:40
  Speaker 6: things really fast, Like we didn't have any time to
• 14:44
  Speaker 6: sit and like this time was very painful, but it
• 14:48
  Speaker 6: taught us the fundamentals of the business in a way
• 14:50
  Speaker 6: that like nothing else can teach you.
• 14:53
  Speaker 4: I Mean, when you truly have.
• 14:55
  Speaker 6: People to your point, like on payroll and you're looking
• 14:57
  Speaker 6: at them and you're thinking about rent and growth trees
• 15:00
  Speaker 6: and like they're counting on you to figure out how
• 15:02
  Speaker 6: to make sure that every check clears, you start to
• 15:06
  Speaker 6: figure out ways to make money. And that was that
• 15:09
  Speaker 6: was our promise to one another. T K and I
• 15:11
  Speaker 6: were like, yo, if we can get the place built out,
• 15:15
  Speaker 6: we will do everything at that point to make sure
• 15:17
  Speaker 6: that we're successful. So like that that won't be the
• 15:19
  Speaker 6: reason why this doesn't work if we can just get open.
• 15:22
  Speaker 6: So once the door's open, that was game time to me.
• 15:24
  Speaker 6: And we talking to everybody. I mean I've been every
• 15:29
  Speaker 6: every building and office in the city. If you know
• 15:33
  Speaker 6: them in they're in the culture, I probably knocked on
• 15:36
  Speaker 6: their door at some point trying to figure out what
• 15:38
  Speaker 6: we could do corporations, events, anything we could do.
• 15:41
  Speaker 3: Is that the marketing plan, right, So obviously you have
• 15:44
  Speaker 3: to get members now, So the marketing plan is like, yo,
• 15:46
  Speaker 3: let's go knock on as many doors of people that
• 15:48
  Speaker 3: we know in the culture that's trying to do things
• 15:50
  Speaker 3: for people, or like, is there something else that you're doing.
• 15:53
  Speaker 6: I mean, we didn't have any money for ads or
• 15:55
  Speaker 6: any of that early on, so yeah, it was we
• 15:58
  Speaker 6: were talking I mean and whole stuff. So we would
• 16:01
  Speaker 6: be like, come to TGS and let's talk about you know, X,
• 16:05
  Speaker 6: Y and Z, and from there meet people and then
• 16:07
  Speaker 6: the same thing we did with the investors, do you
• 16:09
  Speaker 6: have anybody else that we should meet? And a lot
• 16:11
  Speaker 6: of son's supposed to be like yeah, you should meet
• 16:13
  Speaker 6: my man knows doing this and doing that, and I'd
• 16:15
  Speaker 6: be perfect, cool, what's that number, I'll call him?
• 16:18
  Speaker 4: And we did.
• 16:19
  Speaker 6: I mean it was like there was no money for
• 16:22
  Speaker 6: we weren't on radio, there was no I mean, we
• 16:26
  Speaker 6: were talking to people and posting whatever content. We didn't
• 16:30
  Speaker 6: run our first marketing anything until two years plus, and
• 16:36
  Speaker 6: by then people knew about the gathering spot. So there
• 16:39
  Speaker 6: wasn't any entrepreneurs that talk like that. But they're always like,
• 16:44
  Speaker 6: you know, I need money so I can get marketing,
• 16:46
  Speaker 6: and like, I hear you on one level, but you
• 16:50
  Speaker 6: can you can get your own stuff out if you
• 16:52
  Speaker 6: have to, depending on what it is. And that's the
• 16:55
  Speaker 6: first we took.
• 16:56
  Speaker 4: So as far as the membership, and so correct me
• 17:01
  Speaker 4: if I'm wrong. The membership for people that it's like
• 17:02
  Speaker 4: a coworking space. That's the people that pay memberships, right.
• 17:05
  Speaker 6: So in part, so you have access to the workspace,
• 17:10
  Speaker 6: to the restaurant and bar, and then we program a lot.
• 17:12
  Speaker 6: We host like thirty events a month that are specifically
• 17:16
  Speaker 6: for members of the club. What you are more getting
• 17:18
  Speaker 6: as a member is access to the network of other members.
• 17:22
  Speaker 6: And yeah, sure the ability to work, and sure the
• 17:24
  Speaker 6: ability to eat, but more of like the combined network.
• 17:28
  Speaker 6: I mean, the youngest member is twenty one, the oldest
• 17:31
  Speaker 6: is eighty eight. There's people that work for some of
• 17:33
  Speaker 6: the biggest companies in the city and people that are
• 17:35
  Speaker 6: starting their own businesses dope creatives, right, So, like, if
• 17:38
  Speaker 6: you think about it, if you're an entrepreneur and you're
• 17:40
  Speaker 6: trying to figure out how to be successful, meeting other
• 17:43
  Speaker 6: entrepreneurs is great, but like meeting some creatives is even better.
• 17:46
  Speaker 6: A lot of times meeting some people that work for
• 17:48
  Speaker 6: a lot of the other companies in town that could
• 17:50
  Speaker 6: be helpful.
• 17:51
  Speaker 4: So we're building that more than we're building like workspace.
• 17:53
  Speaker 4: So it's like a secret society exclusive.
• 17:58
  Speaker 6: Yeah, I mean there's there's exclusivity to it, but it
• 18:00
  Speaker 6: for us is more about trying to make sure we
• 18:03
  Speaker 6: know everybody that's there so that I can introduce you
• 18:06
  Speaker 6: to whatever it is that you're looking for. So my
• 18:09
  Speaker 6: goal is when you come to our bar, that the
• 18:11
  Speaker 6: person on your left and your right are people that
• 18:13
  Speaker 6: you want to meet for some reason, whether that you
• 18:15
  Speaker 6: can do business with them or you just want to
• 18:17
  Speaker 6: know them socially. That's what our team is trying to build.
• 18:19
  Speaker 6: Towards each day, Like, how do I make sure no
• 18:21
  Speaker 6: matter when you pull up, both of the people are
• 18:24
  Speaker 6: folks that you want to talk to, and that's what
• 18:27
  Speaker 6: people are really like joining more than anything.
• 18:29
  Speaker 4: So how did you You said you didn't run ads
• 18:31
  Speaker 4: for the first two years and you've built a reputation
• 18:34
  Speaker 4: because I've heard about it in New York so obviously
• 18:36
  Speaker 4: you've done a good job with branding and you know,
• 18:39
  Speaker 4: so how did you do that? Like what was the
• 18:42
  Speaker 4: marketing plan if you wasn't spending any money on.
• 18:44
  Speaker 6: Ads putting out content? We were just social media, yeah,
• 18:48
  Speaker 6: I mean not paid stuff, but we would do stuff.
• 18:50
  Speaker 6: We would put it out on social and then I
• 18:52
  Speaker 6: mean that old school thing of really inviting people. We
• 18:54
  Speaker 6: looked at TVs as our home, and I was trying
• 18:56
  Speaker 6: to invite as many people into our house as possible,
• 18:59
  Speaker 6: certainly early on, so we were I mean legends in
• 19:03
  Speaker 6: this city that would partner with us on doing I
• 19:07
  Speaker 6: remember the dates of some of them, like August four,
• 19:09
  Speaker 6: twenty sixteen, got some legends Shaka and shout out to Chaka,
• 19:14
  Speaker 6: but Shaka zul brings Luducris and Natalie Emmanual talk about
• 19:18
  Speaker 6: fast eight tact house the mayor come Cassim was the
• 19:21
  Speaker 6: mayor that that time. Cassine comes to TGS for the
• 19:24
  Speaker 6: first time, and so TGS started to get out because
• 19:27
  Speaker 6: there were these moments that were happening that like you
• 19:30
  Speaker 6: really couldn't find anywhere else, and like conversations that were
• 19:32
  Speaker 6: happening that like there weren't to this day really don't
• 19:35
  Speaker 6: happen in a lot of places.
• 19:36
  Speaker 4: Yeah, comment when we did avent in Atlanta, tell people
• 19:39
  Speaker 4: that was like you should check out that. Yeah, that's
• 19:41
  Speaker 4: what it should be at that's what Yeah, so next
• 19:43
  Speaker 4: time next year.
• 19:45
  Speaker 3: So with with membership comes pricing, right, and so how
• 19:48
  Speaker 3: did you figure out the sweet spot of pricing and
• 19:52
  Speaker 3: like what analytics did you use to come up with
• 19:53
  Speaker 3: a price that you felt like, you know what, this
• 19:55
  Speaker 3: is where we should be for members.
• 19:57
  Speaker 6: A lot of market research, so we would go to
• 20:00
  Speaker 6: some of the co working spots, but a lot.
• 20:02
  Speaker 4: Of the city clubs.
• 20:03
  Speaker 6: So the best conference TS is really the city club market,
• 20:06
  Speaker 6: not really co working spaces, And so we would go
• 20:09
  Speaker 6: to every city club.
• 20:10
  Speaker 4: And figure out where they were priced city club.
• 20:12
  Speaker 6: But yeah, so there's black folks historically have not been
• 20:17
  Speaker 6: invited into city like these they're basically country clubs without
• 20:20
  Speaker 6: the golf that they're around town.
• 20:22
  Speaker 4: Oh, that's like I think we think that we went
• 20:24
  Speaker 4: to the that's crazy. What was the name of that place,
• 20:29
  Speaker 4: so whole house.
• 20:32
  Speaker 6: So yeah, sohos are very well known. That on was
• 20:35
  Speaker 6: for creatives, and it's in a lot of different cities.
• 20:38
  Speaker 6: But there's even like old kind of stuffier.
• 20:42
  Speaker 4: Like the Yale Club in Manhattan, like when you hear
• 20:45
  Speaker 4: people say like good old boys Club, Like the good
• 20:47
  Speaker 4: old Boys Club is the city club or the country
• 20:50
  Speaker 4: club and a lot of cities, and so I would
• 20:52
  Speaker 4: study those spots and be like, what would it be
• 20:55
  Speaker 4: like to build one of those, but for the culture,
• 20:58
  Speaker 4: like where you could.
• 20:59
  Speaker 6: Come dress how like we want to dress and hear
• 21:03
  Speaker 6: music that we want to hear and see art that
• 21:04
  Speaker 6: we want to see. Like those were the kind of drivers,
• 21:08
  Speaker 6: and so we did research on how they were priced.
• 21:11
  Speaker 6: There was one in town when we first started, and
• 21:13
  Speaker 6: this is funny how things changed, but they were two
• 21:16
  Speaker 6: hundred dollars a month, and so we said, all right,
• 21:18
  Speaker 6: we're gonna be one eighty five, and we're gonna we're
• 21:22
  Speaker 6: gonna be open more than them. We're gonna have more
• 21:24
  Speaker 6: programs than them, And I remember people would be like
• 21:27
  Speaker 6: one eighty five, like they're two, you're new, how are you.
• 21:31
  Speaker 4: Gonna do that?
• 21:33
  Speaker 6: And we started growing and we eventually moved within like
• 21:37
  Speaker 6: six months, we moved up to two hundred dollars, which
• 21:40
  Speaker 6: is what it is now. And what's funny is that
• 21:44
  Speaker 6: they're like one seventy five now they've they've come the
• 21:47
  Speaker 6: opposite direction. And TGS is the most expensive city club
• 21:52
  Speaker 6: in Atlanta with black folks, and so there's a whole
• 21:55
  Speaker 6: bunch I could talk about in that, but it's either
• 21:58
  Speaker 6: one hundred dollars a month or two thousand dollars for
• 21:59
  Speaker 6: the year. It's how we're price. Everybody's on equal on
• 22:03
  Speaker 6: equal for them.
• 22:05
  Speaker 4: So that's interesting because yeah, now I have a better
• 22:08
  Speaker 4: perspective on it because youah, like the the Yale Club
• 22:12
  Speaker 4: in Manhattan and those, and you're right, it is exclusive
• 22:16
  Speaker 4: situation and a lot of wealthy people, businessmen that go there,
• 22:19
  Speaker 4: and it's not something that the average person probably knows
• 22:22
  Speaker 4: about and you only hear too much for like, you know,
• 22:24
  Speaker 4: our culture stuff like that. So to create that there's
• 22:28
  Speaker 4: still a reasonable price. Two hundred dollars a month, that's
• 22:30
  Speaker 4: a reasonable price, because a lot of those is like
• 22:32
  Speaker 4: a thousand dollars a month.
• 22:33
  Speaker 6: It's like crazy, I mean, like the country club. Country
• 22:36
  Speaker 6: clubs a country I mean eighty a year. Yeah, I
• 22:39
  Speaker 6: mean you could go eighty one hundred thousand just to
• 22:40
  Speaker 6: get into a country club. So we were never trying
• 22:42
  Speaker 6: to be anywhere near that. But yeah, to your point,
• 22:46
  Speaker 6: we've never been invited in any of those spots.
• 22:50
  Speaker 4: It's never.
• 22:51
  Speaker 6: It's two groups that we paid attention to is black
• 22:53
  Speaker 6: folks and women that have never been invited into the
• 22:56
  Speaker 6: country club city club experience. And so the club is
• 23:01
  Speaker 6: black and sixty percent of our membership base are women.
• 23:03
  Speaker 4: On purpose, how do you how do you engage the women? Like,
• 23:08
  Speaker 4: how'd you get the women engage more than men?
• 23:13
  Speaker 6: Black women lead everything first, So I mean, honestly, those
• 23:17
  Speaker 6: were the first folks that really just so supported supported
• 23:21
  Speaker 6: the business. I mean we were twenty four twenty five
• 23:25
  Speaker 6: depending on what we're talking about, and so it was
• 23:27
  Speaker 6: a lot of black women that you know, at the
• 23:29
  Speaker 6: top of their game in the city.
• 23:30
  Speaker 4: They were like, all right, I'm going to join and
• 23:32
  Speaker 4: be a member.
• 23:33
  Speaker 6: And then from there, I mean, we built our team
• 23:36
  Speaker 6: and just talked about how that was important to us.
• 23:38
  Speaker 6: I mean it still is. I never wanted that good
• 23:42
  Speaker 6: old boys club kind of talk to be affiliated with TCS.
• 23:46
  Speaker 6: And so the way that you avoid it is just
• 23:48
  Speaker 6: like it has always been harder to join the club
• 23:52
  Speaker 6: as a guy, and we prioritized making sure that women
• 23:55
  Speaker 6: were at.
• 23:56
  Speaker 4: The head of the experience. It's harder.
• 23:58
  Speaker 6: We just don't accept as many guys. Yeah, so you
• 24:01
  Speaker 6: have to be accepted in GOTA, you gottapply. What's the process?
• 24:05
  Speaker 6: So it starts online. You give us some general information
• 24:09
  Speaker 6: about you, but then there's an interview, so someone on
• 24:12
  Speaker 6: our team will get in contact with you and.
• 24:13
  Speaker 4: Ask you, yeah, about what you do.
• 24:17
  Speaker 6: But to be honest with you, if we don't care
• 24:19
  Speaker 6: so much about what you do on a day to day,
• 24:23
  Speaker 6: the most important question to us is like, and we
• 24:26
  Speaker 6: ask it this way, is what animate you outside of
• 24:28
  Speaker 6: the office. And the answer to that question matters because
• 24:32
  Speaker 6: we're not at TGS like trying.
• 24:35
  Speaker 4: To be stuffy for stuffy's sake.
• 24:37
  Speaker 6: It's ain't about you know, self congratulating each other and
• 24:40
  Speaker 6: just sitting around looking at each other, but about being
• 24:42
  Speaker 6: specific about knowing who's there so that you can get
• 24:44
  Speaker 6: work done.
• 24:45
  Speaker 4: Quality Control we actually we had a we went there.
• 24:48
  Speaker 4: Ash Cash, you know him, absolutely, he's a member. We
• 24:51
  Speaker 4: met him. We met him there the last the last time.
• 24:54
  Speaker 4: It was a sorority having an event there. As we
• 24:57
  Speaker 4: pulled in. Yeah for sure, good brother. Yes, that's all
• 25:01
  Speaker 4: got So all right, we're in Atlanta. This is the
• 25:04
  Speaker 4: home of black excellent influencers, all of that. So you
• 25:08
  Speaker 4: talked about Ludacris. How important is it to tap in
• 25:12
  Speaker 4: with the influencers, entertainers, athletes out here and how has
• 25:18
  Speaker 4: how like valuable is that as far as like a
• 25:21
  Speaker 4: stamp of a celebrity coming in And I was.
• 25:24
  Speaker 3: Looking at the names on the wall when I got there,
• 25:26
  Speaker 3: I'm like, oh, that's Cam Newing.
• 25:28
  Speaker 4: It's like black Hollywood.
• 25:30
  Speaker 6: Yeah, I mean you'll see, you'll see. And it's said
• 25:36
  Speaker 6: all over time. But there's a really dope company that
• 25:37
  Speaker 6: has some shirts that say Atlanta influences everything, And to me,
• 25:43
  Speaker 6: it really does, because more than anything, the thing that
• 25:46
  Speaker 6: we export and send all over the world is our culture.
• 25:49
  Speaker 6: You could go anywhere in the world now and people
• 25:52
  Speaker 6: know and have heard stuff that's come out of this city.
• 25:55
  Speaker 4: So things have changed.
• 25:57
  Speaker 2: They used to be us in New York.
• 26:00
  Speaker 4: Atlanta had it for the last twenty years.
• 26:02
  Speaker 3: I mean, I'm giving it to Atlanta, but it's a fact.
• 26:07
  Speaker 6: I'm biased, but I mean it really is a fact.
• 26:09
  Speaker 6: You can go anywhere and people people know this sound,
• 26:12
  Speaker 6: they know they know the culture that it is made here.
• 26:16
  Speaker 6: And so yeah, it was it was very important to
• 26:18
  Speaker 6: make sure that the club not only like opened our
• 26:22
  Speaker 6: doors to make sure that it was like the culture
• 26:25
  Speaker 6: was invited and was building the experience with us, but
• 26:28
  Speaker 6: to get to other cities. We didn't think that was
• 26:32
  Speaker 6: possible if TGS wasn't understood as being kind of one
• 26:35
  Speaker 6: of the places where, no matter what we're talking about
• 26:39
  Speaker 6: is music or sports or whatever, that that community felt
• 26:42
  Speaker 6: at home at.
• 26:43
  Speaker 4: So I mean, so.
• 26:45
  Speaker 3: The littlecus event, you said that the mayor came, and
• 26:49
  Speaker 3: so I'm thinking to myself, because I've seen the level
• 26:51
  Speaker 3: of politicians that I've come to the gathering spot, right,
• 26:54
  Speaker 3: we had ambassadors for young Stacy Abrams. I think I
• 26:58
  Speaker 3: believe I've read you have President Biden.
• 27:00
  Speaker 2: Have show up.
• 27:01
  Speaker 3: So how did that come about? Was it because the
• 27:03
  Speaker 3: mayor came? And now it was like, wait, politician is insane,
• 27:06
  Speaker 3: Like this is an audience we need to tap into.
• 27:09
  Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean a couple of things.
• 27:10
  Speaker 6: One of the things that's cool about Atlanta is that
• 27:12
  Speaker 6: we know each other across industry lines here, so it's
• 27:17
  Speaker 6: not weird to be in politics and know an artist.
• 27:22
  Speaker 6: But I mean another thing is that, I mean we're
• 27:24
  Speaker 6: very politically active, and it happened the entire time.
• 27:27
  Speaker 2: I mean the world. You put the world on notice.
• 27:29
  Speaker 6: For me, it never made sense to be neutral about politics,
• 27:33
  Speaker 6: so we were never Now y'all have some businesses are
• 27:35
  Speaker 6: I don't get into politics or I don't have an
• 27:37
  Speaker 6: opinion about that, and like really everybody does.
• 27:40
  Speaker 4: I will tell you, like who.
• 27:41
  Speaker 6: We're supporting and why we're supporting them, and we will
• 27:44
  Speaker 6: work to try to get those people elected. And so yeah,
• 27:46
  Speaker 6: I mean both on a local level, but then all
• 27:49
  Speaker 6: the way through. I mean we've had President Biden on
• 27:52
  Speaker 6: a couple of occasions, We've had Vice President Harris on
• 27:56
  Speaker 6: a couple of occasions, and that's all because I mean
• 28:00
  Speaker 6: we're very active in trying to make sure the folks
• 28:02
  Speaker 6: were voting and understood what was at stake in all
• 28:06
  Speaker 6: the I mean, it's not just this last election cycle
• 28:08
  Speaker 6: since we've been open.
• 28:09
  Speaker 4: So let me ask you this as far as COVID
• 28:12
  Speaker 4: nineteen right when brick and martar businesses is closing left
• 28:16
  Speaker 4: and right. Not only do you have a brick and
• 28:18
  Speaker 4: martar business, you have a gathering spot literally business. So
• 28:24
  Speaker 4: that's like even crazier, like you know what I'm saying,
• 28:27
  Speaker 4: to be able to survive like in this climate. Atlanta
• 28:31
  Speaker 4: is a little different because regulations aren't aren't the same.
• 28:34
  Speaker 2: That was that was that was very nice to you.
• 28:36
  Speaker 2: A little different.
• 28:38
  Speaker 4: So the first thing I want to ask is how
• 28:40
  Speaker 4: you survived that. But the next two locations are in
• 28:43
  Speaker 4: states where it's completely different from Atlanta, well, District of
• 28:47
  Speaker 4: Columbia and LA which are democratic, you know, territories, strict lockdowns.
• 28:54
  Speaker 4: It's not the same. So how have you been able
• 28:58
  Speaker 4: to manage during COVID and welding those two locations out
• 29:01
  Speaker 4: in different parts? What are your thoughts? Are you a
• 29:06
  Speaker 4: little nervous about that or what's your thoughts on that?
• 29:10
  Speaker 6: I'm not really nervous though, because the core focus of
• 29:13
  Speaker 6: our team is really not about space. I mean, I
• 29:17
  Speaker 6: know that that sounds. We have a lot of space.
• 29:18
  Speaker 6: I mean it's the club in Atlanta's twenty five thousand
• 29:21
  Speaker 6: square feet, so it's not that we take little spaces,
• 29:24
  Speaker 6: but the focus of our team each day is really
• 29:27
  Speaker 6: about people, right, and so COVID can't change that interest, right,
• 29:32
  Speaker 6: connecting people is I remember we had a meeting early
• 29:37
  Speaker 6: on after we had closed, and I was trying to
• 29:39
  Speaker 6: tell our teams, like, look, this is definitely unprecedented. We've
• 29:43
  Speaker 6: never been in a situation like this before. But the
• 29:47
  Speaker 6: setting is going to change the mission of why we
• 29:49
  Speaker 6: do this every day. That's not changing at all, right, Like,
• 29:53
  Speaker 6: this has always been about connecting people by trying to
• 29:56
  Speaker 6: create experiences. So we're going to create them online or
• 29:59
  Speaker 6: whatever way are the safest way to do it given
• 30:02
  Speaker 6: the times. But why we are doing this each day
• 30:05
  Speaker 6: is not going to shift. And so even when it
• 30:07
  Speaker 6: got hard, that's what we would tell ourselves. As cliche
• 30:11
  Speaker 6: as that sounds to a certain extent, I just refuse
• 30:14
  Speaker 6: to have COVID be the thing that couldn't be. So
• 30:20
  Speaker 6: much it happened at TGS, I was not like COVID
• 30:23
  Speaker 6: couldn't be the thing that was going to kill it,
• 30:27
  Speaker 6: especially when like again, I've never woken up in the
• 30:29
  Speaker 6: morning and been like, man, I wonder how the workspace,
• 30:32
  Speaker 6: like how we're going to build a better workspace. Like
• 30:36
  Speaker 6: that's just I'm thinking about how can we get this
• 30:39
  Speaker 6: person to come and speak, or how can I make
• 30:41
  Speaker 6: sure that these two people know each other, or like,
• 30:43
  Speaker 6: how can we explore this topic to make sure folks
• 30:45
  Speaker 6: are informed. COVID doesn't touch any of that. And so
• 30:49
  Speaker 6: DC and LA and really any other city that we're
• 30:52
  Speaker 6: looking at, I think the fundamentals of building community that
• 30:56
  Speaker 6: doesn't change no matter where it is that we go,
• 30:59
  Speaker 6: and that's what I'm still focused on. It'll feel different,
• 31:01
  Speaker 6: it'll look different. DC has a very different culture than Atlanta,
• 31:06
  Speaker 6: but it's still about community and so there's thankfully there's
• 31:10
  Speaker 6: a very large group of members in DC right now,
• 31:14
  Speaker 6: and we really haven't been fully open in DC.
• 31:17
  Speaker 4: Do you feel like that the future of even community
• 31:21
  Speaker 4: may change, Like we see apps like Clubhouse where eventually
• 31:25
  Speaker 4: really clubhouse is just a networking event on telephone. So
• 31:32
  Speaker 4: do you think that potentially us as humans may change
• 31:37
  Speaker 4: the way that we interact with people and not actually
• 31:39
  Speaker 4: interact with people face to face anymore.
• 31:43
  Speaker 6: Nah, So this is where I'm old school. I think
• 31:45
  Speaker 6: that I think there's certain things that are just fundamental.
• 31:48
  Speaker 6: You can LinkedIn me D and ME all you want to,
• 31:52
  Speaker 6: but eventually, I'm gonna ask you to come meet me
• 31:54
  Speaker 6: somewhere if we really are friends, if we're really like,
• 31:56
  Speaker 6: I'm going to ask you to meet me somewhere, and
• 31:59
  Speaker 6: I mean you here. All the time people talk about
• 32:01
  Speaker 6: zoom fatigue, and I can't do another zoom Like that's
• 32:04
  Speaker 6: because at the end of the day, like we still
• 32:06
  Speaker 6: want to see each other at a point time, Like
• 32:08
  Speaker 6: we could have done this conversation on a computer.
• 32:13
  Speaker 4: It doesn't have the same field to it.
• 32:15
  Speaker 6: And so no, I think that folks that talk about
• 32:19
  Speaker 6: stuff changing in that way are going way too far.
• 32:22
  Speaker 3: Like during the process, did you build out TGS online
• 32:27
  Speaker 3: like I was being somewhere, you created an online environment.
• 32:30
  Speaker 6: Yeah, we were fortunate that we built out an online
• 32:33
  Speaker 6: platform that rolled out in October of twenty nineteen, So
• 32:38
  Speaker 6: going into COVID, we already had a lot of content
• 32:41
  Speaker 6: on the site, so that wasn't a major pivot. We
• 32:44
  Speaker 6: just did more stuff well focus on online, yeah, I mean,
• 32:48
  Speaker 6: but it was already there. It was weird, like for
• 32:51
  Speaker 6: years we didn't have that, and then we made the
• 32:53
  Speaker 6: decision to make sure it was really driven by like
• 32:56
  Speaker 6: people would live like an Alpharetta and want to see program,
• 33:00
  Speaker 6: but that just didn't want to drive the TGS on
• 33:02
  Speaker 6: a given night. So we were recording this stuff and
• 33:04
  Speaker 6: just putting it on this platform, and it worked out
• 33:06
  Speaker 6: that when.
• 33:07
  Speaker 4: COVID hit, we had all that stuff.
• 33:09
  Speaker 6: Plus I mean when we do we filmed like ten
• 33:12
  Speaker 6: conversations a week at TGS, so like it was so
• 33:15
  Speaker 6: you sell those, so it just is included in your
• 33:19
  Speaker 6: own membership. Okay, if you remember, you can watch whatever
• 33:21
  Speaker 6: we've ever done.
• 33:22
  Speaker 4: Do you have any plans of doing events like virtual
• 33:27
  Speaker 4: events like stuff that if you're not a member's everything
• 33:29
  Speaker 4: exclusive just for members. Everything's for members. Do you have
• 33:32
  Speaker 4: any plans on doing things for other people that's not members?
• 33:37
  Speaker 4: So we.
• 33:39
  Speaker 6: Anything that is about like social justice or political engagement,
• 33:43
  Speaker 6: we opened that stuff up. So I mean during the
• 33:46
  Speaker 6: summer when there was a lot of protests here, we
• 33:49
  Speaker 6: opened our doors up to any protester or any organizer
• 33:53
  Speaker 6: in the city that needed a space to organize. But
• 33:56
  Speaker 6: then we've also opened up conversations, So I mean even
• 33:58
  Speaker 6: as recently as last week, we had conversation about violence
• 34:01
  Speaker 6: in Atlanta, and you don't have to be a member
• 34:03
  Speaker 6: to watch that conversation. We just think it's important and
• 34:06
  Speaker 6: so yeah, I mean that's probably the one exception to
• 34:09
  Speaker 6: the membership piece if we just think it's something that
• 34:13
  Speaker 6: the community needs to know.
• 34:14
  Speaker 4: But I would think, like even from a modernization standpoint,
• 34:16
  Speaker 4: because like online summers is big right now, even regular
• 34:18
  Speaker 4: summers pot and it's like, you know, it might be
• 34:21
  Speaker 4: another revenue stream. It could be for us. I mean
• 34:25
  Speaker 4: we ended up buying.
• 34:28
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  Speaker 7: Coach, the energy out there felt different. What changed for
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• 36:48
  Speaker 6: Claim from music conference and festival down here called A
• 36:50
  Speaker 6: three C. There so a lot more of the efforts
• 36:56
  Speaker 6: in terms of monetizing content and all that have been
• 36:59
  Speaker 6: on the A three C side unless about TGS.
• 37:02
  Speaker 2: So A three C existed before you didn't You didn't
• 37:04
  Speaker 2: create it?
• 37:05
  Speaker 6: No, no, no, we we bought it A three C.
• 37:08
  Speaker 6: This past year was year sixteen. It's been going for
• 37:11
  Speaker 6: a minute.
• 37:11
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I've heard about it. I've heard about it.
• 37:13
  Speaker 4: I think I went to there, we go there one
• 37:15
  Speaker 4: music festival, one music So all right, so let's talk
• 37:17
  Speaker 4: about that. Then that's interesting. So how did how did
• 37:20
  Speaker 4: this come about? As far as is a C three
• 37:23
  Speaker 4: A three C three C conference how did that? How
• 37:26
  Speaker 4: did that come about? And how did how do you
• 37:28
  Speaker 4: acquire a music festival? Haws that?
• 37:31
  Speaker 6: So I'm on a panel with an entrepreneur uh named
• 37:34
  Speaker 6: Paul Judge after Paul J.
• 37:36
  Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, we gotta get him.
• 37:39
  Speaker 2: Yeah, he's another one that just keeps slipping.
• 37:42
  Speaker 6: I will, I'll try to see if I could I
• 37:44
  Speaker 6: can help with that. So I'm on a panel with
• 37:46
  Speaker 6: with with Paul Paul coach k at this at twenty
• 37:50
  Speaker 6: eighteen at A three C. And I didn't really know
• 37:54
  Speaker 6: Paul that well, and it was it was interesting like
• 37:57
  Speaker 6: we I mean, we knew of one another and been
• 38:00
  Speaker 6: to He's been to all of his his businesses around
• 38:03
  Speaker 6: the time. Make a long story short, I learned that
• 38:06
  Speaker 6: the business was coming up for sale. And what was
• 38:09
  Speaker 6: interesting about A three C is that it was not
• 38:11
  Speaker 6: owned by the culture.
• 38:14
  Speaker 4: Four white guys owned A three C.
• 38:16
  Speaker 6: Wow, and I had no plans of buying it, but
• 38:23
  Speaker 6: heard that the company was thinking about selling and we
• 38:28
  Speaker 6: just started talking about like this is Atlanta. We talked
• 38:32
  Speaker 6: about this is a home of culture in many ways,
• 38:35
  Speaker 6: what is it like to have like a major conference
• 38:39
  Speaker 6: really be owned by the culture too. And we spent
• 38:44
  Speaker 6: the last half of twenty eighteen. Someone twenty nineteen to
• 38:47
  Speaker 6: buy the company and produced the twenty nineteen version. A
• 38:52
  Speaker 6: three C happens every October, so we produced the twenty
• 38:55
  Speaker 6: nineteen version.
• 38:56
  Speaker 2: That was what nas was the feature on that one.
• 38:59
  Speaker 6: That was the year before okay thing our headliners were
• 39:05
  Speaker 6: on the music side, Megan the Stallion, most depth was
• 39:11
  Speaker 6: on it. I'm trying to remember everybody there who was performed.
• 39:16
  Speaker 6: There was like twenty different concerts. But then Dapper Dam
• 39:21
  Speaker 6: was the keynote that year. There was a lot of people.
• 39:24
  Speaker 4: Spoke, so it's like a Southwest Southwestern.
• 39:27
  Speaker 6: Yeah, so it's it's conference and music. So music at night.
• 39:31
  Speaker 2: Is it held at the gathering spot or was it
• 39:32
  Speaker 2: spread out throughout there?
• 39:33
  Speaker 5: Yeah?
• 39:33
  Speaker 4: No, the it's a through C is too big.
• 39:35
  Speaker 6: I mean there was there was outdoor only seven thousand
• 39:38
  Speaker 6: people or something at A three twenty nineteen, but it's
• 39:43
  Speaker 6: indoor at America's Mark downtown and then at music venues all.
• 39:46
  Speaker 4: Across the city. So that's how it's like south By.
• 39:49
  Speaker 4: So you didn't do it this year, all virtual this year,
• 39:52
  Speaker 4: but what's your plans forward? Moving forward?
• 39:55
  Speaker 6: So it's in October every year, so we feel good
• 39:57
  Speaker 6: about how it. Yeah, we feel good about being able
• 39:59
  Speaker 6: to get back in person by then in close contact
• 40:03
  Speaker 6: with all of the event, big event kind of planners
• 40:06
  Speaker 6: in town, and everybody feels pretty good about October.
• 40:09
  Speaker 4: So our plan is to be back in person. So
• 40:10
  Speaker 4: how is that? Because you ever heard of curl Fest.
• 40:13
  Speaker 4: We interviewed some people. Yeah, we grew up with on
• 40:16
  Speaker 4: shide out to someone. We interviewed her and she was
• 40:18
  Speaker 4: telling us about putting together a festival. That's the first
• 40:21
  Speaker 4: person that we really interviewed that had something to that scale.
• 40:24
  Speaker 4: They have like thirty thousand people that come to that.
• 40:27
  Speaker 4: But this is music and you said, like fashion and
• 40:31
  Speaker 4: tech and all of that stuff. So what is the
• 40:34
  Speaker 4: undertakings of putting this together? Like how long does it take?
• 40:39
  Speaker 2: Planning?
• 40:39
  Speaker 4: Yeah, Like if y'all would.
• 40:41
  Speaker 6: Have told me how much somebody would have told me
• 40:44
  Speaker 6: how much it takes, it's a lot. I mean it's
• 40:47
  Speaker 6: a lot of planning. I mean we hosted just shows.
• 40:51
  Speaker 6: I mean there were seven like primary shows our year
• 40:57
  Speaker 6: that the first year we did it, and then conversations.
• 41:01
  Speaker 6: I don't I can't even tell you. I mean it's
• 41:02
  Speaker 6: a lot. I mean there's like hundreds of speakers, by
• 41:05
  Speaker 6: the time is all over, it's a lot you really
• 41:09
  Speaker 6: worth it financially because I seem like I think she
• 41:12
  Speaker 6: was telling us crow fests like a million dollars something
• 41:14
  Speaker 6: like that put together. Yeah, it caused more than that
• 41:16
  Speaker 6: to produce, but your thing is probably more evolved.
• 41:19
  Speaker 4: So it's like, I mean, you make money I'm assuming
• 41:21
  Speaker 4: off of sponsorships and ticket sales, but is it really
• 41:25
  Speaker 4: financially worth it? Yeah?
• 41:27
  Speaker 6: No, I mean it certainly can be. I mean I
• 41:32
  Speaker 6: look at I mean, the A three C's existed for
• 41:34
  Speaker 6: a while, but we are rebuilding parts of the model
• 41:38
  Speaker 6: and building new relationships to help scale, especially on a
• 41:43
  Speaker 6: partnership up front, and it definitely can be. I mean,
• 41:47
  Speaker 6: if you look at some of the big conferences and
• 41:49
  Speaker 6: festivals that happen when you get to scale and you
• 41:51
  Speaker 6: have top tier partners, it makes a lot of sense.
• 41:55
  Speaker 6: But I mean, to be honest with you, the motivation
• 41:57
  Speaker 6: for A three C and it's acquired, it was more
• 42:01
  Speaker 6: about trying to to make sure that the it was
• 42:06
  Speaker 6: just owned by the culture. And I mean it wasn't
• 42:09
  Speaker 6: a bad it wasn't a bad business by any stretch,
• 42:12
  Speaker 6: but I can't say that the motivation was to you know,
• 42:14
  Speaker 6: retire off of a three C either.
• 42:17
  Speaker 3: So all the local companies I'm talking like the big
• 42:19
  Speaker 3: companies here in Atlanta, are they allies in this in
• 42:22
  Speaker 3: this in this deal as far as sponsorships like Coca
• 42:24
  Speaker 3: Cola and Turner of the Dead.
• 42:26
  Speaker 6: Yeah, I mean Atlanta has the third highest concentration of
• 42:30
  Speaker 6: fortune five hundred headquarters in the country. So you got
• 42:34
  Speaker 6: a lot of businesses in town that that you know,
• 42:38
  Speaker 6: through their brands, interact.
• 42:39
  Speaker 4: With the stuff that we build.
• 42:41
  Speaker 6: So yeah, Coke, Uh, you got all the airlines here,
• 42:44
  Speaker 6: you got spots like home Depot. There's definitely like a
• 42:49
  Speaker 6: great city to have those conversations. Yeah, because thinking I mean,
• 42:52
  Speaker 6: there's all the banks here.
• 42:54
  Speaker 3: I heard you said that, you know, there's a lot
• 42:56
  Speaker 3: of disparity here in the city. And the one thing
• 42:58
  Speaker 3: you're going to start doing is measuring allyship by activity.
• 43:02
  Speaker 2: And I was like, Oh, that's powerful.
• 43:04
  Speaker 3: So like, is this one way or what are some
• 43:05
  Speaker 3: other ways that you make You're going to make sure
• 43:08
  Speaker 3: that that happens.
• 43:09
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 43:09
  Speaker 6: I mean I think that this moment requires us to
• 43:11
  Speaker 6: really push beyond conversation. I mean, for as much as
• 43:16
  Speaker 6: as I love Atlanta, there are some challenges here about
• 43:18
  Speaker 6: making sure that everybody in Atlanta is going to be
• 43:21
  Speaker 6: able to participate in the future growth of the city,
• 43:25
  Speaker 6: and historically we've not done a good job of doing that.
• 43:28
  Speaker 6: I mean, right next door to the gathering spot, the
• 43:32
  Speaker 6: next neighborhood over the median income is twenty.
• 43:34
  Speaker 4: Eight thousand dollars.
• 43:36
  Speaker 6: So to have that community be right next to a
• 43:42
  Speaker 6: multi billion dollar stadium and the headquarters of one of
• 43:45
  Speaker 6: the biggest businesses in the world that actually cast a
• 43:48
  Speaker 6: shadow on those communities. We got to have active conversation
• 43:53
  Speaker 6: about that leads to money, frankly, like being spent, Like
• 43:57
  Speaker 6: we have to have investment in our community ways we
• 44:01
  Speaker 6: haven't seen here. So yeah, I'm not I'm not well
• 44:04
  Speaker 6: wishes and you know, having nice thoughts about black folks,
• 44:10
  Speaker 6: which I think we saw a lot of last year,
• 44:11
  Speaker 6: is cool, But at the end of the day, it's
• 44:14
  Speaker 6: going to be about who actually put some resources into
• 44:17
  Speaker 6: the community in a way that moves the needle we
• 44:21
  Speaker 6: we needed at this point. If if the city is
• 44:24
  Speaker 6: going to be a place frankly that everybody wants to
• 44:26
  Speaker 6: live in, but certainly if black folks won't live in.
• 44:29
  Speaker 4: So the expansion as far as your first model obviously
• 44:34
  Speaker 4: was to get private investors give up some equity. Did
• 44:37
  Speaker 4: you do that the same with the l A and
• 44:39
  Speaker 4: DC operation.
• 44:41
  Speaker 6: We raised We raised UH one more round to to
• 44:45
  Speaker 6: continue to expand and yeah, still no no debt in
• 44:49
  Speaker 6: the business, but we've taken in more equity and that
• 44:52
  Speaker 6: that's been the way that we've decided is the best
• 44:54
  Speaker 6: way to grow to grow because in addition to the
• 45:00
  Speaker 6: you know, this is a a big topic because you'll
• 45:02
  Speaker 6: have some people say, you know, I don't want to
• 45:03
  Speaker 6: give up anything in mind, Yeah, that's not how I
• 45:07
  Speaker 6: feel about it. To me, if you can have strategic
• 45:10
  Speaker 6: investors that can help you accomplish those goals, almost partners,
• 45:15
  Speaker 6: then it actually becomes really worth it. And I would
• 45:19
  Speaker 6: rather own a smaller percentage of something that's way bigger
• 45:23
  Speaker 6: than sitting here or hoarding all this equity that doesn't
• 45:26
  Speaker 6: mean anything. So I don't take the approach of saying,
• 45:31
  Speaker 6: you know, don't sell parts of the company. If it
• 45:33
  Speaker 6: makes sense to do so and it will help you scale,
• 45:36
  Speaker 6: then I think that you and you should do it.
• 45:38
  Speaker 4: Are you careful who you work like? Do you just
• 45:40
  Speaker 4: I'm sure you're not accepting anybody's money. But it's like
• 45:43
  Speaker 4: that can also be a headache too, if you got
• 45:44
  Speaker 4: somebody that's constantly calling you and they micro managing everything.
• 45:47
  Speaker 4: So it's like a marriage, okay, Like I look at it,
• 45:51
  Speaker 4: like do I want to be married to you? Truly?
• 45:54
  Speaker 6: Like my test is when I look at my phone
• 45:56
  Speaker 6: and your name comes across my phone, like if it
• 46:00
  Speaker 6: makes me sad to see your name at any point,
• 46:03
  Speaker 6: I don't want you to be an investor in the company,
• 46:05
  Speaker 6: because that truly is like the test, because you really
• 46:09
  Speaker 6: are with those people for forever. So if you don't
• 46:12
  Speaker 6: want to get married to the investor, don't have them
• 46:15
  Speaker 6: in the business because they will like annoy you.
• 46:18
  Speaker 4: It is not even a good.
• 46:19
  Speaker 6: Enough word, like you really behold it, like really, like
• 46:23
  Speaker 6: y'all are in this thing together at that point. And
• 46:26
  Speaker 6: if you think as soon as you get their check
• 46:28
  Speaker 6: that you can ignore them, or you think that they're
• 46:30
  Speaker 6: going to give you a check and ignore you, that's
• 46:33
  Speaker 6: not how that works. So you have to make sure
• 46:35
  Speaker 6: that it's a person that you really want to work with.
• 46:37
  Speaker 4: So all the decisions made by a collective.
• 46:40
  Speaker 6: No, so I mean the t can I manage the
• 46:43
  Speaker 6: business day to day? There's a board that we meet
• 46:47
  Speaker 6: with it, you can almost think of it from an
• 46:49
  Speaker 6: advisory perspective.
• 46:51
  Speaker 4: We bring them questions or talk about that because like
• 46:54
  Speaker 4: for young entrepreneurs that might you know, they might be
• 46:57
  Speaker 4: getting information from you and kind of you know, getting
• 47:00
  Speaker 4: this mentorship, how did that go about as far as
• 47:03
  Speaker 4: like putting together a board and like what is your
• 47:05
  Speaker 4: level of governance as far as that's concerned. Now that
• 47:08
  Speaker 4: you have outside money as well.
• 47:10
  Speaker 6: So we have control of the business, so the it
• 47:14
  Speaker 6: doesn't necessarily mean that just because you give a person
• 47:18
  Speaker 6: a part of the company that they that they then
• 47:20
  Speaker 6: have equals say and what happens in the company day
• 47:23
  Speaker 6: to day. So we manage the company day to day
• 47:28
  Speaker 6: with actually very little involvement, and that's part of the
• 47:31
  Speaker 6: We were looking for investors that really believed in our
• 47:34
  Speaker 6: ability to do that, and so it starts there. But
• 47:37
  Speaker 6: then when you start thinking about a board, I almost
• 47:40
  Speaker 6: look at it like building a team.
• 47:41
  Speaker 4: You need a you need a.
• 47:42
  Speaker 6: Point guard, you need to you need somebody to hold
• 47:45
  Speaker 6: down the paint and who is who can fill those
• 47:49
  Speaker 6: roles to make sure that Like Okay, so real estate,
• 47:53
  Speaker 6: for example, is a blind spot for us. I don't
• 47:56
  Speaker 6: come out of that world. TK really doesn't either. We
• 47:58
  Speaker 6: have somebody on our board there like has rolled out
• 48:02
  Speaker 6: hundreds of locations. So going into a board meeting and
• 48:05
  Speaker 6: being able to say, hey, like this is this is
• 48:08
  Speaker 6: all of the information that we have about a site.
• 48:11
  Speaker 6: How do you feel about that? Just hearing their thoughts
• 48:16
  Speaker 6: helps us to develop better thoughts and a better process
• 48:19
  Speaker 6: for how we stuff.
• 48:21
  Speaker 4: So, like you are as.
• 48:22
  Speaker 6: An entrepreneur, the group of people that are kind of
• 48:26
  Speaker 6: around the business as investors, but then also on your
• 48:29
  Speaker 6: team if you don't see it that way.
• 48:33
  Speaker 3: So that's the process of choosing where you're going to
• 48:35
  Speaker 3: be put the next location. So obviously you have the
• 48:38
  Speaker 3: idea you drew up division, you go to the real
• 48:39
  Speaker 3: estate guy, Hey, what do you think about the spot
• 48:42
  Speaker 3: in DC?
• 48:42
  Speaker 2: What do you think about this spot in LA? The
• 48:44
  Speaker 2: other cities is New York, is Houston?
• 48:46
  Speaker 6: Yeah, I've looked everywhere, Houston, New York, Dallas, Detroit, We've
• 48:53
  Speaker 6: looked every everywhere. And we have investors too that are
• 48:58
  Speaker 6: from or live in a lot of these cities, which
• 49:00
  Speaker 6: makes things help for a minutes.
• 49:02
  Speaker 4: So if you look at like l A.
• 49:04
  Speaker 6: Baron Davis is an investor, Uh, Lou Williams is from
• 49:07
  Speaker 6: here but lives lives you know, lives in the Clippers.
• 49:11
  Speaker 4: He's an investor too, He's an investor.
• 49:13
  Speaker 6: You look at Detroit, Big Shawn's an investor if you
• 49:15
  Speaker 6: look at I mean like most cities. So we had
• 49:18
  Speaker 6: a we had a strategic approach to as we thought
• 49:20
  Speaker 6: about cities that we wanted to go to, who were
• 49:23
  Speaker 6: people from or like that knew that city that could
• 49:25
  Speaker 6: help us to understand the city better.
• 49:28
  Speaker 4: So two questions, how many people is on your board?
• 49:31
  Speaker 2: Five?
• 49:31
  Speaker 4: It's just five people. Five people, okay, and each person
• 49:35
  Speaker 4: just has an expertise and something that they can bring
• 49:37
  Speaker 4: them valuable. All right, how did you find all of
• 49:42
  Speaker 4: these big name celebrities now, like the big Seawans of
• 49:46
  Speaker 4: the world, the Baron Davis's of the world. Like, how
• 49:50
  Speaker 4: do you have an active campaign to reach out to
• 49:53
  Speaker 4: celebrities to invest Like, what's the deal with that?
• 49:57
  Speaker 5: No?
• 49:57
  Speaker 4: I mean that to me.
• 49:59
  Speaker 6: I operate with the simple principle that like, good people
• 50:02
  Speaker 6: know good people, and you never you never know who
• 50:06
  Speaker 6: exactly you're talking to. So someone I didn't name who's
• 50:11
  Speaker 6: an investor in the business is cam Newton. And we
• 50:15
  Speaker 6: have known one of his advisors for years, and it
• 50:20
  Speaker 6: was never about business.
• 50:21
  Speaker 4: We were just cool.
• 50:23
  Speaker 6: But one one day I was talking to him about
• 50:25
  Speaker 6: us raised in another round and he said, hey, I'd
• 50:30
  Speaker 6: be interested and showing it to our group and he
• 50:35
  Speaker 6: did same same thing Will Packers an investor in TGS,
• 50:40
  Speaker 6: same conversation where I'm very very good friends with his
• 50:44
  Speaker 6: right hand and she said, well you should, you should
• 50:47
  Speaker 6: take a look at this deal.
• 50:48
  Speaker 4: So it's playing.
• 50:51
  Speaker 6: The long game and developing relationships and inside of the
• 50:55
  Speaker 6: black community. Honestly, it's not like it's not that it's
• 51:00
  Speaker 6: the small world. You know, if you're closing in on everybody,
• 51:03
  Speaker 6: you're not as far away from anybody, not really, And
• 51:07
  Speaker 6: to be honest with you, like, it's really not so
• 51:09
  Speaker 6: much about depending who we're talking about the person, as
• 51:13
  Speaker 6: it is the team of people, the business manager, the
• 51:17
  Speaker 6: person that they consult on a regular basis for advice
• 51:20
  Speaker 6: that you really need to be trying to get in
• 51:22
  Speaker 6: contact with. I think that's a big mistake a lot
• 51:24
  Speaker 6: of folks makers that they'll be like, I need to
• 51:26
  Speaker 6: talk to Will Packer, and you do need to talk
• 51:29
  Speaker 6: to Will Packer. Like Will Packer's not going to write
• 51:30
  Speaker 6: to a check and Will Packer doesn't know you, but
• 51:34
  Speaker 6: he also needs to like if you the way that
• 51:38
  Speaker 6: you were introduced, and having his team also feel good
• 51:41
  Speaker 6: about the deal, his board, you know, and not not
• 51:44
  Speaker 6: formally in the same way, but.
• 51:45
  Speaker 4: Like financial advised accountar.
• 51:47
  Speaker 6: Yeah, the people that just having them feel good about it,
• 51:50
  Speaker 6: it's helpful. So we talk to those folks as much
• 51:52
  Speaker 6: as we talk to the people who you might know.
• 51:54
  Speaker 4: Center of influence.
• 51:56
  Speaker 3: So after the interview process to become a member or
• 52:00
  Speaker 3: become an investor, there a certain level amount of capital
• 52:02
  Speaker 3: that I need to have in order to be an investor.
• 52:05
  Speaker 6: So I mean the rounds have changed over time. So
• 52:07
  Speaker 6: the first round was three million, and at that point
• 52:11
  Speaker 6: this is actually a very important conversation. A lot of
• 52:14
  Speaker 6: entrepreneurs get their cap tables jacked up really early by
• 52:17
  Speaker 6: taking very very small increments of money.
• 52:21
  Speaker 4: You talk about that cap table. What is that?
• 52:23
  Speaker 6: So cap table is just the it's just the list
• 52:26
  Speaker 6: of the names and how much those names own in
• 52:29
  Speaker 6: the business.
• 52:30
  Speaker 4: And you want to.
• 52:32
  Speaker 6: Make sure it's like it's okay to have other people
• 52:34
  Speaker 6: on your cap table, but you want to make sure
• 52:38
  Speaker 6: that there's there's a strategy to it.
• 52:41
  Speaker 4: To the extent that you can.
• 52:42
  Speaker 6: So if you need a million dollars to start your business,
• 52:45
  Speaker 6: doing that five thousand dollars at a time.
• 52:48
  Speaker 4: Is really difficult.
• 52:49
  Speaker 6: And then if you go out for future rounds, that
• 52:53
  Speaker 6: next person is going to pull up your cap table
• 52:56
  Speaker 6: and it's going to be like, like, who are aren't
• 52:59
  Speaker 6: trying to who are these one hundred people I gotta
• 53:04
  Speaker 6: I have to deal with? And like what are their
• 53:06
  Speaker 6: rights and responsibilities to the business. And so it is
• 53:09
  Speaker 6: important to the extent that you can to stay very
• 53:12
  Speaker 6: disciplined in trying to set minimum thresholds and say, okay, look,
• 53:17
  Speaker 6: I'm raising a million, and it's one hundred thousand dollars
• 53:21
  Speaker 6: minimum for folks to be in the round, right, Because
• 53:25
  Speaker 6: at that point it's you're insignificantly enough and like there
• 53:29
  Speaker 6: are things that can be done on through other structures
• 53:34
  Speaker 6: for people to pull that hundred together, but for you,
• 53:37
  Speaker 6: as the entrepreneur, it only comes in as one single entry,
• 53:39
  Speaker 6: and that's important. So like I could be like, yo,
• 53:42
  Speaker 6: I need I need a hundred thousand minimum, and then
• 53:44
  Speaker 6: y'all could go talk in a huddle on the side
• 53:46
  Speaker 6: and go seventy five to twenty five. If you want
• 53:49
  Speaker 6: to and create a company and then have that company
• 53:52
  Speaker 6: invest in TGS, but I would only recognize it as
• 53:57
  Speaker 6: one single it would only be one entry on the
• 54:00
  Speaker 6: Captuart And I think, again, that's important. So you have
• 54:03
  Speaker 6: to stay disciplined there.
• 54:04
  Speaker 4: I get it.
• 54:05
  Speaker 6: Like there were times where I'm telling you, folst would
• 54:07
  Speaker 6: be like, I'll give you ten thousand, and I'd be
• 54:09
  Speaker 6: like that ten thousand would be But then I would
• 54:13
  Speaker 6: look at like what we needed to get accomplished. I'm like, no,
• 54:16
  Speaker 6: ten thousand won't even build a bathroom, Like so we can't.
• 54:21
  Speaker 6: It's not as helpful as what it feels like in
• 54:23
  Speaker 6: the short term. When I would take that money, I
• 54:25
  Speaker 6: would have spent it the next day and I wouldn't
• 54:27
  Speaker 6: even have had a working toilet and sink. We're like,
• 54:32
  Speaker 6: it just takes a lot of money to do our business.
• 54:34
  Speaker 6: So the first round started there started pretty high. Yeah,
• 54:37
  Speaker 6: first round, the first round it was the first round
• 54:40
  Speaker 6: was three. We weren't taking less than one hundred.
• 54:45
  Speaker 4: So the equity crowdfund you're not a fan of, I'm assuming.
• 54:52
  Speaker 6: So it depends on what you're building. I mean, there's
• 54:55
  Speaker 6: some dope entrepreneurs down here that have done it well.
• 54:57
  Speaker 6: Isaac Hayes one of my friends. He just is two
• 55:00
  Speaker 6: point six million on a crowdfund. And the thing about
• 55:04
  Speaker 6: the crowdfund is that the rights that shareholders have in
• 55:08
  Speaker 6: that arrangement are not overly burdened to them to the entrepreneur.
• 55:12
  Speaker 6: So like, yeah, you have a million investors, but like
• 55:17
  Speaker 6: each one of those investors' ability to actually talk to
• 55:20
  Speaker 6: you as the entrepreneur is very limited in that structure.
• 55:23
  Speaker 6: So I don't have a problem with it. Depending on
• 55:25
  Speaker 6: what you're building, it's dope. Like I mean, he's got
• 55:28
  Speaker 6: he's got thousands of people who are investors in this company.
• 55:31
  Speaker 4: I think it could become a headache though, when you're
• 55:33
  Speaker 4: trying to manage expectations of people, especially if they have
• 55:36
  Speaker 4: investment and they're looking for, you know, some level of
• 55:39
  Speaker 4: return on the investment. It's like a one thousand, ten
• 55:42
  Speaker 4: thousand people. Even if it's a hundred, that's only like
• 55:46
  Speaker 4: one percent, but one hundred focal people, yeah, a lot.
• 55:50
  Speaker 6: You know, Look, it's not the route that we've chosen
• 55:54
  Speaker 6: to go down, and it's honestly just getting to a
• 55:56
  Speaker 6: point where you can raise that type of money on crowdfunds.
• 55:59
  Speaker 6: I mean, historically you couldn't go get a million dollars
• 56:02
  Speaker 6: on the crowd.
• 56:03
  Speaker 4: Obama changed that. Lord, I believe.
• 56:05
  Speaker 6: That all the changes to those regulations were huge to
• 56:08
  Speaker 6: to open that up. But that isn't how we've decided
• 56:12
  Speaker 6: to grow. I mean, we're very I mean we're going
• 56:16
  Speaker 6: to LA. Will Packer is a monster in LA made
• 56:20
  Speaker 6: some of the biggest movies of our time, and so
• 56:23
  Speaker 6: there's not a better person that I know of that
• 56:26
  Speaker 6: could help us really understand, especially being from Atlanta.
• 56:31
  Speaker 4: That's that's that's him.
• 56:33
  Speaker 6: He's based in Atlanta but has an office in LA
• 56:36
  Speaker 6: does business in LA. So our round was was strategic
• 56:40
  Speaker 6: from like a location standpoint and a lot in a
• 56:43
  Speaker 6: way a lot of businesses probably.
• 56:44
  Speaker 4: Aren't in LA is one of these places like Atlanta
• 56:47
  Speaker 4: where it could be like huge, but like you know,
• 56:50
  Speaker 4: the in crowd, celebrities and entrepreneurs and all of that.
• 56:53
  Speaker 6: Yeah, I mean, but to be honest with you, like
• 56:55
  Speaker 6: we're not chasing that every day. It's about trying to
• 56:58
  Speaker 6: figure out how do you put that person that you
• 57:01
  Speaker 6: may know next to the tech entrepreneur who you've never
• 57:05
  Speaker 6: heard of, and watching what they can do together. Like
• 57:07
  Speaker 6: I'm more interested in that than just being in a
• 57:10
  Speaker 6: room with somebody and being like, you see that person
• 57:12
  Speaker 6: over there, Like that doesn't that doesn't make our business.
• 57:17
  Speaker 6: Gotta go back to the mission of while we're trying
• 57:19
  Speaker 6: to do this, the mission was never about being in
• 57:22
  Speaker 6: a room and being.
• 57:22
  Speaker 4: Able to spot people.
• 57:24
  Speaker 6: It was about trying to figure out what happens when
• 57:26
  Speaker 6: they can meet the person on the other side of
• 57:28
  Speaker 6: the room or frankly that they would have never ever
• 57:32
  Speaker 6: met before. Is where things get powerful, and we don't
• 57:35
  Speaker 6: do that enough in our communities. Like the music people
• 57:38
  Speaker 6: know the music people, and the film people know the
• 57:40
  Speaker 6: film people.
• 57:41
  Speaker 4: But like you know, when the film people meet the
• 57:43
  Speaker 4: tech people and the tech people.
• 57:45
  Speaker 6: Meet the big business corporate people, stuff starts to open
• 57:49
  Speaker 6: up opportunity. I mean, there's a member, he goes to
• 57:53
  Speaker 6: new member orientation. It's a doubt company making music. Count
• 57:56
  Speaker 6: goes a new member orientation and he meets an executive
• 57:59
  Speaker 6: at Turner and they strike up a conversation. A year later,
• 58:03
  Speaker 6: they announced a deal between his company and Cartoon Network
• 58:08
  Speaker 6: just because they went to a new member orientation. I'm
• 58:10
  Speaker 6: looking for that type.
• 58:11
  Speaker 3: Of stuff because I feel like the only other place
• 58:13
  Speaker 3: you would get that is that like a once a
• 58:16
  Speaker 3: year conference or a once a year summit.
• 58:18
  Speaker 2: It's kind of like you've done that on a daily
• 58:21
  Speaker 2: basis with these memberships.
• 58:23
  Speaker 6: Even the conference that you it depends, man, because some
• 58:26
  Speaker 6: conferences it's like, yo, it's for the music people.
• 58:29
  Speaker 2: Right right. They're more specific to one thing.
• 58:31
  Speaker 6: So I'm not saying that you can't make good relationships
• 58:33
  Speaker 6: at the music conference. I mean, yeah, if you're an
• 58:35
  Speaker 6: artist and you meet a producer, like that could be
• 58:37
  Speaker 6: a dope collaboration. We just zoomed out a little bit
• 58:40
  Speaker 6: more than that and have said, Okay, you're an artist,
• 58:44
  Speaker 6: here's a tech founder, here's an engineer.
• 58:47
  Speaker 4: Yeah, Like, and that's why it works when you're doing this.
• 58:51
  Speaker 4: Do you have anything that's structured to like, because a
• 58:55
  Speaker 4: lot of time for networking it's like double Dutch and
• 58:58
  Speaker 4: it's like awkward just walk up to somebody randomly. So
• 59:02
  Speaker 4: do you have like a thing like you know, you
• 59:04
  Speaker 4: know Dave Change, You heard of him. He has a
• 59:07
  Speaker 4: thing where he he's like a speed networking thing where
• 59:10
  Speaker 4: you it's like he matches people up and it's like
• 59:13
  Speaker 4: kind of forces you. Yeah, have you done anything like that?
• 59:17
  Speaker 6: We've done events like that, But honestly, our approach to
• 59:19
  Speaker 6: it is why we do an event almost every day,
• 59:22
  Speaker 6: is that we're creating opportunities for those collisions that happen
• 59:25
  Speaker 6: through the programs. So business doesn't always look like business
• 59:30
  Speaker 6: when you when you walk into a room, and I
• 59:32
  Speaker 6: think some of the best collaborations are not when we're
• 59:35
  Speaker 6: there to exchange business cards and to learn about your
• 59:38
  Speaker 6: like like for me that like a lot of times
• 59:40
  Speaker 6: that starts to get it's a little weird, like we
• 59:44
  Speaker 6: we don't do it that much. It's more of and honestly,
• 59:47
  Speaker 6: there's not even a lot of business cards changed inside
• 59:49
  Speaker 6: of tgs. It's more of like you're at the bar,
• 59:54
  Speaker 6: what do you what do you? Yeah, like what do
• 59:56
  Speaker 6: you do? And sometimes that person will be like, it's
• 59:59
  Speaker 6: not not actually me that you want to know, but
• 1:00:02
  Speaker 6: like I know that member over there and you definitely
• 1:00:05
  Speaker 6: should talk to them. And so through through having different
• 1:00:08
  Speaker 6: things happening, it's how people meet each other. So sometimes
• 1:00:11
  Speaker 6: that's live music. Sometimes we host a lot of fireside
• 1:00:15
  Speaker 6: chats and like kind of like interview style things. Sometimes
• 1:00:19
  Speaker 6: it's workshops on how to learn more about a particular industry,
• 1:00:23
  Speaker 6: and that's where you start to like have the collisions.
• 1:00:25
  Speaker 6: That makes sense, but it's not as forced. I don't
• 1:00:29
  Speaker 6: even like for what I do. I don't even have
• 1:00:31
  Speaker 6: business cards. If you ask me for my card, I'm like,
• 1:00:33
  Speaker 6: I don't.
• 1:00:33
  Speaker 4: Yeah, no, I mean help you. Relationships is one of
• 1:00:36
  Speaker 4: the most important. Is one of the things like even
• 1:00:38
  Speaker 4: we learned with just having this platform, almost ninety percent
• 1:00:41
  Speaker 4: of everything. We don't have a pr person everything that comes.
• 1:00:44
  Speaker 4: So like we got Marek Cuban, but that's from a
• 1:00:47
  Speaker 4: relationship that we had with Al Harrington.
• 1:00:49
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 1:00:50
  Speaker 4: I actually knew Al Harrington fifteen years ago in prep school.
• 1:00:55
  Speaker 4: So it's like these little things of like Dame Dash
• 1:00:59
  Speaker 4: or somebody that we always wanted to get. We got
• 1:01:01
  Speaker 4: Dame courtesy of Kenny Burns. Got Kenny Burns courtesy of
• 1:01:04
  Speaker 4: our god Dave at United Mastis yep. So I don't
• 1:01:08
  Speaker 4: think people fully understand the power of relationships.
• 1:01:10
  Speaker 6: And it's like in long term relationships, right, It's like
• 1:01:13
  Speaker 6: it's not the short term stuff. I think where people
• 1:01:17
  Speaker 6: get it wrong fast is where they sit and they like,
• 1:01:19
  Speaker 6: what's your title?
• 1:01:20
  Speaker 4: What do you do? And then it's immediately trying to
• 1:01:21
  Speaker 4: figure out what they can take. How can you help me? Yeah,
• 1:01:23
  Speaker 4: you got to help them.
• 1:01:24
  Speaker 6: You got to sit sometimes sometimes even like you can't
• 1:01:28
  Speaker 6: help them. So whatever, Just be a person that is
• 1:01:31
  Speaker 6: around and that is knowledgeable about whatever it is, and
• 1:01:36
  Speaker 6: you will be surprised how over time people will be like, oh,
• 1:01:39
  Speaker 6: that's what I call for whatever when I go to Atlanta,
• 1:01:43
  Speaker 6: just just by being the person that was responsive and
• 1:01:48
  Speaker 6: nice and that didn't want anything For as many activities
• 1:01:53
  Speaker 6: and stuff that we do. I'm an introvert. I'm at
• 1:01:56
  Speaker 6: my house most of the time and I don't ask
• 1:02:00
  Speaker 6: anybody really for anything. And that actually leads to more
• 1:02:04
  Speaker 6: opportunities because folks know when I call them, I'm normally
• 1:02:08
  Speaker 6: calling them with an opportunity, not trying to get one right.
• 1:02:12
  Speaker 6: And so if you're that person, and that's how I
• 1:02:15
  Speaker 6: want to be known, I want folks to know that,
• 1:02:16
  Speaker 6: Like Ryan, I'm not gonna call you and.
• 1:02:18
  Speaker 4: Just be like, yo, you I need something.
• 1:02:21
  Speaker 6: I'm I'm certainly not gonna do that, but I'm not
• 1:02:23
  Speaker 6: even honestly the person's gonna.
• 1:02:24
  Speaker 4: Call you and be like everything good?
• 1:02:27
  Speaker 2: You know?
• 1:02:27
  Speaker 4: Do you?
• 1:02:28
  Speaker 2: I mean?
• 1:02:28
  Speaker 4: You know?
• 1:02:28
  Speaker 2: Let me?
• 1:02:30
  Speaker 6: I just I want you when you see my my
• 1:02:32
  Speaker 6: name come up on your phone to be like all right,
• 1:02:34
  Speaker 6: he's calling there's something, there's something, there's somebody who he
• 1:02:38
  Speaker 6: thinks should be on the platform. There's somebody, there's a
• 1:02:40
  Speaker 6: brand that's called that needs like that, there's there's something
• 1:02:43
  Speaker 6: moving so that like. And I limit my my interactions
• 1:02:48
  Speaker 6: to stuff that I feel like is meaningful to people.
• 1:02:52
  Speaker 6: And I don't and again, I don't take anything from
• 1:02:54
  Speaker 6: from folks, especially if I don't think I can give
• 1:02:56
  Speaker 6: them anything, you know, any anything in return. But long game, Like,
• 1:02:59
  Speaker 6: it'll be five years yars later and you'd be like, Wow,
• 1:03:01
  Speaker 6: that relationship from prep school paid off. I mean, yeah,
• 1:03:05
  Speaker 6: you spent fifteen years to get that interview.
• 1:03:08
  Speaker 4: It's how you got to look at it.
• 1:03:09
  Speaker 3: Yeah, And that's the fact that we had a conversation myself,
• 1:03:12
  Speaker 3: Jamal Shotty and actually in UIL University yesterday about generational
• 1:03:17
  Speaker 3: wealth and generational aspirations. And it's funny because I heard
• 1:03:19
  Speaker 3: you say something when you wanted to practice law, what
• 1:03:22
  Speaker 3: type of law you were practicing, and you said civil
• 1:03:24
  Speaker 3: rights law. And I know that your your grandfather played
• 1:03:29
  Speaker 3: a major role in the civil rights movement, and you
• 1:03:31
  Speaker 3: said that your parents are entrepreneurs. And so I'm listening
• 1:03:34
  Speaker 3: to you talk to I'm seeing it the embodiment of it. Right,
• 1:03:37
  Speaker 3: you had a civil rights activist, you had entrepreneur parents.
• 1:03:41
  Speaker 3: I know that's your father now. And one of the
• 1:03:44
  Speaker 3: things we discussed was how we lose things over generations,
• 1:03:47
  Speaker 3: and it seems like you haven't lost anything. And so
• 1:03:49
  Speaker 3: I know your father, So what what are some things
• 1:03:51
  Speaker 3: that you want to make sure that your your daughter,
• 1:03:54
  Speaker 3: correct daughter is gonna you're gonna be able to pass
• 1:03:57
  Speaker 3: down to her.
• 1:03:58
  Speaker 2: Man.
• 1:03:59
  Speaker 6: That's the that's a that's a heavy question. I more
• 1:04:04
  Speaker 6: than anything, I want her to know that she is capable.
• 1:04:10
  Speaker 6: And again, this stuff sounds like bumper stickrets, but like
• 1:04:12
  Speaker 6: it really is. It is true to me, like she
• 1:04:15
  Speaker 6: is capable of accomplishing whatever it is that she wants
• 1:04:19
  Speaker 6: to accomplish. I remember first week at Georgetown. I'm in
• 1:04:23
  Speaker 6: I'm in class, and like the first week they go
• 1:04:27
  Speaker 6: through this is X number of valedictorians. Everybody here is
• 1:04:30
  Speaker 6: so smart, this is you're lucky to be here with
• 1:04:33
  Speaker 6: all these smart people. And it's a pwis majority white folks.
• 1:04:39
  Speaker 6: And I remember being in this class and this dude
• 1:04:43
  Speaker 6: he spoke. I remember just looking at him and being like,
• 1:04:46
  Speaker 6: you're like, I'm not that smart, but bro, you're not
• 1:04:50
  Speaker 6: that neither, like and so we got to compete now,
• 1:04:54
  Speaker 6: like like it just because I was kind of sitting
• 1:04:56
  Speaker 6: in the room like, man, I don't know if I'm
• 1:04:57
  Speaker 6: gonna really be able to I was a good student school,
• 1:05:00
  Speaker 6: but like, am I gonna be able to bring it
• 1:05:01
  Speaker 6: on this level? And I remember just hearing them and
• 1:05:04
  Speaker 6: being like no, like my my parents and grandpa, like
• 1:05:09
  Speaker 6: they didn't send me up here to play small with this,
• 1:05:11
  Speaker 6: Like I can't. I can't go out being a plunk.
• 1:05:14
  Speaker 6: That's how you know I felt about it. And so
• 1:05:18
  Speaker 6: more than anything or I'm going with this is that
• 1:05:21
  Speaker 6: I want her to know that whatever it is that
• 1:05:24
  Speaker 6: she wants to go and do, that she can go
• 1:05:27
  Speaker 6: and do it as big and as bad as anybody
• 1:05:29
  Speaker 6: else h has or wants to do it, and that
• 1:05:34
  Speaker 6: there's nothing that like I'm gonna knock down as many
• 1:05:37
  Speaker 6: doors as possible. I think, like we do a bad
• 1:05:39
  Speaker 6: job of talking about this in our community, Like I'm
• 1:05:43
  Speaker 6: trying to knock down doors for her that she did
• 1:05:46
  Speaker 6: so that she doesn't have to knock down I'm trying
• 1:05:48
  Speaker 6: to speed up the process. Right, There's no to me,
• 1:05:51
  Speaker 6: there there ain't no, like, ain't nothing in I don't
• 1:05:54
  Speaker 6: get this, like you get we work on.
• 1:05:56
  Speaker 2: The bottom, Like we're not starting back from the bottom.
• 1:06:00
  Speaker 6: For what that's different than like her having work ethic.
• 1:06:03
  Speaker 6: I think that like I'm gonna make sure that she's
• 1:06:05
  Speaker 6: a person that like gets up to work every day. Yeah,
• 1:06:09
  Speaker 6: but the idea that like I'm gonna work as hard
• 1:06:12
  Speaker 6: as I'm working so that she can go all the
• 1:06:14
  Speaker 6: way back and work the same way. Nah, I'm not
• 1:06:18
  Speaker 6: doing that. So like I'm gonna call my friend from
• 1:06:23
  Speaker 6: prep school and be like, yeah, my daughter has and
• 1:06:27
  Speaker 6: then she's got to go in the room and be
• 1:06:28
  Speaker 6: impressive at that point. And my job is to make
• 1:06:31
  Speaker 6: sure that she shows up in that way. But I'm
• 1:06:32
  Speaker 6: going to make the call like I don't and I'm
• 1:06:35
  Speaker 6: gonna make sure that she knows that when she's in
• 1:06:36
  Speaker 6: the room, don't feel smaller than anybody. Because half the time,
• 1:06:40
  Speaker 6: you know, these entrepreneurs, these stories will come out and
• 1:06:42
  Speaker 6: I'm man, like they just raised one hundred million, we
• 1:06:44
  Speaker 6: sitting here raise three This is this is kind of
• 1:06:46
  Speaker 6: like it's ridiculous, but kept fighting for Like it's not
• 1:06:52
  Speaker 6: that they're more capable than us, is they have better access,
• 1:06:55
  Speaker 6: but they're not more capable. And I want her to.
• 1:06:57
  Speaker 4: Know that, like she she's as capable as what anybody else.
• 1:07:00
  Speaker 6: And then white folks, whatever group you want to point out,
• 1:07:03
  Speaker 6: like she can go and do that.
• 1:07:05
  Speaker 4: So there you have it. So before we wrap it up,
• 1:07:08
  Speaker 4: I wanted to get what's your what's your vision for
• 1:07:11
  Speaker 4: the next five ten years for the for the company?
• 1:07:14
  Speaker 4: Are you looking to expand into different other areas of business?
• 1:07:18
  Speaker 4: How many locations you're looking at? Like, what's your what's
• 1:07:20
  Speaker 4: your vision?
• 1:07:21
  Speaker 6: We're gonna build ten locations. The goal is to be
• 1:07:24
  Speaker 6: the biggest private club of our type in the world. Okay,
• 1:07:27
  Speaker 6: I'm gonna keep all in America or some overseas. I've looked,
• 1:07:30
  Speaker 6: I've looked internationally.
• 1:07:31
  Speaker 4: We'll see I London, I love, I Love I love
• 1:07:35
  Speaker 4: Toronto Adult City please.
• 1:07:38
  Speaker 6: But I mean we've even looked, looked on the continent.
• 1:07:40
  Speaker 6: It looked at Uh, looked at Ghanah. We've been in
• 1:07:44
  Speaker 6: South Africa looking around. So I mean the map opens
• 1:07:47
  Speaker 6: up for us, but at least ten and you know,
• 1:07:51
  Speaker 6: we're rolling out in the next couple of weeks. The
• 1:07:54
  Speaker 6: opportunity for people to really join the club, no matter
• 1:07:57
  Speaker 6: where it is that they live and have access to
• 1:07:58
  Speaker 6: our programming. So we want to be the biggest and
• 1:08:01
  Speaker 6: best and most culturally relevant private club in the world
• 1:08:07
  Speaker 6: that does kind of the way that we do things
• 1:08:11
  Speaker 6: at you know, at a high level. So I'm gonna
• 1:08:13
  Speaker 6: keep fighting every day until we get there.
• 1:08:14
  Speaker 4: I love to see it, love to see it. So
• 1:08:16
  Speaker 4: Bryan Pleasure, how can the people contact you? What's all
• 1:08:20
  Speaker 4: the information? Social media, website, all of that stuff.
• 1:08:23
  Speaker 6: You can find it. You can find us online at
• 1:08:26
  Speaker 6: the gathering spots or on social media at the gathering spots.
• 1:08:29
  Speaker 6: I'm at spot on our w but if you go
• 1:08:32
  Speaker 6: to our website to the gatheringspot dot club you can
• 1:08:34
  Speaker 6: find all information about the club.
• 1:08:36
  Speaker 4: You have a Troy housekeeping.
• 1:08:38
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 1:08:38
  Speaker 2: I want to give a shout out to Dave again.
• 1:08:40
  Speaker 3: Shout to Dave, a boy at United Masses, because I
• 1:08:43
  Speaker 3: was like, Dave, we're going to Atlanta, and he was like, Yo,
• 1:08:45
  Speaker 3: give me a list of people.
• 1:08:46
  Speaker 2: I was like, Oh, Ryan's on it, let's do it.
• 1:08:47
  Speaker 2: And so we connected to Shout Andrea who oh he
• 1:08:51
  Speaker 2: facilitated this day. And shout and Andrea who made sure
• 1:08:55
  Speaker 2: that it happened.
• 1:08:56
  Speaker 3: So yeah, and shout everybody that's been supporting on your
• 1:08:58
  Speaker 3: leisure everybody on Pittreon that com. We got some new
• 1:09:00
  Speaker 3: members at T five obviously you know you have access
• 1:09:03
  Speaker 3: to E y L University, Nathan, Miss Brunson and Joseph.
• 1:09:07
  Speaker 3: So we look forward to talking to you and shout
• 1:09:09
  Speaker 3: everybody that's supporting the merch. We both got our new
• 1:09:11
  Speaker 3: tracks was on. We're gonna We're gonna make sure you
• 1:09:13
  Speaker 3: have Some of you are now officially alumni. So with that,
• 1:09:18
  Speaker 3: with that comes from some of some great privileges. So
• 1:09:21
  Speaker 3: welcome to the club.
• 1:09:22
  Speaker 4: Yeah, shout out to Bem and Schmidty. Also, we got
• 1:09:25
  Speaker 4: a loft in Atlanta where we run our merch out
• 1:09:27
  Speaker 4: of It's my first time actually actually seeing it in person,
• 1:09:30
  Speaker 4: and they're working very hard. It's very impressive operation that
• 1:09:33
  Speaker 4: they got going on. So yeah, shout out to everybody
• 1:09:36
  Speaker 4: that's making Early Alesia. It's not just me and Choice,
• 1:09:38
  Speaker 4: a lot of people behind the scenes shot out.
• 1:09:40
  Speaker 2: Yeah, the shot that might be Mike. Might we see
• 1:09:42
  Speaker 2: him zoom within them.
• 1:09:43
  Speaker 6: Streets man, Congratulations, see all though, appreciate it, y'all, y'all
• 1:09:47
  Speaker 6: doing it for real.
• 1:09:49
  Speaker 4: Appreciate you appreciate it. Brother, So all right, guys, it
• 1:09:53
  Speaker 4: was a pleasure. We'll see you next week. Peace my
• 1:09:57
  Speaker 4: graduates from my school.
• 1:10:01
  Speaker 5: Bad drop bags, drop my drop bag, drop b drop.
• 1:10:16
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