Latest / The Breakfast Club / INTERVIEW: Dawn Dickson Talks PopCom Controversy; Entrepreneurship, Investing, Owning A Business, Automated Retail + More

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INTERVIEW: Dawn Dickson Talks PopCom Controversy; Entrepreneurship, Investing, Owning A Business, Automated Retail + More · The Breakfast Club

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Hold up.
• 0:01
  Speaker 2: Every day I wake up. Wake your ass up. The
• 0:04
  Speaker 2: Breakfast Club. Y'all finished or y'all done? Yep, it's the
• 0:09
  Speaker 2: world's most dangerous morning show, The Breakfast Club. DJ Envy,
• 0:11
  Speaker 2: Jess Hilarious, Charlamagne Tha God, Lauren LaRosa is here. Envy
• 0:15
  Speaker 2: and Jess had to run, but we have a special
• 0:17
  Speaker 2: guest in the building. Miss Dawn Dixon. Good morning. Good morning, Dawn.
• 0:21
  Speaker 2: How are you?
• 0:21
  Speaker 1: I'm doing great.
• 0:22
  Speaker 2: How's your energy today?
• 0:23
  Speaker 1: I'm feeling good. I'm so happy to see you and
• 0:25
  Speaker 1: to be here today.
• 0:27
  Speaker 2: Word. What are we here to talk about today? You
• 0:29
  Speaker 2: got so much going on always.
• 0:32
  Speaker 1: I think just catching up.
• 0:34
  Speaker 3: Obviously, last time I was here, five years ago, I think,
• 0:36
  Speaker 3: and so much has changed. Definitely being on this show
• 0:40
  Speaker 3: changed my life. With my crowdfunding campaign, that was, what,
• 0:43
  Speaker 3: six years ago? So, you know, a lot has changed.
• 0:46
  Speaker 1: I think just catching up. You know, I'm in Africa now.
• 0:49
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I saw that. You have the real estate development
• 0:52
  Speaker 2: based in a crowd that's still called Pop.
• 0:55
  Speaker 3: Popcom's the business that I had raised money for when
• 0:57
  Speaker 3: I came. The crowdfunding campaign went crazy.
• 1:01
  Speaker 1: Thank y'all.
• 1:03
  Speaker 3: And things happen with that business. A lot of people
• 1:07
  Speaker 3: invested and over 10,000 investors. This platform was catalyst for that.
• 1:15
  Speaker 1: I did that.
• 1:17
  Speaker 3: I raised over a million dollars for the first time.
• 1:19
  Speaker 3: I was the first female founder to do that. And
• 1:22
  Speaker 3: a lot of that came from just being here and
• 1:24
  Speaker 3: reaching the platform that you reached.
• 1:26
  Speaker 1: And, you know, business, things happen in business. And a.
• 1:31
  Speaker 3: Lot of things didn't go as planned with that business.
• 1:33
  Speaker 3: So that's something we definitely could touch on. And then
• 1:35
  Speaker 3: I ended up moving to Ghana and starting a real
• 1:38
  Speaker 3: estate business just out of me trying to find my
• 1:41
  Speaker 3: way so it's so much happened in five years i
• 1:44
  Speaker 3: don't even know where to start you guys.
• 1:46
  Speaker 4: Let's let's start with i mean you mentioned that there
• 1:48
  Speaker 4: was a lot that happened with the pop con business
• 1:50
  Speaker 4: yeah um so let's start there like when you said
• 1:52
  Speaker 4: there was a lot that happened walk us through so
• 1:54
  Speaker 4: you're here crowdfunding campaign there's six million dollars raised correct
• 1:57
  Speaker 4: yes six million dollars raised and then from that after
• 2:01
  Speaker 4: that step then what begins to happen for dawn What.
• 2:05
  Speaker 3: Started to happen was we took that money and went
• 2:07
  Speaker 3: right into action and started to scale and started to place.
• 2:10
  Speaker 1: So really quick backstory.
• 2:13
  Speaker 3: Popcom makes software for vending machines to make them smarter.
• 2:16
  Speaker 3: So essentially, it's the operating system that allows the vending
• 2:19
  Speaker 3: machines to collect data. Since vending machines are standalone sales units,
• 2:24
  Speaker 3: it collects the data about customers walking by. It collects
• 2:27
  Speaker 3: the data about sales. It was something new in the market.
• 2:30
  Speaker 3: So we had to be a market maker. So I
• 2:32
  Speaker 3: raised the money to develop the platform, raise the money
• 2:35
  Speaker 3: to build the machines, put them in the market, hire
• 2:38
  Speaker 3: a whole staff. And as we're growing so fast, things
• 2:44
  Speaker 3: are happening as far as we're taking off.
• 2:46
  Speaker 1: We're blown up. We have all these customers. But to
• 2:49
  Speaker 1: continue to grow, you still need more money.
• 2:50
  Speaker 3: I was following that playbook of what they teach us
• 2:53
  Speaker 3: as entrepreneurs in the venture capital world.
• 2:55
  Speaker 1: Because I raised over $ 7 million. I raised $ 1. 3 million
• 2:58
  Speaker 1: from venture capital and then $ 6 million from crowdfunding, which
• 3:01
  Speaker 1: gave everybody a chance to invest. So when it's time
• 3:04
  Speaker 1: to go raise that next round, because after we met
• 3:07
  Speaker 1: all of our milestones with the crowdfunding campaign, that next.
• 3:10
  Speaker 3: Round was a Series A through VC. And that next
• 3:13
  Speaker 3: round collapsed. And that was unexpected.
• 3:17
  Speaker 1: Shocking, devastating news.
• 3:18
  Speaker 3: Because I had an investor commit to funding that round
• 3:21
  Speaker 3: for $ 2. 5 million as a lead, and then they didn't
• 3:25
  Speaker 3: raise their fund.
• 3:26
  Speaker 1: And a lot of people don't understand how this thing works.
• 3:28
  Speaker 3: Venture capitalists raise money from limited partners, from other people,
• 3:32
  Speaker 3: from family offices.
• 3:33
  Speaker 1: So when they don't close their money, entrepreneurs don't get
• 3:36
  Speaker 1: their money. And so out of nowhere, basically in two months,
• 3:40
  Speaker 1: I go from a business that's booming, we're generating revenue,
• 3:45
  Speaker 1: we're growing, to.
• 3:46
  Speaker 3: out of money and you need to fire your team,
• 3:49
  Speaker 3: lay off your team. It's like Friday, the board tells me,
• 3:52
  Speaker 3: you got to lay off these people on Monday.
• 3:54
  Speaker 1: It was devastating. It was never, I never saw that coming. Yeah.
• 4:00
  Speaker 4: Now, when you said that there's a lot of things
• 4:01
  Speaker 4: that people don't understand when it comes to like just
• 4:03
  Speaker 4: the different rounds and the raising the money and who
• 4:06
  Speaker 4: gets what and what goes where. I was reading an article,
• 4:09
  Speaker 4: a Watchdog article, and they quoted some of the different
• 4:12
  Speaker 4: things that concerned people that are looking at your journey
• 4:15
  Speaker 4: from the outside. And they talk about minimal revenue, vanishing assets,
• 4:21
  Speaker 4: not really understanding your operations and the fact that you
• 4:23
  Speaker 4: relocated overseas.
• 4:25
  Speaker 5: So when it comes to those things that people from.
• 4:27
  Speaker 4: The outside are flagging, explain to us from the inside
• 4:31
  Speaker 4: what happened. So when the revenue didn't work out.
• 4:35
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, we were generating revenue, but in an
• 4:37
  Speaker 3: early stage startup, in the beginning, all the money is
• 4:40
  Speaker 3: going into building the product. So we spent millions on
• 4:42
  Speaker 3: building software, millions on hardware, millions on staffing over six years.
• 4:48
  Speaker 3: And when you start to get into your revenue flow, it.
• 4:50
  Speaker 1: Takes a few years to really.
• 4:52
  Speaker 3: Break even, to really get into the red, I mean,
• 4:54
  Speaker 3: into the black out of the red.
• 4:56
  Speaker 1: So people just didn't understand.
• 4:58
  Speaker 3: That all the development costs that go into building a
• 5:01
  Speaker 3: software platform and hiring staff. So we did have assets,
• 5:06
  Speaker 3: which was crazy because that Watchdog article came out and
• 5:10
  Speaker 3: it made.
• 5:10
  Speaker 1: Me go under investigation. I had a full SEC investigation
• 5:15
  Speaker 1: on me because they said, okay, everything you said. And
• 5:17
  Speaker 1: I was cleared.
• 5:19
  Speaker 3: But what did actually happen is the assets didn't get
• 5:21
  Speaker 3: reported on the balance sheet. Like I'll take that one.
• 5:24
  Speaker 3: That was my fault. The assets weren't on the balance
• 5:26
  Speaker 3: sheet at all. When I'm so busy raising money. And
• 5:29
  Speaker 3: when we went to get our financials updated with SEC,
• 5:33
  Speaker 3: we left out over 800,000 worth of assets that are
• 5:37
  Speaker 3: on the book. So it's actually being updated right now.
• 5:39
  Speaker 3: After me going through eight months of investigation.
• 5:41
  Speaker 1: We did have revenue.
• 5:42
  Speaker 3: We were doing over 35,000 a month in revenue. But,
• 5:45
  Speaker 3: of course, that's not enough to cover operations when your
• 5:47
  Speaker 3: payroll burn and expenses are over $ 120, 000.
• 5:51
  Speaker 1: But when you're building a.
• 5:52
  Speaker 3: Business to scale, you know you're going to spend more
• 5:55
  Speaker 3: in the early days as you're ramping up. And so
• 5:58
  Speaker 3: we just didn't get a chance to break that threshold
• 6:01
  Speaker 3: of where revenue caught up to expenses.
• 6:04
  Speaker 1: We didn't get to make it.
• 6:05
  Speaker 2: So why did they say the audited financial filings were
• 6:07
  Speaker 2: zero dollars?
• 6:08
  Speaker 3: Because, no, the audit, so the audit, it wasn't $ 0.
• 6:12
  Speaker 3: We did get audited, and our financials and our revenue
• 6:15
  Speaker 3: did match up to what we said.
• 6:17
  Speaker 1: So we were doing about $ 35, 000 a month. So that's
• 6:19
  Speaker 1: an MRR. We launched the product only six months. So
• 6:22
  Speaker 1: the product had only been launched for six months, like
• 6:25
  Speaker 1: ready for market and ready to go out.
• 6:27
  Speaker 5: A real product, though, not a prototype.
• 6:28
  Speaker 1: No, the product. Yeah, we had 15 vending machines around
• 6:31
  Speaker 1: the U.S. and even one in Qatar in Vendo Mall.
• 6:33
  Speaker 3: So the real product, we're working with real brands, real partners.
• 6:37
  Speaker 3: We're generating revenue for six months. But then it's time
• 6:40
  Speaker 3: to really ramp it up. So that's when the next
• 6:43
  Speaker 3: round would have come in and allowed us to continue
• 6:45
  Speaker 3: to scale, put more vending machines in the market, make
• 6:48
  Speaker 3: more revenue, and then catch that revenue number up. But no,
• 6:51
  Speaker 3: the revenue never covered our monthly expenses. So that's where
• 6:55
  Speaker 3: we're burning.
• 6:56
  Speaker 1: Investment money as we're ramping up. The error that I
• 7:00
  Speaker 1: made was overlooking the assets on the balance sheet. They
• 7:04
  Speaker 1: just got left off. But there was nothing fraudulent that happened.
• 7:08
  Speaker 1: The revenue was reported.
• 7:10
  Speaker 3: But many investors did complain because they believed they were
• 7:14
  Speaker 3: supposed to get a return in two years. They were
• 7:17
  Speaker 3: looking at this investment like.
• 7:19
  Speaker 1: It's the stock market.
• 7:19
  Speaker 2: Yeah, you can't look at no investment like that.
• 7:21
  Speaker 3: An early stage private equity investment usually takes eight to
• 7:25
  Speaker 3: 10 years to get an ROI. But at this time,
• 7:28
  Speaker 3: when I started crowdfunding, it was also the time when
• 7:30
  Speaker 3: everybody started to be able to trade crypto on apps
• 7:33
  Speaker 3: and use apps for like Robinhood. People were confusing investing
• 7:38
  Speaker 3: in my company with investing in Tesla. They're asking me, OK,
• 7:42
  Speaker 3: I invested $ 250 in your business. Why can't I cash
• 7:46
  Speaker 3: out right now or why can't I cash out in
• 7:47
  Speaker 3: two years?
• 7:48
  Speaker 1: And I'm like, we're not publicly traded.
• 7:50
  Speaker 3: We're using the money you gave us to build a business.
• 7:53
  Speaker 3: The early investors in Uber and Apple and Microsoft, it
• 7:57
  Speaker 3: took them hours. seven to 12 years to get a return.
• 8:00
  Speaker 3: So why do I have to return your money in
• 8:02
  Speaker 3: two years? And that was just because the education around
• 8:06
  Speaker 3: difference between publicly traded stock and privately held shares, it
• 8:11
  Speaker 3: wasn't there. You know, all of this happened so quickly
• 8:15
  Speaker 3: with the jobs act and with me being the first
• 8:17
  Speaker 3: to do it. I'm out here promoting my business and
• 8:20
  Speaker 3: sharing what I'm doing, but I didn't properly educate people
• 8:24
  Speaker 3: publicly on what It meant to invest in a private company.
• 8:28
  Speaker 1: It didn't mean you're getting your money right back.
• 8:30
  Speaker 4: What do you say to people who like just at
• 8:32
  Speaker 4: a basic scale, because in the article, they also talk
• 8:35
  Speaker 4: about the fact that people that there was complaining that
• 8:37
  Speaker 4: there was like no third party verification, like there were
• 8:40
  Speaker 4: no photos, there were no contractors or different things being
• 8:44
  Speaker 4: provided in the public filing. So it appeared as if
• 8:46
  Speaker 4: you had no paying customers at scale and no visible
• 8:49
  Speaker 4: deployment or actual footprint of the company. So what do
• 8:51
  Speaker 4: you say to people that bring that up?
• 8:53
  Speaker 1: That's just not true.
• 8:54
  Speaker 3: And I contacted the people with the Watchdog article and
• 8:57
  Speaker 3: I provided all proof and verification that I have been
• 9:00
  Speaker 3: sending updates, that I did have pictures, that I did
• 9:03
  Speaker 3: have those things in the filings. And they said, you know,
• 9:06
  Speaker 3: they're like a clickbait kind of website because they said,
• 9:08
  Speaker 3: we don't talk to founders, we don't give you a
• 9:10
  Speaker 3: chance to tell your side of the story, and we
• 9:12
  Speaker 3: go off of investors. And there was like three investors that,
• 9:16
  Speaker 3: you know, not to diminish them. I'm grateful for their investment,
• 9:18
  Speaker 3: but no one invested over $ 500 in their complaining and said,
• 9:22
  Speaker 3: I stole their money.
• 9:22
  Speaker 1: When I have investors who literally put in a half
• 9:24
  Speaker 1: a million and their understanding, like this is what happened
• 9:28
  Speaker 1: with the company. We're still working on it.
• 9:30
  Speaker 3: But the ones that maybe didn't have as much understanding
• 9:34
  Speaker 3: of how the system works, they were saying, oh, you
• 9:37
  Speaker 3: didn't update this. But I have a private Facebook group
• 9:41
  Speaker 3: that I started in 2019. I have over 20 800 investors.
• 9:45
  Speaker 1: In there and I send regular updates.
• 9:46
  Speaker 3: I also have an email list of over 8600 investors
• 9:50
  Speaker 3: that get an email from me, but 2000 unsubscribed. So
• 9:53
  Speaker 3: I'm like, OK, of my 10,000 plus investors, some of
• 9:56
  Speaker 3: you guys aren't getting updates. Some of you guys may
• 9:58
  Speaker 3: legitimately feel that. you don't know what's going on, but
• 10:01
  Speaker 3: it's out there.
• 10:02
  Speaker 1: We have a group.
• 10:03
  Speaker 3: I have a private YouTube page where I do live
• 10:06
  Speaker 3: town halls and let them ask me questions.
• 10:08
  Speaker 1: So all this is documented. I share this with the
• 10:11
  Speaker 1: Watchdog article, but.
• 10:13
  Speaker 2: You said something that's interesting, right? Because, you know, like
• 10:17
  Speaker 2: you said, 10,000 everyday people did invest in... Popcom, when
• 10:20
  Speaker 2: you take money from just, I guess, regular everyday people
• 10:24
  Speaker 2: as opposed to venture capitalists, do you believe you owe
• 10:26
  Speaker 2: them a different level of accountability?
• 10:29
  Speaker 1: Absolutely. And that's why I send these updates.
• 10:33
  Speaker 3: That's why I get on these platforms like Now Explaining.
• 10:35
  Speaker 1: That's why I wrote a whole response.
• 10:37
  Speaker 3: It's on my sub stack and pulled documents and showed
• 10:41
  Speaker 3: everything as evidence to show them that, you know, I
• 10:45
  Speaker 3: was a good steward and I am a good steward
• 10:46
  Speaker 3: of their capital.
• 10:47
  Speaker 1: Did things go well? Different than I planned? Yes.
• 10:51
  Speaker 3: Would I do some things a little bit differently, especially
• 10:53
  Speaker 3: when it comes to my staffing?
• 10:54
  Speaker 1: Yes. But was anything done illegally, fraudulent, or misleading? No.
• 11:00
  Speaker 1: But the expectation of a return in even two to
• 11:03
  Speaker 1: five years, it just wasn't realistic.
• 11:05
  Speaker 3: But I do have a responsibility. So I try to
• 11:08
  Speaker 3: do as much as I can to educate them. But
• 11:10
  Speaker 3: if I can't force them to read these things, at
• 11:13
  Speaker 3: least once a year I send a whole breakdown of
• 11:15
  Speaker 3: where the business is at.
• 11:17
  Speaker 1: Explaining their stocks and their shares.
• 11:19
  Speaker 3: And even yesterday on my IG Live, somebody got on
• 11:21
  Speaker 3: my IG Live and said, so where's my shares in Popcom?
• 11:25
  Speaker 3: It's like I can't do enough.
• 11:27
  Speaker 1: Mm-hmm.
• 11:28
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 11:28
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 11:28
  Speaker 2: I mean, you know, listen, I didn't know we was
• 11:30
  Speaker 2: going to get right to it. I was trying to
• 11:32
  Speaker 2: ease into it. She said, so they.
• 11:34
  Speaker 1: Told me that you was a fraud.
• 11:35
  Speaker 4: You kept bringing up what didn't go well.
• 11:39
  Speaker 1: And I'm like, I mean, that's why I asked you
• 11:41
  Speaker 1: where you wanted to start.
• 11:43
  Speaker 4: But also I think it's a thing of too, is
• 11:44
  Speaker 4: like when you're a woman in tech space and especially
• 11:46
  Speaker 4: a black woman in the tech space, it's a lot
• 11:48
  Speaker 4: of things that like, I remember hearing your story and
• 11:50
  Speaker 4: it was like, she raised this money and like, it
• 11:52
  Speaker 4: was exciting to hear.
• 11:54
  Speaker 5: And I know even what you did right, what you
• 11:56
  Speaker 5: did wrong, you know, whatever.
• 11:58
  Speaker 4: If you're in that space and you are, like, figuring
• 12:00
  Speaker 4: out and trying to turn the light on, trying to
• 12:02
  Speaker 4: reach that light switch, there's a lot that you're going
• 12:04
  Speaker 4: to learn. And I think that it's something that, like,
• 12:05
  Speaker 4: people don't want to admit when it happens, if things
• 12:08
  Speaker 4: do happen.
• 12:08
  Speaker 2: But the criticism is valid. And I think the thing
• 12:10
  Speaker 2: that sounds the worst is when you think about, what
• 12:12
  Speaker 2: was it, six, how much was raised, six points?
• 12:14
  Speaker 1: From the public, six million, and from overall, 7.3.
• 12:16
  Speaker 2: Okay, but then it is, to that Watchdog Report Lauren's reading,
• 12:20
  Speaker 2: there is a 2003 filing that shows $ 0 in revenue,
• 12:22
  Speaker 2: $ 0 in cash, and only $ 750 in total assets. So
• 12:27
  Speaker 2: when somebody hears those numbers, what aren't they understanding about
• 12:31
  Speaker 2: where that money went?
• 12:32
  Speaker 1: That is a mistake. That is wrong. Those filings are incorrect,
• 12:37
  Speaker 1: and they're being updated right now. I will take full
• 12:39
  Speaker 1: responsibility for that.
• 12:41
  Speaker 3: Those filings got put in in 2025 when I went
• 12:43
  Speaker 3: to refile to be able to relaunch the company. I
• 12:46
  Speaker 3: decided to relaunch because so many brands were reaching out
• 12:48
  Speaker 3: to me.
• 12:48
  Speaker 1: I said, okay, it's time to relaunch.
• 12:50
  Speaker 3: I'm just hurriedly trying to relaunch. So I'm pulling financials
• 12:54
  Speaker 3: and pulling.
• 12:55
  Speaker 1: files from 2022 and 2033, giving them.
• 12:58
  Speaker 3: To these guys to do an audit, I will take
• 13:01
  Speaker 3: responsibility that I overlooked that the balance sheet was wrong.
• 13:04
  Speaker 1: The balance sheet is where all the business lies. That
• 13:07
  Speaker 1: is my fault. I'm just moving too fast.
• 13:10
  Speaker 3: Nobody caught it either. The crowdfunding platform didn't catch it.
• 13:13
  Speaker 3: The accountants didn't catch it. I didn't catch it because
• 13:16
  Speaker 3: there's so.
• 13:16
  Speaker 1: Many moving parts.
• 13:18
  Speaker 3: We just we just didn't put the right balance sheet
• 13:20
  Speaker 3: on there. The assets are over a hundred thousand. That's
• 13:23
  Speaker 3: going to be refiled is happening right now. The revenue
• 13:27
  Speaker 3: is negative. We are in the red as a company
• 13:31
  Speaker 3: that's been in business.
• 13:32
  Speaker 1: What?
• 13:32
  Speaker 3: It's seven years at this point. We had not broke
• 13:35
  Speaker 3: even for cash flow. for us to have positive on
• 13:38
  Speaker 3: the balance sheet. So there's going to show negative cash flow,
• 13:40
  Speaker 3: but there's positive assets. The software still in GitHub is protected.
• 13:44
  Speaker 3: All of the machines we built, which are assets, are
• 13:46
  Speaker 3: still stored.
• 13:47
  Speaker 1: And they're safe. But yes, the SEC documents do look bad.
• 13:51
  Speaker 1: It does look bad and it's getting fixed.
• 13:53
  Speaker 2: Can you take some of this time to walk us
• 13:55
  Speaker 2: through the biggest buckets of spending? So an investor can
• 13:59
  Speaker 2: understand how that money was spent without producing a profitable company.
• 14:04
  Speaker 1: Yes, it takes time. Like I said, we launched only
• 14:06
  Speaker 1: six months.
• 14:06
  Speaker 3: So we built the product over five years. Where the
• 14:10
  Speaker 3: money went, over $ 2 million went into software development.
• 14:12
  Speaker 1: This is documented.
• 14:14
  Speaker 3: It's on the P & L' s website. Over two million
• 14:18
  Speaker 3: went into software development. We didn't have AI like we
• 14:20
  Speaker 3: do now that can build software.
• 14:22
  Speaker 1: I was paying coders and developers every month to build this.
• 14:26
  Speaker 3: Then over a million dollars went into hardware development because
• 14:29
  Speaker 3: we had to build.
• 14:30
  Speaker 1: The hardware in order to deliver the software.
• 14:33
  Speaker 3: Now, fast forward 2026, we don't have to build hardware
• 14:36
  Speaker 3: anymore because now other companies are now building hardware that
• 14:40
  Speaker 3: can accommodate the software. Then I have a staff of
• 14:43
  Speaker 3: 25 people.
• 14:45
  Speaker 1: They're not all full-time.
• 14:46
  Speaker 3: I have 13 full-time, and then I have all these
• 14:48
  Speaker 3: contractors in part-time. My payroll burn is $ 120, 000 a month.
• 14:53
  Speaker 1: Did I want to do that?
• 14:54
  Speaker 2: Yes.
• 14:55
  Speaker 1: Did I want to do that? No. But I had
• 14:57
  Speaker 1: to follow what my board said to do.
• 14:59
  Speaker 3: And when you're venture-backed, the expectation is everybody's in-house. They
• 15:02
  Speaker 3: don't want you to have a team of contractors. I
• 15:04
  Speaker 3: have to bring my CTO in-house. This is a six-figure employee.
• 15:07
  Speaker 3: Person I have to employ. I have to bring in
• 15:09
  Speaker 3: an operations person, a head of sales, a head of product.
• 15:13
  Speaker 3: So I have four or five people making over $ 100, 000
• 15:16
  Speaker 3: that I'm paying.
• 15:17
  Speaker 1: Me, my salary is $ 10, 000 a month. I'm the CEO.
• 15:20
  Speaker 1: I'm running the business. But all the salaries are approved
• 15:24
  Speaker 1: by the board.
• 15:25
  Speaker 3: So people even get a misconception that I'm just spending
• 15:28
  Speaker 3: the money and I get the money and it's mine
• 15:30
  Speaker 3: and I'm just allocating it. No, we raise the money.
• 15:33
  Speaker 3: We have board meetings every month. There's minutes for every
• 15:36
  Speaker 3: board meeting. We decide what are we going to spend
• 15:38
  Speaker 3: on this? What are we going to focus on? What's
• 15:40
  Speaker 3: everybody's salary? And the board is over the governance. So
• 15:44
  Speaker 3: I wasn't spending more than any startup would spend. But
• 15:48
  Speaker 3: in hindsight, I realized I can't run my business like this.
• 15:53
  Speaker 1: The startup model.
• 15:55
  Speaker 3: I should have resisted when they told me, hire these
• 15:59
  Speaker 3: people and do these things, and I should have said, no,
• 16:01
  Speaker 3: we got to conserve this cash. Like, I have a
• 16:03
  Speaker 3: responsibility to not burn through this cash like venture capital-backed
• 16:07
  Speaker 3: companies do because I might not get any more. But
• 16:09
  Speaker 3: in my mind, I believe that I was.
• 16:13
  Speaker 2: But you're at about 4.4 right now. Yeah. Because, you know,
• 16:16
  Speaker 2: the people will be watching this. They're going to do
• 16:18
  Speaker 2: it with a fine, too. Well, then, okay.
• 16:19
  Speaker 1: So you have marketing. So, I mean, listen, you guys...
• 16:23
  Speaker 1: It's all out there.
• 16:24
  Speaker 3: So even the spreadsheets with line for line, dollar for dollar. But,
• 16:27
  Speaker 3: you know, you have marketing, you have trade shows, you
• 16:30
  Speaker 3: have travel, you have everything you see.
• 16:34
  Speaker 1: We have office rent. We have, I mean, every little expense. Yeah,
• 16:40
  Speaker 1: I mean, we're paying legal. Every contract we do has
• 16:42
  Speaker 1: to be reviewed. Again, we didn't have AI.
• 16:44
  Speaker 3: So we're paying about five to ten thousand dollars a
• 16:46
  Speaker 3: month for just legal bills. We're paying an HR agency.
• 16:50
  Speaker 3: You know, there's just so much involved when you have
• 16:51
  Speaker 3: all these employees. We're paying benefit packages.
• 16:54
  Speaker 1: Taxes.
• 16:56
  Speaker 3: Taxes are hundreds of thousands of dollars. Even if you're
• 16:59
  Speaker 3: not generating the money.
• 17:00
  Speaker 1: I got to still pay taxes. So you're forgetting about that.
• 17:03
  Speaker 1: Payroll taxes. Employment taxes. Social security. I have full-time employees.
• 17:08
  Speaker 1: So I'm paying constantly.
• 17:10
  Speaker 3: You know, electricity, Wi-Fi, cell phone bill stipends. There's just
• 17:14
  Speaker 3: so much involved in running a business. And keep in mind,
• 17:16
  Speaker 3: this money.
• 17:17
  Speaker 1: was raised over, this is what, $ 7 million that was
• 17:22
  Speaker 1: being used from 2017 to 2023. It's not all burned
• 17:28
  Speaker 1: in a year.
• 17:29
  Speaker 3: My number one competitor I had in 2020, they raised
• 17:33
  Speaker 3: $ 45 million and within two years, all the money was
• 17:35
  Speaker 3: gone and they shut down.
• 17:37
  Speaker 1: $ 45 million. I've raised seven in six years and.
• 17:42
  Speaker 3: Produced a product, got a patent, put 15 machines in
• 17:45
  Speaker 3: the market, Had a really great team. And honestly, if
• 17:49
  Speaker 3: the Series A wouldn't have fell through, this would be
• 17:51
  Speaker 3: a different conversation. But I couldn't go back to crowdfunding
• 17:54
  Speaker 3: to raise $ 5 million. I didn't have the, honestly, it's
• 17:59
  Speaker 3: hard mentally to deal with that, you know, to deal with.
• 18:03
  Speaker 3: I didn't know what I was up against managing 10,000
• 18:06
  Speaker 3: people and 10,000 people's expectations.
• 18:09
  Speaker 1: I just was raising money to build a product.
• 18:11
  Speaker 3: But then I became like spending most of my time
• 18:14
  Speaker 3: having calls with them, explaining things to them, trying to
• 18:16
  Speaker 3: clean up this misunderstanding or that misunderstanding about your shares,
• 18:20
  Speaker 3: or hiring a community manager to just answer their questions
• 18:24
  Speaker 3: all the time. It just became to the point where
• 18:27
  Speaker 3: I said I wouldn't crowdfund again. I mean, my friend
• 18:29
  Speaker 3: Isaac Hayes has raised so much for his company, and
• 18:33
  Speaker 3: I just realized after that last round, mentally I can't
• 18:38
  Speaker 3: deal with the.
• 18:38
  Speaker 1: Constant pressure from... I needed to be able to be
• 18:43
  Speaker 1: heads down, but I couldn't. I couldn't be heads down.
• 18:46
  Speaker 2: I saw you say that Popcom built 20 fully engineered
• 18:49
  Speaker 2: pop shop machines, four demo test machines, and two pop boxes.
• 18:53
  Speaker 2: And a lot of critics were questioning whether there was
• 18:56
  Speaker 2: ever a meaningful deployment footprint. So they want to know
• 19:00
  Speaker 2: what happened commercially.
• 19:01
  Speaker 1: Yeah, we had 17 machines out. We sold of those two.
• 19:04
  Speaker 3: So we sold one to a company called Aridu, which
• 19:07
  Speaker 3: is like the Verizon of the Middle East. So it's
• 19:09
  Speaker 3: in Qatar right now. We sold another one to a
• 19:12
  Speaker 3: man that lives in Hawaii. The other ones we deployed
• 19:14
  Speaker 3: in Pop Shop local program.
• 19:16
  Speaker 1: We had them all over the country. This is well
• 19:18
  Speaker 1: documented and photographed. If you just Google it, they're there.
• 19:21
  Speaker 1: We were running a program where we.
• 19:23
  Speaker 3: Allowed local businesses to lease space in the machines because
• 19:27
  Speaker 3: this is what happened. COVID set us back like two years.
• 19:30
  Speaker 3: Our deployment was scheduled for 2019. That's when we were launching.
• 19:34
  Speaker 3: And then we launched in 2020 in the beginning of
• 19:36
  Speaker 3: the year. The first machine came out. It was in Dallas, Texas.
• 19:40
  Speaker 1: And then in March 2020, the world shut down.
• 19:42
  Speaker 3: We had a alcohol company called E & J Gala
• 19:46
  Speaker 3: Winery that signed a contract, paid us.
• 19:47
  Speaker 1: We built a machine to start selling alcohol. and vending
• 19:51
  Speaker 1: machines in movie theaters. Well, movie theaters shut down. We
• 19:53
  Speaker 1: were talking to Procter & Gamble and Apple about doing
• 19:56
  Speaker 1: machines for them. Well, those companies stopped doing any type
• 19:59
  Speaker 1: of new things. COVID made the world change. So we
• 20:04
  Speaker 1: had to pivot very fast. So even when I came
• 20:06
  Speaker 1: to meet you guys and talk about my business, pop
• 20:08
  Speaker 1: shop local.
• 20:09
  Speaker 3: And us deploying vending machines was never the topic.
• 20:11
  Speaker 1: We were always going to deploy the software.
• 20:14
  Speaker 3: But then we built all these machines and had to
• 20:15
  Speaker 3: get them out in the world. So we said, okay,
• 20:17
  Speaker 3: now that's a local focusing economy. Everybody's talking about supply
• 20:21
  Speaker 3: chains messed up.
• 20:21
  Speaker 1: Because of COVID.
• 20:22
  Speaker 3: Small businesses are now what's in the forefront. We're going
• 20:25
  Speaker 3: to put our vending machines in hotels, college campuses. We
• 20:29
  Speaker 3: had them in an airport. We had them in all over.
• 20:32
  Speaker 1: And selling local products.
• 20:33
  Speaker 2: 17. 17, okay, okay.
• 20:35
  Speaker 1: Yes, 17.
• 20:37
  Speaker 3: In 2022, early 2023, I literally went and took them
• 20:42
  Speaker 3: all out of the market. I had to break all
• 20:43
  Speaker 3: of the contracts, all of the leases, because operating these
• 20:46
  Speaker 3: machines every month, like I said, we're making about $ 33, 000
• 20:49
  Speaker 3: to $ 35, 000 a.
• 20:51
  Speaker 1: Month of everybody paid. That wasn't enough to.
• 20:54
  Speaker 3: Pay for all of my staff and everything. When we
• 20:56
  Speaker 3: didn't get the money, I couldn't even afford to keep
• 20:58
  Speaker 3: those machines out. to let them even keep going. So
• 21:01
  Speaker 3: I pulled them out the market, but they were out.
• 21:03
  Speaker 1: They were out. They were growing. We did the first
• 21:06
  Speaker 1: NFTs in vending machines when NFTs were really popping.
• 21:08
  Speaker 3: We did it at NFT NYC week. I mean, we
• 21:11
  Speaker 3: were just really in our flow, but it takes money
• 21:14
  Speaker 3: to innovate. It takes money to scale and to go
• 21:17
  Speaker 3: out and acquire customers. You know, there's three big shows
• 21:20
  Speaker 3: a year.
• 21:20
  Speaker 1: That you have to exhibit at to really get the
• 21:23
  Speaker 1: customers in the vending industry. And those shows are like
• 21:25
  Speaker 1: $ 20, 000 or more to exhibit. That's how I get my customers.
• 21:30
  Speaker 3: So when those shows are shut down and then when
• 21:32
  Speaker 3: we're out of money, it's not the kind of business
• 21:35
  Speaker 3: you're going to go online and do an ad for.
• 21:37
  Speaker 1: These are in-person businesses.
• 21:39
  Speaker 2: I get it.
• 21:40
  Speaker 3: So it's just a lot of things happened that I
• 21:42
  Speaker 3: didn't expect. And I had to close the business down
• 21:44
  Speaker 3: really quickly when the round didn't close. Like literally Friday,
• 21:47
  Speaker 3: the board's like, hey, we're running out of cash, which
• 21:50
  Speaker 3: I've been telling y'all for 11 months, but.
• 21:52
  Speaker 1: Now we're down. You got to get rid of your
• 21:54
  Speaker 1: team on Monday. Keep what's left. And it just... You know,
• 21:58
  Speaker 1: I made it work my own self.
• 21:59
  Speaker 3: I funded it myself for about five months out of
• 22:02
  Speaker 3: my own pocket just to try to keep my staff paid.
• 22:04
  Speaker 1: And then I had to be like, you know what?
• 22:05
  Speaker 1: I got to pause this. But I didn't shut it
• 22:08
  Speaker 1: down because it's too valuable to shut down. And first
• 22:11
  Speaker 1: of all, it's too hard to shut down. I have
• 22:13
  Speaker 1: all this software and all this hardware. How do you
• 22:15
  Speaker 1: shut that down? It doesn't dissolve. It's not an e-commerce business.
• 22:19
  Speaker 1: The stuff is still in the storage unit to this day.
• 22:23
  Speaker 1: So over the time when I was figuring my life out,
• 22:26
  Speaker 1: why I ended up moving to Ghana... My business shut down.
• 22:29
  Speaker 1: I was devastated.
• 22:31
  Speaker 3: I mean, one day I'm working and having calls with
• 22:33
  Speaker 3: big companies, and two weeks later, we're trying to get
• 22:37
  Speaker 3: out of the office.
• 22:40
  Speaker 1: My life is like, you know, so I'm like, okay, well,
• 22:43
  Speaker 1: I'm going to go to Daddy December in Ghana and
• 22:47
  Speaker 1: just kick it.
• 22:47
  Speaker 2: Never come back.
• 22:48
  Speaker 1: I didn't come back.
• 22:49
  Speaker 5: That happens to a lot of black women.
• 22:51
  Speaker 1: That's what happened.
• 22:52
  Speaker 4: When I went to Ghana, that was A.J., She was
• 22:55
  Speaker 4: there and she was telling me like a lot of
• 22:58
  Speaker 4: women come and that time is so freeing that like
• 23:00
  Speaker 4: they just stay. But in the time that you're there
• 23:03
  Speaker 4: and even now that you're there and what's being freeing,
• 23:05
  Speaker 4: like looking back on that time, like I know you
• 23:08
  Speaker 4: work a lot around exit strategies, right? And it seems
• 23:10
  Speaker 4: like you didn't have time to really strategize your exit.
• 23:12
  Speaker 4: It just happened. So what do you do now? Because
• 23:15
  Speaker 4: you have the storage unit. You ain't got any peace
• 23:18
  Speaker 4: of mind. Like, what happens now?
• 23:19
  Speaker 3: I did try for the six months while we still
• 23:21
  Speaker 3: had revenue on the books where I could say, okay, well,
• 23:23
  Speaker 3: we just shut down a few months ago. We did
• 23:25
  Speaker 3: have $ 35, 000, you know, and I had an acquisition on
• 23:28
  Speaker 3: the books.
• 23:29
  Speaker 1: A big company, a big vending company, the biggest.
• 23:33
  Speaker 3: They were going to acquire us. We went through everything,
• 23:35
  Speaker 3: due diligence, everything, all the meetings. They were going to
• 23:37
  Speaker 3: do an acqui-hire, which they were going to hire me
• 23:38
  Speaker 3: to come run the marketing. They were going to hire
• 23:40
  Speaker 3: a few people on my team.
• 23:42
  Speaker 1: We went through everything.
• 23:44
  Speaker 5: It was there.
• 23:45
  Speaker 3: At the end of it, they ghosted me. And they
• 23:47
  Speaker 3: then copied the platform. They tried, but they couldn't because
• 23:52
  Speaker 3: we have the sauce. But they definitely tried to copy.
• 23:54
  Speaker 3: And that's when I realized, like, wow, this happens. And
• 23:58
  Speaker 3: I know a lot of entrepreneurs that Amazon stole their business.
• 24:01
  Speaker 1: So it happens when you let people into your IP.
• 24:04
  Speaker 1: So I tried to sell it. Then I realized after
• 24:06
  Speaker 1: they ghosted me and it didn't work out and they
• 24:08
  Speaker 1: tried to do it, I said, you know what? Let
• 24:10
  Speaker 1: me recenter myself. So I put it on a hiatus,
• 24:13
  Speaker 1: but I didn't shut it down.
• 24:13
  Speaker 3: I kept paying the bills to keep it going, kept
• 24:16
  Speaker 3: the code safe, kept the machine safe. And I just
• 24:18
  Speaker 3: was sitting in Ghana, actually trying to raise money in
• 24:21
  Speaker 3: Ghana and see if there would be a market for
• 24:23
  Speaker 3: Popcom in Africa. But I realized that they're not ready
• 24:26
  Speaker 3: for automated retail. They're not they're not advanced.
• 24:29
  Speaker 2: U.S.
• 24:30
  Speaker 1: Just got caught up.
• 24:30
  Speaker 3: So Africa, honestly, as a continent, it's not ready yet
• 24:34
  Speaker 3: for that technology. So then I just I said, OK,
• 24:36
  Speaker 3: be still. I'm going to just be still and see
• 24:39
  Speaker 3: what I'm supposed to do. While I'm being still, I'm
• 24:41
  Speaker 3: just trying to settle my life, you know, doing things
• 24:44
  Speaker 3: in Ghana. Brands are emailing me. Home Depot emailed me
• 24:49
  Speaker 3: and found my cell phone number and called me. Sephora
• 24:52
  Speaker 3: found my cell phone number and called me, interested in
• 24:54
  Speaker 3: my product.
• 24:55
  Speaker 1: And that made me be like, you know what? You
• 24:57
  Speaker 1: can't let this die. Too many brands. And then when
• 25:00
  Speaker 1: I finally got my heart to go and look at
• 25:04
  Speaker 1: the inboxes, because, you know, I just kind of, Y'all,
• 25:07
  Speaker 1: I had tapped out for a minute. It just burnt
• 25:08
  Speaker 1: me out. For like six months, I was like, this
• 25:10
  Speaker 1: thing's going to kill me.
• 25:12
  Speaker 3: I was bleeding my own money. So I just said,
• 25:13
  Speaker 3: six months, I'm just, I need to breathe. When I
• 25:16
  Speaker 3: finally checked the email box.
• 25:18
  Speaker 1: There was like 50 different companies that had emailed us saying,
• 25:21
  Speaker 1: can we get a machine? We're interested in your software.
• 25:24
  Speaker 1: Some big brands. And I said, okay, it's time. So
• 25:28
  Speaker 1: 2025 is when I said, okay, I'm going to bring
• 25:30
  Speaker 1: it back.
• 25:30
  Speaker 3: But people thought all this time, I took the popcorn money,
• 25:34
  Speaker 3: spent it in Africa, moved to Africa. I stole their money,
• 25:38
  Speaker 3: whatever they believed. So when I relaunched it and said, okay,
• 25:41
  Speaker 3: I'm relaunching the brand in 2025. I went out and
• 25:44
  Speaker 3: acquired a few customers, got a deal signed, document signed.
• 25:48
  Speaker 3: They're taking machines. That's when all the investigation started because
• 25:52
  Speaker 3: people were looking at it like, here she come again. Oh,
• 25:55
  Speaker 3: she must have run out of money in Africa. She's
• 25:57
  Speaker 3: coming to raise money to steal from us again. And
• 26:00
  Speaker 3: they started then reporting me to the SEC thinking that
• 26:03
  Speaker 3: I'm coming back to take money to do.
• 26:06
  Speaker 1: You know, whatever else.
• 26:07
  Speaker 2: You fund your lifestyle, basically.
• 26:08
  Speaker 1: Yeah, fund my lifestyle instead of relaunch the business.
• 26:11
  Speaker 2: Why do you think people connected those things in the
• 26:13
  Speaker 2: first place? Like, was there a transparency problem that allowed that.
• 26:16
  Speaker 1: Suspicion to grow?
• 26:17
  Speaker 3: No, but if they don't check the emails and read
• 26:18
  Speaker 3: the Popcom Investor Facebook group, they don't know what's going on.
• 26:21
  Speaker 3: And it could look like to the public that that's
• 26:23
  Speaker 3: exactly what happened because I never told the story.
• 26:25
  Speaker 1: I'm, first of all, very private about these things. And second,
• 26:28
  Speaker 1: it's hard to process.
• 26:29
  Speaker 2: Like.
• 26:30
  Speaker 1: It could be embarrassing. It could be like, what did
• 26:33
  Speaker 1: I do wrong? It could be like, you know, I'm
• 26:35
  Speaker 1: a big success story. I'm on this show.
• 26:37
  Speaker 3: I'm on cover for magazines. I'm in ink and all these.
• 26:39
  Speaker 3: And then it's like, oh, now it's shut down so quick.
• 26:42
  Speaker 3: I had to process that. So maybe I wasn't being
• 26:45
  Speaker 3: as transparent to the public. But I was transparent to
• 26:48
  Speaker 3: my investors.
• 26:49
  Speaker 1: They knew. If they don't read the updates, I can't
• 26:53
  Speaker 1: force them. But I never, ever was quiet on them.
• 26:57
  Speaker 3: I always told them everything that I was doing.
• 26:59
  Speaker 1: So... I'm actually I feel.
• 27:01
  Speaker 3: That the investigation was a blessing because during that time
• 27:04
  Speaker 3: from 2020, 2023, a lot of us got rich, you know,
• 27:09
  Speaker 3: got a lot of money from online something, selling something online,
• 27:12
  Speaker 3: of course, having a company invested in and raising money
• 27:15
  Speaker 3: in which, by the way, I want to say raising
• 27:17
  Speaker 3: money is not what is important.
• 27:19
  Speaker 1: It's making money. I was raising money to get to revenue.
• 27:22
  Speaker 1: I'm not raising money to just say I raise all
• 27:23
  Speaker 1: this money. You got to give it back.
• 27:26
  Speaker 3: So it's not like I'm a success because I raise money.
• 27:28
  Speaker 3: But it's because I built something. But at this time,
• 27:31
  Speaker 3: a lot of us were just getting money. And a
• 27:33
  Speaker 3: lot of people were scamming and getting scammed. A lot
• 27:36
  Speaker 3: of things happened.
• 27:37
  Speaker 1: Now we're seeing this. And I appreciate that I got investigated.
• 27:41
  Speaker 3: They fine-tooth combed, forensically searched to the penny everything that
• 27:46
  Speaker 3: I did.
• 27:47
  Speaker 1: It was very challenging, but I saved all my records.
• 27:50
  Speaker 1: And I was cleared of everything.
• 27:51
  Speaker 3: And that is a blessing because I now can stand
• 27:55
  Speaker 3: on something like, hey, yeah, it.
• 27:56
  Speaker 1: Does– It does look crazy. It could look crazy that
• 27:59
  Speaker 1: you raised $ 7 million and the business is out of
• 28:01
  Speaker 1: business and all these people are like, what happened? And
• 28:03
  Speaker 1: you're like, okay, where's all the money?
• 28:05
  Speaker 3: But I had to account for every penny of that money.
• 28:08
  Speaker 1: Because this is a serious business. Taking people's money under
• 28:11
  Speaker 1: the SEC, you can go to jail. We've seen people
• 28:13
  Speaker 1: go to jail for the past couple of years.
• 28:15
  Speaker 2: And they love to block a black person.
• 28:17
  Speaker 1: We've seen it. So it's like, hey, investigate me. Yes, yes.
• 28:23
  Speaker 1: Let me show you all of my.
• 28:26
  Speaker 1: Everything. And that's when we really found what happened. The
• 28:29
  Speaker 1: balance sheet from 2023, there was no depreciation recorded over
• 28:33
  Speaker 1: the years. The balance sheet from 2022 and 2023 didn't
• 28:36
  Speaker 1: get translated to 2025 for the filings and it said zero.
• 28:40
  Speaker 1: They didn't pull over the numbers and it looked crazy.
• 28:44
  Speaker 2: And I know people are going to listen to this
• 28:46
  Speaker 2: right now and they're going to say, okay, I hear
• 28:47
  Speaker 2: Dawn blaming COVID. She's blaming supply chain problems, manufacturing costs, right?
• 28:52
  Speaker 2: Disputes with manufacturers. Those are a lot of the setbacks.
• 28:55
  Speaker 2: But at what point Does a founder have to stop
• 28:57
  Speaker 2: saying these things happened to us and say, regardless of
• 29:01
  Speaker 2: what happened, I made decisions that didn't work? What's the
• 29:05
  Speaker 2: part you personally got wrong?
• 29:06
  Speaker 1: Two things happened at the same time. All those things happened.
• 29:09
  Speaker 1: COVID happened. Supply chain issues happened. Series A fall through.
• 29:13
  Speaker 1: And also, I could have done things differently. Also, you
• 29:16
  Speaker 1: learn as you go.
• 29:17
  Speaker 3: Like you said, Lauren, I was the first to do this.
• 29:20
  Speaker 1: When you're the first, you don't know what's happening. You're
• 29:22
  Speaker 1: learning every day what's happening. Would I have changed some things? Absolutely.
• 29:27
  Speaker 3: Like somebody brought it to my attention because I'm like,
• 29:29
  Speaker 3: why would you say that I misled people?
• 29:31
  Speaker 1: Because I really want to know. I really want to
• 29:32
  Speaker 1: know how I can be better. And a fellow founder said,
• 29:35
  Speaker 1: you sent out a customer list that didn't have real customers.
• 29:38
  Speaker 1: I said, when? When did I send out a customer list?
• 29:40
  Speaker 1: customer list that don't have real customers? He said, you
• 29:42
  Speaker 1: sent out an email to all.
• 29:43
  Speaker 3: Of your investors that had a list of people on
• 29:45
  Speaker 3: that that were not your customers.
• 29:48
  Speaker 1: I said, it was a prospect list. It's a pipeline.
• 29:52
  Speaker 3: They're either people that reached out to me that want
• 29:54
  Speaker 3: to do business or people that we want to do
• 29:55
  Speaker 3: business with.
• 29:56
  Speaker 1: But if you didn't read.
• 29:58
  Speaker 3: The context behind that, it looks like I'm straight scamming,
• 30:02
  Speaker 3: sending out a list of people saying these are who
• 30:04
  Speaker 3: I'm working with.
• 30:05
  Speaker 1: I'm not working with none of them. So would I
• 30:07
  Speaker 1: have done that?
• 30:08
  Speaker 3: No, because I realized I was being overly transparent. But
• 30:13
  Speaker 3: without an education explanation, it don't matter how much you
• 30:16
  Speaker 3: say if they don't understand what you're talking about and
• 30:18
  Speaker 3: get it.
• 30:19
  Speaker 1: It doesn't matter. So I take full responsibility for every
• 30:22
  Speaker 1: single thing that happened. It's on me. I'm the founder.
• 30:25
  Speaker 1: I'm the CEO. I hired everybody that was there. I
• 30:27
  Speaker 1: brought on the board members that was there.
• 30:30
  Speaker 3: And there's things that I would do differently, and I
• 30:33
  Speaker 3: am going to do differently moving forward. No matter what
• 30:35
  Speaker 3: happens in the business, the founder must take responsibility. I
• 30:39
  Speaker 3: take full responsibility. But I'm not shutting down. I'm not
• 30:42
  Speaker 3: giving up. I'm going to, you know, I'm rebuilding it, which...
• 30:45
  Speaker 3: I spent money last year getting all the code updated
• 30:48
  Speaker 3: and integrating new AI into it. So where now it
• 30:51
  Speaker 3: has the most modern technology that's in the system.
• 30:54
  Speaker 1: And it's way cheaper.
• 30:56
  Speaker 3: So now I can take $ 1 million and do what
• 30:59
  Speaker 3: it would have cost me $ 10 million to do in
• 31:00
  Speaker 3: the past, which.
• 31:01
  Speaker 1: I appreciate AI. I appreciate the AI.
• 31:03
  Speaker 3: Agents and everything that I can now do and build
• 31:06
  Speaker 3: with today. Popcom was building with AI in 2017.
• 31:10
  Speaker 1: It was called machine learning.
• 31:11
  Speaker 3: It wasn't even called AI. Nobody understood fully what we built.
• 31:16
  Speaker 3: So now it's an opportunity to come back into the
• 31:18
  Speaker 3: market where the marketplace is ready. So, yeah, we had
• 31:21
  Speaker 3: some bumpy years and I can name several companies that
• 31:25
  Speaker 3: are now big companies that had these bumpy years. All
• 31:28
  Speaker 3: I can do is take what I learned and move
• 31:30
  Speaker 3: forward and do the best that I can to let
• 31:32
  Speaker 3: my investors who are invested, the 10,000-plus people know, like,
• 31:35
  Speaker 3: your investment is still safe.
• 31:37
  Speaker 1: You're on my cap table. Your money is... It was
• 31:40
  Speaker 1: spent to build the business. The business has value.
• 31:42
  Speaker 3: We're valued over $ 12 million. Yes, the valuation is less because...
• 31:47
  Speaker 3: valuations of companies go up and down.
• 31:49
  Speaker 4: So those investors are still technically invested into your company
• 31:52
  Speaker 4: until they get their return.
• 31:53
  Speaker 1: Until they get a return. So until I shut this
• 31:55
  Speaker 1: whole thing down, it's gone, which is still a company.
• 31:59
  Speaker 1: It's not dissolved. So it's a company until I have
• 32:02
  Speaker 1: acquisition or a merger or be publicly traded. I don't
• 32:05
  Speaker 1: intend to go to the publicly traded route. I intend
• 32:07
  Speaker 1: to build to exit as an acquisition. And that's still
• 32:10
  Speaker 1: the strategy.
• 32:11
  Speaker 3: And I'm just really excited that after these years of
• 32:14
  Speaker 3: being out of the market, three years being just There's
• 32:17
  Speaker 3: no competitor.
• 32:18
  Speaker 1: No one has built.
• 32:19
  Speaker 3: Anything that is like Popcom as far as operating system
• 32:22
  Speaker 3: for automated retail is not out there. That's why these
• 32:24
  Speaker 3: brands still are emailing us. So being a success in
• 32:28
  Speaker 3: business comes from like the right timing and the right product.
• 32:32
  Speaker 3: I had a good product, probably not the ideal market timing.
• 32:35
  Speaker 1: Now the timing is better.
• 32:37
  Speaker 2: Where are you going to get the capital from now?
• 32:38
  Speaker 2: Because I mean, it's going to be hard.
• 32:40
  Speaker 3: Now I'm getting the capital from private angel investors, which people,
• 32:42
  Speaker 3: you know, private angels, minimum check size $ 25, 000. Accredited investors,
• 32:49
  Speaker 3: definitely more one-on-one working with the investors so that they
• 32:53
  Speaker 3: are understanding. You know, it was hard to talk to
• 32:56
  Speaker 3: and communicate with 10,000 people and let everybody understand. Of
• 32:59
  Speaker 3: my 10,000, probably 100 of them, they think I stole
• 33:03
  Speaker 3: their money. And the other ones, they're very supportive. And
• 33:06
  Speaker 3: they talk to me in the Facebook group. They send
• 33:08
  Speaker 3: me emails. They're like, we believe in you. We know
• 33:10
  Speaker 3: the product is good.
• 33:11
  Speaker 1: You know, so.
• 33:14
  Speaker 1: I want everybody to be happy. I don't want anybody
• 33:16
  Speaker 1: to think I stole their money. But in reality, I
• 33:18
  Speaker 1: only can do so much.
• 33:20
  Speaker 2: Another thing I saw, another criticism was it was concerning governance.
• 33:24
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 33:24
  Speaker 2: So a lot of the crowdfunding investors, I guess they
• 33:28
  Speaker 2: had non-voting shares and you had full voting control.
• 33:30
  Speaker 1: That's not true. No, that's not true.
• 33:32
  Speaker 3: No, everybody on my cap table, so all investors have
• 33:35
  Speaker 3: common stock, which common stock means we all have equal
• 33:38
  Speaker 3: voting as far as... Common shares in the cap table,
• 33:44
  Speaker 3: no preferred shares. The board votes. So the governance of
• 33:47
  Speaker 3: PopCon was always through the board. The way that a
• 33:50
  Speaker 3: corporate structure works is the shareholders own the company. Then
• 33:54
  Speaker 3: the board manages the company. The board hires and fires
• 33:57
  Speaker 3: a CEO. Then the CEO can hire and fire the staff.
• 34:01
  Speaker 3: The board set my salary. The board set the budgets.
• 34:04
  Speaker 3: The board determined every move that I was allowed to do.
• 34:08
  Speaker 3: That's even why I couldn't raise any more capital at
• 34:10
  Speaker 3: the end. My board kept saying I couldn't raise any more.
• 34:12
  Speaker 3: My board of directors would not authorize me to raise
• 34:15
  Speaker 3: an angel round to try to save the business, which
• 34:17
  Speaker 3: to this day I don't understand.
• 34:19
  Speaker 1: But the government governance was absolutely put in place. They
• 34:24
  Speaker 1: they controlled me.
• 34:25
  Speaker 3: So do the shareholders vote in about things that happen
• 34:32
  Speaker 3: like the board?
• 34:32
  Speaker 1: No, but.
• 34:34
  Speaker 3: If you go on Robinhood and invest in Tesla, you're
• 34:36
  Speaker 3: not getting an invitation to the shareholders meeting.
• 34:39
  Speaker 1: You're not voting anything. Only preferred stockholders vote in publicly
• 34:46
  Speaker 1: traded companies.
• 34:47
  Speaker 3: So no, none of the crowdfunding investors are ever going
• 34:50
  Speaker 3: to vote. But they have common stock, which is the
• 34:52
  Speaker 3: same stock that I have, and it's the same.
• 34:55
  Speaker 1: Stock that everybody has.
• 34:56
  Speaker 3: So nobody's stock has more power than others. But we
• 35:02
  Speaker 3: also can't be having 10,000 people that don't clearly understand
• 35:05
  Speaker 3: the business having a say-so in the operations.
• 35:08
  Speaker 1: That's why we have a board of directors that is
• 35:11
  Speaker 1: not connected to me. My main investor, my largest investor,
• 35:15
  Speaker 1: was on the board.
• 35:16
  Speaker 3: And then a woman that's just a tech expert, completely
• 35:21
  Speaker 3: not attached to me, that I met through Techstars, she
• 35:24
  Speaker 3: was on the board because I knew she would be
• 35:27
  Speaker 3: very unbiased.
• 35:28
  Speaker 1: She would just go straight by the books.
• 35:30
  Speaker 2: I wonder if those investors thought they were supposed to
• 35:32
  Speaker 2: have some say-so in the company.
• 35:35
  Speaker 5: I don't think so.
• 35:36
  Speaker 4: I saw Class A shares, Class B shares. So Class
• 35:40
  Speaker 4: B shares, the report was that they had no voting
• 35:45
  Speaker 4: control within that share. And then Class A purchased none.
• 35:49
  Speaker 3: That's like the board members and some of the larger
• 35:53
  Speaker 3: investors that can actually influence the operations of the company. Again,
• 35:58
  Speaker 3: everybody has common stock. Class A was like the first
• 36:00
  Speaker 3: ones we ever had. So they'll have class A, class B,
• 36:02
  Speaker 3: class C. Class C was issued. We put class C all.
• 36:06
  Speaker 1: Together for crowdfunding because crowdfunding, you can't have 10,000 individuals
• 36:11
  Speaker 1: on a cap table. So we had to package all
• 36:13
  Speaker 1: those investors into a syndicate. So they're all represented under
• 36:17
  Speaker 1: like one, Category.
• 36:18
  Speaker 3: So we just put them in called Class C. They're
• 36:21
  Speaker 3: just they just came later. They're not voting.
• 36:24
  Speaker 1: Also, Class B or Class B is not voting. Class
• 36:27
  Speaker 1: A is voting.
• 36:28
  Speaker 3: My board members have Class A that are also my investors.
• 36:32
  Speaker 3: But I am still the majority owner of the Class
• 36:35
  Speaker 3: A shares. I set up my companies very similar to
• 36:37
  Speaker 3: how Mark Zuckerberg did, where you can't vote him out
• 36:40
  Speaker 3: of the business because I'm not going to allow you
• 36:42
  Speaker 3: to vote me out of my business.
• 36:43
  Speaker 1: It's never going to happen. I won't allow that.
• 36:45
  Speaker 3: The me having that voting rights is actually what saved
• 36:49
  Speaker 3: the business from completely being shut down. I had to
• 36:52
  Speaker 3: fire my board because they were not letting me raise money.
• 36:55
  Speaker 3: And I was able to fire my board because I
• 36:57
  Speaker 3: was a majority voting shareholder. But people don't understand. I
• 37:00
  Speaker 3: don't think when they complain about this is that what
• 37:03
  Speaker 3: does voting mean? Do you want me to come ask
• 37:06
  Speaker 3: you to approve my budgets and you don't have any
• 37:09
  Speaker 3: understanding of the business? We're never going to do that.
• 37:11
  Speaker 3: No company does that. But am I the only one
• 37:14
  Speaker 3: making decisions?
• 37:15
  Speaker 1: No.
• 37:16
  Speaker 3: It cannot be that way. When I decided to go
• 37:19
  Speaker 3: to the public and take all this money, I immediately
• 37:21
  Speaker 3: put a board of directors in place. I immediately got
• 37:24
  Speaker 3: directors and officers insurance. I immediately got key man insurance
• 37:27
  Speaker 3: in case I died or I can't work. Somebody's going
• 37:29
  Speaker 3: to come in and take this. So I put all
• 37:31
  Speaker 3: the structures in place to protect the business and to
• 37:35
  Speaker 3: protect their investment.
• 37:37
  Speaker 1: So there was nothing done that was mismanaged.
• 37:40
  Speaker 3: The error, the great error was sending in an incorrect
• 37:44
  Speaker 3: balance sheet document.
• 37:45
  Speaker 1: To the SEC. That was bad.
• 37:47
  Speaker 4: And this time around, I mean, that's an accounting error.
• 37:50
  Speaker 4: But at some point, I think most people at a
• 37:53
  Speaker 4: basic level would have been like to have six million
• 37:55
  Speaker 4: dollars invested in zero.
• 37:57
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 37:57
  Speaker 5: How did you hire an accountant? You got all these.
• 38:00
  Speaker 1: There was not zero. That's why.
• 38:02
  Speaker 3: I mean, it was just the balance sheet didn't get
• 38:04
  Speaker 3: rolled over. The cash flow, the cash went to zero.
• 38:07
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 38:07
  Speaker 1: When the business closed down, there's no more money coming
• 38:10
  Speaker 1: in and no more money going out. Is that zero?
• 38:11
  Speaker 2: Zero.
• 38:12
  Speaker 1: But at the time we shut down, it was not
• 38:13
  Speaker 1: at zero.
• 38:14
  Speaker 5: But the assets were at like $ 750. That's wrong.
• 38:17
  Speaker 1: Yes, the assets are over $ 800, 000. You said that earlier.
• 38:20
  Speaker 3: But the assets on the 2022 audit and balance sheet,
• 38:24
  Speaker 3: when I got it redone, it did not roll over.
• 38:27
  Speaker 1: They just reported nothing.
• 38:29
  Speaker 3: Because keep in mind, 2023 was our last year of
• 38:32
  Speaker 3: bringing in checks from sales.
• 38:36
  Speaker 1: 2024, we had no activity. So 2024 is actually zero
• 38:39
  Speaker 1: on the P & L. Mm-hmm.
• 38:41
  Speaker 3: No profit, no loss, nothing's happening. The last balance sheet
• 38:46
  Speaker 3: was 2023.
• 38:47
  Speaker 1: So when I went to have.
• 38:48
  Speaker 3: The financials updated to file, they did not roll over
• 38:52
  Speaker 3: all of the assets.
• 38:53
  Speaker 1: They just said, oh, you weren't in business 2024? Everything's zero.
• 38:56
  Speaker 3: Not thinking, balance sheet doesn't change. Assets don't change unless
• 39:00
  Speaker 3: you sold them. They're still in the storage.
• 39:03
  Speaker 5: This is an accounting firm?
• 39:04
  Speaker 1: This is an accounting firm. Accounting firm. I hired the
• 39:07
  Speaker 1: accounting firm.
• 39:07
  Speaker 3: They ended up giving my money back three months ago
• 39:10
  Speaker 3: because I'm like- I'll take responsibility as CEO. I should
• 39:13
  Speaker 3: have read it thoroughly myself. I should have checked it.
• 39:15
  Speaker 3: I should not have authorized it to go out.
• 39:17
  Speaker 1: I'll take it. But I hired somebody to do it.
• 39:19
  Speaker 3: And then I had the platform also check it. So
• 39:22
  Speaker 3: we all missed this because, again, moving too fast. I
• 39:26
  Speaker 3: went to them and I said, I'm under investigation because
• 39:28
  Speaker 3: of these balance sheets, because these filings.
• 39:30
  Speaker 1: I hired you to do it. They gave me a
• 39:31
  Speaker 1: refund on my money.
• 39:32
  Speaker 5: What happens to the accounting firm now?
• 39:34
  Speaker 1: Nothing.
• 39:36
  Speaker 2: There's going to be a lot of crowd, people that
• 39:38
  Speaker 2: participated in the crowdfunding, and they're going to be like, well,
• 39:40
  Speaker 2: you're saying, you know... We shouldn't have had to say
• 39:43
  Speaker 2: it because we don't know business, but they're going to say,
• 39:44
  Speaker 2: you didn't even know how to file our paperwork, so
• 39:45
  Speaker 2: maybe you don't know business either.
• 39:47
  Speaker 1: Yeah, well, maybe I didn't know that, and I learned now.
• 39:49
  Speaker 1: I don't know everything. I'm not going to pretend that
• 39:50
  Speaker 1: I do.
• 39:51
  Speaker 3: Had I ever done SEC filings before 2020?
• 39:54
  Speaker 1: No. Had I ever been audited before 2022? No. A
• 39:58
  Speaker 1: lot of things I've never done in my life. Have
• 40:01
  Speaker 1: I ever handled this much cash from investors? Never in
• 40:04
  Speaker 1: my life. My 25 years of entrepreneurship, I've never done
• 40:06
  Speaker 1: these things before.
• 40:07
  Speaker 2: It was overwhelming.
• 40:08
  Speaker 1: So I learned. It's overwhelming. There's so many things to learn.
• 40:11
  Speaker 1: I'm in charge of everything. At the end of the day,
• 40:12
  Speaker 1: it's all on me. Everything's on me. Taking the trash
• 40:16
  Speaker 1: out on me and getting the cold lives on me.
• 40:19
  Speaker 2: And you worked without a salary, right?
• 40:22
  Speaker 1: I worked without a salary from 2022 until we stopped.
• 40:25
  Speaker 3: I just stopped giving myself a salary so I could
• 40:27
  Speaker 3: preserve cash because luckily.
• 40:28
  Speaker 1: I have multiple streams of income. I make good investments.
• 40:33
  Speaker 3: I also make great money speaking and other things. So
• 40:36
  Speaker 3: I said, listen, There's no need for me to keep
• 40:38
  Speaker 3: taking money out of Popcom for a salary.
• 40:40
  Speaker 1: I don't have to have it. And as a shareholder,
• 40:43
  Speaker 1: I'll get my money on the back end when I
• 40:44
  Speaker 1: sell the business.
• 40:45
  Speaker 5: I'm not, it's fine.
• 40:46
  Speaker 3: So I just was able to prolong us not shutting down.
• 40:50
  Speaker 3: I was just using my salary to pay other things,
• 40:53
  Speaker 3: which a lot of us do. And another thing that
• 40:56
  Speaker 3: I had to do was be a personal guarantor for
• 40:59
  Speaker 3: so many things for Popcom.
• 41:00
  Speaker 1: You know, I had to.
• 41:01
  Speaker 2: You went into personal debt too.
• 41:03
  Speaker 1: Oh, everybody sued me.
• 41:05
  Speaker 2: Oh, wow.
• 41:05
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I went into this, you know, credit 800, commodities
• 41:09
  Speaker 3: credit 500 because they sued me for everything, you know,
• 41:13
  Speaker 3: and that's another thing people need to realize. Yeah, like
• 41:16
  Speaker 3: when you're a CEO of a company and you're going
• 41:18
  Speaker 3: out and getting lines of credit, getting an office building,
• 41:21
  Speaker 3: getting all these things, I'm signing my name.
• 41:24
  Speaker 1: Next to it because I'm the CEO.
• 41:26
  Speaker 3: Even though I'm not even the majority shareholder because I
• 41:29
  Speaker 3: have all these investors now and I only own like 30%,
• 41:31
  Speaker 3: it's a big company now, it's still on me. So
• 41:35
  Speaker 3: when Popcom had to suddenly leave our office, who got
• 41:38
  Speaker 3: sued for two years rent?
• 41:40
  Speaker 1: Me.
• 41:41
  Speaker 3: When Popcom couldn't pay the cash flow American Express because,
• 41:44
  Speaker 3: you know, we're doing a thing. Using American Express to
• 41:47
  Speaker 3: run through all of our bills through it and then
• 41:49
  Speaker 3: getting the points and using that for, you know, we
• 41:51
  Speaker 3: had the game down.
• 41:52
  Speaker 1: Everybody was playing the game. What happens when you don't
• 41:54
  Speaker 1: pay that bill? They sue me. SBA loan from Paycheck Protection.
• 42:02
  Speaker 1: They sue me. Like me, myself.
• 42:05
  Speaker 3: And so that's something people don't realize as well. When
• 42:08
  Speaker 3: you're doing these businesses, and I even thought, I'm independent
• 42:12
  Speaker 3: of the business. I'm the CEO, but I'm not responsible
• 42:16
  Speaker 3: for this debt.
• 42:17
  Speaker 1: When the company shut down, they looking for somebody.
• 42:21
  Speaker 2: All people want to know is you're not a scammer.
• 42:23
  Speaker 1: Yeah, exactly.
• 42:24
  Speaker 2: So how do you separate your intentions from your results?
• 42:26
  Speaker 2: Because I'm listening, and I'm like, I don't think your
• 42:29
  Speaker 2: intention was to try to get over on people.
• 42:30
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and I didn't get over on anybody. You know,
• 42:33
  Speaker 1: I even sold $ 50, 000.
• 42:34
  Speaker 3: Of my crypto in 20, what, 2022 and put it
• 42:38
  Speaker 3: into the business to keep the business going.
• 42:40
  Speaker 2: So you invested your own money, too.
• 42:40
  Speaker 1: A scammer wouldn't do that. Yes, I've invested my... I
• 42:43
  Speaker 1: have paid all of Popcom's bills since 2023 myself.
• 42:46
  Speaker 2: Important context.
• 42:47
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I've paid the storage bills. I've paid the server bills.
• 42:50
  Speaker 3: I've paid all of the G Suite bills to keep
• 42:53
  Speaker 3: all of our documents stored. I've paid the bills to
• 42:55
  Speaker 3: store the documents in Dropbox.
• 42:58
  Speaker 1: That's a bill. I pay... Google to store all of
• 43:01
  Speaker 1: our files. I pay that out of my pocket. A
• 43:04
  Speaker 1: scammer would have took their money and went.
• 43:05
  Speaker 3: But I believe in this business and it's a great business.
• 43:09
  Speaker 3: It's a great product and people still want it. And
• 43:12
  Speaker 3: I did everything I said I was going to do
• 43:14
  Speaker 3: with the money, but we didn't go to the next
• 43:16
  Speaker 3: step because we still were going. I did not consider
• 43:23
  Speaker 3: how expensive it was going to be to launch that
• 43:26
  Speaker 3: pop shop local program.
• 43:27
  Speaker 1: I didn't budget for it. This is what happened. We
• 43:31
  Speaker 1: didn't budget.
• 43:32
  Speaker 3: It cost us hundreds of thousands of dollars that we
• 43:34
  Speaker 3: never planned to spend.
• 43:37
  Speaker 1: And that's what really took it, you know, over there.
• 43:39
  Speaker 2: But.
• 43:39
  Speaker 5: How is Dawn the person right now?
• 43:42
  Speaker 1: Dawn the person... Like, you're.
• 43:43
  Speaker 5: Coming up out of all of that.
• 43:44
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 43:44
  Speaker 5: Obviously, because you're getting back out here.
• 43:46
  Speaker 1: Yeah. This is my first time out here. Yeah.
• 43:49
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 43:49
  Speaker 5: So how... I mean, that's a lot to have to...
• 43:52
  Speaker 5: It is a lot.
• 43:52
  Speaker 3: Especially when, you know, getting called a scammer, it was
• 43:54
  Speaker 3: hard for me because I.
• 43:58
  Speaker 1: never experienced anything like that.
• 44:00
  Speaker 3: I knew that when I opened up my company to
• 44:03
  Speaker 3: let everybody invest, my intentions were so pure.
• 44:05
  Speaker 1: Like now my people can invest, my community can invest.
• 44:09
  Speaker 3: You know, I was so excited on this show talking
• 44:11
  Speaker 3: about how we can create wealth together. So I was
• 44:14
  Speaker 3: hurt to let them down. You know, like that hurt
• 44:17
  Speaker 3: me so deep because I'm like, We get so disappointed
• 44:20
  Speaker 3: in our community.
• 44:21
  Speaker 1: We always let each other down. We can't trust each other.
• 44:23
  Speaker 3: I don't want to be another person where they like, see,
• 44:26
  Speaker 3: I gave her money and I can't trust her.
• 44:28
  Speaker 1: But I'm also a public lesson. Right. So I'm like, OK,
• 44:32
  Speaker 1: I put myself out there and now they can see
• 44:33
  Speaker 1: what this process looks like. And I just continue to
• 44:36
  Speaker 1: tell the story and tell the truth.
• 44:38
  Speaker 3: Dawn, the person is good now that I've been investigated
• 44:42
  Speaker 3: and cleared by police. Like, I know you can't say
• 44:45
  Speaker 3: I did nothing wrong because I know I didn't. You know,
• 44:47
  Speaker 3: like even me, I did things wrong. Outside, I did
• 44:50
  Speaker 3: things wrong as far as I could have made better
• 44:51
  Speaker 3: hires and better decisions. But as far as fiscally, as
• 44:54
  Speaker 3: far as legally, as far as like anything that could
• 44:57
  Speaker 3: be in the scam adjacent category, no. But did things
• 45:02
  Speaker 3: go left at times?
• 45:03
  Speaker 5: Yes.
• 45:04
  Speaker 1: So me, after now four years of this, I feel great. Yeah,
• 45:09
  Speaker 1: I feel good.
• 45:10
  Speaker 3: I feel really positive and optimistic also because I was
• 45:15
  Speaker 3: kind of nervous, like, what if I can't bring this back?
• 45:19
  Speaker 3: But the fact that customers still want.
• 45:20
  Speaker 1: It, I just was ahead of my time. So I
• 45:23
  Speaker 1: feel really encouraged.
• 45:25
  Speaker 3: And then the fact that, like, honestly, God just gave
• 45:28
  Speaker 3: me this amazing business in Ghana to let me be
• 45:30
  Speaker 3: able to support myself more, to pay popcorn bills. You know,
• 45:36
  Speaker 3: I'm just grateful that Life goes on, and I also
• 45:41
  Speaker 3: have so many other streams of income that I built
• 45:43
  Speaker 3: for myself over the years that I'm not defined by
• 45:46
  Speaker 3: one thing.
• 45:46
  Speaker 2: And investing is a risk. I mean, you know, sometimes
• 45:50
  Speaker 2: you lose money, sometimes you break even, sometimes you win.
• 45:53
  Speaker 2: But that is all the risk you take when you
• 45:56
  Speaker 2: make an investment.
• 45:57
  Speaker 3: I invested in 25 startups, and half of them are
• 46:00
  Speaker 3: out of business. A couple of them could be a
• 46:02
  Speaker 3: unicorn and could go public.
• 46:04
  Speaker 1: But, you know, I've lost... I've definitely lost six figures
• 46:07
  Speaker 1: in investing myself.
• 46:08
  Speaker 2: And.
• 46:09
  Speaker 3: but I've also come up and it's just a part
• 46:11
  Speaker 3: of the game. You know, you have to take risks
• 46:12
  Speaker 3: to get on the other side of things. I, I
• 46:16
  Speaker 3: want to see this be successful, but if nothing else,
• 46:20
  Speaker 3: I'm totally fine with like being transparent, being open so
• 46:24
  Speaker 3: that people see what it's like.
• 46:26
  Speaker 1: And now they can learn from me what to do,
• 46:28
  Speaker 1: what not to do. If you don't like what I did,
• 46:30
  Speaker 1: if I was wrong, just don't do it.
• 46:32
  Speaker 3: Take my lesson and say, listen, Dawn could have did
• 46:34
  Speaker 3: this better. And now I know what, That's what we do.
• 46:37
  Speaker 3: I'm having a book come out. I'm really going to
• 46:39
  Speaker 3: lay it out in the book. So I'm just letting
• 46:42
  Speaker 3: it be a lesson.
• 46:43
  Speaker 1: I'm building in public.
• 46:45
  Speaker 3: It's so uncomfortable to build anything when everybody's watching. Because
• 46:49
  Speaker 3: everything is documented and everything is out there.
• 46:51
  Speaker 2: Popcom was a symbol for crowdfunding. Do you think now
• 46:58
  Speaker 2: it's become an argument against the crowdfunding movement that you were,
• 47:03
  Speaker 2: that you did advance, really?
• 47:04
  Speaker 3: I think that it It's both, right? Because people are
• 47:09
  Speaker 3: still crowdfunding, but again, it's saturated now. The market has changed.
• 47:13
  Speaker 3: People's risk adversity has changed. Them being comfortable giving money
• 47:17
  Speaker 3: to entrepreneurs has changed. Our community, you get one chance.
• 47:22
  Speaker 3: That's unfortunate because in other communities, you get a lot
• 47:25
  Speaker 3: of chances.
• 47:25
  Speaker 5: I was literally sitting here thinking that.
• 47:26
  Speaker 1: Yeah, you get one chance in our community. Mm-hmm. Did
• 47:29
  Speaker 1: I kind of mess up a lot of people's... I'm
• 47:31
  Speaker 1: going to be... Yeah. Did I kind of... Seeing me,
• 47:34
  Speaker 1: did that affect and impact people's... The way they see crowdfunding? Yeah,
• 47:38
  Speaker 1: it could. It could have, yes.
• 47:40
  Speaker 3: But people are still invested in campaigns. We're seeing these
• 47:42
  Speaker 3: campaigns go crazy. But also, they don't trust us. We
• 47:48
  Speaker 3: don't trust each other. We don't give each other grace.
• 47:52
  Speaker 1: I was even reading about.
• 47:54
  Speaker 3: Tesla and they said Elon Musk was about to go
• 47:56
  Speaker 3: bankrupt and the business shutting down in 2008 and he
• 47:59
  Speaker 3: on Christmas Eve he sold some things and kept.
• 48:01
  Speaker 1: Tesla alive.
• 48:04
  Speaker 3: It happens everybody but we don't get to do that
• 48:07
  Speaker 3: you know we don't get to mess up and we
• 48:10
  Speaker 3: but we do mess up so I'm just hoping that
• 48:13
  Speaker 3: people continue to invest in companies that are early that
• 48:18
  Speaker 3: are of our people.
• 48:19
  Speaker 1: But this lesson should be read everything. Do your due
• 48:23
  Speaker 1: diligence deeply.
• 48:24
  Speaker 3: Really understand how long it's going to take that founder
• 48:27
  Speaker 3: to become profitable. I never said we were going to
• 48:29
  Speaker 3: get money and get profitable overnight. It always is going
• 48:31
  Speaker 3: to take us three to four years from launch to
• 48:35
  Speaker 3: be very profitable. We only made it seven months after launch.
• 48:39
  Speaker 3: There's no way I was going to be profitable yet.
• 48:42
  Speaker 3: So understanding that business. Popcom is not a cash flow business.
• 48:46
  Speaker 3: If you want to invest in something with returns, you
• 48:48
  Speaker 3: should probably get a business that's a cash flow business.
• 48:51
  Speaker 3: So this is a lot of things that I think
• 48:54
  Speaker 3: people have learned over the past three, four, five years
• 48:58
  Speaker 3: about investing that hopefully they won't take it.
• 49:02
  Speaker 1: Out on everybody.
• 49:03
  Speaker 2: I think you're right. But I also think the founders
• 49:05
  Speaker 2: have to make sure they're ready as well. I think,
• 49:07
  Speaker 2: you know, you have people that have great ideas. They
• 49:10
  Speaker 2: might even have... great ways to explain those ideas. And
• 49:13
  Speaker 2: they get in front of these microphones and they say
• 49:15
  Speaker 2: these things and people believe in them and then they
• 49:17
  Speaker 2: invest and they may not be ready for, you know, like.
• 49:21
  Speaker 1: You said, you wasn't ready. I wasn't ready for all
• 49:23
  Speaker 1: of that. And I'm a visionary. I'm just speaking as
• 49:24
  Speaker 1: a visionary. And, yeah, we just talk on our big vision.
• 49:28
  Speaker 5: But how would you have known you weren't ready but
• 49:30
  Speaker 5: for you to get in it and then not be ready?
• 49:31
  Speaker 1: I was the first person to do it.
• 49:33
  Speaker 5: A real question.
• 49:33
  Speaker 1: There's no way I would have known. Mm-hmm.
• 49:35
  Speaker 5: Who was your.
• 49:36
  Speaker 4: Community through that piece of it, too? Like, who were
• 49:38
  Speaker 4: you going to because you were figuring things out? Like,
• 49:40
  Speaker 4: who were the business tech people that, like, you were
• 49:42
  Speaker 4: picking up the phone?
• 49:43
  Speaker 1: So, at the time when I crowdfunded, nobody agreed with
• 49:46
  Speaker 1: me doing it. I was the first to do it.
• 49:47
  Speaker 1: It was very taboo because you were supposed to raise
• 49:51
  Speaker 1: money from VC. I went through Techstars. I was, like,
• 49:55
  Speaker 1: in this elite class. You don't go to crowdfunding. You
• 49:57
  Speaker 1: go to retail investors.
• 49:58
  Speaker 3: So, they kind of turned their back on me in
• 49:59
  Speaker 3: a way. Like, if you're going to go this route, like,
• 50:01
  Speaker 3: we don't want nothing to do with that. They looked
• 50:03
  Speaker 3: down on that.
• 50:04
  Speaker 1: But when I succeeded... it became a thing. So a
• 50:06
  Speaker 1: lot of people started doing it. So who's my community?
• 50:10
  Speaker 1: Not a lot of people.
• 50:10
  Speaker 2: Not a lot of people.
• 50:13
  Speaker 1: They didn't believe in it.
• 50:14
  Speaker 4: Okay, because they're looking at you do it, but you
• 50:16
  Speaker 4: don't have anybody that you can call that has already
• 50:17
  Speaker 4: done it.
• 50:17
  Speaker 1: Nobody did it before me.
• 50:18
  Speaker 4: But even on like the scaling of it, because it
• 50:20
  Speaker 4: sounds like the scaling of your business to get the
• 50:22
  Speaker 4: profit is where you got, went into something.
• 50:24
  Speaker 2: Yes.
• 50:24
  Speaker 5: You didn't have anybody.
• 50:25
  Speaker 1: No, I had a board.
• 50:26
  Speaker 3: No, so at this point, once I raised, once I
• 50:28
  Speaker 3: raised the money, I had a team, I hired experts.
• 50:30
  Speaker 1: So I had people on my team that a lot
• 50:32
  Speaker 1: of experience at my board of directors. So we were
• 50:34
  Speaker 1: in our flow. Like, We were doing really good before
• 50:37
  Speaker 1: we ran out of money.
• 50:38
  Speaker 3: It wasn't that we ran out of money because we
• 50:40
  Speaker 3: ran out of money because we're burning cash too fat.
• 50:42
  Speaker 1: We're growing fast. It's a growing pain, you know. So
• 50:46
  Speaker 1: I had a good community after I raised the money.
• 50:48
  Speaker 1: I did. But they didn't.
• 50:51
  Speaker 3: They were good to help me grow the business.
• 50:53
  Speaker 1: I didn't have good grasp on managing all these people. Yeah.
• 51:01
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I only got one more question because I don't
• 51:03
  Speaker 2: want to overwhelm the people. I want them to hear. No, seriously,
• 51:05
  Speaker 2: because I want them to hear you. I want them
• 51:07
  Speaker 2: to actually listen and understand what it is you're saying.
• 51:10
  Speaker 2: But if I'm one of those early pop-com investors and
• 51:13
  Speaker 2: I'm sitting across from you right now and I say, Don,
• 51:15
  Speaker 2: I believed in you. Tell me why I shouldn't feel
• 51:19
  Speaker 2: like you failed me. What do you say to me?
• 51:22
  Speaker 2: If I didn't watch the whole interview and all I'm
• 51:24
  Speaker 2: seeing is this clip. What do you say to that person?
• 51:26
  Speaker 3: The company's not shut down. The code that we pay
• 51:29
  Speaker 3: to build is safe. The machines are safe. We still
• 51:31
  Speaker 3: have customers that are interested and I didn't give up
• 51:33
  Speaker 3: on it.
• 51:33
  Speaker 1: I'm still going. I didn't fail you. I'm still going.
• 51:36
  Speaker 1: I'm still working on it. I need more time.
• 51:39
  Speaker 3: It doesn't take two or three years to build what
• 51:41
  Speaker 3: we're trying to build. Let me have more time to
• 51:44
  Speaker 3: really get my product out there to market at scale.
• 51:47
  Speaker 3: So just be patient.
• 51:49
  Speaker 1: I don't need nothing else from you. Just hold tight
• 51:52
  Speaker 1: to those shares because keep in mind too, My life
• 51:55
  Speaker 1: tied up into this, too. I want to cash out, too.
• 52:00
  Speaker 1: I'll get the biggest check. You know, so why do it?
• 52:03
  Speaker 1: Why would I not want to see this through? We
• 52:04
  Speaker 1: in this together.
• 52:05
  Speaker 2: Is there any money left from the original?
• 52:07
  Speaker 1: No.
• 52:08
  Speaker 2: Wow.
• 52:08
  Speaker 3: There's no all the money that I raise. I use
• 52:12
  Speaker 3: it to pay the bills, to pay the staff, to
• 52:13
  Speaker 3: build a product. I'm coming out of my pocket. I
• 52:17
  Speaker 3: pay money out of my bank account every month to
• 52:19
  Speaker 3: keep Popcom alive right now today.
• 52:22
  Speaker 2: I mean, listen, I don't have no reason not to
• 52:24
  Speaker 2: believe you, but people will say, well, how did you
• 52:26
  Speaker 2: afford to move to Ghana? How did you afford, how
• 52:29
  Speaker 2: are you affording to live if all the money is gone?
• 52:31
  Speaker 3: It's unfortunate because PopCon money is gone, but not Don
• 52:34
  Speaker 3: Dixon's money. I'm a 47-year-old adult that's been working since
• 52:38
  Speaker 3: I was 20 years old.
• 52:40
  Speaker 1: I make good investment decisions. I save money.
• 52:43
  Speaker 3: I also get six figures a year from speaking. and
• 52:47
  Speaker 3: doing influencer work for tech products.
• 52:50
  Speaker 1: I don't talk too much about that. I also have
• 52:52
  Speaker 1: other businesses.
• 52:53
  Speaker 3: I have my real estate business in Ghana, which is
• 52:54
  Speaker 3: under my D1 Consulting. So I've had D1 Consulting since 2005.
• 52:59
  Speaker 3: It's been my own personal business, and I've been generating
• 53:02
  Speaker 3: money for that for years. That's how I could afford
• 53:04
  Speaker 3: to stop paying myself a salary for Popcom.
• 53:06
  Speaker 1: So I think the.
• 53:07
  Speaker 3: Lesson is also have multiple streams of income and build
• 53:10
  Speaker 3: them over time. Plan for, you know, I have a daughter.
• 53:13
  Speaker 1: She was in college. I could not go broke. I
• 53:17
  Speaker 1: have to support her.
• 53:18
  Speaker 3: So knowing this, I've been investing. I got my first
• 53:23
  Speaker 3: whole life policy when she was a baby. If anybody
• 53:25
  Speaker 3: knows about whole life insurance, it gains cash value over years.
• 53:28
  Speaker 3: My daughter's 22. So if nothing else, that's one place.
• 53:31
  Speaker 1: Where money's at. So it's just that I didn't need
• 53:35
  Speaker 1: to use pop-com money to make money. I make money myself.
• 53:39
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 53:40
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 53:40
  Speaker 2: Well, it's Dawn Dixon. If people want to complain to
• 53:42
  Speaker 2: you directly, who do they, what do they do, Dawn?
• 53:44
  Speaker 1: Hey.
• 53:44
  Speaker 2: Where do they go? What website?
• 53:46
  Speaker 1: Don't follow my Instagram. You know, popcom.ai is still a business.
• 53:52
  Speaker 1: It's there. DawnDixon.me. Come find me. And Dawn at popcom.shop.
• 53:56
  Speaker 1: Email me. Investors. If y'all think y'all haven't heard from
• 53:59
  Speaker 1: me in years, that's my email. Hit me up.
• 54:02
  Speaker 4: I just want to say, too, you getting back on
• 54:03
  Speaker 4: the horse, like, is, I commend you for that. Because
• 54:06
  Speaker 4: I watched a couple businesses this last year. Take a
• 54:08
  Speaker 4: break because it couldn't scale. And I know that your
• 54:11
  Speaker 4: lives be tied to your businesses. So I wish you
• 54:13
  Speaker 4: the best of luck in what you're trying to figure
• 54:15
  Speaker 4: out in this new realm.
• 54:15
  Speaker 2: Thank you. Entrepreneurship is not easy.
• 54:17
  Speaker 1: It's not.
• 54:17
  Speaker 2: It is not. It is not at all. Well, thank you, Dawn.
• 54:20
  Speaker 1: Thanks for having me.
• 54:21
  Speaker 3: I just appreciate the opportunity to just clear the air
• 54:24
  Speaker 3: to y'all.
• 54:24
  Speaker 1: Because y'all put me out there. So I at least
• 54:26
  Speaker 1: owe it to even your audience to be like, hey,
• 54:28
  Speaker 1: this will happen.
• 54:29
  Speaker 5: You're showing up as a first step. Some people don't
• 54:31
  Speaker 5: even show up to do that.
• 54:31
  Speaker 1: I'm here and I'm open. You got my email. So
• 54:34
  Speaker 1: hit me up.
• 54:34
  Speaker 2: Absolutely. It's Dawn Dixon. It's The Breakfast Club.