Latest / Money And Wealth With John Hope Bryant / An Up From Nothing Story: Wemimo Abbey

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An Up From Nothing Story: Wemimo Abbey · Money And Wealth With John Hope Bryant

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Welcome the Money and Wealth with John Hobryant, a production
• 0:03
  Speaker 1: of the Black Effect Podcast Network and iHeartRadio. Hey Hey, Hey,
• 0:15
  Speaker 1: this is John Hope Bryant of Money and Wealth podcast
• 0:20
  Speaker 1: series Season two. I want to thank everybody for making
• 0:25
  Speaker 1: this a top one hundred podcasts in the country, as
• 0:29
  Speaker 1: well as a top fifty podcast that's for business on
• 0:33
  Speaker 1: Apple and other platforms, the top fifty podcasts for entrepreneurship
• 0:38
  Speaker 1: that's amongst all categories. By the way, hey, people and
• 0:41
  Speaker 1: races and places. It's also been a hit internationally on
• 0:46
  Speaker 1: every continent, So I want to thank everybody for helping
• 0:49
  Speaker 1: us to get there on this silver rights movement in
• 0:52
  Speaker 1: the third reconstruction, taking people from the streets to the suites,
• 0:56
  Speaker 1: helping the unpack capitalism and free enterprise and help people
• 0:59
  Speaker 1: to do for themselves. It's the James Brown version of
• 1:03
  Speaker 1: affirmative action. Open a door, I'll get it my damnself.
• 1:07
  Speaker 1: Is the theme of the approach that I take of
• 1:13
  Speaker 1: giving you the tools to empower yourself to change your
• 1:17
  Speaker 1: own life, not have to wait for somebody else at
• 1:20
  Speaker 1: A friend of mine, CEO of Key Bank, once told
• 1:25
  Speaker 1: me that the only true freedom was financial freedom. That
• 1:29
  Speaker 1: every other freedom could be taken from you, and that
• 1:32
  Speaker 1: once you have financial freedom, unless you screw it up,
• 1:35
  Speaker 1: it is yours for life. That's what this podcast series
• 1:39
  Speaker 1: is about to set you free, to give you the
• 1:41
  Speaker 1: tools to be free in self determination. I'm going to
• 1:43
  Speaker 1: thank the Black Effect Network and iHeartRadio for their partnership here.
• 1:48
  Speaker 1: And we have a very special guest today, a friend
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  Speaker 1: of mine, a bad, bad brother and in the normal
• 1:59
  Speaker 1: sense he'd be a bad brother because if you're black
• 2:02
  Speaker 1: in America, you got to get up twice as be
• 2:05
  Speaker 1: out of you, twice as intelligent, twice as smart, get
• 2:07
  Speaker 1: up twice as early a or twice as hard, stay
• 2:09
  Speaker 1: up twice as late to get half of the deserve rewards.
• 2:13
  Speaker 1: And you're born on probation in America if you're black,
• 2:16
  Speaker 1: and no one can feel bad about that because that
• 2:19
  Speaker 1: just puts a weight on your show.
• 2:20
  Speaker 2: You just get to the business.
• 2:22
  Speaker 1: But when you're from Africa, on top of the fact
• 2:25
  Speaker 1: that you're a person of color in America, it could
• 2:29
  Speaker 1: be even tougher because you're coming into an environment where
• 2:33
  Speaker 1: you don't know the rules, where you don't have friends,
• 2:36
  Speaker 1: you don't have relationship capital. You might have self esteem
• 2:40
  Speaker 1: because Africa have generally speaking, intact families, and you see
• 2:45
  Speaker 1: people around you who are aspiring, who look like you,
• 2:48
  Speaker 1: but you may have less confidence. Less confidence because you're
• 2:51
  Speaker 1: coming to the biggest economy on the planet where people
• 2:54
  Speaker 1: are hyper competitive, and you have nothing to play with,
• 2:58
  Speaker 1: no toys, no resources, no inherited wealth. No body's gonna
• 3:02
  Speaker 1: give you an internship or apprenticeship or a It starts
• 3:08
  Speaker 1: you out on second base basically through inheritance or through
• 3:12
  Speaker 1: again relationship capital. Because if you hang around nine broke people,
• 3:15
  Speaker 1: you'll be the tenth. And the opposite is also true.
• 3:18
  Speaker 1: So this individual is unique and singular.
• 3:26
  Speaker 2: His name.
• 3:30
  Speaker 1: Is going to be famous one of these days, I
• 3:33
  Speaker 1: predict as an entrepreneur up from nothing. His name is
• 3:38
  Speaker 1: Memo Abbe. If I say that Nigerian pronunciation where Memo,
• 3:45
  Speaker 1: He's gonna correct me. If I don't get it right,
• 3:46
  Speaker 1: Where Memo Abbe? Did I get that close to right?
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  Speaker 2: You got it?
• 3:52
  Speaker 3: John, We got to welcome you to the euro about
• 3:54
  Speaker 3: culture in Nigeria. You know I love it.
• 3:56
  Speaker 2: I got my African bracelets on.
• 3:58
  Speaker 1: By the way, Nelson Mandela's prison numbers here, I got
• 4:00
  Speaker 1: my I wear it every day. He's a founder, co founder.
• 4:04
  Speaker 1: We're gonna give credit to his co founder. He's the
• 4:06
  Speaker 1: co founder of a company called is Susu, which he's
• 4:09
  Speaker 1: gonna explain where that comes from, where that name comes from.
• 4:13
  Speaker 1: And this podcast is important because now you're gonna see
• 4:18
  Speaker 1: somebody other than me who's gone from nothing, literally nothing
• 4:23
  Speaker 1: from and I won't argue actually worse you know, circumstances
• 4:27
  Speaker 1: than me. You'll explain it to the building. Hold on now, audience,
• 4:31
  Speaker 1: listen to me building a one billion dollar valuation company
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  Speaker 1: that's right from nothing, literally a small African village, literally
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  Speaker 1: coming here with the shirt on his back.
• 4:48
  Speaker 2: Again.
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  Speaker 1: We're gonna unpack this and explain it, or my dad
• 4:52
  Speaker 1: would say, explain it. We're gonna explain this in details
• 4:56
  Speaker 1: so that no one's unclear what he went through, how
• 4:59
  Speaker 1: he got here. I don't want any excuses from anybody
• 5:02
  Speaker 1: of what they cannot do. Once this podcast is over,
• 5:05
  Speaker 1: he's going to unpack his entire story.
• 5:08
  Speaker 2: And now the company that you probably have never.
• 5:11
  Speaker 1: Heard of before today because it's business to business in
• 5:14
  Speaker 1: many ways. He's a business doing business with other businesses
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  Speaker 1: and with governments, is not necessarily retail focused. But this
• 5:21
  Speaker 1: company you've never heard of. Maybe Issusu now has a
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  Speaker 1: valuation on market on Wall Street, in market in the
• 5:29
  Speaker 1: marketplace of institutional investments of one billion dollars plus. Investors
• 5:36
  Speaker 1: are rewarding him for building a great enterprise. So this
• 5:41
  Speaker 1: topic today is from immigrant hustle to unicorn impact, how
• 5:48
  Speaker 1: to build a billion dollar business in a decade. Please
• 5:53
  Speaker 1: join me and welcome me, my good friend. When me
• 5:56
  Speaker 1: mo at Bay said properly in Nigerian diet.
• 6:01
  Speaker 3: You got it, you got it? Well, thanks a lot, John.
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  Speaker 3: It's such a joy to be here today. And first stuff,
• 6:08
  Speaker 3: thank you for the work that you do for the community,
• 6:11
  Speaker 3: not just rhetoric, keeping it real and giving us a
• 6:15
  Speaker 3: pathway and above all a playbook to be successful in
• 6:19
  Speaker 3: any environment in this country. So it's really excited to
• 6:24
  Speaker 3: be here. And you know, share my story how I
• 6:27
  Speaker 3: did it, and the collective and the village, including people
• 6:31
  Speaker 3: like you that essentially made this happen.
• 6:35
  Speaker 1: He gives me outsize and probably undue credit. He keeps
• 6:40
  Speaker 1: saying that I helped inspire this business, et cetera, et cetera,
• 6:44
  Speaker 1: And we've hired them. We hired them actually at the
• 6:47
  Speaker 1: company I used to own that I've since sold the
• 6:50
  Speaker 1: built from zero one hundred and fifty million dollars, which
• 6:53
  Speaker 1: was the Promise Homes company. We hired him there and
• 6:55
  Speaker 1: then we partnered with them in Operation Hope. But we
• 6:58
  Speaker 1: tell you how good a business plan is. Businessman has
• 6:59
  Speaker 1: got is he says, oh John, you did this, you
• 7:02
  Speaker 1: did that, and you know, my got my heart all
• 7:05
  Speaker 1: open up and whatever.
• 7:07
  Speaker 2: And he's the humble businessman. Right.
• 7:10
  Speaker 1: So my speaking fee is about fifty grand and I
• 7:14
  Speaker 1: lose money and I go give speak to see I
• 7:16
  Speaker 1: got to make three hundred thousand svears a day for
• 7:18
  Speaker 1: my enterprises, three three fifty. But you know when I
• 7:22
  Speaker 1: accepted a commercial speaking fee and then expenses all that stuff, Well,
• 7:26
  Speaker 1: when me MO has gotten me twice for free.
• 7:30
  Speaker 2: And I don't mean when he was starting. I don't
• 7:31
  Speaker 2: mean like back in the day when he was hustling.
• 7:34
  Speaker 1: I mean recently, because oh John's oh child, he's oh
• 7:38
  Speaker 1: my god, you helping people? Oh oh yeah, yeah, I
• 7:42
  Speaker 1: guess I am, okay.
• 7:43
  Speaker 2: Yeah, what date.
• 7:48
  Speaker 1: But it's been a pleasure. I'm inspired every time I
• 7:52
  Speaker 1: have gone to show up at one of his meetings.
• 7:56
  Speaker 1: I wanted to, frankly, all seriousness. I wanted to pour
• 7:59
  Speaker 1: into him, to invest into him, to let people know
• 8:02
  Speaker 1: how backed him, to try to explain what, to brag
• 8:06
  Speaker 1: on him in ways he could not brag on himself,
• 8:09
  Speaker 1: To explain to people why this is a good investment,
• 8:12
  Speaker 1: the one they made, the one they still need to make.
• 8:16
  Speaker 1: You know, somebody once told me, mem that the whole
• 8:19
  Speaker 1: purpose of power is to collect it so that you
• 8:22
  Speaker 1: can intelligently and smartly give it away.
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  Speaker 2: So any power or influence that I might.
• 8:29
  Speaker 1: Have, I am honored to use it, whether it's through
• 8:32
  Speaker 1: Operation Hope or some little church that cand of afford
• 8:35
  Speaker 1: to have a guy like me to show up, or
• 8:37
  Speaker 1: a nonprofit group, or somebody who's truly just striving. Now,
• 8:42
  Speaker 1: if you're commercial enterprise, you're a for profit business, that's
• 8:44
  Speaker 1: a different thing. That's capitalism is a gladiator sport. Business
• 8:47
  Speaker 1: is not personal. They should pay, But I speak for
• 8:51
  Speaker 1: a fees, So he then afford to speak for free right,
• 8:54
  Speaker 1: and you give back in the same way you come
• 8:57
  Speaker 1: and speak at our annual meeting. You've never ever me
• 9:00
  Speaker 1: and all the rest of my you and all the
• 9:01
  Speaker 1: rest of my friends, I might add, never asked, never
• 9:03
  Speaker 1: send me a bill, never set me eve an expense report.
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  Speaker 2: Here to show up and do the thing, and I
• 9:08
  Speaker 2: thank you for that. And we've never.
• 9:10
  Speaker 1: Even talked about this is just just an unspoken thing
• 9:13
  Speaker 1: between friends and people who made it. Like like service
• 9:17
  Speaker 1: is the wrint you pay on the success you get
• 9:21
  Speaker 1: to society get me back is the wrint you pay
• 9:25
  Speaker 1: on the sense that you get. So let's talk about
• 9:28
  Speaker 1: the thing that I'm impressed most about you is your spirit,
• 9:33
  Speaker 1: your your authenticity, my senses comes from mom and maybe Dad,
• 9:40
  Speaker 1: but certainly family.
• 9:42
  Speaker 2: Talk to us.
• 9:44
  Speaker 1: Explain your upbringing from Africa and what that was like,
• 9:50
  Speaker 1: how old were you, what's the situation and circumstances. Tell
• 9:54
  Speaker 1: us about your parents, and then let's get into what
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  Speaker 1: came next. How the heck did you get here?
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  Speaker 3: Absolutely, John, I grew up in the slums of Lagos, Nigeria.
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  Speaker 3: I lost my father at the age of two, and
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  Speaker 3: I was raised by my mother and two very spirited sisters.
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  Speaker 3: Just to give you and paint a picture, and now
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  Speaker 3: I grew up. I didn't have television or electricity for
• 10:20
  Speaker 3: the first seven years of my life. We didn't have
• 10:22
  Speaker 3: running toilets or running water. But one thing my mother
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  Speaker 3: believed in despite all this destitution of our social position
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  Speaker 3: was education. She wasn't going to compromise on education. She
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  Speaker 3: worked at the post office for over twenty one years.
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  Speaker 3: She poured into me and made sure I went to
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  Speaker 3: one of the best high schools in Nigeria. So when
• 10:43
  Speaker 3: I went to that high school and I saw all
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  Speaker 3: the kids in my high school going to the US,
• 10:49
  Speaker 3: going to Europe, and I saw that in some cases
• 10:52
  Speaker 3: they had better grades than some of them, I said,
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  Speaker 3: I could do what they're doing. They don't have two heads,
• 10:58
  Speaker 3: they don't have four eyes, with hard walk passeiverance. Even
• 11:02
  Speaker 3: if I don't have all the things they have, I
• 11:05
  Speaker 3: could get at head. So at the age of fifteen
• 11:09
  Speaker 3: and alf going to my sixteenth birthday, I got into university,
• 11:12
  Speaker 3: one of the best universities in Nigeria. I said no,
• 11:15
  Speaker 3: because those other kids were going to the United States
• 11:19
  Speaker 3: and Europe. I went in to study. I self studied
• 11:22
  Speaker 3: the staties. I had to learn American English, which is
• 11:25
  Speaker 3: different from British English. Asked, went to the embassy and
• 11:31
  Speaker 3: applied to the University of Minnesota and guardian and I
• 11:36
  Speaker 3: immigrated from eighty degree weather in Legos, I'd never since
• 11:40
  Speaker 3: snow in my life to negative twenty two degrees in Minnesota. Wow,
• 11:46
  Speaker 3: which was a catterbuting experience.
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  Speaker 2: And but let's back up for a minute. How did you?
• 11:50
  Speaker 2: How did you? It wasn't she for your mother to
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  Speaker 2: get you, to put you through school?
• 11:55
  Speaker 1: It was, by the way, for those who are listening
• 11:58
  Speaker 1: to this versus getting a vision, you'll love way. Men, Mo,
• 12:01
  Speaker 1: He's not We're not talking about an eighty year old
• 12:03
  Speaker 1: guy here. We're not talking about this has happened, you know,
• 12:05
  Speaker 1: sixty years ago when he says that it was no
• 12:07
  Speaker 1: running water, no electricity, no proper toilets. We're talking about
• 12:13
  Speaker 1: you know, post two thousand.
• 12:15
  Speaker 3: Right, yeah, yeah, this is to twenty twenty one, twenty
• 12:18
  Speaker 3: twenty two. This is recent recently. Yeah wait what so
• 12:22
  Speaker 3: holding back up, back, slow down, Wait a minute. What
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  Speaker 3: year did you come from? Nigeria? Two thousand and nine, two.
• 12:30
  Speaker 1: Thousand and nine. Yes, okay, everybody listening to this enough
• 12:35
  Speaker 1: with excuses. Racism is like rain is either is either
• 12:42
  Speaker 1: gathering somewhere or it's falling, So you might as well
• 12:45
  Speaker 1: get out an umbrella and a color of your light
• 12:48
  Speaker 1: and start strolling through it because it's not going to change.
• 12:50
  Speaker 1: So you must. This guy just told you.
• 12:54
  Speaker 2: I mean it was.
• 12:55
  Speaker 1: I thought he's gonna say two thousand and two, two
• 12:57
  Speaker 1: thousand and five, two thousand, correct me.
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  Speaker 2: No, Johnny was nineteen, late nineteen, you know, No, no, no.
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  Speaker 1: No, he said, this was you know, this is very recently,
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  Speaker 1: two thousand in a, two thousand and nine, twenty ten,
• 13:10
  Speaker 1: the last fifteen years. He wasn't even here. Nobody his
• 13:14
  Speaker 1: family was here, right, and he's killed it. He's killing
• 13:18
  Speaker 1: the game. We'll give it that in a minute. So
• 13:20
  Speaker 1: mother worked at the post office. All right, you guys
• 13:23
  Speaker 1: lived essentially in what they call in South Africa shanty
• 13:26
  Speaker 1: a shanty town.
• 13:27
  Speaker 3: I don't know what they call him in Nigeria, just
• 13:29
  Speaker 3: the slums, you know.
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  Speaker 2: Okay, And how.
• 13:33
  Speaker 1: Did you get a how did you get a plane
• 13:35
  Speaker 1: ticket and a plan to America?
• 13:38
  Speaker 2: Was that also? It wasn't.
• 13:41
  Speaker 3: My mom was upsets with me because I didn't want
• 13:44
  Speaker 3: to go to the local university, because that's what they've
• 13:48
  Speaker 3: walked on all day lives. But I had a bigger dream.
• 13:50
  Speaker 3: I had a bigger ambition because all the kids in
• 13:54
  Speaker 3: my high school were going and I thought I was smart,
• 13:57
  Speaker 3: I could operate on the same level. So one of
• 13:59
  Speaker 3: the things I did to save to come here. I
• 14:04
  Speaker 3: got on a six hundred dollar Kata Airlines ticket from Nigeria,
• 14:08
  Speaker 3: which is the cheapest one. It took me twenty nine
• 14:12
  Speaker 3: hours to fly to America because I had to go
• 14:14
  Speaker 3: on a layovera and Doah. The way I got that
• 14:18
  Speaker 3: six hundred plus dollars was, you know, church members helped.
• 14:23
  Speaker 3: I also used to help drill wells, so in Nigeria
• 14:27
  Speaker 3: it's very mechanical. You take a shovel, someone is drilling
• 14:32
  Speaker 3: and someone is taking the sand out. So I did
• 14:36
  Speaker 3: manual label to contribute to my ticket. Church members helped,
• 14:40
  Speaker 3: family members helped. And that's the power of collectivism. It's
• 14:44
  Speaker 3: the power of the fact that I am who I
• 14:46
  Speaker 3: am because of who we all are. I am not
• 14:49
  Speaker 3: just alone. I stand on the shoulders of so many,
• 14:52
  Speaker 3: including my mother, people like you, John, and others that
• 14:55
  Speaker 3: have sacrificed for me to be where I am. So
• 14:57
  Speaker 3: that's how I came here. They didn't come lane. It
• 15:01
  Speaker 3: was twenty plus twenty four hours plus flights, but I
• 15:06
  Speaker 3: was just excited to be here. I'm contributing my own
• 15:09
  Speaker 3: humble cordet to this country.
• 15:20
  Speaker 1: So breaking this into pieces, I want the audience to
• 15:23
  Speaker 1: learn the lesson of up from nothing and mindset that
• 15:27
  Speaker 1: his mother was broke, but she wasn't poor.
• 15:31
  Speaker 2: To be broke was economic.
• 15:32
  Speaker 1: To be poor as a disabling frame of mind, depressed
• 15:35
  Speaker 1: condition of your spirit. You must vow never ever ever
• 15:38
  Speaker 1: to be poor again. That's something we say at Operation
• 15:41
  Speaker 1: Hope all the time. My mother taught me because she
• 15:43
  Speaker 1: told me she loved me every day in my life,
• 15:45
  Speaker 1: so I can we have that in common. And my
• 15:47
  Speaker 1: mother didn't agree with my entrepreneurial pursuit. She wanted me
• 15:50
  Speaker 1: to get a safe job so that she wanted to
• 15:53
  Speaker 1: worry about me. But I had a bigger dream, just
• 15:55
  Speaker 1: like you did, and I decided to take to bet
• 15:57
  Speaker 1: on me just like you did.
• 16:00
  Speaker 2: Have a lot of parallels in this story.
• 16:03
  Speaker 1: But when people talking about collective economics, I want to
• 16:06
  Speaker 1: get this straight, they're not talking about the output. They're
• 16:10
  Speaker 1: talking about the input. Collective economics works only on the input.
• 16:14
  Speaker 1: In other words, he's just told you he didn't have
• 16:17
  Speaker 1: enough money to get that airplane ticket and to get
• 16:20
  Speaker 1: the apartment or whatever for the first month. So the
• 16:23
  Speaker 1: church member, the family members, the friends, they believed.
• 16:26
  Speaker 2: In the dream.
• 16:27
  Speaker 1: So collective economics, please listen to me. Everybody collected economics participated. Again,
• 16:34
  Speaker 1: I say every good relationship was where two plus two
• 16:37
  Speaker 1: equals six, eight or ten. Is it's multiplication not addition.
• 16:41
  Speaker 1: They there's a little bit, little bit, little bit little
• 16:44
  Speaker 1: bit here came created a lot of it. They bought
• 16:47
  Speaker 1: his ticket, they helped him, they invested in him. They
• 16:49
  Speaker 1: were the venture capital investment in him. But the output
• 16:53
  Speaker 1: of that had to be him. So in other words,
• 17:00
  Speaker 1: if you try to take collecting economics to put it
• 17:02
  Speaker 1: on the back end, and now you've got twenty bosses
• 17:06
  Speaker 1: trying to run an enterprise and nobody knows what they're doing,
• 17:10
  Speaker 1: or half of them don't, you're going in different directions
• 17:14
  Speaker 1: with the best of intentions. The Bible says a house
• 17:16
  Speaker 1: divided cannot stand. You cannot have fifty bosses, you cannot
• 17:21
  Speaker 1: have fifty visions. So collective economics as a operating structure,
• 17:28
  Speaker 1: like if I had a camel is a horse designed
• 17:30
  Speaker 1: by committee. A cameral is a horse designed by committee.
• 17:34
  Speaker 1: You cannot have a committee in an executive lead. You
• 17:37
  Speaker 1: need to make crisp decisions and move on them. And
• 17:41
  Speaker 1: somebody's got to vet the farm on a vision. So
• 17:44
  Speaker 1: they collectively put their economics together resources to invest in
• 17:53
  Speaker 1: a singular product, and then they let him go pursue
• 17:57
  Speaker 1: a dream that they didn't understand. Right, they believed in it,
• 18:01
  Speaker 1: but didn't really understand it. So audience, don't be romantic
• 18:06
  Speaker 1: about economics in business. Business is not personal capitalism in
• 18:09
  Speaker 1: the Gladator sport, Collective economics is the input.
• 18:13
  Speaker 2: More than the output.
• 18:14
  Speaker 1: Right now, by the way, you can have after he
• 18:16
  Speaker 1: makes his money and builds his wealth and we continue
• 18:18
  Speaker 1: hope he continues to do very well. He wasn't create
• 18:20
  Speaker 1: a foundation the E Susu Foundation or the Memo Abbey
• 18:25
  Speaker 1: Foundation or his mother and his mother's name or something,
• 18:28
  Speaker 1: and then collectively the community that invested in him can
• 18:31
  Speaker 1: get back together on the committee or on the board
• 18:33
  Speaker 1: if he likes to figure out where to collectively invest
• 18:38
  Speaker 1: resources in philanthropy.
• 18:39
  Speaker 2: But that's after you made the wealth.
• 18:43
  Speaker 1: So now you've gotten to America and you would from
• 18:47
  Speaker 1: one of the hottest places in the world to one
• 18:50
  Speaker 1: of the codes.
• 18:51
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 18:53
  Speaker 3: So I came I never since snow before. I came
• 18:58
  Speaker 3: here with a three piece suits to conquer America, and
• 19:01
  Speaker 3: I got into negative twenty two degrees. I thought people
• 19:04
  Speaker 3: were living in a freezer. But I was just so
• 19:07
  Speaker 3: grateful to be part of this society because I had
• 19:12
  Speaker 3: read and see what was possible. But then real life started.
• 19:17
  Speaker 3: I wanted to go to college at the University of Minnesota.
• 19:20
  Speaker 3: I had gotten I was really excited. And as international students,
• 19:25
  Speaker 3: you don't get pel grants. We didn't get financial aid.
• 19:28
  Speaker 3: You have to pay every dollar out of pocket. So
• 19:32
  Speaker 3: my mother and I went to a bank to borrow money.
• 19:36
  Speaker 3: The bank, not because they are racist. I want to
• 19:39
  Speaker 3: make sure this is Claire, denied us because we didn't
• 19:44
  Speaker 3: have a credit score. We didn't have the financial identity
• 19:48
  Speaker 3: in America, which is the most important three digits number
• 19:51
  Speaker 3: to get financing. We didn't have it, and rightfully, so
• 19:55
  Speaker 3: they said no to us, and we had to go
• 19:58
  Speaker 3: borrow money from a predatory at over four hundred percent
• 20:02
  Speaker 3: interest rate. My mother sold my dad's wedding rink again.
• 20:07
  Speaker 3: A new church in Minnesota poured into us. Church members
• 20:11
  Speaker 3: borrowed us money and that's how we got started. For
• 20:15
  Speaker 3: me to go to my first semester of college in
• 20:18
  Speaker 3: this great country, right looked like the story. So when
• 20:23
  Speaker 3: I got to college, I learned a lot about myself.
• 20:26
  Speaker 4: You know.
• 20:26
  Speaker 3: It was incredibly cold at never since snow. People helped
• 20:30
  Speaker 3: me out, you know, both black, white, Asian Latino. Everyone
• 20:35
  Speaker 3: was just there and that's the true genius. And that's
• 20:38
  Speaker 3: what's special about this country. Ask and I shall be
• 20:42
  Speaker 3: giving on to you. I did crazy things like learn
• 20:45
  Speaker 3: how to deer hunt and ice fish. So when you
• 20:48
  Speaker 3: see this Nigerian guy with a funny accent, you know,
• 20:51
  Speaker 3: and with a twelve gage shotgun deer hunting and ice fishing,
• 20:55
  Speaker 3: it confuses people. But I am a cacophony. I am
• 20:59
  Speaker 3: an noise of so many people that have invested in
• 21:03
  Speaker 3: import on me, and my ultimate sort of giving back
• 21:08
  Speaker 3: to that is service, love and try as much as
• 21:13
  Speaker 3: possible to pay it forward. That's really what life is
• 21:16
  Speaker 3: all about for my advantage points. So and I always believe,
• 21:20
  Speaker 3: like Bishop Desmond tu to one said, we're masterpiece in
• 21:25
  Speaker 3: the making. We just need people to help us and
• 21:29
  Speaker 3: set that together. So that was the journey that brought
• 21:32
  Speaker 3: me to this great country and what led to my
• 21:38
  Speaker 3: company and my co founder coming together to make this
• 21:41
  Speaker 3: what it is today was really simple. You know, I
• 21:44
  Speaker 3: had worked in corporate America, places like Goldman's Tax and
• 21:47
  Speaker 3: Peter OBUs buying and selling companies not using name. By
• 21:51
  Speaker 3: the way, my co founder's name is Simee Goyle. You know,
• 21:56
  Speaker 3: sameer was born ins Connectors in New York. Indian immigrants
• 22:01
  Speaker 3: came to this great country, and you know, we met
• 22:05
  Speaker 3: during a global conference and we also found out that
• 22:09
  Speaker 3: we were in school together at NYU. He was an undergrad,
• 22:15
  Speaker 3: i was in graduate school. But we had this spirited
• 22:18
  Speaker 3: conversation about my background, about his parents background also, and
• 22:22
  Speaker 3: we wanted to build a company that where you come from,
• 22:27
  Speaker 3: what you look like, or how much is in your
• 22:29
  Speaker 3: pocket doesn't determine where you end up in life.
• 22:33
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 22:33
  Speaker 3: We wanted people to have an opportunity regardless of your
• 22:37
  Speaker 3: social economic status. And that's what led us to co
• 22:41
  Speaker 3: found the company called is Susu And by the way,
• 22:45
  Speaker 3: it's Susu in West Africa and Y'obat culture is one
• 22:49
  Speaker 3: of the oldest forms of collectivism. It's a short form
• 22:52
  Speaker 3: for if you want to go fast, you go alone,
• 22:55
  Speaker 3: but if you want to go far, we go together.
• 22:58
  Speaker 3: Why futures are in a strictly tied together and so
• 23:04
  Speaker 3: that was the concept of it. But the main idea
• 23:07
  Speaker 3: was simple. The idea was folks send on an average
• 23:13
  Speaker 3: eleven hundred dollars to their landlords every year. You pay
• 23:16
  Speaker 3: rent on an average that rent one hundred and ten
• 23:21
  Speaker 3: million people in this country rents. If you do that
• 23:23
  Speaker 3: matt price times quantity, it means renters are sending close
• 23:27
  Speaker 3: to one point four trillion dollars. Let me repeat myself,
• 23:31
  Speaker 3: close to one point four trillion dollars to their landlord
• 23:35
  Speaker 3: every year. When we got in this business, this data
• 23:38
  Speaker 3: never showed up on their credit score.
• 23:40
  Speaker 2: That's right.
• 23:41
  Speaker 3: So remember when my mother and I came, they were renting.
• 23:44
  Speaker 3: We had people renting, but that data didn't make us
• 23:47
  Speaker 3: be seen. Only if that bank had send that information
• 23:50
  Speaker 3: would a circumstance have been different. So that's what led
• 23:54
  Speaker 3: us to create the company that when you pay rent,
• 23:57
  Speaker 3: that data should show up on your credit score, because
• 23:59
  Speaker 3: we want to give credit where credit is due, whether
• 24:03
  Speaker 3: you're in South Dakota, whether you're in not the Quota,
• 24:06
  Speaker 3: whether you're in Montgomery, Alabama, New York City, California, or Wyoming. Everyone,
• 24:14
  Speaker 3: regardless of what you look like, when you pay your
• 24:16
  Speaker 3: largest monthly expense, it should show up on your credit
• 24:19
  Speaker 3: score because then that expense can show that you're credit worthy.
• 24:25
  Speaker 3: If you're paying non time and hopefully one day you
• 24:27
  Speaker 3: can get the proverbio American dream of home ownership by
• 24:31
  Speaker 3: better credit. The reason why this is also important, and
• 24:36
  Speaker 3: John says this every time. If you have a poor
• 24:39
  Speaker 3: credit score, it can cost you a quarter million dollars
• 24:42
  Speaker 3: an interest over your lifetime. It is expensive to be poor, folks,
• 24:47
  Speaker 3: and creating the solution offers us an opportunity to avoid
• 24:52
  Speaker 3: that kind of perpetual cycle that gets people to be
• 24:56
  Speaker 3: in this trap. So that's what we created. And during
• 25:00
  Speaker 3: this journey it was really really hard, really really hard.
• 25:04
  Speaker 3: You know, myself and Samir worked in corporate America. We
• 25:07
  Speaker 3: quit our jobs and we went to invest US, to
• 25:10
  Speaker 3: invest in US. Three hundred and twenty six people said no,
• 25:16
  Speaker 3: three hundred and twenty six people said no. I remember
• 25:19
  Speaker 3: that number because every note feels like a ps to
• 25:22
  Speaker 3: your heart. But you know one thing, I will always
• 25:25
  Speaker 3: tell you, you will never outwalk myself and samere you
• 25:29
  Speaker 3: will never outrun us. We would be there caught trying,
• 25:34
  Speaker 3: and we're going to be there with the idea, day in,
• 25:36
  Speaker 3: day out, trying as much as possible to make it successful.
• 25:39
  Speaker 3: So they knows we're just better inspiration for us to
• 25:43
  Speaker 3: tell a more compelling story. Take feedback from people. Some
• 25:47
  Speaker 3: of their feedback were valid. So when people tell you no,
• 25:51
  Speaker 3: or when people give you feedback, every feedback is a gift.
• 25:55
  Speaker 3: Whether you like it or not, every feedback is a gift.
• 26:00
  Speaker 3: So we took the feedback, we incorporated it on someone
• 26:03
  Speaker 3: better on us, and invest the first one point six
• 26:07
  Speaker 3: million dollars in this company as a collective. In a
• 26:11
  Speaker 3: few years later, they turned into two point three million.
• 26:15
  Speaker 3: We did an hour raise of ten million, and now
• 26:20
  Speaker 3: which I would let John sort of introduce, the company
• 26:23
  Speaker 3: is now valued at over a billion dollars. Haven't raised
• 26:26
  Speaker 3: over one hundred have shifts a million dollars.
• 26:28
  Speaker 1: Now.
• 26:28
  Speaker 3: I remember when I called my mother, the woman that
• 26:31
  Speaker 3: belly had a high school degree, the woman that sacrificed everything,
• 26:35
  Speaker 3: the woman that cried when I was leaving Corporate America
• 26:38
  Speaker 3: and asked, who's going to pay my rent?
• 26:40
  Speaker 2: Now?
• 26:41
  Speaker 3: So I called her up and said, hey, we just
• 26:44
  Speaker 3: raised all this money and the companies valued at a
• 26:46
  Speaker 3: billion dollars. You know what she said? What she said,
• 26:51
  Speaker 3: I was the wedding planning coming along. It's so funny, right,
• 26:58
  Speaker 3: because she did not understand what just happened.
• 27:01
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 27:02
  Speaker 3: But it is because of people like my mother Unice,
• 27:05
  Speaker 3: that we build what we build. And it's a clear
• 27:07
  Speaker 3: message that if we fund ideas, we always ask people
• 27:11
  Speaker 3: to think outside the box. Yes, but we never fund
• 27:15
  Speaker 3: ideas outside of the box. But it's for people like
• 27:18
  Speaker 3: Unue that minds their own business, that does two jobs
• 27:21
  Speaker 3: even till day does two jobs as a personal care
• 27:25
  Speaker 3: aid is number two professional in America. She's the epitome
• 27:30
  Speaker 3: of every day American. Then't understand that our child has
• 27:33
  Speaker 3: raised over one undred and fifty million and the company's
• 27:35
  Speaker 3: valid at a billion. All she cared about is when
• 27:38
  Speaker 3: are you getting married? When are you going to reproduce?
• 27:41
  Speaker 3: And when am I going to have a grandchild?
• 27:42
  Speaker 2: Right?
• 27:43
  Speaker 3: That is the true beauty and exactly that's it. Can
• 27:47
  Speaker 3: you do your basic shows and that's what every American wants.
• 27:51
  Speaker 3: Every American, whether your black, blue, red, whatever political affiliation belong,
• 27:57
  Speaker 3: people just want a better life. Yeah, and that's something
• 28:01
  Speaker 3: we need to understand.
• 28:03
  Speaker 1: So going back to the God Bless you, and this,
• 28:06
  Speaker 1: by the way, is she and is she still in Africa?
• 28:08
  Speaker 3: She in America now, she's in Minnesota. Now Minnesota, and
• 28:12
  Speaker 3: my mother, regardless of what I have still walks as
• 28:15
  Speaker 3: a personal care aid top five profession in America taking
• 28:19
  Speaker 3: care of elder people, walks through jobs and I have
• 28:22
  Speaker 3: to beg ot to stop, and she's not stopping and
• 28:25
  Speaker 3: pays our taxes every year.
• 28:26
  Speaker 1: Yeah, she gives. She has she has dignity and self respect.
• 28:30
  Speaker 1: She wants to do it for herself, which is beautiful,
• 28:32
  Speaker 1: but she not now she knows unconsciously she's got a
• 28:35
  Speaker 1: backup plan, which is her son.
• 28:38
  Speaker 2: She started with community and she knows. John.
• 28:40
  Speaker 3: Let me give you a last story. Okay, when she
• 28:43
  Speaker 3: was renting, she uses a SUSA to report I rent
• 28:47
  Speaker 3: and then she called me. She's just like, yeah, I
• 28:49
  Speaker 3: want to let you know I reported my rents to
• 28:51
  Speaker 3: do this people. How do I verify? I called customer
• 28:55
  Speaker 3: support and I was like, wait a minute. You called
• 28:58
  Speaker 3: customer support at ISSUSU and it's like, yeah, I want
• 29:00
  Speaker 3: to know when those ISSUSU people will reflects my credit
• 29:04
  Speaker 3: score and make sure this is insure because I want
• 29:06
  Speaker 3: to buy ass right this is I'm like, wait a minute,
• 29:09
  Speaker 3: Like did you get what you're talking about?
• 29:11
  Speaker 2: She's like yeah, I know. You walk there.
• 29:13
  Speaker 3: I'm like no, no, no, no, no no. I co founded
• 29:15
  Speaker 3: comet like, whatever, but let me just tell you what
• 29:18
  Speaker 3: is going on. I need to call this customers support people.
• 29:21
  Speaker 3: What's their number? I'm like, oh my god, are you
• 29:23
  Speaker 3: kidding me? Right now? It's like, what's the number? I
• 29:26
  Speaker 3: need to call them? We have to be responsible so
• 29:28
  Speaker 3: I can get ready for my muggage process. She doesn't
• 29:31
  Speaker 3: still understand the magnitude of what's going on, and she's
• 29:34
  Speaker 3: the only person that could give me the basic conversation.
• 29:38
  Speaker 3: And I like it that way. She still doesn't know
• 29:40
  Speaker 3: what is going on, and it's the most beautiful thing.
• 29:44
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 29:44
  Speaker 1: And by the way, where would she have gotten that from?
• 29:46
  Speaker 1: Where was she heard the word founder in her life?
• 29:48
  Speaker 1: Where was she Where was she heard or understood the
• 29:51
  Speaker 1: phrase founder, co founder, chief executive officer, principal, shareholder, major investor,
• 30:00
  Speaker 1: one hundred million dollars frankly one million dollars, billion dollars.
• 30:05
  Speaker 1: I mean, that's something you read about in the newspaper.
• 30:07
  Speaker 1: That's somebody else's story. You don't pay attention to her.
• 30:10
  Speaker 1: You just you're trying to survive. You got you got,
• 30:12
  Speaker 1: you got too much month at the end of your money,
• 30:14
  Speaker 1: you're just trying to get the payments made. So yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 30:18
  Speaker 1: How do I get the customer service when you get
• 30:21
  Speaker 1: when you get married, exactly when you get your grandchildren?
• 30:24
  Speaker 1: Yeah yeah, okay, whatever, can you.
• 30:26
  Speaker 2: Pay your rent? And my mother and father the exact
• 30:30
  Speaker 2: same way I came.
• 30:32
  Speaker 1: I came home several times with achievements that would just
• 30:36
  Speaker 1: they just couldn't relate to uh And so in my father's.
• 30:39
  Speaker 2: Case, he literally would dismiss it.
• 30:42
  Speaker 1: My dad had never met the city council and in
• 30:44
  Speaker 1: the city of la And I came home one day
• 30:46
  Speaker 1: and Dad, the president of the United States, President of
• 30:50
  Speaker 1: the United States of America, mentioned my name, like, you know,
• 30:53
  Speaker 1: recognize me.
• 30:54
  Speaker 2: Which president it was? President? And I think I think
• 30:58
  Speaker 2: this was Reagan. It was Reagan or Bush? Oh you know, Republican.
• 31:02
  Speaker 2: I don't care. I mean, he didn't know what to
• 31:03
  Speaker 2: do with it, so he dismissed.
• 31:04
  Speaker 1: It right, and it hurt me. It hurt my feelings
• 31:09
  Speaker 1: back then. I now realized that my dad didn't know
• 31:13
  Speaker 1: any better. But I stopped bringing stuff to my father
• 31:17
  Speaker 1: because I knew that this was I mean, I couldn't
• 31:20
  Speaker 1: get advice for where I was going from where I
• 31:23
  Speaker 1: came from. Even though I couldn't go where I'm coming
• 31:26
  Speaker 1: from without them backing me to begin with. So I
• 31:28
  Speaker 1: was forever grateful, but they I realized that this was
• 31:32
  Speaker 1: over there. Their their skis with regard to experience. And
• 31:38
  Speaker 1: your mother is of the salt of the earth. She
• 31:41
  Speaker 1: is the epitome of every mother's experience and story in
• 31:45
  Speaker 1: the world.
• 31:46
  Speaker 2: And you would not be you without her.
• 31:51
  Speaker 1: But it's also great that she doesn't recognize what you've
• 31:54
  Speaker 1: done in many ways because it keeps you grounded.
• 31:57
  Speaker 3: It does, it does. My mother always remind ends me
• 32:00
  Speaker 3: that vanity upon vanity. You came to this life naked.
• 32:04
  Speaker 3: You're either going to be criminated, You're either going to
• 32:07
  Speaker 3: be buried. So whatever you think you have one day,
• 32:10
  Speaker 3: your least would expire on this thing called earth. And
• 32:13
  Speaker 3: what would people say about you. The only thing that's certain, John,
• 32:17
  Speaker 3: is our least would expire on this thing called earth
• 32:21
  Speaker 3: and will be gone.
• 32:22
  Speaker 2: And you're now too.
• 32:30
  Speaker 3: And you know the biggest realization for me in this process,
• 32:33
  Speaker 3: and you know it goes back to someone something mel
• 32:35
  Speaker 3: Robins said. People can only meet you as far as
• 32:39
  Speaker 3: they've met themselves.
• 32:41
  Speaker 2: M Right.
• 32:43
  Speaker 3: She's to your point, can comprehend the world found that
• 32:46
  Speaker 3: she executive officer, even if she has say that can
• 32:50
  Speaker 3: comprehend that someone from a lineage can be there, and
• 32:53
  Speaker 3: I understand that. And I also appreciate the very basic
• 32:56
  Speaker 3: conversations because it keeps me grounded, it keeps me honest,
• 33:01
  Speaker 3: and he keeps me focused everything and taking away from you.
• 33:05
  Speaker 3: No one is invisible.
• 33:07
  Speaker 1: Yeah, for most of the years I was writing, my
• 33:21
  Speaker 1: family other than holidays were invisible. I was focused and
• 33:27
  Speaker 1: I was working, and they couldn't really relate to what
• 33:29
  Speaker 1: they had what I was doing. They're doing a nine
• 33:31
  Speaker 1: to five job, or they were in the military, or
• 33:33
  Speaker 1: they were doing something structor structured in their life. What's
• 33:36
  Speaker 1: John John doing? They call me John John? What's John
• 33:38
  Speaker 1: John doing? Or you know, what's JASB doing?
• 33:41
  Speaker 2: I don't know.
• 33:42
  Speaker 1: He's giving a speech somewhere, He's I don't know, he's
• 33:44
  Speaker 1: meeting some people in New York about something.
• 33:47
  Speaker 2: I don't know what he does.
• 33:48
  Speaker 1: And everybody would show up if I had some money
• 33:53
  Speaker 1: to distribute. But that again communal, that is that is communal.
• 33:58
  Speaker 1: Holidays were communal. Again, it was gift guilty, gift giving.
• 34:02
  Speaker 1: And I didn't resist. Not only did I not resent it,
• 34:06
  Speaker 1: I accepted that that was just It's just a different,
• 34:09
  Speaker 1: a different role than I had to play, and I
• 34:12
  Speaker 1: became a leader in the family with.
• 34:15
  Speaker 2: Something that they didn't understand.
• 34:16
  Speaker 1: I'm the leader, but they have no understanding of how
• 34:19
  Speaker 1: I got there what I do. All I know is
• 34:22
  Speaker 1: that money falls from this tree and lands in their pocket,
• 34:26
  Speaker 1: and so it was it would be a mistake for me.
• 34:31
  Speaker 1: I'm listening to one people listening to this. If you
• 34:34
  Speaker 1: have if you become successful because you're an expert in
• 34:39
  Speaker 1: you're become the best football player in the planet. You
• 34:41
  Speaker 1: got to drafted in the NFL. You're there because you
• 34:45
  Speaker 1: spent twenty thirty forty hours a week perfecting your game
• 34:49
  Speaker 1: over a decade or two. Don't then turn turn around,
• 34:52
  Speaker 1: take the money from that contract and give it to
• 34:55
  Speaker 1: cousin Pooky and them who have no experience in financial management.
• 35:00
  Speaker 2: You have no experience in investment.
• 35:03
  Speaker 1: You want to have the same criteria that you that
• 35:05
  Speaker 1: the NFL had about you, which way you were the
• 35:07
  Speaker 1: best of the best of the best, and you've proven
• 35:09
  Speaker 1: it on the field. You want to turn that money
• 35:12
  Speaker 1: over to somebody who is the best of the best
• 35:14
  Speaker 1: of the best and who's proven it on the on
• 35:16
  Speaker 1: the field of their endeavors. And they have credentials and
• 35:19
  Speaker 1: references to back it up. Don't give that that that
• 35:22
  Speaker 1: money to somebody you like in your family. They will
• 35:26
  Speaker 1: you will go broke and they're going to go shopping.
• 35:29
  Speaker 1: And then when you come looking for your money, and
• 35:30
  Speaker 1: they'll be like, what what what? What are you?
• 35:32
  Speaker 2: What are you tripping about?
• 35:32
  Speaker 1: You're already rich, right, They can't relate. They just going
• 35:37
  Speaker 1: to keep flowing. And and if you put the wings
• 35:39
  Speaker 1: of a pig and hope it the flies out, the
• 35:40
  Speaker 1: pick fault. It's you. You should expect pig fly. So
• 35:44
  Speaker 1: there's a lot of pressure on a leader to be
• 35:46
  Speaker 1: almost all things to all people. And let's go back
• 35:51
  Speaker 1: now to the three hundred and fifty times or whatever
• 35:54
  Speaker 1: you were told.
• 35:55
  Speaker 2: No, I love what you said.
• 35:58
  Speaker 1: I want to dig a little deeper because I would
• 36:00
  Speaker 1: often say I take no for vitamins. That's going from
• 36:04
  Speaker 1: failure to failure without loss of enthusiastic over rounded through it.
• 36:08
  Speaker 1: I'm gonna get to it, and you can't go without
• 36:11
  Speaker 1: legitimate suffering. It seemed to me that those three point
• 36:14
  Speaker 1: fifty or whatever that number is of turndowns were actually investments,
• 36:18
  Speaker 1: just non monetary, right, because as you said, you took
• 36:23
  Speaker 1: that feedback. I want you to go a little deeper
• 36:25
  Speaker 1: that you took that feedback. Yeah, even if it was
• 36:28
  Speaker 1: a no, right, it made it valuable. Talk about that.
• 36:32
  Speaker 3: Let me talk about that a little bit. So Samir
• 36:34
  Speaker 3: and I remember to your points, Like my mother, we're
• 36:37
  Speaker 3: figuring it out. We don't have anyone in that family
• 36:40
  Speaker 3: that's created a company like this, aspiration beyond our wildest imagination, right,
• 36:46
  Speaker 3: So we have all the things going against us. So
• 36:49
  Speaker 3: we learned. The first presentation didn't have the what you
• 36:53
  Speaker 3: call the mental model. The second presentation, we're not thinking
• 36:57
  Speaker 3: big enough. The third presentation people didn't like idea. We
• 37:00
  Speaker 3: just continue to get data points, and all those data points.
• 37:05
  Speaker 3: You know, it's really really important to make sure you
• 37:10
  Speaker 3: get to the final destination. I always think that every
• 37:13
  Speaker 3: situation your encounter in life, it will change you. It
• 37:17
  Speaker 3: would despair or no longer satisfy you. Right, that's that's
• 37:22
  Speaker 3: the arc of the journey. So we told a more
• 37:24
  Speaker 3: compelling story. So when we got to the three hundred
• 37:27
  Speaker 3: and twenty seventh person.
• 37:29
  Speaker 4: They're like, wow, it's all the feedback, all the failures
• 37:33
  Speaker 4: of that three hundred and twenty six on the darkest
• 37:36
  Speaker 4: day of the three hundred and twenty six journey.
• 37:39
  Speaker 3: Myself and Semel we just closed a twenty thousand dollars
• 37:42
  Speaker 3: contracts from my alma mata, University of Minnesota, but we
• 37:45
  Speaker 3: are both in one hundred thousand dollars in credit card debt.
• 37:48
  Speaker 3: We had nothing. We couldn't afford an hotel room. We
• 37:51
  Speaker 3: had a genius idea to go slum it out at
• 37:54
  Speaker 3: Denny's and walk all night and take it airplane to
• 37:57
  Speaker 3: San Francisco to continue to raise money. At four am
• 38:00
  Speaker 3: in the morning, we started dozing ofough and we got
• 38:02
  Speaker 3: kicked out of it. Dennis. The reason why this is
• 38:05
  Speaker 3: important to everyone is failure is the only guarantee. If
• 38:09
  Speaker 3: you don't fail and you're daring to do something great,
• 38:13
  Speaker 3: failure is inevitable. But you should also remember failure is
• 38:18
  Speaker 3: also not permanent.
• 38:20
  Speaker 1: By the way, is using British English on you were
• 38:24
  Speaker 1: we will say inevitable.
• 38:27
  Speaker 2: American English translate for you. You're right, you're right.
• 38:39
  Speaker 3: So one thing that everyone must understand listening to this
• 38:43
  Speaker 3: podcast is there's no resolution to life problems. It's not
• 38:48
  Speaker 3: it's a continuum. It's a journey, and you will fail.
• 38:52
  Speaker 3: It's the only guarantee, but it is how you respond,
• 38:56
  Speaker 3: how you get up, how you adapt, how you show up,
• 39:00
  Speaker 3: how you did different. And one of the reasons why
• 39:02
  Speaker 3: always said John played a key role in some of
• 39:05
  Speaker 3: the darkest days. He only says something that resonates with me.
• 39:10
  Speaker 3: There's always a rainbow after the storm. You just have
• 39:14
  Speaker 3: to fight through it. And you know what, there's an
• 39:16
  Speaker 3: African American saying, if you anger around the barber shop,
• 39:20
  Speaker 3: sooner or later, you're gonna get an aircut. And all
• 39:22
  Speaker 3: myself and Samir did was hang out there. Someone came
• 39:26
  Speaker 3: into the barber shop. Someone's getting air cut, Like, what
• 39:28
  Speaker 3: year we're gonna die here, We're not gonna eat until
• 39:32
  Speaker 3: we get our air cut. I'm bored. We got aircut?
• 39:35
  Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, And now you're own the barber shop.
• 39:41
  Speaker 2: A lot of barber shops, So you got that first.
• 39:46
  Speaker 1: After three hundred and twenty six no's, you got a
• 39:49
  Speaker 1: yes on a three und twenty seventh yes.
• 39:53
  Speaker 2: So one.
• 39:55
  Speaker 1: A friend of mine, Tony Wrestler, who owns the Atlanta
• 39:57
  Speaker 1: Hawks here in Atlanta, would say, if you don't quit,
• 40:02
  Speaker 1: you can't fail. So you just never left the barber
• 40:06
  Speaker 1: shop until you got a haircut. Somebody's going to give
• 40:09
  Speaker 1: you a haircut. It was just a matter of win, right,
• 40:13
  Speaker 1: and you just kept at it, kept out of kept
• 40:14
  Speaker 1: at it. So now you go to get this First,
• 40:17
  Speaker 1: you got your first sale for twenty thousand, you flew
• 40:20
  Speaker 1: I guess to raise some more money because you couldn't
• 40:23
  Speaker 1: stay overnight. You couldn't place to stay, so you you
• 40:26
  Speaker 1: literally stayed up overnight.
• 40:27
  Speaker 2: I've done that before to get on the plane.
• 40:30
  Speaker 1: Did you start closing one deal after another after that
• 40:33
  Speaker 1: and did you live off the sales or did an
• 40:35
  Speaker 1: investor finally show up and say, okay, here's it, you know,
• 40:38
  Speaker 1: here's a pop bucket of money.
• 40:40
  Speaker 2: What happened next?
• 40:41
  Speaker 3: Great question. So out of that collective experience of all
• 40:45
  Speaker 3: the nose, we finally had an investor at bet on
• 40:48
  Speaker 3: Us and they alally significant check into the company and
• 40:52
  Speaker 3: from there we raised one point six million dollars in
• 40:55
  Speaker 3: our seat funding. So that was the first major bet
• 40:59
  Speaker 3: Thatch outside capital to cl on us and all that's
• 41:02
  Speaker 3: participated to make sure we're able to raise one point
• 41:06
  Speaker 3: six million dollars to build what the company is now today.
• 41:10
  Speaker 1: And that person who put the seed money in, that
• 41:14
  Speaker 1: first investor, we don't need to name names. They in
• 41:17
  Speaker 1: all likelihood got a larger share of the opportunity because
• 41:21
  Speaker 1: they took a larger risk. Yes, so you never talked
• 41:24
  Speaker 1: about this before. I'm just making a presumption listening to this.
• 41:28
  Speaker 1: Don't get upset because folks want a high return for
• 41:32
  Speaker 1: a high risk. That's the way the world works. Yes,
• 41:36
  Speaker 1: don't don't call them names, don't call them greedy. No,
• 41:40
  Speaker 1: they're taking a risk. They could lose everything. Right, if
• 41:43
  Speaker 1: they lose everything and come to you, you say, hey,
• 41:46
  Speaker 1: you know that's what that's the risk of doing business.
• 41:50
  Speaker 1: So when you hit, when you do well, don't be
• 41:52
  Speaker 1: resentful when you've got to pay that person.
• 41:56
  Speaker 2: What the part of that upside?
• 41:58
  Speaker 1: I'd rather have ten percent of something than one hundred
• 42:01
  Speaker 1: percent of nothing, exactly. So as they became more successful,
• 42:08
  Speaker 1: they had to give up less of the company, less
• 42:10
  Speaker 1: of the upside to investors, is my guess, right.
• 42:15
  Speaker 2: One.
• 42:16
  Speaker 3: I just to give you an idea that fust investor
• 42:20
  Speaker 3: invested roughly, you.
• 42:22
  Speaker 2: Know, say.
• 42:27
  Speaker 3: Five hundred thousand does that five hundred thousand does is
• 42:29
  Speaker 3: now what fifteen million, fifteen million, fifty five zero five zero? Wow,
• 42:36
  Speaker 3: that's amazing.
• 42:38
  Speaker 1: That's what happens when you make the right bet, they
• 42:41
  Speaker 1: can live that they don't make make another investment the
• 42:43
  Speaker 1: rest of their life. That's okay. So in the last
• 42:46
  Speaker 1: few minutes, we've got why don't you a mix of
• 42:50
  Speaker 1: where you are now? So what's your business model now?
• 42:54
  Speaker 1: Probably here? What are you most proud of in the
• 42:57
  Speaker 1: achievements in the last few years?
• 42:59
  Speaker 2: Right? Where are you going?
• 43:01
  Speaker 3: Right?
• 43:02
  Speaker 2: How can people help who are listening to this right?
• 43:05
  Speaker 1: Because there's a broad range of folks who listen to
• 43:07
  Speaker 1: my podcast, from billionaires to millionaires, two thousandaires, somebody trying
• 43:11
  Speaker 1: to buy some are to government leaders.
• 43:13
  Speaker 2: I mean they're all over the map. People listen to
• 43:16
  Speaker 2: this podcast. So somebody to help you?
• 43:18
  Speaker 1: How can they help you? And then what advice do
• 43:21
  Speaker 1: you have for strivers? As a in comment? What advice suggestions?
• 43:25
  Speaker 3: So I would start with our business model, So we
• 43:30
  Speaker 3: walk with lodge On as an opperators have realested or
• 43:33
  Speaker 3: anyone or businesses or employers. We charged two dollars by
• 43:38
  Speaker 3: dull month. We have five million units. I crushed the US.
• 43:41
  Speaker 2: You can do the math.
• 43:42
  Speaker 1: Somebody you charge two dollars per by dull month? Okay,
• 43:47
  Speaker 1: people who are not good at English. That was the
• 43:49
  Speaker 1: proper way of saying door he speaking proper English.
• 43:54
  Speaker 2: I'm just a due.
• 44:00
  Speaker 3: Right right right, PI units per apartment units. So that's
• 44:10
  Speaker 3: the business mode. It's simple. It's created when when people
• 44:13
  Speaker 3: get rent reporting, they get free tax filing, they get
• 44:17
  Speaker 3: financial coaching from Operation Hope, and to be able to
• 44:22
  Speaker 3: get financial health because that's a civil rights matter of
• 44:25
  Speaker 3: our time right now. You know you get resources from
• 44:28
  Speaker 3: Freddie Mack and finding me. Financial coaching really really important
• 44:32
  Speaker 3: to set you up for success. So we've now built
• 44:34
  Speaker 3: a platform for that.
• 44:36
  Speaker 2: So we've grown.
• 44:38
  Speaker 3: We're one of the largest, if not the largest reporter
• 44:41
  Speaker 3: of this data in the country and work with seventy
• 44:43
  Speaker 3: five percent of the largest owners and operators of real
• 44:47
  Speaker 3: estates in America. So it's there you can find us
• 44:50
  Speaker 3: where your employers. Employers also buy this as a financial
• 44:53
  Speaker 3: health benefit for folks. How can people be helpful? Number one,
• 44:59
  Speaker 3: we need you advice. Go to our websites. If you
• 45:01
  Speaker 3: have feedback shared with us. We want to be the
• 45:04
  Speaker 3: best we can possibly be. I said it earlier. Every
• 45:07
  Speaker 3: feedback is a gift. You can go to your website
• 45:11
  Speaker 3: and leave an idea. Yes, we have a we have
• 45:14
  Speaker 3: an AI bought on the website that you can you know,
• 45:17
  Speaker 3: communicate with. If you give it ideas, it will jot
• 45:20
  Speaker 3: it down and make sure it gets to me and
• 45:22
  Speaker 3: my co founder.
• 45:23
  Speaker 2: Also, man, I'm going to steal that idea. The best
• 45:25
  Speaker 2: in life, the best idea is a copy. And I'm
• 45:27
  Speaker 2: still in.
• 45:27
  Speaker 3: Exactly exactly well our regionals, but we die a copy.
• 45:33
  Speaker 1: By the way, what he's said was you were born
• 45:36
  Speaker 1: in original. When you die a copy, not a copy
• 45:40
  Speaker 1: that is properly English, right right.
• 45:54
  Speaker 3: So number two is you know one thing I want?
• 46:00
  Speaker 3: And advice also is always remember when someone tells you no,
• 46:09
  Speaker 3: that no is your pathway and your foundation for a
• 46:13
  Speaker 3: yes that is yet to come. Always remember that number
• 46:18
  Speaker 3: two advice is nothing in life is worth doing alone.
• 46:23
  Speaker 3: If you want to go fast, you go alone. But
• 46:26
  Speaker 3: if you want to go far, you go together. To
• 46:29
  Speaker 3: build something special, you need to surround yourself with exceptional people.
• 46:35
  Speaker 3: Number three is very simple. Surround yourself with people smarter
• 46:42
  Speaker 3: than you. If you're the smartest person in the room,
• 46:45
  Speaker 3: you're doing something wrong. And when you do those things
• 46:49
  Speaker 3: and what leases altogether is passiveen great and never give up,
• 46:57
  Speaker 3: never ever give up, And that's going to help you
• 47:02
  Speaker 3: be incredibly successful in life.
• 47:07
  Speaker 1: He just dropped the mic. You know, we didn't do
• 47:10
  Speaker 1: any pre conversation here. We didn't talk about what we're
• 47:13
  Speaker 1: going to talk about. I just said I think people
• 47:15
  Speaker 1: need to hear your story. And we had talked about
• 47:18
  Speaker 1: all of this stuff. And at the end when I
• 47:19
  Speaker 1: asked you for advice, if you said everything you said
• 47:24
  Speaker 1: but you had not included basically execution like hustle your
• 47:29
  Speaker 1: ass off, I would have thought the whole interview was
• 47:31
  Speaker 1: a failure. But I knew, because I know you're a
• 47:35
  Speaker 1: proper success that you would not you would not not
• 47:39
  Speaker 1: say that that is the ingredient for everybody. What I
• 47:41
  Speaker 1: want the listeners to understand here is that all success
• 47:44
  Speaker 1: is essentially the same different industry spaces, right, But you
• 47:48
  Speaker 1: got to be PhD and PhD too exactly.
• 47:53
  Speaker 3: You can, you can not be the smartest person in
• 47:57
  Speaker 3: the room, but no one. Hard work is undefeated. Hard
• 48:02
  Speaker 3: work is undefeated. It's undefeated.
• 48:05
  Speaker 1: I'm getting out. I'm I'll work you on my out,
• 48:08
  Speaker 1: I'll stand you up, I'll move you. I would die that,
• 48:11
  Speaker 1: I would die that die on the feet. Would you
• 48:15
  Speaker 1: have to kill me?
• 48:17
  Speaker 2: Yeah? Yeah, I'm the last breath that's it. That's what
• 48:21
  Speaker 2: you're dealing with. I would die that. I'm not going Yeah,
• 48:24
  Speaker 2: I'm not going anywhere.
• 48:26
  Speaker 3: I'm not going to anywhere except the finish line.
• 48:28
  Speaker 1: So yeah and so and so there you go, everybody.
• 48:31
  Speaker 1: If you're not inspired by this episode, then then you
• 48:34
  Speaker 1: got to check your posts. I want you to go
• 48:37
  Speaker 1: to his website and experience what he's doing. Tell your landlord,
• 48:41
  Speaker 1: if they're not already contracting with you, susu, that they
• 48:44
  Speaker 1: should and go and give him some feedback, even if
• 48:48
  Speaker 1: it's just Bravo. Given some encouragement. There are hard days
• 48:51
  Speaker 1: for guys like this. I mean, eagles don't fly impacts.
• 48:54
  Speaker 1: You've never seen a flock of eagles. It's tough being
• 48:57
  Speaker 1: a leader. It's lonely being a leader.
• 49:00
  Speaker 2: I know that. I can tell you that myself. I'm
• 49:02
  Speaker 2: the loneliest guy in the crowded room sometimes. But it's okay.
• 49:05
  Speaker 2: We got many problems with self. Esteems not one of them.
• 49:09
  Speaker 1: So give them encouragement, give them confidence, give them support,
• 49:13
  Speaker 1: and give them a referral. Tell those that you know
• 49:17
  Speaker 1: who lease are rent to tell their landlords to use
• 49:21
  Speaker 1: their company. By all those listening to this, and you know,
• 49:24
  Speaker 1: of institutional companies that Wall Street companies that own real
• 49:27
  Speaker 1: estate and underserved neighborhoods.
• 49:29
  Speaker 2: Here's one good reason to feel good about that.
• 49:32
  Speaker 1: Seventy five percent of those companies are contracting with with
• 49:36
  Speaker 1: this minority owned business.
• 49:37
  Speaker 2: Who. How many employees do you have now?
• 49:40
  Speaker 3: Just around two hundred people? And one thing that you
• 49:42
  Speaker 3: acted I didn't say, just to cluse out with. What
• 49:45
  Speaker 3: I'm most proud of is we've established credit scores for
• 49:48
  Speaker 3: over two hundred thousand people. And the people that have
• 49:52
  Speaker 3: improved credit scores on our platform, I've gone on to
• 49:54
  Speaker 3: on lock fifty billion dollars let me repeat myself billion
• 49:58
  Speaker 3: unders in credit. Of that fifty billion, thirty billion does
• 50:02
  Speaker 3: is muggagees. So the provabio American dream is you walk hard,
• 50:07
  Speaker 3: you play by the rules, you buy a house one day.
• 50:09
  Speaker 3: We've helped people improve their credit score so they can
• 50:11
  Speaker 3: fulfill the American dream and it's an irony. And immigrants
• 50:14
  Speaker 3: from the slums of Legos, Nigeria contributes into perfecting this union.
• 50:19
  Speaker 3: That is the true genius of America.
• 50:21
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and America he is he is right, is a
• 50:23
  Speaker 2: great country.
• 50:24
  Speaker 1: But she's also got many faults and many many failing slavery,
• 50:29
  Speaker 1: Jim Crow, all the crappy stuff that happened then, some
• 50:33
  Speaker 1: of it's happening now. But there is no perfect and
• 50:36
  Speaker 1: you just go. You want to make the best of
• 50:39
  Speaker 1: this that you can. It is still an incredible place
• 50:41
  Speaker 1: of opportunity America. And he is part of what of
• 50:45
  Speaker 1: what making this story aspirational for the next generation of
• 50:48
  Speaker 1: immigrants who are coming here legally and making their contribution.
• 50:53
  Speaker 1: And he is part of this American story. His mother
• 50:55
  Speaker 1: is a part of this American story. We should celebrate that.
• 50:58
  Speaker 1: I celebrate him.
• 51:00
  Speaker 2: Uh.
• 51:00
  Speaker 1: And this is an example, in my opinion, of good
• 51:04
  Speaker 1: capitalism and we should want more of this. This is
• 51:09
  Speaker 1: John O'Bryant. This is the Money and Wealth podcast episode
• 51:14
  Speaker 1: and series.
• 51:15
  Speaker 2: Uh.
• 51:15
  Speaker 1: This is your up another example of up from nothing.
• 51:18
  Speaker 1: Tell your friends to go to IUSU Uh have them
• 51:22
  Speaker 1: follow Uh. When Memo Online and his company follow, of course,
• 51:27
  Speaker 1: Operation Hope get a copy of my book Financial Literacy
• 51:30
  Speaker 1: for All if you haven't gotten it, you get a
• 51:32
  Speaker 1: thousand dollars coaching scholarship and Operation Hope to get your
• 51:35
  Speaker 1: credit score up, your debt down, your savings up.
• 51:37
  Speaker 2: Do you have a book out yet?
• 51:38
  Speaker 1: Well?
• 51:38
  Speaker 2: When Memo are you working on one and.
• 51:40
  Speaker 3: Then their future. The story is still being told Inure.
• 51:45
  Speaker 2: I love that.
• 51:46
  Speaker 1: I love that all right, John, Good to see you,
• 51:51
  Speaker 1: God Bless love and life, Money and Wealth with John
• 52:08
  Speaker 1: O'Brien is a production of the Black Effect Podcast Network.
• 52:11
  Speaker 1: For more podcasts from the Black Effect Podcast Network, visit
• 52:15
  Speaker 1: the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to
• 52:19
  Speaker 1: your favorite shows.