Latest / The Hannah Hammond Show / How To Build A Unicorn Startup (The 3 Principles That Actually Work) | Luke Morris

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How To Build A Unicorn Startup (The 3 Principles That Actually Work) | Luke Morris · The Hannah Hammond Show

• 0:00
  Was there any point where you were like, I this isn't going to
• 0:02
  be successful or I don't know how I'm going to get through
• 0:04
  this? So many people were like, this
• 0:05
  is never going to be successful and we heard that a lot, but you
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  have to kind of keep powering through.
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  It was really hard to start a company.
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  Every year I feel like it becomes easier.
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  You don't need 70 people spending fraction amount of
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  money on technology, kind of like standing up on your own.
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  You can do that. Maybe you don't need to raise
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  $5,000,000. Maybe you need to raise
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  $500,000, right, because it's more cost effective, efficient.
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  The tools are out there to be able to do it.
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  People like what's the playbook? Give me the give me the 10 steps
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  to success for raising money or starting a company.
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  Like there is no playbook. Even Ben Horowitz talks about
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  this and like, you're not going to read the hard things about
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  hard things or some Google book or some Amazon book and there's
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  there's no instructions and I got to like take the lead.
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  Welcome back to the Hannah Hammond show.
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  I'm super excited to be here today with Luke Morris all the
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  way from Orange County, California, who is the Co
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  founder and CEO of previously Krexi, which you all know if
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  you're in commercial real estate and now just launched a new
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  company called Capitalize dot IO, which is super, super cool.
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  And that's how we actually got connected.
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  I was diving into his platform because I own a commercial
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  mortgage brokerage and so that's what your platform helps solve
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  before. And thanks for flying out and
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  for being on the show today. Yeah, thank you for having me.
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  Of course, you're just super fascinating and I've loved kind
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  of learning about your background and want to share
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  about your background because you're in the venture capital
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  world. You're in, you know, fintech and
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  proptech and you went to USC and we're an athlete at USC as well
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  on the men's volleyball team. And we're what do they call that
• 1:43
  award person on the team? Shoot, I'm forgetting what it's
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  called. Let me see here.
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  The libero. Yes, that the libero.
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  So what is the libero? The libero is it's like a
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  defensive specialist and you have a different colored jersey.
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  You kind of move freely in and out without having to like sub
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  in and out. It's a very unique rule.
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  But basically like there's rules around I can't hit.
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  I'm just, I'm in the game all the time, but I'm only a
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  defensive specialist. And you look at me, you're like,
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  oh, you're, you know, tall person and shortest guy in the
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  team, right? 63 because and most of the guys
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  are 6-8. But I was like the defensive
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  specialist. That's cool.
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  Passing, defense, digging, kind of boring stuff, the the actions
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  in the front, blocking, hitting setting, which I did in high
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  school and in club. But you know, I wanted to start,
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  wanted to play, so adjusted ended up being a libero.
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  Yeah, and just really supporting your team and not necessarily
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  being the face of everything and and building like, yeah,
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  supporting the team to be successful.
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  That's how I roll with companies too.
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  Right, I was going to. That's where I was heading.
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  By example, in the trenches. Thankless job.
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  You're almost like a offensive lineman kind of thing.
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  Yeah. So what, what was your childhood
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  and early years like? Like did you always want to be
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  an entrepreneur or were your were your parents a big role in
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  that or what was like? And my dad and grandpa were both
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  entrepreneurs, my aunt as well, right?
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  So it was kind of in my DNA, right?
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  And then, you know, in Orange County, there's a lot of
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  successful people. And 99% of those people are run
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  and own their own business, right?
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  Like that's the leap you want to take if you want to be super
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  successful, not just like when it comes to dollars and cents,
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  but but actually like learning, right?
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  Like digging into the trenches, hiring people, training people,
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  coaching people, raising money. It's just, it's the best
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  learning experience there is, right?
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  So it just kind of I got lucky and I, I had the opportunity to
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  do it with Craxy and then again with Capitalize.
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  But it is a little bit in my DNA, both in the Orange County
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  scene and, you know, family wise.
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  So did you know pretty young that you were going to be a
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  business owner? I think so, yeah.
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  At some point, like most people, you want to go join a company,
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  do something cool, learn, and then do something on your own,
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  which is what I did, right? And it was effectively a
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  startup, auction.com, when I joined it in 2009, right?
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  And it was a new division, like a startup within a bigger
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  company. And we were liquidating,
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  trading, liquidating, selling commercial real estate online,
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  right? So I fell in love with real
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  estate and I also fell in love with technology at the same
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  time. So you you went to college for
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  real estate development, right? Sole Price School of Real Estate
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  at USC. Yeah, OK, cool.
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  And did you want to be a developer?
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  I did I my neighbor and he's still a good friend of mine is
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  he's now the CEO of Lennar Homes.
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  Oh, wow. And that was something that I, I
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  really wanted to do. And we've remained close.
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  I always had coffee with him. But you know, I graduated in
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  2009 and Lennar laid off. I remember him telling me like
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  80% of their staff, I'm like, OK, well, not going to go there,
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  right? And then I got lucky.
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  Another neighbor of mine, you know, I was taking some time
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  off. There wasn't a lot going on, not
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  a lot of jobs popping up. And I, I met a neighbor of mine
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  on the beach in Laguna Beach. And he's like, we're starting
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  this new division, commercial real estate, technology, trading
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  real estate online. I'm like, amazing, that's
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  awesome, let's do it. I'm in.
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  And I started working like 2 days later, right?
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  So it was just, and we were the first crop of hires.
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  There was just, you know, four or five of us to start, right?
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  And we're calling brokers. We didn't know what the source
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  of deal flow was going to be. So I remember getting hung up on
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  99% of the time, you know, calling it a dungeon, but just
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  learning with every hang up, getting better, honing your
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  pitch, etcetera. Right.
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  Trying to get people to adopt trading real estate online.
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  Yeah. And so that was at the, I mean
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  crash right when the bottom fell.
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  Out 2009. That's crazy.
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  Yeah, other than like the graduating class of 1931, like
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  probably the 19301930, the worst time they say in history to and
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  be entering the job market, right.
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  But you know, that's where success is found is being able
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  to pivot and take advantage of the volatility and the fear in
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  the market and then finding the inefficiencies in it too and
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  then solving for those inefficiencies.
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  And so I love that you guys just saw the demand like nothing was
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  trading with traditional banks and everything was losing value
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  and people had to get out of their assets super fast.
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  And so you guys created this prop tech platform for investors
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  who are always on the sidelines waiting to pounce, right?
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  Because there's always people that like know these things are
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  around the corner when they when they do come.
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  And these are usually like once or twice in a generation
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  opportunities. Yeah, wealth is really created
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  right during these and we're in a little bit of a downturn right
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  now, right? Like right now people with cash
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  for King I I wish that I'm going back in time like had won every
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  single bid because all of those deals, like even at the time
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  you're like, wow, this person's overpaying today.
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  It's a steal. I mean, these, these we were
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  trading these deals. I'm like, wow, this is crazy.
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  You know $50,000 a door in Tempe or Phoenix now it's 200 and
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  something depending on the product, right?
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  Like if you just kept clicking bid and bid, and you would have
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  had an incredible portfolio at a huge discount.
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  But it's all about timing, right?
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  And taking the risk because it was risky at that time to buy
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  these distressed assets in the auction.
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  But all of those owners, I don't think any of them are regretting
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  being the winning bidder on any of those deals, right?
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  But it created that sense of urgency.
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  At that time, there was no sense of urgency.
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  There was a lot of buyers with cash.
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  We call them fence sitters. And an auction puts your feet to
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  the fire. It's like here's the price you
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  registered. You see the last bid bid, right?
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  It's like countdown, 20 seconds, 10 seconds, like it's right
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  there, right? There's that sense of urgency.
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  And then on the seller side, it was as is where is, so there was
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  no retraining looking for debt. It was all cash as is where is.
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  So it was perfect for the time, right, selling these assets and
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  the banks needed to create a market which you know, they're
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  kind of government regulated. They needed to see a market and
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  nothing is better at creating a market than an auction platform
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  because like I was saying, right, like current bet is
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  1,000,000, next bids 1,000,025. There was 50 bids before that
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  supporting that value, right? So it was like very clear, we
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  had 20 bidders on a deal market was created.
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  It wasn't given to your Uncle Tony kind of under the table.
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  It was like a market was created, right?
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  So these banks services, they needed to do that in order to
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  fulfill the requirements of like on a government level or the
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  bondholders in a C, MB S, right? So it was an amazing business.
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  10X is now the company right now, bought by Costar.
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  But it was some of the best years of my life, like learning,
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  growing. I've got to live in New York
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  most of the time, which is amazing.
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  That's cool. You know Orange County is a
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  little bit of a bubble, right? Yeah.
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  And I got to live in New York and do the New York run, which
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  is pretty cool. Yeah, yeah, that's fascinating.
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  So how we're like, I've never bought a property at auction,
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  but I was funny. A friend of mine, Jason Hartman,
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  he was showing me this apartment complex that he bought on
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  auction.com back in the crash for like 1,000,000 or 2 million
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  bucks. And now it was worth, you know,
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  20 or more, like in Phoenix. Yeah, I was like, what?
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  How is that even possible? Worked on that deal.
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  You probably did, but how does that work and especially now in
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  this time of volatility in 10X theauction.com?
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  Has an auction platform too that is very successful.
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  We built an auction platform into the marketplace at Krexie.
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  So how does that auction platform at Krexie, where is so
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  and for those who don't know, Krexie is a Unicorn.
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  Like he built that company to doing $100 million plus in
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  revenue and not a very long period of time to I think you
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  guys found it in 2015. Fifteen, right?
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  And then you started actually generating revenue in 2018
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  because you offered it as a free service to really get the
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  feedback of the users of like what would your dream platform
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  be? And then you guys just
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  absolutely took off from there and are an incredible company
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  and way better than your competition in my opinion and
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  many others. Yeah, We wouldn't be here
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  without the support of the real estate community, right?
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  Like, listen, we're a technology company, but we're also people.
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  Like real estate is a people business.
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  And we like Patrick Luther, you said he's coming on like many
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  meetings with him. Like you still need to shake
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  hands with these people, get their feedback and like real
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  estate people like having a voice.
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  They like contributing. And it was just an amazing early
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  stage for us this first three years before we started charging
• 10:53
  folks like building it for them, right?
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  They're going to be your user. I gave my cell phone, my
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  personal cell phone out. Like people still call me craxy.
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  Like, hey, I got this really great idea.
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  We should, you should build this or do that.
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  And like we always listened. We always gave them time.
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  We always process that feedback, ask the tough questions.
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  We just like build carelessly, but we always like we're very
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  receptive to the feedback of the users and that we wouldn't be
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  here without a lot of those participants, Patrick or Phil
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  Voorhees or Glenn Konowski, those people really giving us
• 11:27
  time to provide feedback, critical feedback.
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  It wasn't like we're blowing smoke.
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  They were like, you got to do this or we really need this.
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  And we would ask why do you need this?
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  Why do you need this? Why do you need this?
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  And we always build really what they needed, not necessarily
• 11:40
  what they wanted, but what they needed, right?
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  Right. To make them, to improve them.
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  And if they're happy, they're going to continue to be a
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  subscriber and support us and spread the word.
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  Yeah. Yeah, there's that quote that
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  says millionaires are good at making themselves money and
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  billionaires are good at making other people money.
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  And that's what you guys did, was create a platform that
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  really optimized the revenue for the users and on all sides,
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  right? People making money from buying
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  the deals, people making money from selling the deals.
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  So what was that spark for you and your Co founder Mike, right,
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  Yeah. Mike and Eric.
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  Mike and Eric, when you were when you were at auction.com and
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  you're like, hey, let's build something on our own.
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  Like what were you thinking that could be done different or
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  better? Or what was the original idea
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  that caused you to go off and and create something different
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  that you think, especially when you have massive competitors in
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  the marketplace that are long established public companies or
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  just massive businesses? What was that thing where you
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  guys were like, we can do this, this is what we're going to do
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  different and better? Where we use a lot of those
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  tools during our time at at auction.com.
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  And Mike and I were good buddies.
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  I was the first person that he met on his first day.
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  I started maybe like 18 months a year, 18 months before him.
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  And then he was in the next or the third crop of hirings and
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  the CEO's like, oh, you're going to come and meet Luke day one.
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  So I met him in the lobby and I was his the first person he
• 13:02
  interacted with at auction.com. We came really good buddies
• 13:06
  after that. And even though I was in New
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  York, we were kind of like counterparts doing the same
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  role, just in different offices, Young guns, kind of always
• 13:15
  trying to push the envelope. You know, Mike started the PCG
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  group and like that really took a private client group, right,
• 13:20
  where we weren't just selling for servicers.
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  And every time we were together, whether he was in New York or I
• 13:25
  was in the Orange County office, we always kind of brainstorm and
• 13:27
  like went to dinner and we're always talking about like how we
• 13:31
  can make it better, right? Because we were boots on the
• 13:33
  ground like working with the brokers, working with the
• 13:35
  sellers, working with the bidders, right?
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  So we had a really good pulse on what was going on.
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  And we always talked about how we can make it better, right?
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  And I think ultimately auction.com wanted to be an
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  auction platform. And so Mike, you know, got the
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  crazy idea couple months before I ended up joining him, he's
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  like, I'm going to go do this and left.
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  And I got a phone call from him. He was outside of my office in
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  New York. And he's like, this is
• 14:01
  happening. You got to come downstairs.
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  We got to talk about this. We went and took, I had told the
• 14:07
  story before, but we went to like Tommy Bahama, the
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  restaurant on 5th Ave. below my office building.
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  We took some shots like, yeah, I'm in.
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  I immediately went back upstairs and put my two weeks in
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  basically. And the rest is, is history,
• 14:22
  right? And we, we had a good idea of
• 14:24
  what we wanted to do. We wanted to be a more
• 14:28
  actionable like active marketplace where it wasn't just
• 14:33
  like billboard. It's like listing call the
• 14:36
  broker, like something that hosted due diligence, something
• 14:39
  you could submit an offer, something you could counter an
• 14:42
  offer on something that again, much more active still the
• 14:45
  broker is is the boots on the ground.
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  They're the expert. They know the market, but giving
• 14:49
  them tools to attack leads better.
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  This person clicked on due diligence.
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  This person clicked on the on this person submitted an offer.
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  It gives brokers focus and allows them to execute their
• 15:00
  business more efficiently, right?
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  So much more transactional marketplace.
• 15:05
  And we started for free, as you mentioned for the better part of
• 15:09
  three years because we needed to build that trust and get
• 15:13
  adoption, kind of build a good rapport with our users.
• 15:16
  And then when we got to critical massive listings heavily focused
• 15:20
  like retail, which is why, you know, Patrick Luther was one of
• 15:24
  our early users. And then we felt we had a good
• 15:26
  network within retail to be able to drive enough demand, right?
• 15:30
  Because buyers are going to want to go where most of the listings
• 15:33
  are. And we had a really good
• 15:35
  footprint in retail and then kind of replicated that across
• 15:38
  other asset types. But but Craxy is a much more,
• 15:41
  it's always free for the buyer. You don't even need an account
• 15:45
  to like go like a logged in account to go see every listing,
• 15:50
  every broker free or paid. We don't hide any listings.
• 15:54
  We just did things simple stuff. We just did things differently
• 15:58
  and the buyers should be able to see every listing.
• 16:00
  If you want more information, yes, put in your e-mail, create
• 16:03
  an account, put in your phone number so the broker can call
• 16:06
  you right? We don't charge them to do that
• 16:09
  right? Just simple stuff.
• 16:10
  And I believe Krexi will always have that free, free component,
• 16:16
  right? Because it's best for the
• 16:17
  industry, right? I think it's just better if you
• 16:20
  have a rich active marketplace and every buyer logged in or
• 16:24
  not, can go and see every listing in a market because
• 16:26
  ultimately that's going to make the broker happy.
• 16:28
  It's going to make the seller happy.
• 16:30
  And again, they're going to come back and you know, they're going
• 16:33
  to be loyal. Yeah, right.
• 16:35
  Yeah, similar to like what Zillow does in the residential
• 16:37
  space is just free marketplace for everyone and then they
• 16:41
  upsell mostly on theirs. It's like advertising.
• 16:43
  And now they're doing brokers and stuff too.
• 16:45
  But I love that. And when I work with Crixy, it's
• 16:47
  so great because when we put listings on there, you know,
• 16:50
  it's like so and so clicked your OM, so and so saved it, so and
• 16:53
  so viewed it. And then I'm like Amber, reach
• 16:55
  out, you know, call them right away.
• 16:57
  And it's just, it makes it really user friendly and it's
• 16:59
  such a nice platform. The user interface is spot on
• 17:02
  because you know, go to Costar and it's like an ancient
• 17:05
  dinosaur platform that is not user friendly and it takes.
• 17:09
  It's a labyrinth. Yeah, it's.
• 17:11
  A labyrinth I need like APHD in site navigation I know to like
• 17:14
  get through. It yeah and yeah, I'm just
• 17:17
  setting up. Searches source versus open
• 17:19
  source. Yep, kind of right.
• 17:20
  Like, I know we're going to get into some of that.
• 17:22
  Stuff but like. You should be able to go in and
• 17:24
  like see everything and click on a listing and like.
• 17:26
  It should be easy to use. Otherwise you're just causing
• 17:28
  more problems, right? Yeah.
• 17:31
  And you guys even help get the listings put in for brokers
• 17:34
  because they're lazy and they don't want to do it.
• 17:36
  And that's. What we had to do, we'll do
• 17:38
  whatever it takes to get the listing on like send us the OEM
• 17:41
  like type of summary in an e-mail and we would just add it,
• 17:44
  right. Like I built a lot of those
• 17:46
  early listings, right? Like that's what we had to do.
• 17:49
  We didn't have like a team of people, just handful of us like
• 17:53
  adding those listings on our own, right and the brokers would
• 17:57
  just automatically getting leads and then started closing deals.
• 18:00
  We weren't even charging, right. There are people making hundreds
• 18:04
  of thousands of dollars because we drove a buyer and we had the
• 18:07
  listing for them. They're like, this is great,
• 18:09
  right? Just it was an amazing.
• 18:11
  We were getting such great feedback and just kept building
• 18:14
  on that, right, Right. I have a startup company and my
• 18:18
  competitors are CBREJLL Colliers.
• 18:21
  Mark is like all these big, big brands, public companies and
• 18:24
  things like that. So when you were going up
• 18:26
  against the same type of competition with Costar, Loopnet
• 18:29
  and some of these conglomerates, what were you thinking as far as
• 18:33
  like, what is your edge? How are you going to compete
• 18:36
  against them? And how are you going to be
• 18:37
  really different than them to start to earn a share of the
• 18:39
  marketplace that had been so saturated for so long and had
• 18:42
  built such a, you know, Matt, it's like open AI going up
• 18:46
  against Google, right? Like it's just what was that
• 18:49
  thought process in your head about competing with those types
• 18:51
  of companies? Listen to their feedback, be
• 18:55
  receptive. Add the listings for them right?
• 18:58
  Build more technology to create value for them.
• 19:01
  Mailbox leads, like you're saying you had the listing
• 19:04
  surprise and delight, right? That's kind of that experience
• 19:07
  where you get that lead and it's like, Oh my gosh, I did nothing
• 19:09
  and I've got so and so already in there clicking around, right?
• 19:13
  So it was just it was pretty straightforward just building
• 19:17
  great features, making it easy to use, always investing in the
• 19:21
  technology and then not taking advantage of our users, right?
• 19:26
  Like I believe Craxy's pricing today is even very favorable and
• 19:30
  it aligns with the broker, right?
• 19:34
  So it's what is that 5 things, right?
• 19:36
  Yeah, pricing. Ease of use making it ease of
• 19:40
  use of navigation and ease of use like no brainer to be able
• 19:43
  to add it right. They would even send us their
• 19:45
  like web domain, you know, Matthews Group.
• 19:48
  They're like, oh, we update our listings here.
• 19:50
  We would just update it automatically for them, right?
• 19:54
  And then we had to drive demand. We had to make it easy for those
• 19:57
  buyers, which is why we never charged them to create an
• 20:01
  account. So then we started driving
• 20:02
  demand over time, right? So just kept building on those,
• 20:06
  you know, 456 pillars. Yeah, yeah.
• 20:09
  And that's what, you know, something Alex Harmozzi says is
• 20:11
  wherever you're at in your business, you have an advantage,
• 20:16
  right? Because if you're the new guy,
• 20:18
  then you have an advantage of being super hungry and super
• 20:21
  young and super innovative and able to implement things very
• 20:24
  quickly and try new things versus a massive company.
• 20:27
  They can't just integrate a new tool overnight.
• 20:30
  A lot of bureaucracy, a lot of approvals, jumping through
• 20:34
  hoops. No, there were times when
• 20:37
  whoever would be like, hey, you should add this feature.
• 20:38
  I'm like, that's a great idea. Two days later, it was added.
• 20:41
  We were winning people over, a lot of them, by just listening.
• 20:46
  It's crazy. You just listen to your user.
• 20:48
  What a concept. Yeah, what a, what a concept,
• 20:51
  right? And then didn't we were very,
• 20:53
  very loyal to those people that were the first lemmings, right?
• 20:59
  Like to hop off, right. We'd I'm pretty sure a lot of
• 21:02
  those people that were that signed up and you know, the
• 21:05
  first credit card providers in 2018, I don't think we've
• 21:10
  changed their price all that much.
• 21:12
  And they would tell you that, right?
• 21:13
  Because they were loyal. We're remaining loyal to them in
• 21:17
  return, right. So like, I guess this is a
• 21:20
  Google thing, but like, don't be evil.
• 21:21
  We had the 7th pillar. Yeah.
• 21:23
  Like we're just not evil. We're, we're good people.
• 21:27
  We're real estate people. We have good real estate DNA and
• 21:29
  we care a lot about our users. We care about their success,
• 21:32
  right? Broker, A broker, whether you're
• 21:35
  JLL or an independent, you're your own business.
• 21:39
  You're 1099, a lot of times whether you're at CBRE or JLL,
• 21:44
  like you're your own Little B business, right?
• 21:47
  Like you're not getting necessarily a lot of resources.
• 21:50
  Like we're a startup, you're kind of a startup and we want to
• 21:54
  make sure that you're successful, right?
• 21:58
  Not rocket science. Yeah, right.
• 22:00
  Yep, Just help people be successful and do it in more
• 22:03
  efficient ways than ever. So what were some of like the
• 22:06
  early lessons you learned? Because I want to paint a
• 22:08
  picture for people of how brutal entrepreneurship really is too.
• 22:12
  Because we, we come on these shows and we, or you know, you
• 22:15
  see on Instagram, you see press releases and you're like, oh,
• 22:18
  we've had all this success or you've done this or done that
• 22:20
  and got the smiles on the face. But like, it's freaking hard,
• 22:24
  especially from a startup level and not even buying a company
• 22:28
  and you know, first hand now this is your second startup.
• 22:31
  So what were like those early days when you launch Krexi and
• 22:36
  some of the sacrifices that you had to make or some of the
• 22:38
  lessons? Like, was there any point where
• 22:39
  you were like, this isn't going to be successful?
• 22:41
  Or I don't know how I'm going to get through this or just some of
• 22:43
  those really hard times because I know one of your core values
• 22:47
  is enjoy the grind. Yeah, we that's still a
• 22:51
  principle. I'm pretty sure a lot of the
• 22:52
  guys at at cracks, even though I'm not there anymore.
• 22:54
  Like it was like you had to enjoy that grind, like sleeping
• 22:59
  on the bean bag, sleeping on a yoga mat, being there on the
• 23:02
  weekends, being there late at night like this is.
• 23:05
  It was like we had to lean on each other.
• 23:07
  People are like my family, like those those early people.
• 23:11
  People see the glossy finish. It's like craxy great, great
• 23:15
  company. Like year 11 or almost 12 that
• 23:18
  we're in like those first years were, were tough, but we learned
• 23:22
  a lot. We leaned on each other and you
• 23:25
  know, we were there was a sense of like naivete or like blind
• 23:29
  ignorance. Like so many people were like,
• 23:31
  you're never going to be that company or you're this is never
• 23:34
  going to be successful. A lot of those people, they're
• 23:37
  users now of craxy like I'll never I remember so many people
• 23:41
  like on calls or whatever. We had them and some some people
• 23:45
  in person like this is never going to work.
• 23:47
  You're never going to be able to to I'm I'm never putting my
• 23:50
  listing on here and we heard that a lot.
• 23:53
  But you have to kind of keep powering through and if you
• 23:57
  don't have a good team, you don't have good support, not
• 24:00
  just from Co founders, but like a lot of those people that they
• 24:03
  took risks too, like those first crop of hires, right.
• 24:07
  Like if you're not, if you're like weak at the knees and
• 24:10
  you're freaking out of over somebody saying like you're not
• 24:13
  going to make it, then it's not right for you.
• 24:16
  You got to be able to thick skin, got to have thick skin.
• 24:19
  Like another principle, like every day we just keep getting
• 24:23
  better. Just keep getting better.
• 24:25
  Every day is going to be easier if you just keep getting better,
• 24:27
  like stacking every day, stacking a new brick, improving,
• 24:32
  improving the pitch, improving the platform, like just keep
• 24:35
  stacking those wins and blocking out some of that negativity was
• 24:39
  was huge for us, right? And no one was better at that
• 24:42
  than Mike. I mean, he is like, there was
• 24:45
  never a doubt in his mind whatsoever that it was not going
• 24:49
  to be successful, right? He asked him today where he sees
• 24:52
  Krexi. It's like $100 billion company
• 24:55
  kind of stuff. I'm like, yes, I love hearing
• 24:56
  that. And he always, he always had.
• 24:59
  And it rubbed off on, on everyone for sure, right.
• 25:03
  But I don't remember ever having like a where's the escape hatch?
• 25:07
  Where's the eject button? Like it was painful, but some of
• 25:11
  the most fun times of my life, right?
• 25:15
  We, you know, couldn't afford a office building.
• 25:18
  We were literally in a house in Venice, right?
• 25:21
  Which was kind of in vogue, right?
• 25:22
  Like Snapchat for the first seven years.
• 25:25
  Like they never had an office building.
• 25:26
  They just rented houses on the Venice Strand.
• 25:29
  Like, OK, we'll just rent it on the we'll rent a house too.
• 25:33
  And it was just like, you know, barbecues.
• 25:35
  And again, we're dealing with a lot, but there was just still so
• 25:40
  much positive and energy bonding.
• 25:43
  You're kind of in this together. Your soldiers are in a platoon.
• 25:46
  You're, you know, getting shot at every day basically.
• 25:50
  And you got to keep battling. And if the somebody, somebody
• 25:54
  starts to lose confidence, you kind of pick them back up,
• 25:57
  right? So we fed off the energy of each
• 25:59
  other for sure. How did you guys, because you
• 26:02
  did $4 million in seed funding, was that right or was that
• 26:05
  capitalized? Which round?
• 26:08
  Yeah, it's, you know, we started small.
• 26:10
  It was like a million and change.
• 26:12
  And we, you know, we've, I can't, you know, today, I think
• 26:15
  it's been over 11 or 12 years, like $100 million that we've
• 26:20
  raised right early on. It's, you know, precede million
• 26:24
  and a half. And then we had a lot of bridge
• 26:27
  rounds just to survive. We had some of the best
• 26:29
  investors like we. That's also something we're very
• 26:32
  blessed about like Lyre Hippo or 10110 or founder collective.
• 26:37
  Like they supported us when times were tough, right, when we
• 26:41
  were like almost going to miss a paycheck.
• 26:43
  And then, you know, we carved out like a note or a bridge
• 26:45
  round. It's been so long.
• 26:47
  I can't, I mean, it's been 10 rounds of like funding, right?
• 26:51
  Wasn't just like, oh, seed ABCD, right?
• 26:55
  It was just like there were notes and, and friends and
• 26:59
  family rounds and whatever it took to to keep building.
• 27:03
  Like I'm saying, we needed more time to keep building and
• 27:05
  stacking these wins on top of each other.
• 27:07
  And we wouldn't be here without, you know, support with from
• 27:11
  those investors. And that's they're kind of part
• 27:13
  of the team, right? You need you need those people.
• 27:16
  And we had good support also from real estate people that
• 27:18
  believed in US, which was a huge confidence builder, like
• 27:22
  individual brokers that were like, we believe in this, we
• 27:26
  believe in you and cut personal checks, not even like Angel
• 27:29
  checks, even though they're not doing Angel investing, they're
• 27:31
  just like, we believe in this. And like, here's 50K, here's
• 27:35
  100K. That has really worked out for
• 27:38
  them in the long run for sure. But that was that gave a lot of
• 27:42
  people confidence too, that like, even though it was pretty
• 27:45
  rough in the beginning, that like we had support from the
• 27:48
  users too. And So what does that look like
• 27:51
  for somebody who wants to go out and do a startup and needs to
• 27:54
  raise capital? Because you're not, I love this.
• 27:56
  Because you're not a coder. You're not like a tech person.
• 27:59
  Not an engineer. Right.
• 28:01
  And yet you went off and you started this massive tech
• 28:03
  company. And so for entrepreneurs that
• 28:07
  have a bright idea that are creative visionaries and can see
• 28:11
  a problem that needs to be solved that they could solve,
• 28:13
  but they need capital to start it, what do they do?
• 28:16
  Like, did you already have a reputation?
• 28:18
  Who do you go to? Who do you talk to?
• 28:19
  How do you figure out how to structure these deals so you
• 28:22
  don't get taken advantage of, but you know how to pitch it
• 28:24
  properly? Like walk us through what that
• 28:26
  processes is like. We'll first start with like and
• 28:30
  do your homework. Like don't just wake up one day
• 28:33
  and like asked HCPD to build you like 5 slides in a deck and
• 28:36
  like, oh, I'm going to raise $100 million.
• 28:38
  Like put your ideas on paper. Have a conversation too.
• 28:42
  I don't know. I'm sure you do this.
• 28:43
  I do this all the time when I'm like walking my dogs in the
• 28:45
  morning. Like I treat AI like my chief
• 28:48
  strategy officer. Like.
• 28:50
  Back then we would just bounce ideas off each other, right?
• 28:53
  But like go on a walk and like just talk to proc or chat GVT
• 28:57
  whatever you want, right? And just like asking questions,
• 29:00
  put in your pitch deck, like really talk to people.
• 29:02
  Who should I talk to for this? Right?
• 29:04
  Like talk to your users, like really get some feedback right
• 29:07
  before you then go out and start talking to people you believe
• 29:13
  are candidates to to back you right.
• 29:15
  And it's OK. You don't have to shoot for
• 29:17
  Andreessen Horowitz or so Sequoia out the gate, right?
• 29:21
  Starts with start with friends and family like, and we're like
• 29:25
  those brokers, like users be like, would you invest?
• 29:28
  Would you put in some money? That's OK.
• 29:30
  You don't need to raise venture money, right?
• 29:32
  So start having those conversations, sit down, have
• 29:35
  coffees, ask them if they know anybody else.
• 29:37
  Like that one person turns into three.
• 29:39
  Those three people turn into 9. You just kind of like keep
• 29:42
  growing it and growing it, right?
• 29:43
  And, and lean on your network. Also, don't be afraid to like
• 29:47
  send a cold e-mail to a venture person or me, for example, you
• 29:50
  want to send me an e-mail and be like, Hey, I got this idea.
• 29:51
  I get that all the time. And I'll look through the e-mail
• 29:55
  like I'll, I'm LinkedIn cold outbound.
• 29:57
  Like I, I still read it. I don't reply all the time, but
• 30:00
  I'll look at it. And if they offer something
• 30:02
  unique and like took the initiative, like take the
• 30:04
  initiative. Get out there, don't be afraid.
• 30:06
  Put that deck together, get it in front of people.
• 30:09
  Start with your mom and dad. Like just do whatever it like
• 30:12
  get it in front of people and then like you kind of just build
• 30:15
  momentum off of that, right. Hopefully you know somebody that
• 30:18
  knows somebody that knows somebody that has an end with
• 30:22
  Sequoia or has some, you know, it's like I'm a wealthy real
• 30:26
  estate person. It's like that's that's how we
• 30:28
  got started. Like Mike really Fernando de
• 30:31
  Leon, who kind of considers considers himself like the 4th
• 30:34
  Co founder. Like he was our first check.
• 30:37
  He was like, if you leave here's we'll give you some money, we'll
• 30:40
  go do that. And then we use that his support
• 30:42
  to then get some venture folks, right.
• 30:44
  So it's like get out there, have conversations, have coffee.
• 30:48
  Don't like meet people in person.
• 30:51
  Like it's fine. Zoom is fine, but like get out
• 30:54
  there, have conversations, make the pitch.
• 30:56
  Don't be afraid to like people are going to shoot you down.
• 31:01
  You got to kiss, kiss a lot of frogs, right?
• 31:03
  Don't pick up the phone call One person like, oh, they didn't
• 31:06
  want to invest. I'm giving up like hundreds,
• 31:10
  hundreds of conversations, hundreds of conversations with
• 31:12
  the users, hundreds of conversations with people like,
• 31:15
  yeah, don't expect to pick up the phone.
• 31:17
  And they're like, we're in, right?
• 31:18
  It takes time. You got to really commit.
• 31:20
  But there's nothing more rewarding like learning
• 31:22
  experience your network. Like it just, it's the most
• 31:27
  incredible and rewarding experience.
• 31:31
  But you know, you got to commit, right?
• 31:34
  And it's not sometimes it's not for everyone, right?
• 31:37
  You kind of have to be a masochist.
• 31:39
  You got to be able to like deal with some of that pain.
• 31:42
  And enjoy it. Waking up in the middle of the
• 31:44
  night, if you're not waking up in the middle of the night, like
• 31:46
  or dreaming about and be like, Oh my God, that's a good idea.
• 31:49
  And like write your notes down, like really be like leaning in,
• 31:53
  drinking that vision of what your idea could be.
• 31:57
  Keep thinking about it. Like live it, right?
• 32:01
  And there's people out there, friends, family, you know,
• 32:03
  someone out there. If you're considering starting a
• 32:06
  company that will be your Fernando or be that first check,
• 32:09
  right? So don't be afraid.
• 32:10
  And if it doesn't work out, you probably build good
• 32:13
  relationships. You learned a ton.
• 32:15
  You become more valuable as a person or as a professional
• 32:20
  because you went through that. Yeah, yeah.
• 32:23
  And you're, I mean, so true. Like your network is your, your
• 32:25
  net worth. And a lot of people always ask,
• 32:28
  well, I don't know anybody, you know, and it's like, well, now
• 32:31
  there's unlimited resources to figure out who's who and who you
• 32:36
  should be. You know, I could go on LinkedIn
• 32:37
  and I'm like making connections with the principles of
• 32:40
  Blackstone, right? Like you just type in Blackstone
• 32:42
  and like whoever you want to connect with, you can connect
• 32:44
  with it's. Much more accessible.
• 32:45
  Yeah. And then you like you said, you
• 32:48
  start with friends and family and then you know someone like
• 32:50
  me like well, my friends and family at the time like didn't
• 32:53
  have any money. So you but they know someone
• 32:55
  like everybody knows somebody. And if you put it out there and
• 32:57
  you put the intention tension out there of like, this is what
• 32:59
  I'm going to do, and you're absolutely obsessed and you're
• 33:01
  absolutely relentless and you're absolutely convicted in your
• 33:04
  vision, then the universe will conspire to assist you.
• 33:07
  And you start to build these relationships and you do good by
• 33:09
  people and they can see that you are trying to make a positive
• 33:12
  impact and you're not screwing people over and you don't burn
• 33:15
  bridges. Then ultimately it becomes a
• 33:17
  compound effect. And then you can start to, I
• 33:19
  mean, it'll just start to flow to you instead of you having to
• 33:21
  force everything, which is what I talk about a lot is living in
• 33:24
  flow versus force and the state of your energy and, and all
• 33:27
  that. I could go down a rabbit hole,
• 33:28
  but that's really cool. And so I'm fascinated by venture
• 33:32
  capital, you know, because I'm starting to learn more into like
• 33:36
  M&A and venture capital and just all of the capital that's
• 33:41
  required to fund businesses, transact businesses, including
• 33:44
  real estate, of course, because that's what I, I do.
• 33:47
  But I've always been a bootstrapped startup, you know,
• 33:50
  like I've never, I've started multiple companies and I've
• 33:53
  never asked a single person for money.
• 33:55
  And so now I'm finally getting into, into the world where I'm
• 33:58
  like, OK, I'm going to be raising funds, I'm going to be
• 34:00
  managing funds. Like this is the next part of
• 34:03
  the journey. And I need to get over my fear
• 34:05
  of losing somebody's money and really just learning, you know,
• 34:11
  how to how to structure things properly in a way that really
• 34:15
  is, is clear. And that's worth the the risk
• 34:18
  and back visions, visionaries and opportunities that I truly
• 34:23
  believe in and that other people will will believe in too.
• 34:26
  Yeah, if you believe in it, that's a big factor.
• 34:30
  They're going to be able to, like, sense it in your voice and
• 34:33
  that confidence, right? Like in a lot of people are big
• 34:36
  boys and girls, like they know when they're investing, right,
• 34:40
  whether it's equities or real estate or venture, right?
• 34:44
  So like they're backing you, they believe in you, right?
• 34:48
  Like you shouldn't be like, Oh, I'm, I'm spending their money or
• 34:52
  I'm like, I could lose their money.
• 34:53
  That's not the right attitude. Then you're like always living
• 34:56
  in fear, right? You got to focus on why they
• 34:59
  invested in you, which is like commit, believe in your vision.
• 35:04
  Don't be so rigid in your thinking where it's like this is
• 35:06
  the vision that they invested in.
• 35:08
  Like if you have to pivot or you need to adjust because you
• 35:10
  believe that there's an opportunity there, like should
• 35:13
  explore that opportunity, right? But there is no playbook.
• 35:17
  And like people are like, what's the playbook?
• 35:18
  Give me the give me the 10 steps to success for raising money or
• 35:22
  starting a company. Like even Ben Horowitz talks
• 35:25
  about this and like, you're not going to read the hard things
• 35:27
  about hard things or some Google book or some Amazon book and
• 35:30
  there's, there's no instructions.
• 35:32
  Kind of got to like take the leap, right, To have some
• 35:37
  process in place. But like, just because you
• 35:39
  don't, you're like in #1 or #2 and the number 3 doesn't work
• 35:43
  out, kind of pivot. Try something new, right?
• 35:47
  It's not an overnight success thing.
• 35:49
  This is a commitment. Yeah.
• 35:51
  Do you think it's advantageous because I've never raised my own
• 35:55
  capital for ventures, but do you think it's advantageous to start
• 35:59
  with friends and family and like your extended network and more
• 36:02
  retail investors? Or do you think it's better to
• 36:05
  go straight to, you know, venture capital or institutional
• 36:08
  capital or family offices or, you know, PE firms or different
• 36:12
  groups that are more that's what they do for a living full time?
• 36:15
  And is it, is it distasteful to blend?
• 36:17
  Does it make things complicated? Like, because I always just
• 36:20
  think, how are these, how are you structuring everything in a
• 36:23
  way that's fair and aligned? But if you structure one thing
• 36:26
  for someone because you're getting started for like a
• 36:28
  friend and family and you really don't know like what common
• 36:30
  structures are, what it should look like or what of of you
• 36:33
  know, VC firm is going to propose like how do you navigate
• 36:36
  that? Well, first of all, you can, you
• 36:40
  can ask Jet GP a lot of this stuff like it's, it's out there,
• 36:44
  but so if it's like early stage, it's OK.
• 36:47
  Again, you don't need to be raising venture money, right?
• 36:49
  Like you have offensive friends and family around.
• 36:51
  You need to be working backwards though from your goal, right?
• 36:54
  Like I'm raising this based on what?
• 36:56
  Do you have a model like financial model projections,
• 37:00
  have some confidence, right? You can't be like, oh, we're
• 37:02
  going to do $100 million of revenue and I only need
• 37:05
  $1,000,000. You're going to turn $1,000,000
• 37:07
  investment into $100 million. Show me how Like you need to be
• 37:10
  working backwards from that goal.
• 37:12
  Like I'm raising 2 million or 1,000,000 to do what?
• 37:16
  To get to a position where we can raise venture money to get
• 37:19
  to a position where we get to certain revenue and we can go
• 37:22
  back to our existing investors and friends and family and like
• 37:25
  continue growing on that to be profitable, to be
• 37:27
  self-sustaining. Working backwards from sound
• 37:31
  like Jenny left court was one of our investors from freestyle
• 37:33
  like working backwards from like where you need to take and
• 37:36
  that's going to dictate how much money you need to raise and
• 37:39
  probably who the money is coming from.
• 37:42
  If it's 100 grand, if it's 500 grand, probably don't need to go
• 37:46
  the venture route. You can stack 1050K checks,
• 37:50
  right? So what your goal is for the
• 37:53
  company in XYZ years or one 2-3 years or whatever it is, that's
• 37:57
  going to dictate a lot of where the source of capital is going
• 38:01
  to come, right? Does that make sense?
• 38:04
  Yeah, yeah. No, that's awesome.
• 38:06
  And and so where I have so many questions.
• 38:11
  So where did you, why did you decide to transition out of
• 38:16
  Krexi and then start this new venture capitalized?
• 38:19
  So share a little bit about what capitalized dot IO is, what it
• 38:22
  solves for. And then when you started to
• 38:25
  think like, OK, let me transition out and pivot, you
• 38:27
  obviously saw this new opportunity, this new need, this
• 38:29
  new problem to be solved. But what did that transition
• 38:31
  look like? And what really spurted and and
• 38:33
  LED you to full because you're fully out of Krexy now, right?
• 38:36
  Yeah, OK. Out of Krexy, No e-mail, no
• 38:39
  responsibilities right see them all the time they're still
• 38:43
  family I'm still large shareholder right.
• 38:45
  But you know there's just a backup right like Krexie for
• 38:50
  better part of a decade right like if you look historically
• 38:53
  like Co founders typically don't stay all of them for 10 years
• 38:59
  right like Eric left way before I did right Mike is obviously
• 39:02
  still there but 10 years a long time yeah.
• 39:04
  I was fully vested multiple times over the company.
• 39:07
  It's almost like it had it was my baby that I grew into it went
• 39:11
  to college and kind of like graduated and I felt that my
• 39:15
  fingerprints on the business I had done my part and during
• 39:18
  those last months or years the tail end of my Krexi career, I
• 39:23
  started thinking about what was next right and I was fortunate
• 39:26
  enough to be able to join in part time capacity a venture
• 39:28
  firm. And because I didn't have all
• 39:31
  the answers I didn't know what I was going to do.
• 39:32
  But venture, because I had good relationships, I built a
• 39:35
  company, it was a good kind of transition period for me,
• 39:40
  something where I could figure out if I wanted to do the
• 39:42
  venture route, right, which is something that I considered or
• 39:46
  maybe start something a new, something new, right?
• 39:49
  And in that experience or during that period at Treasury, in
• 39:53
  those, the two founders of, of Treasury started Acorns and
• 39:56
  Betterment, right? So it's like they're founders
• 39:58
  too. And they always encourage like,
• 40:01
  let's talk like let's go to dinner.
• 40:02
  What's on your mind? Like what are you reading?
• 40:06
  What interests you? And it would just sort of like
• 40:08
  they stoked restarted that like, OK, maybe founding another
• 40:13
  company is is is still on the table, right.
• 40:16
  So they really encourage that encouraged me to explore new
• 40:22
  ideas. So they gave me kind of the
• 40:24
  resources and support, like go explore a new idea, right?
• 40:29
  So I started thinking about what was next.
• 40:30
  I thought it was maybe in the apartment space, which is super
• 40:33
  crowded, thought maybe I was going to get out of commercial
• 40:35
  real estate. But then thinking about it like
• 40:38
  commercial real estate's the third largest asset class in the
• 40:40
  world, there still was a lot of opportunity.
• 40:43
  And in my research, hundreds of phone calls, I decided that like
• 40:47
  the commercial real estate finance side was still a piece
• 40:51
  that needed some improving, right?
• 40:54
  So did a bunch of research and then all of a sudden like
• 40:57
  ChatGPT shows up during my research.
• 40:59
  I'm like, Oh my gosh, new platform revolution.
• 41:02
  There was just so many different things that were like flashing,
• 41:06
  Hey, this is a signal. This is now is the time to do
• 41:09
  this. And so it motivated me to start
• 41:13
  capitalize, which is, you know, an AI data platform for
• 41:17
  commercial real estate finance, like marketplace data platform,
• 41:20
  right? I was lucky enough to be
• 41:21
  partnered with a technical Co founder who I met who was also a
• 41:24
  treasury at the time, Soren technical genius.
• 41:27
  I really felt that was a big requirement for me in this world
• 41:30
  of AI that I needed a technical genius.
• 41:32
  I'm not a one in zeros person. I'm a real estate person.
• 41:35
  I'm a product person, fundraiser business mind, but I needed that
• 41:40
  technical person because this is a new platform revolution like
• 41:45
  the Internet, mobile cloud. This is way bigger and the
• 41:51
  company is technology. I needed that piece.
• 41:53
  So again, there was six or seven things that were signals to me
• 41:57
  that it was time for me to move on from Krexi, right?
• 42:00
  And I was lucky enough treasuries precede funded
• 42:04
  capitalized in the beginning of 2024.
• 42:07
  And you know, we were able to raise as soon as people learned
• 42:11
  that I left Krexie, you know, Lear Hippo, a few few other
• 42:15
  groups that also were in Krexler like we want in.
• 42:17
  And then we raised what was like a proper C round in 2024, right?
• 42:21
  So the support, you know, confidence from Krexi people,
• 42:25
  support from investors, AI, good technical Co founder support and
• 42:31
  resources from treasury. There was just so many different
• 42:33
  factors, right? Like, I really thought I would
• 42:36
  stay at Krexie forever. But, you know, as you mature, as
• 42:39
  you grow, like it's OK to leave and start something new.
• 42:42
  Yeah, right. Yeah, 1 entrepreneurs.
• 42:45
  They they almost have to, you know, you once you build, like
• 42:48
  you said, you graduate your, your baby, you're like, OK,
• 42:51
  well, let's let's raise another one.
• 42:53
  Change. I kind of miss that early grindy
• 42:56
  move, fast break things like exponential growth, like I miss
• 43:03
  that, yeah, for sure. Well, it's such a high, you
• 43:06
  know, we, we, it's a trade off crazy.
• 43:07
  There's a lot of stability and like we're making a lot of
• 43:10
  revenue. It's like, but at the same time
• 43:12
  it was like, you know, I would walk into the office in LA and I
• 43:15
  didn't know half the people. I kind of missed the early kind
• 43:19
  of grindy get your hands dirty stage.
• 43:21
  Yeah, it's a trade off, right? But I I missed that too.
• 43:24
  I was kind of excited to hop back in.
• 43:27
  Yeah, that's exciting. And so capitalize you basically
• 43:31
  it's an AI driven platform and you use AI to have very, very
• 43:35
  fast, pretty much almost live data on all commercial mortgages
• 43:40
  on what's coming due, you know, what borrowers have, what loans
• 43:44
  borrowers have, who owns what, who has what debt, what the
• 43:47
  terms are on the loans. And so commercial lenders,
• 43:49
  commercial brokers can go on the platform and really very easily
• 43:54
  and quickly distinguish who might be right for a refinance,
• 43:57
  you know, right. And who, who should I be
• 43:59
  reaching out to or what are the lenders that are playing in the
• 44:01
  game and what lenders are in trouble and all these different
• 44:03
  things. And so I know I demoed it with
• 44:05
  you and it's super cool. I actually talked about it to my
• 44:08
  team this today on the team meeting and they were texting me
• 44:10
  about you and they were so excited.
• 44:12
  I'll make sure you guys get some couple free months or something
• 44:16
  like that. That'd be awesome.
• 44:17
  To help you out. That would be awesome.
• 44:19
  Yeah. Because that would be it's, it's
• 44:20
  an exciting platform and. We're just getting started,
• 44:24
  right? And it we're, I'm all about
• 44:26
  building trust in the data, right?
• 44:29
  Because you hear out there, I think sometimes there's a lack
• 44:32
  of trust in some other platforms.
• 44:34
  I think we know who we're talking about.
• 44:36
  Right now. Right now.
• 44:37
  So you got to build that trust, right?
• 44:39
  So it takes a lot of time to aggregate, cleanse this data,
• 44:42
  build what is like synthetic proprietary data, right?
• 44:44
  Like lender profiles, borrower profiles, cleansing very messy
• 44:48
  images from the county. You know, what is the county
• 44:52
  here? Jurupa or Phoenix County, right?
• 44:54
  Like going, taking images of that pulling Secretary of State
• 44:57
  like, but it starts like we need to build that trust.
• 45:00
  It's it's almost like we're building this like virtual
• 45:03
  commercial real estate building. It has to start with the
• 45:05
  foundation and the foundation is that data, right?
• 45:08
  And over time, you kind of keep building.
• 45:09
  There's user input data. We're learning, people are
• 45:12
  providing user feedback and like building that data lake of trust
• 45:15
  is so important, but it's easier than ever with AI.
• 45:19
  It would take humans eons to like go to every county, look at
• 45:24
  the deed, come through like you, everybody's probably used
• 45:27
  ChatGPT, like drop in a deed into ChatGPT and like ask it to
• 45:31
  tell you who signed it, who the lender was with.
• 45:33
  The loan amount is like instantly 99.9% accurate, right?
• 45:37
  So we're leveraging that technology to then make it
• 45:41
  easier for a broker than then in a nice easy to use, doesn't take
• 45:45
  a PhD to navigate, very, very easy to come on and see value,
• 45:49
  right. And what we're going to be
• 45:50
  moving towards actually is like based on your click behavior,
• 45:53
  emails you've opened from us, searches that you've run,
• 45:56
  lenders you've clicked on, contacts at that lender that
• 45:59
  you've clicked on, all this kind of stuff.
• 46:00
  Like we're going to be spinning up what is more of like an AI
• 46:03
  assistant that like knows you better than you, right?
• 46:06
  Like giving you recommendations, tasks, doing automation.
• 46:10
  Because ultimately I, I want brokers to like if they never
• 46:12
  log in, but we're creating an immense amount of value in the
• 46:15
  form of push notifications or emails, that's a win, right?
• 46:19
  This is not a daily. I don't want people spending 8
• 46:21
  hours a day like they do on other platforms trying to find
• 46:26
  value, right? If you can go and like every
• 46:29
  day, there's a nice little digest of like hear your task
• 46:31
  based on your click behavior, action items like 10-15 minutes,
• 46:35
  thirty minutes. That's real value, right?
• 46:37
  Because we know brokers love to play golf and smooth with
• 46:40
  clients close deals, right? Like I I don't necessarily want
• 46:44
  this to be some labyrinth you have to spend 8 hours a day on,
• 46:47
  right? Right.
• 46:48
  Yeah, and that's what Elon Musk was talking about, too.
• 46:49
  He said in the future, he thinks all apps will be gone and
• 46:53
  everything will just be your AI and it'll just feed you whatever
• 46:58
  it is you want to see, right. And so that's what just popped
• 47:01
  in my head when you said. That build AI for mortgage
• 47:05
  brokers or lenders, right? Yeah, who's going to say no to
• 47:09
  that? Exactly.
• 47:10
  Not even requiring anything you like, fill out a couple of
• 47:12
  things. It's like here, we know
• 47:13
  everything that here's like you can ask a question.
• 47:17
  It's like, oh, like this report wasn't right.
• 47:20
  Can you generate a new one? I need to see trends or
• 47:22
  analytics, right? Like you just chat with it.
• 47:24
  You have to like go in and like type filters in and like click
• 47:28
  export. It's like it just does it for
• 47:30
  you. What are all the loans coming
• 47:31
  due in my neighborhood and what are the borrowers contact that
• 47:34
  you can talk and. Do it like that's that's the
• 47:36
  future, right? Maybe you can even do it via
• 47:38
  e-mail, just like, you know, AI bot at capitalize dot IO.
• 47:42
  You can just send in an e-mail, some people still like e-mail
• 47:45
  and then it replies with with your question the answer, right?
• 47:50
  Like, it doesn't necessarily need to be, you know, in the
• 47:52
  form of an app or web-based. Right.
• 47:54
  Yeah. Making it easy as possible for a
• 47:57
  broker to get value. It's so cool.
• 47:58
  It's so exciting. It's also scary too, because I,
• 48:01
  I mean, as a tech, there's been a lot of talk.
• 48:03
  I watch all the tech podcasts, you know, moon shots and.
• 48:06
  Wall Street Journal. You see the article today.
• 48:08
  Yeah, I didn't actually see what was today.
• 48:10
  It was, there was an article that like Anthropic, all these
• 48:12
  companies are basically like, and all those data companies
• 48:16
  like sale, they're all down like 15% today because like
• 48:18
  everything is fair game. They're like crazy aggregating.
• 48:21
  Like there's a lot of fear out there.
• 48:23
  I think it's kind of overblown. But, you know, there's an
• 48:25
  article every day about, like, I don't think people should be as
• 48:29
  fearful, but there's stuff out there in the ether that's like,
• 48:31
  I understand why people are maybe afraid of the future and
• 48:36
  what it has to hold. Yeah, because it's the unknown,
• 48:39
  and the unknown is scary. It's like, you know, walking
• 48:42
  down a dark crevice crevasse. I think I'd say that.
• 48:46
  Word. Yeah.
• 48:46
  But don't you think in 1999 I could have looked at a Wall
• 48:50
  Street Journal article about, like, how the Internet was
• 48:53
  gonna, Yeah, you know, no one's gonna work.
• 48:55
  There's probably the same stuff with the Internet right back in
• 48:59
  the 90s. Yeah, right.
• 49:00
  This is a little different though.
• 49:02
  It is. No, I agree, but like the
• 49:06
  historic history is a way of repeating itself.
• 49:09
  Like there were there was a tractor, there was a kind of the
• 49:11
  wheel. I mean, it's just like everybody
• 49:13
  was like afraid of the latest and greatest technology.
• 49:15
  Like I understand this is more powerful, but like why is it,
• 49:19
  why is it any different? Like just because it's like has
• 49:23
  more consciousness, it's more, I don't know, I just maybe it's
• 49:27
  the eternal optimist in me. But you know, in 1940 there
• 49:31
  versus today, there's six out of every top jobs, 6 out of every
• 49:35
  10 jobs today did not exist in 1945.
• 49:39
  So it's like, are there going to be a bunch of new industries, a
• 49:44
  bunch of new value that's been created that we don't even know
• 49:46
  about? Likely just like the Internet
• 49:48
  did? Yeah, Right.
• 49:49
  So it's like, I like to think that that's a more likely
• 49:52
  outcome. Yeah.
• 49:53
  Like we have a robot that like goes to work and like builds
• 49:57
  companies for me without me, like building relationships with
• 49:59
  anyone or like putting a business plan together or
• 50:02
  shaking hands or closing a deal or raising money.
• 50:04
  Like find that hard to believe? Yeah, Well, I think, I think
• 50:07
  that's why entrepreneurship, whether solopreneurship, you
• 50:10
  know, 1099 entrepreneurship or actually building and scaling
• 50:14
  your own companies is going to be more relevant now than ever.
• 50:17
  I think we're going to have. Because it's easier to do.
• 50:20
  It's way easier to do than ever. I was talking with person at
• 50:23
  BlackRock the other day. So like, if you like, they're
• 50:26
  going to be disrupted. I'm like, I don't think so.
• 50:28
  You guys have like all these assets, right?
• 50:29
  You're a big, huge company. But maybe the junior person that
• 50:32
  doesn't have to wait 30 years for their senior, you know, head
• 50:36
  of acquisitions to retire before they're the head of
• 50:38
  acquisitions. Like they go get a couple years
• 50:40
  of experience, like stand up a using AI, like stand up a
• 50:43
  business, raise some money and like start buying deals on their
• 50:45
  own or being a broker. I don't necessarily have to go
• 50:48
  to CBRE anymore. I can go and start my own
• 50:49
  business, spend three years of CBRE, but be more comfortable
• 50:52
  starting something my own because the tools are available
• 50:55
  for you to to level the playing field, right?
• 50:58
  I think that's more likely of an outcome that we have like a
• 51:01
  bunch of little black stones that these you don't have to go
• 51:04
  to Blackstone like build this business.
• 51:07
  Like you can go raise a little money.
• 51:08
  It's easier to raise money. You can raise in like it's
• 51:10
  easier to have confidence. You use Krexi to find deals, you
• 51:13
  use capitalize, have them fund, right?
• 51:15
  Like it's just going to be easier for you to like, stand up
• 51:17
  your own little version of Blackstone or CBRE, right?
• 51:20
  Yeah, well, and that's the thing.
• 51:22
  It's going to be a world for creators and not consumers.
• 51:27
  And the consumers are the ones that are going to die, not die,
• 51:30
  but you know, they're. Yeah, you can't just because AI
• 51:35
  is going to take over the order taking roles, right.
• 51:38
  If you're just a doer, no. One wants to take orders.
• 51:41
  No, a lot of people do. A lot of people would just want
• 51:44
  their comfy job and they just want to be told what to do and
• 51:46
  they want to wake up to their paycheck.
• 51:47
  Like a lot of people don't want to like create things and think
• 51:50
  and solve problems. I mean we do, but most of the
• 51:54
  population are order takers. That's why they're not
• 51:59
  entrepreneurs. Right.
• 52:00
  Yeah, but they need to become entrepreneurs, otherwise they're
• 52:03
  going to. Be There'll be a place for them.
• 52:04
  Yeah, we'll. Figure it out.
• 52:06
  Yeah. Which will be universal basic
• 52:07
  income, yeah. Even calls it Universal high.
• 52:11
  Income, right, Yeah, universal high income, which would be
• 52:14
  awesome if there's abundance for all and some people don't have
• 52:17
  it. I have to create.
• 52:19
  What is your motivation? What are you doing?
• 52:21
  Right, like what's your purpose? I feel like we're going to like
• 52:24
  the average lifespan is going to shrink.
• 52:26
  We're just going to be like you, I have kids.
• 52:28
  So it's like, you seen the movie Wally?
• 52:30
  Yeah. They're just like floating.
• 52:31
  They're all fat and chairs. And it's like they're just
• 52:33
  looking at screens. Like that's.
• 52:35
  I don't know if I want to live in that world.
• 52:37
  Yeah, no. And there's, it's just so
• 52:39
  exciting. I mean, I don't understand how,
• 52:42
  you know, people, I'll hear people be like, oh, I'm bored or
• 52:45
  I don't have much to do. I'm like, how could you ever be
• 52:48
  bored? I there's so much information
• 52:50
  that I want to learn, like I'm absorbing so much every single
• 52:53
  day. There's so much information out
• 52:54
  there and new things happening every single day that I just
• 52:57
  want to absorb all that like I wish I could have.
• 52:59
  I hope Elon makes a chip where I could just download all like AI
• 53:02
  right become artificial general intelligence where I could
• 53:04
  download all of the knowledge of the whole universe that.
• 53:07
  Sounds like a James Cameron movie.
• 53:09
  It'd be pretty cool though. But yeah, it's it's important to
• 53:12
  be ahead of it and not resist it because, and you said that,
• 53:15
  right Is, is in this world of AI, you had to have a tech
• 53:18
  company because that's where we're going.
• 53:20
  If you get left behind on AI, you're just going to be gone
• 53:25
  pretty, pretty quickly. And it's.
• 53:27
  And anything that was built, they can all adapt.
• 53:29
  But like any company that's built on old technology before,
• 53:32
  whenever that was 2023 and change or 2024, right, like
• 53:35
  they're kind of our now is a good time to be starting a brand
• 53:38
  new company. No tech dead like there is.
• 53:42
  You can vibe code stuff right now.
• 53:44
  It's kind of crazy, right, like latest and greatest technology
• 53:47
  move quickly. Like you can go and tell it that
• 53:50
  you want your website to look like this and you wanted to
• 53:51
  build this sales force like this.
• 53:53
  You don't have to like go pay sales force 50 grand a year.
• 53:55
  You're going to stand up your own sales force, right?
• 53:57
  So it's like if you're looking at it the right way, I think
• 54:01
  it's like a beautiful time to go be an independent broker or
• 54:05
  start your own version of Blackstone, right?
• 54:07
  And you see a lot of people doing that.
• 54:09
  I have buddies that are like I'm buying single family homes,
• 54:13
  adding AD us. I can raise money quickly, I can
• 54:15
  underwrite quickly, I can attack the market and move quickly,
• 54:18
  right? Like people are dragging their
• 54:20
  feet and I'm getting in there buying deals, flipping it and
• 54:22
  raising money easily and managing it and distributing
• 54:25
  funds. Like with two people, you don't
• 54:28
  need 70 people, two people and spending fraction amount of
• 54:34
  money on technology, kind of like standing up on your own.
• 54:36
  You can do that right now, right?
• 54:39
  It was really hard to start a company every year.
• 54:43
  I feel like it becomes easier in the 90s.
• 54:45
  You have like server rack, like you had to raise all this money
• 54:48
  like a server rack, then the cloud, right?
• 54:50
  Like now you had to have all these engineers.
• 54:52
  Now you don't really need that many engineers, right?
• 54:54
  You need 2-3 really good ones or like you plus one other person
• 54:58
  in vibe coding, right? Like back to full circle, right?
• 55:02
  Like maybe you don't working backwards from what you need and
• 55:05
  what it costs, what is required to set the business.
• 55:08
  Maybe you don't need to raise $5,000,000, maybe you need to
• 55:11
  raise $500,000, right? Because it's more cost
• 55:15
  effective, efficient, the tools are out there to be able to do
• 55:17
  it. Right.
• 55:18
  And that's what Elon says about the universal high income is
• 55:21
  that the cost of all goods and services is going to drop.
• 55:23
  So to like a miniscule amount that you can create whatever you
• 55:28
  want for ultimately free the price of power whatever the
• 55:31
  price of power is to to charge that which.
• 55:34
  We figure that out. Yeah, I know.
• 55:36
  Well, if he's putting data centers in space, Elon will
• 55:39
  figure it out. We just got to keep Elon
• 55:40
  healthy. Yeah.
• 55:42
  Yeah, he's he's amazing. I just started reading his book.
• 55:45
  I'm just like this guys, my hero.
• 55:46
  But yeah, because it becomes when, yeah, I was, I think it
• 55:50
  was Stephen Covey's newsletter. Maybe I could have that wrong.
• 55:54
  But someone was saying that this kid, like in his teens, is doing
• 56:00
  50 million recurring revenue a month or something from creating
• 56:03
  this AI mentorship platform where you go on and you get
• 56:07
  mentored, you know, by whoever you want to be mentored by
• 56:10
  through AI. And it's just crazy.
• 56:12
  Like anybody can create this stuff.
• 56:14
  I mean, I'm sure there's going to be a 12 year old that creates
• 56:16
  this massive, highly profitable company.
• 56:20
  And that that was one thing I was listening to podcast.
• 56:22
  He said that he thinks venture will be impacted tremendously
• 56:26
  because he's like, if you can't get your company off the ground
• 56:29
  with the tools that you have for free at this point, like now,
• 56:33
  today, speed. This was like a week ago then
• 56:37
  you know, how are we going to believe in you, right?
• 56:39
  Is like if you can't even just get get enough revenue to
• 56:42
  support a little bit more growth, then like there's no
• 56:46
  excuse that you shouldn't be able to do that.
• 56:48
  So. That's an interesting.
• 56:49
  The hurdles of change have changed.
• 56:51
  The requirements to get venture have changed.
• 56:53
  When we started correctly, we didn't even need revenue for the
• 56:56
  first three years. Now there's pressure like you
• 56:59
  better be generating some revenue early building fast
• 57:02
  because that is a requirement, right And companies, venture
• 57:06
  firms will just wait until the cream rises to the top $50
• 57:10
  million ARR kid with in one year, right.
• 57:13
  So the the requirements for certain stages have changed and
• 57:18
  they change. Like maybe it goes back where
• 57:20
  it's no revenue, it's all user. Remember it was Facebook, they
• 57:23
  didn't make any money. Facebook no money, Instagram no
• 57:26
  money. Amazon lost money for like 7
• 57:29
  years. It's all about like users and
• 57:30
  stats and engagement and DAUS&WAUS and Maus, right?
• 57:34
  Like it's like now it's revenue, right?
• 57:37
  Tech stack and revenue because you need to be able to do that
• 57:39
  in order to then go to mark injuries and or Ben Horowitz,
• 57:43
  right? So just it shifts, it adapts.
• 57:46
  Yeah, yeah, it's, it's fascinating.
• 57:51
  I, I just had a question that I was going to ask you, but now
• 57:54
  it's I'm blanking it and I really wanted to ask it.
• 57:57
  It's OK, It'll come to me. So what do you think is going to
• 58:01
  happen in the commercial real estate markets?
• 58:03
  Oh, oh, wait, wait, wait, I just remembered.
• 58:04
  OK, so it was not a question, it was a comment.
• 58:07
  So I was listening to another. I'm a podcast junkie.
• 58:11
  I was listening to my friend Ryan Miller's podcast.
• 58:14
  Are you every day, not a day goes by that I don't listen to
• 58:17
  like at least two. But this venture capitalist
• 58:20
  woman, I think she manages like a few billion dollars.
• 58:22
  And she said that now they're looking at in the venture world,
• 58:26
  they're looking like what before was, OK, could this company get
• 58:29
  to 100 million in 10 years, right.
• 58:31
  But now she's like, now we're saying, can I get to a billion
• 58:33
  in revenue in 10 years? And.
• 58:36
  The hurdles have changed. Things have.
• 58:37
  Changed. Yeah.
• 58:38
  And, and now there's predictions which probably will be Elon
• 58:44
  Musk's companies first, but that there may be like $100 trillion
• 58:48
  companies in the future and just this massive abundance that
• 58:51
  through AI that would have never been able to create before.
• 58:54
  So the hurdles are changing and they're changing fast, which is
• 58:57
  also like, Oh my God. So how do I, you know, how does
• 59:00
  my business model fit into this, right?
• 59:01
  And how can we actually, I mean, you don't have to always try to
• 59:05
  strive to be the best or like have the biggest companies, but
• 59:07
  it just changes your perspective.
• 59:10
  Just like Ben Hardy's book, I love Ben Hardy.
• 59:14
  You haven't. How do you know which book?
• 59:17
  I was going to say, you haven't read any.
• 59:18
  Books. No, you said Ben Hardy.
• 59:19
  Yeah, I haven't read his book. OK, but.
• 59:22
  I'd love to send me the link after.
• 59:25
  I'm a Kindle guy. I'll take it.
• 59:26
  Yeah, I have audio book, but he, he wrote one called his newest
• 59:30
  one is the science of scaling, which is similar to 10X is
• 59:33
  easier than 2X. But when you think in terms of
• 59:36
  10X and you give yourself a very short timeline.
• 59:39
  So how do I 10X this company in two years?
• 59:41
  It makes pretty much everything you're currently doing fall
• 59:44
  below the floor of what you should be doing because none of
• 59:47
  those things are going to get you to 10X.
• 59:48
  It might get you to 2X, but most people think in terms of 2X or
• 59:51
  like linear small growth. And really that just is your
• 59:55
  brain goes to, well, I just need to do more of what I'm doing,
• 59:58
  make more calls, close more deals, work more hours,
• 1:00:00
  whatever. But when you say 10X, it's
• 1:00:03
  restructuring the framing of the whole foundation of everything
• 1:00:05
  that you're doing. And like, how do I think
• 1:00:06
  differently to actually get that kind of growth?
• 1:00:09
  So that's what I'm trying to solve for in my company.
• 1:00:14
  And it's a, you know, it's a challenging question, but it's
• 1:00:16
  exciting. Well, if you look back to your
• 1:00:19
  original question, right, like if you look back at like real
• 1:00:22
  estate in the 90s, like maybe there was, I, I got to look at
• 1:00:25
  it, but like residential, for example, right?
• 1:00:27
  Like you had to go look at the classifieds to buy a house, like
• 1:00:32
  get the newspaper in Tempe, like what's for sale?
• 1:00:35
  I'd like go to the broker, right?
• 1:00:38
  And there was probably the liquidity or like the demand was
• 1:00:41
  so low, so transactions were lower, right?
• 1:00:44
  But if you look now Zillow and truly all these companies,
• 1:00:47
  right, transaction volumes, prices have increased because
• 1:00:50
  demand has increased, exposure has increased.
• 1:00:52
  All this stuff has increased. Therefore, like the size of the
• 1:00:54
  market has grown, which is why I kind of believe what Elon is
• 1:00:57
  saying. It's like there probably will be
• 1:00:59
  many trillion dollar companies, right?
• 1:01:02
  Because the size of the market is going to grow.
• 1:01:04
  I think the same thing is going to happen in commercial real
• 1:01:06
  estate. It's like we're commercial real
• 1:01:08
  estate's been bouncing around like in a, in a bad market, like
• 1:01:10
  400 billion in transactions in a good market, it's like
• 1:01:14
  approaching a trillion. Like why can't it be 2 trillion?
• 1:01:17
  Why can't it be more liquid? And how do we get there is like
• 1:01:19
  increasing confidence and improving liquidity.
• 1:01:23
  So the time it takes for you to make a decision with greater
• 1:01:25
  confidence, that's where I think, I don't think it's ever
• 1:01:28
  going to be like buying a share of Amazon.
• 1:01:31
  Like the tokenized game plan? Yeah, I, I don't know if that's
• 1:01:36
  going to happen, but the, the time it takes to make a decision
• 1:01:40
  and the time it takes to close and be more efficient, that's
• 1:01:43
  going to increase liquidity. It's going to increase
• 1:01:44
  transaction volume, it's going to make it more liquid, right.
• 1:01:47
  Therefore, like, why can't there be more brokers?
• 1:01:49
  Why can't there be more transactions?
• 1:01:51
  Why can't there be, why can't the size be $3 trillion in
• 1:01:54
  transactions every year, right? I think that's more likely to
• 1:01:57
  occur than you know, brokers go away or like the size of the
• 1:02:03
  overall transactions remain the same, right.
• 1:02:05
  That's I, I believe that's the direction that we're going.
• 1:02:09
  Yeah, I like that perspective because it's just why
• 1:02:11
  residential is more liquid, right, as it takes 30 days Max
• 1:02:14
  to close on a loan and commercial you're like 6090 days
• 1:02:17
  if you know 60 maybe more. Yeah, if if all goes well and
• 1:02:21
  everything's packaged in perfect and it's a middle of the fairway
• 1:02:23
  deal. I mean you're at least 60 from
• 1:02:25
  the time the application is submitted to close.
• 1:02:27
  But yeah, we have deals with the pipeline that they'll probably
• 1:02:30
  go because there there's so much negotiations and entitlements, I
• 1:02:33
  mean depending if it's new construction or land or all
• 1:02:35
  these different. Factors.
• 1:02:36
  So many variables. Yeah, so many, but.
• 1:02:39
  But if there's ways to make those connections easier, like I
• 1:02:41
  need equity, there's an equity marketplace, right?
• 1:02:43
  Like Capitalize wants to get into that.
• 1:02:45
  It's called capitalize, right? It's not called like just first
• 1:02:47
  mortgages.com, right, where we would have equity.
• 1:02:50
  You need equity, you get equity, right?
• 1:02:52
  Like you have to spend 30 days like putting out your pitch
• 1:02:54
  deck, raising the equity investment committee, then
• 1:02:57
  getting a loan. Then it's like, let's shrink
• 1:03:00
  that. Like let's find you equity
• 1:03:01
  quickly, have a matching function, right?
• 1:03:03
  There's just like a lot of things to improve the complexity
• 1:03:06
  of the of the transaction, right?
• 1:03:09
  How is it, because that's what I'm trying to solve for right
• 1:03:11
  now is more equity, you know, the ability to have more
• 1:03:13
  relationships to place equity quicker because that's the
• 1:03:16
  bigger pain point than debt, right.
• 1:03:18
  So how it's? Not publicly available.
• 1:03:20
  Yeah. Right.
• 1:03:21
  But eventually you got to create the right incentive for an
• 1:03:24
  equity provider to want to put their name out there on a
• 1:03:30
  marketplace like capitalize, where it's like, you know, we
• 1:03:32
  have the lenders in every market and fun deals.
• 1:03:35
  Same thing with equity. We want to do that with equity
• 1:03:37
  at some point where it's like 1-2 three Main Street or, you
• 1:03:41
  know, Blue Rock in in Phoenix, they do equity.
• 1:03:46
  This is the person to contact. Why would they do that?
• 1:03:49
  Because then you're going to get a lot of phone calls.
• 1:03:50
  What's the incentive? Well, we need to be able to like
• 1:03:52
  Dr. curated traffic to them, decrease the noise.
• 1:03:55
  Like you got to convince them to like keep a profile like we did
• 1:03:59
  at Craxy. There was an incentive we built
• 1:04:02
  the profile for you, for your listing, like the listing page.
• 1:04:05
  We need to create the right incentive for an equity provider
• 1:04:08
  to have a keep a profile. Could it is not publicly
• 1:04:12
  available, right? Some of those incentives could
• 1:04:14
  be, you know, like we're sending the leads curated to like for
• 1:04:18
  Craxy, when somebody clicks on the listing, maybe they get an
• 1:04:20
  alert, maybe they can set up permissions, maybe they don't
• 1:04:23
  show their phone number. You have to like apply.
• 1:04:25
  Maybe there's an application like maybe we're helping them
• 1:04:27
  kind of like maybe we're giving them recommendations based on
• 1:04:31
  here's a good GP in the market you should meet, right?
• 1:04:35
  Based on their history, we're improving the matching function
• 1:04:37
  for them, right? And it fits their.
• 1:04:39
  Right. Fits their criteria.
• 1:04:41
  Otherwise you just like here are all the equity people, like
• 1:04:43
  everyone's going to call them, they're going to get annoyed,
• 1:04:44
  they're going to get pissed and they're going to take their
• 1:04:46
  profile down, right. So because it's not publicly
• 1:04:49
  available that we got to create the right incentive for them to
• 1:04:52
  want to keep a profile and update it right on capitalize,
• 1:04:57
  which is something that we'll do eventually.
• 1:04:59
  I freaking love it. That's amazing.
• 1:05:01
  Yeah. Because that's kind of a.
• 1:05:02
  Little bit harder, but. Oh yeah.
• 1:05:04
  We'll get, we'll start, you know, you kind of start, let's
• 1:05:06
  start with just LA or you start with California, you start with
• 1:05:09
  Arizona or Phoenix or something like that.
• 1:05:10
  And then kind of yeah, build from there.
• 1:05:12
  Yeah, because I mean that's the old school for like what what we
• 1:05:15
  do, right. We have a lender matching
• 1:05:19
  platform that we use that has our database of different
• 1:05:21
  lenders across the country and there's that AI driven lender
• 1:05:24
  matching component. But on the equity side, it's
• 1:05:26
  still old school relationships. Like each person has their own
• 1:05:30
  relationships with family offices or PE firms or
• 1:05:32
  institutional or whatever. And we look at a deal and then
• 1:05:35
  we analyze the deal or underwrite the deal.
• 1:05:37
  And then we're like, OK, this could be a good fit for this
• 1:05:39
  particular relationship. And we're playing that
• 1:05:41
  matchmaking. But it it's due to the
• 1:05:45
  relationship that it's getting done or even getting looked at.
• 1:05:48
  And because it is that curated offering of like, hey, we know
• 1:05:50
  what you like, we've done business with you and here's a
• 1:05:52
  deal that fits your exact criteria.
• 1:05:54
  So, yeah, that would solve so many problems, so many big
• 1:05:58
  problems then. And it's nice because we can't
• 1:06:01
  just rely on debt because we don't have as much control over
• 1:06:05
  debt. Like a lot of equity can be
• 1:06:06
  private placement, a lot of equity is private placement and
• 1:06:09
  debt markets is institutionalized and it's
• 1:06:11
  controlled by the Fed and the rates and like all these other
• 1:06:13
  things. And so if you only have debt,
• 1:06:16
  then your business could be trampled pretty quickly.
• 1:06:20
  Like we saw when rates doubled overnight and then like every
• 1:06:23
  single lender went out of business that was was doing
• 1:06:27
  those types of mortgages. So yeah, I think that's an
• 1:06:30
  amazing platform. And I like that you're saying
• 1:06:32
  that you don't. So you don't think that broke?
• 1:06:34
  Because a lot of people are saying that brokers or the
• 1:06:37
  middleman will eventually get wiped out because of efficiency
• 1:06:42
  in AI and automations. So it was your viewpoint on that
• 1:06:45
  versus No, they're going to be demanded because of the value
• 1:06:47
  that they break and they could just optimize with these tools
• 1:06:50
  of AII. Think that the people that use
• 1:06:53
  AI are going to end up being taking the lion's share.
• 1:06:56
  The top 20 are going to do 80%, which is largely how it's done
• 1:06:59
  now anyway. But the, the transaction is too
• 1:07:03
  complicated for it to be not have somebody in the middle
• 1:07:07
  selling confidence. I, I truly believe that these
• 1:07:10
  people are, whether it's a small family office buying a $4
• 1:07:16
  million retail deal in Phoenix or, you know, Blackstone buying
• 1:07:20
  a $400 million deal, like you want somebody in the middle
• 1:07:24
  that's going to sell that confidence, like be the Sherpa
• 1:07:26
  right, in this transaction, right?
• 1:07:29
  They're moving. It's like they're putting a lot
• 1:07:31
  of confidence, right? And then that broker is
• 1:07:33
  responsible for negotiating, right, taking them like people
• 1:07:37
  want to be like wined and dine. They want to go to NMHC or they
• 1:07:40
  want to go to Krefsy or they want to go to ICSC.
• 1:07:42
  Like they want to shake your hand, right?
• 1:07:45
  And know that they're not getting effed right?
• 1:07:47
  Like, I don't know if there's we're ever going to be at a
• 1:07:49
  place where it's like, do you submit the offer and like you
• 1:07:51
  got the deal And like, I don't know, I truly believe that the
• 1:07:56
  broker has value, but the ones that use the technology, those
• 1:07:59
  people are going to be they're going to rise to the top because
• 1:08:02
  they're going to close faster. They're going to sell confidence
• 1:08:04
  better. They're going to know the market
• 1:08:05
  better. They're going to have equity
• 1:08:06
  sources and like be that kind of matchmaker in the middle, right?
• 1:08:10
  I just if anybody should be saying is probably me and I'm
• 1:08:13
  the one that's not right, because I know the industry well
• 1:08:16
  enough. It's a very this isn't like a
• 1:08:18
  stockbroker in 1983. You're not trading a piece of
• 1:08:21
  paper that can be digitized on Robin Hood.
• 1:08:24
  These assets are complicated. 2 gas stations caddy corner from
• 1:08:27
  each other could be vastly different.
• 1:08:29
  What's the C store doing ingress egress.
• 1:08:31
  This one has CMBS debt. This one has bank debt.
• 1:08:34
  This person has this much debt, this equity like it's just so
• 1:08:37
  much different. It's so complicated Plus who the
• 1:08:40
  owner is like what are their appetites?
• 1:08:42
  Do they are they motivated to sell?
• 1:08:43
  That's a big part of what the broker does.
• 1:08:45
  It's like connect, bid, ask gap. The seller wants to sell for
• 1:08:49
  this, the buyer needs to say it's like bridging that gap.
• 1:08:52
  And I think you need a human in the middle that's kind of
• 1:08:55
  pushing both sides to meet at a market price, right?
• 1:09:00
  I agree because ultimately at the end of the day, AI can't,
• 1:09:03
  like I think I said this earlier, it can't look you in
• 1:09:05
  the eye and shake your hand and earn your trust and be like, we
• 1:09:08
  got this or this is what I know. You know, you don't, you don't
• 1:09:11
  know what's manipulation. You don't know what's real, you
• 1:09:13
  don't know what's fake. It was just like, I get 1000
• 1:09:15
  phone calls a day from AIA robots, right?
• 1:09:18
  And so that relationship is going to become, in my opinion,
• 1:09:20
  even more and more valuable. A. 100%, yeah, 100%.
• 1:09:24
  I think the people that are like the relationship people, I
• 1:09:28
  they're going to do well, right? You have trust, you have trust.
• 1:09:32
  People are not going to just like, oh, I'm putting money into
• 1:09:35
  this fund. Who is it?
• 1:09:37
  I don't know. It's some AI bought.
• 1:09:38
  Right. I don't.
• 1:09:39
  I just don't see that happening. Yeah.
• 1:09:41
  And that's the thing. I think with tokenization and
• 1:09:44
  things like that, it's like, OK, you could have all these private
• 1:09:48
  placement real estate opportunities, but on a
• 1:09:50
  marketplace, but you need a level of trust to know which one
• 1:09:54
  you actually believe in, which founder you believe in, you
• 1:09:56
  know, but I, I talk about betting on the horse and the
• 1:09:59
  jockey, right? Like the horse is the vehicle,
• 1:10:01
  it's the opportunity, the numbers and the model and
• 1:10:03
  whatever, which can all be manipulated.
• 1:10:05
  Like how do you know if any of that's real?
• 1:10:08
  There was a tokenization fraud scam that happened where they
• 1:10:11
  raised a bunch of money and then they found out that no
• 1:10:12
  properties were even owned. You know, so there's those types
• 1:10:15
  of things and that's where the relationship is so, so, so
• 1:10:17
  important. And some people may want to keep
• 1:10:20
  dwindling that that down and cutting it out.
• 1:10:22
  But I think with tools and technology and these resources,
• 1:10:25
  we can become even more knowledgeable, more equipped,
• 1:10:27
  have access to build better and deeper relationships that are
• 1:10:30
  more trustworthy. But we ultimately it all comes
• 1:10:33
  down to relationship. Yeah, you can spend more time on
• 1:10:36
  your relationship because you're not like, let me take two weeks
• 1:10:39
  to get back to you with an OEM and underwrite this deal.
• 1:10:42
  And I feel like, where's the deal?
• 1:10:44
  OK, here's the, this is what I think it's worth.
• 1:10:46
  Let's talk about it. Let's put it on the market.
• 1:10:48
  Let's start getting some buyers right?
• 1:10:50
  Like you don't have to spend 2 weeks putting a presentation
• 1:10:53
  together, like underwriting it, right?
• 1:10:55
  Like you're spending more time with the customer, with the
• 1:10:58
  client being like, OK, this is how we're going to market it.
• 1:11:01
  It's how we're going to do it. I believe these buyers are out
• 1:11:03
  here. You're really like their coach.
• 1:11:05
  You're not just like, I don't know, like spending all your
• 1:11:10
  time doing analytics and aggregating all that stuff.
• 1:11:14
  Like that's a. Great tasks.
• 1:11:15
  That's order tasks, yeah. Order taker.
• 1:11:17
  Yeah, exactly. You're really spending time like
• 1:11:20
  with that customer and then building more relationships.
• 1:11:23
  You can handle more customers, handle more clients, more
• 1:11:25
  sellers, more buyers, etc. Then your network continues to
• 1:11:28
  grow, your relationships continue to grow, and you can
• 1:11:30
  actually nurture those relationships.
• 1:11:32
  Now you probably have a finite number of clients or
• 1:11:36
  relationships because you only have so much time.
• 1:11:37
  Yeah, right. Exactly.
• 1:11:39
  And then it's what my mentor tells me to the tip of the arrow
• 1:11:43
  theory, where the tip of the arrow is what kills the animal.
• 1:11:45
  And so that's the only thing you should be focused on, and
• 1:11:47
  everything else should be delegated on the arrow.
• 1:11:49
  And that's what AI helps us do. It's like our tip of the arrow
• 1:11:52
  is that creation, that visionary, that relationship,
• 1:11:55
  the connection, the problem solving, the negotiation, those
• 1:11:58
  human aspects. And then that frees up more time
• 1:12:01
  for us to be even more leveraged on our tip of the arrow and let
• 1:12:06
  AI handle all that or taker stuff.
• 1:12:08
  So I think it's exciting. Technology in general, like
• 1:12:11
  you're using cracks, you're using capitalize, you're using
• 1:12:13
  AI like we've been using technology.
• 1:12:15
  This is just a new medium, a new vehicle for you to take
• 1:12:19
  advantage of, right? What since you successfully
• 1:12:24
  built one company, now you're doing another one.
• 1:12:27
  What were some of the key lessons you learned, whether
• 1:12:29
  from, you know, hiring, culture, operations, fundraising, that
• 1:12:34
  you're going to do different this time around for if you're
• 1:12:36
  talking to another startup founder and like, Hey, this is
• 1:12:39
  what I learned that I that I'm doing different now.
• 1:12:44
  I wouldn't necessarily change anything.
• 1:12:46
  If we're like going back in time at Craxy, like you can't
• 1:12:49
  manufacture that like like I was saying earlier, like that
• 1:12:54
  naivete or like blind confidence that we had, right.
• 1:12:59
  But there are a couple things that you know, you just learn
• 1:13:02
  naturally, like the importance of the tech stack, the
• 1:13:05
  importance of your investors, the importance of the team.
• 1:13:08
  The team is the technology, The company is people and the
• 1:13:10
  company is the software. So like you need to prioritize
• 1:13:14
  like who you're hiring and your culture is everything because
• 1:13:17
  like most of the time you're not paying Google prices.
• 1:13:20
  These people are taking a risk. They're owners in the company,
• 1:13:23
  right? So it's like you really need to
• 1:13:25
  nail those first hires those people on your team, right?
• 1:13:29
  We got, we're lucky at Capitalize, we're lucky at
• 1:13:31
  Krexi. A lot of those people are still
• 1:13:33
  at Krexi, like a lot of those 10:20 first hires, like they're
• 1:13:37
  still there, right? That means we did something
• 1:13:39
  right. We built a good culture.
• 1:13:42
  And then the engineering side, for sure, you got to be on the
• 1:13:45
  especially today, you can't be bringing on an engineer that's
• 1:13:48
  coding on Lennox from 1996. Like you got to emphasize that
• 1:13:52
  like technology. Otherwise that's how you'll get
• 1:13:54
  disrupted, right? Like you're not at the, the
• 1:13:57
  cutting edge, like then you're, you're vulnerable, right?
• 1:14:01
  So like investing in the technology is so, so important
• 1:14:05
  and I'm a big believer in that today.
• 1:14:07
  I hope that was a good enough answer.
• 1:14:08
  No, I think that's good. Invest in the technology, be
• 1:14:10
  innovative, be at the forefront and and hire an amazing team and
• 1:14:13
  be careful who you bring aboard because it matters a lot.
• 1:14:15
  It does. It's yeah.
• 1:14:17
  And it's funny because I hear that Meta is offering, I could
• 1:14:22
  get this wrong. Social media will tell me if it
• 1:14:24
  is. But like 165,000,000 a year
• 1:14:28
  salary to like 20 year old, you know, coders that can
• 1:14:31
  165,000,000, I'm pretty sure. Yeah, it was either like salary
• 1:14:35
  or bonus, signing bonus or like crazy, crazy numbers to, to
• 1:14:40
  compete with the competition and not space.
• 1:14:43
  So it's crazy. And those aren't, you know,
• 1:14:44
  Linux guys. Those are young on top of it and
• 1:14:48
  grew up in this world of AI being born.
• 1:14:51
  And yeah, it's it's a whole new world.
• 1:14:53
  Yeah. But what?
• 1:14:54
  What do you think are the most important attributes of a
• 1:14:59
  founder leader? Fearless, humble, hungry.
• 1:15:05
  I put those up there right. Fearless, humble and hungry.
• 1:15:10
  Fearless and how do you say, I mean you've how do you say
• 1:15:13
  humble? Like you've built such an
• 1:15:15
  incredible company. You've and everyone knows it.
• 1:15:18
  You know, you walk in a room, you're like, oh, I built a
• 1:15:19
  Unicorn company. Like some people, a lot of
• 1:15:22
  people that gets to their head and it changes them.
• 1:15:23
  So how and you're super laid back and down to earth and
• 1:15:26
  clearly very humble. So how do you manage that?
• 1:15:30
  I don't know. I don't just like I never was
• 1:15:35
  driven by ego. Like that's a tough question for
• 1:15:38
  me to answer. Like it's just not in my DNA to
• 1:15:41
  like lock myself in an ivory tower and like not communicating
• 1:15:44
  be like I'm beyond, I'm everything else is beneath me.
• 1:15:47
  Like I'm selling, I'm in product meetings, I'm raising money.
• 1:15:51
  Like I'm leading by example for sure.
• 1:15:53
  Right. Like and we haven't
• 1:15:54
  accomplished. Yeah, like Kobe said, like job
• 1:15:57
  not done, job not done, Krexy, job not done, capitalize, jobs
• 1:16:01
  not done. Like job not done, right.
• 1:16:03
  Like IPO, even after IPO, it's like there's always something
• 1:16:07
  new. There's always something to
• 1:16:08
  achieve for sure. And I think maybe that's the
• 1:16:11
  driving force. It's like I'm not Elon.
• 1:16:15
  There's room for me to improve. There's room for me to grow.
• 1:16:18
  And I'm sure Elon, he's he's restless.
• 1:16:20
  He's always doing new companies. It's like he's not even
• 1:16:23
  satisfied. So it's just like the job's not
• 1:16:27
  done, maybe never will be. And I'm always kind of seeking
• 1:16:33
  the next advantage or the next adventure, right?
• 1:16:37
  Like the job isn't done. I guess I haven't Like there's
• 1:16:41
  still plenty of room, right? There's always, there's no,
• 1:16:45
  there's no reason for me to have an ego because I believe that
• 1:16:47
  there's still a lot to be accomplished, right?
• 1:16:51
  Otherwise you get complacent and then again you're vulnerable for
• 1:16:55
  attack. That's what Matt Ishba says.
• 1:16:57
  There's always, you get complacent.
• 1:16:58
  There's always someone younger and hungrier than you that's
• 1:17:00
  going to take you down. Yeah.
• 1:17:02
  And every time you accomplish a new level or hit a new goal, you
• 1:17:06
  realize like you just unlocked a whole new.
• 1:17:09
  There's so many more levels to the game, just like Mario Kart
• 1:17:12
  or any of those games. So there's never ending, there's
• 1:17:14
  no game over. It's just like there's always
• 1:17:16
  something new and new and new, right?
• 1:17:18
  What keeps driving you? The, the people I work for, the
• 1:17:25
  smiles in their faces, the things that we're accomplishing,
• 1:17:28
  it's like one of the most gratifying things ever.
• 1:17:30
  Like when we get a sale or like feature launches and we're
• 1:17:33
  slapping hands like it's the best.
• 1:17:35
  Like kind of being a coach and leader.
• 1:17:38
  It's like it's amazing. It really is.
• 1:17:42
  It's great. It's everything.
• 1:17:43
  And learning, it's like I feel like I'm learning so much like
• 1:17:48
  from starting a company and I don't have all the answers.
• 1:17:52
  So it's like I'm always learning something new every day.
• 1:17:54
  Or even the younger guys are teaching me something or the
• 1:17:57
  engineers are teaching me something or I'm reading just
• 1:17:59
  that. Like, like I said, hungry and
• 1:18:01
  humble, eager to learn, fearless.
• 1:18:03
  Like that's what's driving me. Yeah, I love it.
• 1:18:07
  Well, thank you. I always like to end with a
• 1:18:10
  school. Hard Knocks rapid fire.
• 1:18:11
  He interviewed me on his show. Have you?
• 1:18:14
  You know who he is? You haven't.
• 1:18:15
  The school of Hard Knocks, The guy that goes up on Instagram
• 1:18:17
  and goes how old were you and became a millionaire of what
• 1:18:20
  line of business are you in? You have.
• 1:18:22
  You're going to you're going to laugh because I got rid of
• 1:18:24
  Instagram it. Was like too much of A
• 1:18:25
  distraction. Gosh.
• 1:18:26
  So I don't, I'm not, I'm not really on social media except
• 1:18:29
  for LinkedIn. Oh yeah, I don't.
• 1:18:30
  Know I'm not, I'm not hip. OK, well, this is how his
• 1:18:33
  interviews goes, only he's way better than me because I suck,
• 1:18:36
  but all right, so you're. Pretty good.
• 1:18:38
  This is great. Oh, thank you.
• 1:18:40
  Listen to some of your other stuff, you're amazing.
• 1:18:41
  I appreciate that, thank you. OK, so rapid fire, I mean you
• 1:18:45
  don't have to answer super fast, but just kind of the the theme
• 1:18:48
  will put it together as like 1 little video.
• 1:18:51
  OK So what? How old were you?
• 1:18:54
  How old were you? Oh my gosh, how old were you
• 1:18:57
  when you became a millionaire? On It's all on paper right now.
• 1:19:02
  On paper. That's fine. 35 four maybe
• 1:19:06
  Craxy, certain valuation of Craxy put me over.
• 1:19:09
  OK. What line of business are you
• 1:19:11
  in? What line of business?
• 1:19:13
  I'm an entrepreneur. Tech Entrepreneur.
• 1:19:16
  What's the best piece of advice you've ever heard or received?
• 1:19:22
  That's a tough one. Oh man, I don't have a good
• 1:19:24
  answer to that. A good piece of advice, a great
• 1:19:28
  piece of advice. First thing that comes to mind.
• 1:19:31
  Start a company. There you go.
• 1:19:33
  Yeah, start a company. Do it.
• 1:19:35
  That's yeah, that that's a pretty good, pretty good advice.
• 1:19:38
  Did your dad tell you that when you were younger?
• 1:19:41
  Yeah, yeah. What's a belief that you had in
• 1:19:44
  the past that you now think is completely wrong?
• 1:19:49
  That's such a. That's a hard one.
• 1:19:51
  No, it's such like a Ben Horowitz or Marc Andreessen.
• 1:19:54
  I love those guys. Gosh, I don't have a good answer
• 1:20:02
  for this one too. You're catching me off guard.
• 1:20:03
  No, you're fine. Having kids is easy because it's
• 1:20:11
  not. I'm terrified of having kids.
• 1:20:16
  It's it's a lot of work. Yeah, I can imagine.
• 1:20:18
  Or you're married with kids, right?
• 1:20:20
  How many kids you have? Three.
• 1:20:21
  OK, Young. 53 and 1. Yeah, that's a lot.
• 1:20:26
  Yeah. I love that that was your
• 1:20:28
  answer. Having kids is easy.
• 1:20:31
  That's when you asked me the question of like, people like,
• 1:20:34
  oh, you know, when you're younger, it's like, kids are
• 1:20:36
  great. They're so easy.
• 1:20:37
  Yeah. OK.
• 1:20:38
  Yeah, No, it's hard. It's hard.
• 1:20:41
  It's amazing. It's it's a it's a blessing.
• 1:20:43
  It's it's amazing. I'm not saying that I wouldn't
• 1:20:45
  change it for anything, but it's like, it's a lot of work.
• 1:20:48
  Yeah, it's it's a lot of work. I can imagine, does your is your
• 1:20:52
  wife, should she work too or does she help with the kids?
• 1:20:55
  Yeah, OK. Yeah, that's even harder then.
• 1:20:57
  Very 2026 family. Yeah, both parents work.
• 1:21:00
  Dad is Dad and mom are both helping a lot.
• 1:21:03
  Like dads are much more involved today.
• 1:21:05
  Like all my guy friends are like you just do more.
• 1:21:08
  Like my dad looks at me when I change the diaper these days.
• 1:21:12
  It's like I'm a alien giving an anal probe or something like
• 1:21:15
  that. So what are you doing over
• 1:21:16
  there? Like you never change the
• 1:21:18
  diaper. I change diapers all the time,
• 1:21:19
  right? So it's like just dads do a lot
• 1:21:22
  more. So there's a lot of pressure at
• 1:21:23
  home. And then also to be successful
• 1:21:25
  with business and provide. So it's a lot of work.
• 1:21:29
  That's a lot of. Work.
• 1:21:30
  Yeah. I don't know how you all do it.
• 1:21:31
  Sorry for cussing, I think I said a bad word there but.
• 1:21:33
  Oh no, you're fine. I used to cuss like a sailor.
• 1:21:36
  I made it a resolution in 2026 to stop cussing so I I have
• 1:21:41
  almost officially quit. I'm pretty good now, but yeah
• 1:21:44
  don't worry, most my shows have cuss words all over them.
• 1:21:47
  Who's your hero and why? I have to say Elon, his drive, I
• 1:21:51
  just, I've, I've read like every book, the bad ones and the good
• 1:21:54
  ones. He's just like and I hate that
• 1:21:57
  he gets such a bad rap and he's under attack.
• 1:21:59
  I think it's just like total BS. Oh I agree.
• 1:22:01
  Like. It's Biden didn't invite him to
• 1:22:04
  like the the EV summit. I went nuts.
• 1:22:08
  I was like this BS like how do you?
• 1:22:10
  How do you hate this guy? I know he's changed our whole
• 1:22:13
  lives. Everybody has flaws, but like
• 1:22:14
  this guy is literally there's no like government regulation
• 1:22:18
  that's changing our being interplanetary or like, you
• 1:22:23
  know, energy or 0 emission. Like he's doing that right.
• 1:22:27
  He's not like talking about it and like putting much a red tape
• 1:22:30
  and regulation. Like he's building electric
• 1:22:32
  cars, he's going to build robots doing AI, he's building data
• 1:22:34
  centers, he's putting he's probably going to put people on
• 1:22:36
  Mars. Like this guy is insane.
• 1:22:38
  Yeah, he's he's amazing. He is, he's incredible.
• 1:22:41
  He is an alien, he said on his podcast.
• 1:22:43
  He's an alien. He's like, people ask if they're
• 1:22:45
  aliens. He's like, I am what?
• 1:22:47
  I'm the only alien on this Earth.
• 1:22:48
  So what's the number one thing you attribute to your success?
• 1:23:00
  My again, I'd have to say just like being humble, like I don't
• 1:23:06
  have all the answers, right in being open to learning stuff,
• 1:23:09
  right? Because I don't have all the
• 1:23:10
  answers. Yeah, it's so important not
• 1:23:13
  being a know it all and letting your ego get in the way of
• 1:23:15
  growth. You got to have a little ego and
• 1:23:18
  little craziness to get out there and have that confidence.
• 1:23:21
  And like, yes, maybe it manifests as an ego, but I'm
• 1:23:24
  still in, in reality. Like, I'm very humble, right?
• 1:23:27
  Like analyzing being in reality and like attacking that reality
• 1:23:31
  and making it better. Yeah.
• 1:23:34
  And if you could leave one message with the younger
• 1:23:36
  generation, what would it be? Get off your phone.
• 1:23:41
  Get off your phone. Like, well, AI is on your phone,
• 1:23:44
  how do you? Get off social media.
• 1:23:46
  Get off social media, go have a conversation, get off the dating
• 1:23:50
  apps, go meet people in person. Like be in the office.
• 1:23:54
  Get off stop scrolling, sorry stop death scrolling.
• 1:23:58
  Like get off your your butt and get out there and start making
• 1:24:01
  connections, start networking, meet people in person.
• 1:24:04
  I feel like the next Gen. to the the generation even like 10
• 1:24:09
  years below me is like they don't want to be in the office.
• 1:24:14
  They just want to doom scroll all day.
• 1:24:16
  They don't want to build. They just want to like and they
• 1:24:18
  want to be paid enormously. I'm like, what world?
• 1:24:21
  What reality are you living in? Get get off of social media.
• 1:24:25
  Get out there and go see the world, interact with people.
• 1:24:30
  Go try and meet your partner, not on a dating app like Get out
• 1:24:34
  there. Right.
• 1:24:35
  What a concept. Yeah, yeah.
• 1:24:37
  Pretty simple. It's a crazy idea, I guess
• 1:24:39
  today, right? I agree, I think the in person
• 1:24:42
  stuff is going to be more important than anything before
• 1:24:44
  in person events, in person seminars, conferences,
• 1:24:46
  masterminds, like all of that stuff like Soho House, even in
• 1:24:50
  person social groups and everything like that.
• 1:24:52
  But all right, last question. If you could write a text to
• 1:24:56
  your 25 year old self, what would it say?
• 1:24:58
  Start a company earlier, do it earlier.
• 1:25:02
  That's serious. Like I wish we the two or three
• 1:25:06
  years Mike and I were talking about Crixy.
• 1:25:07
  Like I wish we'd done it earlier.
• 1:25:09
  Like do it, take that leap earlier, take risks earlier,
• 1:25:12
  especially because you don't have a mortgage, you don't have
• 1:25:15
  kids. You, you know, flexibility, like
• 1:25:18
  take risks earlier. Take risk earlier.
• 1:25:20
  Do not be comfortable. Just like I'm going to go and
• 1:25:22
  like punch a clock and push a button and like, Oh yeah, it's
• 1:25:26
  like take risk, take risk earlier, right.
• 1:25:29
  I wasn't that far away. I was like a couple years later,
• 1:25:31
  but like, start craxy then do it now, yeah.
• 1:25:35
  Do it now. If not now, when?
• 1:25:37
  Yeah. So cool.
• 1:25:38
  Well, you're amazing. Thank you for flying out here.
• 1:25:40
  Thanks for coming on the show. Can't wait for those couple free
• 1:25:43
  months of capitalize and then we'll roll that into a contract.
• 1:25:46
  It's on the record now. Yeah, exactly.
• 1:25:48
  That's why I threw it out there. But awesome.
• 1:25:51
  Cool. Thanks, Luke.
• 1:25:52
  Thank you.