Latest / Earn Your Leisure / From Homelessness to £1 Billion Deals: Dean Forbes's Incredible Journey

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From Homelessness to £1 Billion Deals: Dean Forbes's Incredible Journey · Earn Your Leisure

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  Speaker 1: An illegal alien from Guatemala charged with raping a child
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  Speaker 6: See you there, all right, guys, Welcome back e y L.
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  Speaker 6: So this is an international episode of sorts, even though
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  Speaker 6: we're home. So Dean Forbes is somebody that we actually
• 2:03
  Speaker 6: met when we were in London. We interviewed him for
• 2:05
  Speaker 6: the Market Monday. So we did a Market Monday's World tour.
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  Speaker 6: If you wasn't familiar with it, pretty legendary situation. We
• 2:10
  Speaker 6: did Toronto, London, Ghana, Chicago, and LA and each stop
• 2:16
  Speaker 6: we interviewed a local person from that area that was
• 2:20
  Speaker 6: doing things on a very high level. And we've been
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  Speaker 6: in London a few times. We had a Royal Albert
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  Speaker 6: Hall situation. The first time was tapepe London shout out
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  Speaker 6: the tape. We did a few things in London that
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  Speaker 6: was crazy. So this time we wanted to actually interview
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  Speaker 6: somebody that was local, but like on the highest level possible.
• 2:37
  Speaker 6: And I forgot who was the first person that has
• 2:39
  Speaker 6: suggested you. It might have been dial maybe not sure
• 2:45
  Speaker 6: it was somebody, but they were saying that you were
• 2:49
  Speaker 6: like a real success story coming from the neighborhood and
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  Speaker 6: then working your way up to I believe, correct me
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  Speaker 6: if I'm wrong, you are the top black CEO. And okay, right,
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  Speaker 6: we're going to say that.
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  Speaker 4: No, we're saying that someone say someone said, yeah, your
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  Speaker 4: name came up, not just one time, a few times.
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  Speaker 4: We were trying to figure out who's the person, who's
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  Speaker 4: the person. It was kind of a consensus amongst the people,
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  Speaker 4: like the other person, Yeah, that's nice.
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  Speaker 6: You led. You led seventeen acquisitions, achieved a billion dollar deal,
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  Speaker 6: You've doubled companies valuations, You've been a leader in the
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  Speaker 6: tech industry, reinvented yourself multiple times, and you still have
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  Speaker 6: done it with a strong commitment and uplifting the community
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  Speaker 6: and keeping true to your your original roots. So we
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  Speaker 6: did the interview live, a live interview, and it was
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  Speaker 6: really dope. Everybody that was there enjoyed it. But you know,
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  Speaker 6: that's an intimate experience, so everybody doesn't actually get to,
• 3:46
  Speaker 6: you know, experience that unless it was actually at the
• 3:47
  Speaker 6: market Monday's World Tour. So wanted to do something that
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  Speaker 6: was a little bit more expansive that could reach a
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  Speaker 6: wider audience as opposed to just the people that was
• 3:56
  Speaker 6: actually there, to share your story and provide the insight
• 3:59
  Speaker 6: because it's important, and to show up to our UK
• 4:01
  Speaker 6: following because we got a lot of follows in the
• 4:04
  Speaker 6: UK and we haven't done an episode with somebody from
• 4:06
  Speaker 6: the UK in a while. It's been a minute probably
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  Speaker 6: over the two years.
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  Speaker 4: I think his story encompasses everything that we've been built on.
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  Speaker 4: Right when we had the abservation, it was like, yes,
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  Speaker 4: sports entertainment's cool, and I know that's the background, but
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  Speaker 4: there's so many other ways to become successful, and I
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  Speaker 4: feel like your life is really the leisure story, right
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  Speaker 4: sports entertainment to business how we transition. So it's gonna
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  Speaker 4: it's gonna be amazing story to its bible.
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  Speaker 6: With the so first and foremo, thank you for joining us,
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  Speaker 6: appreciate it, my pleasure.
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  Speaker 5: Good to be back.
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  Speaker 6: Always so on you on this side of the pond. Yeah,
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  Speaker 6: so welcome, welcome to America.
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  Speaker 5: Thank you.
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  Speaker 6: Yeah. So all right, let's get into it. Tell us
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  Speaker 6: the story for people that are not familiar with you
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  Speaker 6: from like I said, starting humble, beginnings, sports, then you
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  Speaker 6: get into business and you just kind of just take off.
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  Speaker 6: So kind of walk us through your journey.
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  Speaker 5: Yeah. Well, like I said, could to be back. I
• 5:03
  Speaker 5: had a lot of fun at market Monday. Is the
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  Speaker 5: energy energy you guys being is unbelievable. But I mean, yeah,
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  Speaker 5: the stories, I guess you know a lot of us.
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  Speaker 5: I grew up on what we call counsel estate in
• 5:15
  Speaker 5: the UK we call a council estate here you call
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  Speaker 5: it a pousand projects assistance in the big blocks. And
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  Speaker 5: like most people who grew up in those environments, the
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  Speaker 5: number one way out for people that look like us,
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  Speaker 5: or the kind of most frequent way out is either sports,
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  Speaker 5: entertainment or some of the unsavory things right right there,
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  Speaker 5: pharmacists right exactly exactly. And that was never really an option,
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  Speaker 5: although like a lot of people, you kind of saw
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  Speaker 5: it and you flirted with it, but when you had
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  Speaker 5: a mother like mine, it was you know, the fear
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  Speaker 5: of dealing with her was more. You were more scared
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  Speaker 5: at that than going into a correctional facility, for sure,
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  Speaker 5: So never really got into that. I played football, which
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  Speaker 5: you guys call occer, but it's really football. I played.
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  Speaker 5: I played football a lot, and yeah, that was supposed
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  Speaker 5: to be my path. I was signed to a team,
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  Speaker 5: a Crystal Palace for a long time. And when it
• 6:10
  Speaker 5: came to being serious, you know, the point in which
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  Speaker 5: you really become a professional and really doubled down, I
• 6:14
  Speaker 5: came out of the game. I didn't get my contract,
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  Speaker 5: wasn't wasn't renewed. And along that journey to be trying
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  Speaker 5: to become a footballer, my mom lost her home or
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  Speaker 5: we lost the home that we lived until we were
• 6:26
  Speaker 5: we were homeless for a short while, then the football
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  Speaker 5: career ended. Then we were homeless again. And the way,
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  Speaker 5: you know, the fastest way for the family to be
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  Speaker 5: housed was to break the family up, because the government
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  Speaker 5: could find smaller properties faster than they could find.
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  Speaker 6: You know, larger how many people's in your family.
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  Speaker 5: Four so my mom and my two brothers, so four
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  Speaker 5: of us.
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  Speaker 4: So mom is from West Jamaica.
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  Speaker 5: My mom's Guyanese, and my dad's dad's Jamake it exact. Yeah, So,
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  Speaker 5: you know, that was the second time I was homeless,
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  Speaker 5: kind of football football crashed and I had a lot
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  Speaker 5: of debt at the time, you know, because in pursuing
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  Speaker 5: the football career, I had a lot of friends who
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  Speaker 5: were doing really really well at football, and they were
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  Speaker 5: only real money from football at like eighteen nineteen. So
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  Speaker 5: in order to keep up with them, keep up appearances
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  Speaker 5: with them on the nights out and you know, with
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  Speaker 5: girls and stuff around, I was borrowing money. So I
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  Speaker 5: was spending money on credit cards and borrowing money to
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  Speaker 5: keep up that appearance. So when I came out of
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  Speaker 5: a game and lost the house, I had like eighteen
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  Speaker 5: nine pounds of.
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  Speaker 6: Debt, eighty nine thousand pounds a debt.
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  Speaker 5: Yeah at eighteen at eighteen yeah, yea his credit card
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  Speaker 5: debt overdraft and credit card debt has a lot of parties, man, Yeah,
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  Speaker 5: I mean, and I had a car too. I mean
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  Speaker 5: I really, you know, really went for it because that
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  Speaker 5: was the environment. It was like I had. Most of
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  Speaker 5: my friends were doing really well at football, and I
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  Speaker 5: was only I was one of very few in that
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  Speaker 5: group who financially wasn't Like I was signed to a team,
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  Speaker 5: but not in the way that they were. So when
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  Speaker 5: I fell out the game, my agent at the time,
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  Speaker 5: he said, look, you know, we've been trying to get
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  Speaker 5: you a new deal. There will give you a short
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  Speaker 5: term deal for good money, but then if that doesn't
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  Speaker 5: work out, what we're going to do. There were clubs
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  Speaker 5: that will give you a longer term deal, but not
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  Speaker 5: for good money. You gotta go to work. So that's
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  Speaker 5: what I did. I went to work at Motorola making
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  Speaker 5: cold calls and that was the That was the beginning.
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  Speaker 4: So you're at Motorola, are you still homeless at this point?
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  Speaker 5: At that point, so I lived in a hostel for
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  Speaker 5: a bit, which is like it's like a motel, yeah,
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  Speaker 5: like a bad like a like at it's like what
• 8:34
  Speaker 5: would you call that, like a dormitory? Right, So you
• 8:37
  Speaker 5: live in a big room, there's like twelve beds. There's
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  Speaker 5: Eastern European Turkish people like people from all kinds of
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  Speaker 5: ethnicities with their families and their bags and you just yeah,
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  Speaker 5: you stay there until like a.
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  Speaker 6: Shelter, Yeah, a shelter.
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  Speaker 5: And then I met my now wife. So at the
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  Speaker 5: point you're going to Motorola, I lived with her. She
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  Speaker 5: had a one bedroom apartment and she kind of let
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  Speaker 5: me stay there at the beginning. So that's that's that
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  Speaker 5: was my route out of being homeless to live with her.
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  Speaker 6: So all right, so let's okay, So you meet your
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  Speaker 6: now wife, you get it into a one bedroom apartment,
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  Speaker 6: You're making coal call for Motorola, you're selling something, you're
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  Speaker 6: selling services.
• 9:18
  Speaker 5: I'm trying to book appointments for field sales reps. So
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  Speaker 5: I'm calling companies. I'm saying, can I send a guy
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  Speaker 5: in to spend time with you and talk to you
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  Speaker 5: about Motorola products and services?
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  Speaker 6: Okay, and I'm assuming you do pretty well. You work
• 9:30
  Speaker 6: your way up the ladder, become like one of the
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  Speaker 6: top sales people, right yeah.
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  Speaker 5: Yeah, not at the beginning, because the transition out of
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  Speaker 5: playing football to making cold calls like the coldest shower
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  Speaker 5: you could imagine. But yet over time I managed to
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  Speaker 5: kind of figure it out and became a leader there.
• 9:44
  Speaker 6: So how do you get into how do you what'sh
• 9:45
  Speaker 6: your journey to become an entrepreneur.
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  Speaker 5: So I came out of Motorola and went to a
• 9:52
  Speaker 5: US based software company that was trying to grow internationally.
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  Speaker 5: So I went to the you know, the London office
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  Speaker 5: just been opened. There were like six people. There were
• 10:01
  Speaker 5: a couple hundred people in Philly, but there were like
• 10:03
  Speaker 5: six people in this London office. So I was one
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  Speaker 5: of the first in that office in a sales role.
• 10:09
  Speaker 5: So as I kind of got better at making sales,
• 10:12
  Speaker 5: was making quota, people were leaving, I would say to
• 10:15
  Speaker 5: the owners, you know, don't replace that person. Just give
• 10:18
  Speaker 5: me their territory. Don't replace that person who just left,
• 10:21
  Speaker 5: give me their territory. So I kind of outstayed a
• 10:24
  Speaker 5: couple generations of salespeople had most of the territory and
• 10:29
  Speaker 5: convinced them to let me kind of look after that
• 10:31
  Speaker 5: part of the business. Is almost like a franchise, right,
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  Speaker 5: So I would run international, they would take care of
• 10:37
  Speaker 5: the US, and in return, they would give me equity
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  Speaker 5: in the entire company. So that's kind of how I
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  Speaker 5: came out of being at Motorola into understanding what equity meant.
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  Speaker 5: And we grew that company over the nine years I
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  Speaker 5: was there, and sold it to Oracle for five hundred
• 10:51
  Speaker 5: and fifty million dollars. So my kind of journey into
• 10:55
  Speaker 5: entrepreneurialism and liquidating equity was because I landed in this
• 11:00
  Speaker 5: American company that was trying to grow internationally.
• 11:03
  Speaker 4: So you watched them sell. So I'm there's six of y'all,
• 11:06
  Speaker 4: and as people keep getting let off, you're taking on
• 11:08
  Speaker 4: their role right until now you're the international guys and
• 11:11
  Speaker 4: you're watching this sale about to happen and realizing, like
• 11:14
  Speaker 4: there's two sides of the scale, like what is the
• 11:16
  Speaker 4: inspirational happened us?
• 11:18
  Speaker 5: It was a little bit different after people left and
• 11:20
  Speaker 5: I was kind of the lone guy. We built a team.
• 11:23
  Speaker 5: So we built that team to about one hundred and
• 11:26
  Speaker 5: fifty people out of London, Germany, India, Japan, China. So
• 11:31
  Speaker 5: I was responsible for that international expansion. So we opened
• 11:33
  Speaker 5: offices and all those places. And by the time we
• 11:37
  Speaker 5: were selling, I was the SVP of international and I
• 11:41
  Speaker 5: was part of the team that you know, did that
• 11:43
  Speaker 5: deal right alongside the CEO. So I was right in
• 11:45
  Speaker 5: the seat. So I got to watch the deal, I
• 11:47
  Speaker 5: got to participate in the deal. I knew what my
• 11:49
  Speaker 5: equity was worth as time had gone on. I'd been
• 11:52
  Speaker 5: given and bought more equity. So I was part of
• 11:56
  Speaker 5: that and that changed mine and my family's you know,
• 12:00
  Speaker 5: life in the material material way.
• 12:02
  Speaker 6: So after that, so now you're a full fledge. You're
• 12:07
  Speaker 6: in the mergers and acquisition game, right right, So what
• 12:12
  Speaker 6: happens next after that?
• 12:13
  Speaker 5: So along the way, I got calls from different private
• 12:16
  Speaker 5: equity firms, different French capital firms saying, hey, you know,
• 12:20
  Speaker 5: we see the job you're doing, we see how it's going,
• 12:22
  Speaker 5: we hear all the stories. Do you want to come
• 12:23
  Speaker 5: and run this software company that we just invested in?
• 12:26
  Speaker 5: So I'd become a little bit known to the investment community.
• 12:30
  Speaker 5: So when the deal got done with Oracle, I had
• 12:32
  Speaker 5: a lot of calls. But I had a tie in
• 12:34
  Speaker 5: with Oracle, and as soon as the tithing ended, I
• 12:37
  Speaker 5: had It's pretty lucky like I had a good set
• 12:39
  Speaker 5: of office So I chose to go and run a
• 12:42
  Speaker 5: Paris headquartered software company with Excel VC. And because my
• 12:47
  Speaker 5: situation in Oracle is so strong, both in terms of
• 12:50
  Speaker 5: equity that I'd had, the tie in that I had
• 12:53
  Speaker 5: as part of the deal, the deal, I was able
• 12:55
  Speaker 5: to negotiate to go and be CEO there was was
• 12:58
  Speaker 5: probably for a level of equity you wouldn't normally see
• 13:01
  Speaker 5: in a VC type deal with an external, non founder CEO.
• 13:06
  Speaker 5: So that kind of set me, you know, set me
• 13:08
  Speaker 5: up as a as a first time CEO as well.
• 13:10
  Speaker 6: So can you talk about I mean, whatever have and
• 13:12
  Speaker 6: much you can talk about, can you kind of talk
• 13:14
  Speaker 6: about what that looked like as far as your negotiation
• 13:17
  Speaker 6: and what you were able to kind of frame for yourself.
• 13:19
  Speaker 5: So over time at prima Era, I can't that's the
• 13:23
  Speaker 5: new company, No, that's the company we sold to Oracles.
• 13:26
  Speaker 5: Over time at Primira, I probably got to just under
• 13:29
  Speaker 5: three percent of equity through a stock option vehicle, then
• 13:34
  Speaker 5: through the tie and the tie in was, you know,
• 13:38
  Speaker 5: a multi seven figure tie in at Oracle, and the
• 13:41
  Speaker 5: longer you stayed it kind of grew over time. So
• 13:43
  Speaker 5: after I got through kind of the mandatory period of
• 13:45
  Speaker 5: the tie in and I had the option to go
• 13:48
  Speaker 5: be CEO, I was able to go to them and say,
• 13:50
  Speaker 5: you know, market rate for a CEO in venture capital
• 13:53
  Speaker 5: might be four percent to six percent equity, but I'm
• 13:57
  Speaker 5: going to need more than that because of the situation
• 14:00
  Speaker 5: I'm walking away from and the fact that this is
• 14:03
  Speaker 5: a what we call in you like a transformational situation,
• 14:05
  Speaker 5: Like the company I was going to be CEO of
• 14:08
  Speaker 5: wasn't performing well. It's a very difficult situation. So the
• 14:12
  Speaker 5: combination of the economics I was walking away from what
• 14:16
  Speaker 5: I'd had at Primiera meant when they were saying this
• 14:18
  Speaker 5: is a four to six percenter, I was able to say,
• 14:21
  Speaker 5: you know, it's going to need to be it's going
• 14:23
  Speaker 5: to need to be more than that. It wasn't quite
• 14:25
  Speaker 5: double digit percentage, but it was more than market, which
• 14:29
  Speaker 5: is incredible.
• 14:30
  Speaker 4: So Larry Arason, Larry Ellison, Oracle.
• 14:32
  Speaker 5: Correct Oracle, Yeah, exactly, exactly.
• 14:35
  Speaker 4: So there's a common theme here.
• 14:36
  Speaker 5: You got Prime to Prime Vista, Primi Pria, and then
• 14:41
  Speaker 5: ks KDS.
• 14:42
  Speaker 4: Or all in technology. Was that part of the blueprint
• 14:47
  Speaker 4: for you? Like these are the fastest growing companies I
• 14:50
  Speaker 4: want to be in this sector? Like how did you
• 14:52
  Speaker 4: approach this?
• 14:53
  Speaker 5: Well, I fell into Primierra, then we sold Primire to Oracle,
• 14:57
  Speaker 5: and Oracle at the time was the number one technology
• 15:00
  Speaker 5: on Earth. So now I'm in a forty thousand person
• 15:03
  Speaker 5: publicly listed one of the biggest technology companies on Earth.
• 15:06
  Speaker 5: I just learned, like I just watched everything I watched
• 15:10
  Speaker 5: Charles Phillips, I watched Affracats, I watched all the execs,
• 15:13
  Speaker 5: I sat in meetings. I wasn't supposed to be like,
• 15:15
  Speaker 5: I just really really soaked it up. So at Primvera,
• 15:19
  Speaker 5: I didn't really understand the you know, the velocity of tech,
• 15:23
  Speaker 5: the value creation that happens in tech. I was just
• 15:25
  Speaker 5: doing pretty much my first meaningful job at Oracle, Like
• 15:29
  Speaker 5: it blew my mind what was happening. And as part
• 15:32
  Speaker 5: of the transaction, Oracle gave hundreds of people in Primira,
• 15:37
  Speaker 5: you know, stock options, and that's really opened my mind
• 15:40
  Speaker 5: to to you know, the value that can be realized
• 15:43
  Speaker 5: through equity, even as an employee, which I was at
• 15:47
  Speaker 5: the time. So that when I understood that and I
• 15:50
  Speaker 5: went to KDS and then to core HR and then
• 15:53
  Speaker 5: to Access and now at for Tierro, that lesson from
• 15:57
  Speaker 5: Oracle of what value can truly be created through M
• 16:00
  Speaker 5: and A accelerate and organic growth, you know, add on
• 16:04
  Speaker 5: up cells like that, that really opened my mind. So
• 16:08
  Speaker 5: from there, yeah, it was so clear to me what
• 16:13
  Speaker 5: trajectory you could create if you you know, if you
• 16:16
  Speaker 5: could really find a niche, if you could really find
• 16:18
  Speaker 5: good product market fit, if you could get sales, engine moving,
• 16:21
  Speaker 5: what kind of value that you could you could create
• 16:22
  Speaker 5: and tech?
• 16:23
  Speaker 6: So okay, so you're able to scale that up as well. Right,
• 16:30
  Speaker 6: So at what point do you really like hit your
• 16:32
  Speaker 6: stride and become like a superstar in the space. Do
• 16:35
  Speaker 6: you think?
• 16:37
  Speaker 5: Well, not yet. What what became important to me was
• 16:44
  Speaker 5: to try to try to prove that that the good
• 16:48
  Speaker 5: things that were happening weren't environmental. But that became that
• 16:51
  Speaker 5: became important to me. So I kind of said, Okay,
• 16:54
  Speaker 5: Prima Veil was a good company, had momentum us based
• 16:57
  Speaker 5: and I kind of found my way there. So now
• 17:00
  Speaker 5: at KDS, this company's not going well. Premiere was going well.
• 17:03
  Speaker 5: When I write this company's not going well, can I
• 17:05
  Speaker 5: turn that company around? Okay? So that was that situation.
• 17:08
  Speaker 5: I want to find another situation that doesn't look like
• 17:11
  Speaker 5: any either of these two, and I want to deliver
• 17:13
  Speaker 5: in that situation because it's a you know now, I've
• 17:16
  Speaker 5: got free you know now, then I've got free successes
• 17:19
  Speaker 5: different types of technology, different geographic markets, different types of
• 17:23
  Speaker 5: end customers. And if I can do free, then that
• 17:27
  Speaker 5: probably answers a question that it's not environmental, it's not
• 17:30
  Speaker 5: that I find you know, I just I'm lucky in
• 17:33
  Speaker 5: showing up in your places, So that that became that
• 17:37
  Speaker 5: became important to me, And I would say after the
• 17:39
  Speaker 5: third one, which was core Hr, which we sold to
• 17:43
  Speaker 5: ACCESS for two hundred and fifty million euros. After that one,
• 17:48
  Speaker 5: I started to feel like I might I might know
• 17:50
  Speaker 5: what I'm doing. It was like at that point I thought, mate, yeah.
• 17:54
  Speaker 6: We mentioned this, well how did you turn Let's talk
• 17:57
  Speaker 6: about the second company right that you want to You
• 17:59
  Speaker 6: became a c you turned it around, and you ended
• 18:02
  Speaker 6: up selling it.
• 18:03
  Speaker 5: We sold it to an American Express for one twenty five.
• 18:06
  Speaker 6: So how did you turn it around? And what was
• 18:09
  Speaker 6: the process of actually selling the company to American Express.
• 18:14
  Speaker 5: That company was a Paris headquartered SaaS business that had
• 18:21
  Speaker 5: ninety five percent of its customers in France. So the
• 18:24
  Speaker 5: play there was geographic expansion. So we grew that company
• 18:28
  Speaker 5: in the UK, Germany and the US. So what I
• 18:31
  Speaker 5: learned at Motorola in sales, Premieri and sales and Oracle
• 18:34
  Speaker 5: in sales was pretty much the sharp end of how
• 18:36
  Speaker 5: we grew KDS. It was a sales play, a go
• 18:38
  Speaker 5: to marketplay, so it's really kind of optimizing sales and
• 18:41
  Speaker 5: marketing in new new geographies, a little bit of what
• 18:45
  Speaker 5: I'd done at Primira, and we created a partnership with
• 18:48
  Speaker 5: American Express where they were relying on our technology for
• 18:52
  Speaker 5: a white label arrangement to service their customers, and as
• 18:56
  Speaker 5: a result of that, they were kind of automating, you know,
• 18:59
  Speaker 5: a big part of their busines. This meant they didn't
• 19:00
  Speaker 5: need people to do a bunch of stuff they were
• 19:02
  Speaker 5: using the technology to do. So when we knew we
• 19:05
  Speaker 5: wanted to sell the company, we went to American Express
• 19:08
  Speaker 5: and said, we have a partnership. This is delivering a
• 19:11
  Speaker 5: lot of value for you. You probably should think about
• 19:13
  Speaker 5: buying the company. And they kind of said, you know,
• 19:15
  Speaker 5: partnership works. Why would we buy the company if you
• 19:19
  Speaker 5: know we can just pay you to white label it.
• 19:22
  Speaker 5: So then I went to MasterCard and said, we're delivering
• 19:24
  Speaker 5: a service to American Express. You probably ought to have
• 19:27
  Speaker 5: the same service. We know you have some relationships, but
• 19:30
  Speaker 5: they're not delivering for you in the same way as
• 19:32
  Speaker 5: we are for American Express. So we signed to deal
• 19:34
  Speaker 5: with MasterCard. It was a commercial dealer at the time,
• 19:39
  Speaker 5: so then I started to negotiate an equity position for them.
• 19:42
  Speaker 5: To invest in KDS. The talk track was, you know,
• 19:45
  Speaker 5: if we'd suddenly changed strategy, you're going to be left vulnerable,
• 19:49
  Speaker 5: so you should have you know, you should invest, you
• 19:51
  Speaker 5: should have a seat, you should have a say. And
• 19:54
  Speaker 5: it was supposed to be a twenty five percent. In
• 19:57
  Speaker 5: the end it was like a five percent negotiate. But
• 20:00
  Speaker 5: the threat of American Expresses number one competitor taking an
• 20:05
  Speaker 5: equity position in a partner that they relied on heavily
• 20:07
  Speaker 5: in Europe brought them, brought them back to the table.
• 20:10
  Speaker 5: So it's like creating a bit of competitive tension. Even
• 20:13
  Speaker 5: though American Express didn't understand that the investment was actually
• 20:17
  Speaker 5: going to be you know, it wasn't really material, just
• 20:20
  Speaker 5: the threat of it brought them back to the table.
• 20:22
  Speaker 5: And then what followed was one of the most entertaining
• 20:28
  Speaker 5: negotiations of of my life with the then chairman of
• 20:34
  Speaker 5: one half of the American Express, which was there their
• 20:37
  Speaker 5: travel management business. Like, I negotiated the deal with that
• 20:40
  Speaker 5: guy and it was just insane. It included him having
• 20:44
  Speaker 5: me removed from his offices twice by security.
• 20:47
  Speaker 6: Well you got what was such a big It was
• 20:52
  Speaker 6: like Dame Dash situations.
• 20:53
  Speaker 4: I'm thinking like champagne bowsers coming in there? How did
• 20:56
  Speaker 4: you get in this office? And so as it had
• 20:58
  Speaker 4: to be removed?
• 20:59
  Speaker 5: What it was so funny? I was I was pretty
• 21:03
  Speaker 5: I was pretty young too. So what I'm trying to
• 21:06
  Speaker 5: remember what basically happened was after the MasterCard thing, they
• 21:11
  Speaker 5: called and said, actually we've thought about it. You know,
• 21:14
  Speaker 5: we need to have a conversation about acquiring you. Okay,
• 21:17
  Speaker 5: So we all showed up, did the presentation. The company
• 21:20
  Speaker 5: at the time was turning over thirty five million dollars.
• 21:24
  Speaker 5: It wasn't five million years, so it wasn't huge. So
• 21:27
  Speaker 5: we do this big presentation. He says, love the company,
• 21:29
  Speaker 5: Love what you do. I'm going to make you an offer.
• 21:32
  Speaker 5: But when I make you this offer, the only thing
• 21:34
  Speaker 5: you cannot do is negotiate the offer with me. It's
• 21:37
  Speaker 5: a room full of people. We are not going to
• 21:38
  Speaker 5: negotiate the offer. But you can ask any question you
• 21:40
  Speaker 5: want to ask. And we'd had a great meeting up
• 21:42
  Speaker 5: until this point. So you know, he writes stand a
• 21:45
  Speaker 5: number on the paper, slides it across the table. So
• 21:50
  Speaker 5: I opened the paper and it says six million euros.
• 21:52
  Speaker 5: Now the company's turning over for eighty five million years
• 21:55
  Speaker 5: as an offer just doesn't make any sense. It's less
• 21:57
  Speaker 5: than we're paying the developers to develop the offware that
• 22:00
  Speaker 5: we're talking about the company acquiring. So I was so
• 22:04
  Speaker 5: stunned when I was like, great, this doesn't make any sense,
• 22:07
  Speaker 5: Like where did you get six million from? So see,
• 22:09
  Speaker 5: I told you don't go shack the offer. That's it.
• 22:13
  Speaker 5: And he picked up the phone and like just called
• 22:15
  Speaker 5: somebody and security turned up. The said mister Forlham, sorry
• 22:17
  Speaker 5: you got to go. And I was looking at him
• 22:19
  Speaker 5: like in disbelief. Is this really? And that was the
• 22:22
  Speaker 5: first time. Then the second time it happened, it was
• 22:26
  Speaker 5: a long way further down the cycle. He calls me.
• 22:28
  Speaker 5: He says, listen, I'm going to be in London. I
• 22:30
  Speaker 5: understand we didn't see I to I last time. Come
• 22:32
  Speaker 5: up to the office. I'm going to set this straight.
• 22:35
  Speaker 5: So I said to my wife at the time, Oh,
• 22:37
  Speaker 5: if he's calling me back, it's a done deal. Like
• 22:38
  Speaker 5: we don't, it's going to get done. So I got
• 22:41
  Speaker 5: to his office. It's just me and him. The office
• 22:44
  Speaker 5: is huge in London, and I arrived and he's super friendly.
• 22:48
  Speaker 5: How's your weekend, how's your family? You like jay Z
• 22:52
  Speaker 5: and Beyonce. I'm like, yeah, I'm a huge fan. He says, Oh,
• 22:54
  Speaker 5: they've got the apartment above mine in Manhattan or wherever,
• 22:57
  Speaker 5: or Jersey. I'm going to bring you over. You should
• 23:00
  Speaker 5: meet them on my boat next week. Like he's really
• 23:02
  Speaker 5: laying it on. He says, Anyway, I realized I offended
• 23:05
  Speaker 5: you last time. I've made you a new offer. So
• 23:08
  Speaker 5: he gives me an offer. It's twelve million euros this time,
• 23:12
  Speaker 5: and we've already told him that the clearing number is
• 23:15
  Speaker 5: one hundred million euros. You already he knows this. And
• 23:18
  Speaker 5: I said to him, going, Greg, this is ridiculous, like,
• 23:21
  Speaker 5: how could you even imagine this might be possible? And
• 23:24
  Speaker 5: it just starts screaming. He just starts withming, you know,
• 23:27
  Speaker 5: you're an idiot. You don't know what good offer looks like.
• 23:29
  Speaker 5: I can't believe people told me that you're smart, that
• 23:32
  Speaker 5: you know what you're doing. I can't believe you've been
• 23:34
  Speaker 5: running this company. Who's let you run this company? An
• 23:36
  Speaker 5: he calls security again, that's we removed. And then yea
• 23:41
  Speaker 5: months after that, we get the deal done at one
• 23:43
  Speaker 5: hundred and twenty five.
• 23:44
  Speaker 4: But it was he still there.
• 23:45
  Speaker 5: He did the deal.
• 23:46
  Speaker 6: So how did it go from six to twelve to
• 23:50
  Speaker 6: one hundred and twenty five that's not even close to
• 23:52
  Speaker 6: each other.
• 23:54
  Speaker 5: Well, two things happened. We started a conversation with Booking
• 23:58
  Speaker 5: dot Com and they became aware of that. So again
• 24:01
  Speaker 5: the competitive tension steeping. The actual free things happened. Booking
• 24:04
  Speaker 5: dot Com happened. Their partner contract with US was coming
• 24:08
  Speaker 5: up for renewal, so I terminated the partner contract. So
• 24:14
  Speaker 5: I said completely.
• 24:17
  Speaker 6: We're walking away.
• 24:18
  Speaker 5: I wouldn't say it's a bluff, but said, you know,
• 24:23
  Speaker 5: we're Yeah, we need to renegotiate the terms of disagreement
• 24:25
  Speaker 5: because we don't like them, and we're having other conversations
• 24:28
  Speaker 5: which may affect whether or not we can partner with you. Right,
• 24:31
  Speaker 5: That was the next thing that happened. And then the
• 24:33
  Speaker 5: third thing that happened is I called him and said
• 24:36
  Speaker 5: he I got a board meeting on Friday, and during
• 24:39
  Speaker 5: that board meeting, I'm going to be looking at free offers,
• 24:41
  Speaker 5: and if I accept one of those offers, I won't
• 24:43
  Speaker 5: be able to negotiate with you to potentially acquire the company.
• 24:46
  Speaker 5: So if you want to make me an offer, you
• 24:47
  Speaker 5: have to do it by Friday at five o'clock. Okay by,
• 24:49
  Speaker 5: and I put the phone down.
• 24:51
  Speaker 4: No time.
• 24:52
  Speaker 5: I was small and I had no board meeting on
• 24:53
  Speaker 5: Friday either, by the way, right, So when I said
• 24:56
  Speaker 5: that to him, and then I was at home on Friday,
• 24:58
  Speaker 5: I remember playing. I was playing Fifa with my son
• 25:01
  Speaker 5: on Friday. I completely forgot about this conversation. So I'm
• 25:04
  Speaker 5: playing Fifa with my son and I see, I see
• 25:06
  Speaker 5: he's calling my phone. So I'm looking at phone. I'm thinking,
• 25:09
  Speaker 5: why is he calling me? And then I remember that
• 25:11
  Speaker 5: I played this move of like you've got until Friday
• 25:14
  Speaker 5: to buy a company. So as soon as I remembered,
• 25:18
  Speaker 5: I'm like, don't answer the phone. So I just let
• 25:20
  Speaker 5: the phone ring. So he keeps ringing like he's banging
• 25:22
  Speaker 5: the phone at this point, so I turned the TV down.
• 25:26
  Speaker 5: I'm like, Craig, I just stepped out, like what's up?
• 25:30
  Speaker 5: And he said, and he says, you need to not
• 25:33
  Speaker 5: take any office. I need to speak to you. You
• 25:34
  Speaker 5: need to step out of the meeting right now. I said, look, Greg,
• 25:36
  Speaker 5: if you want to make me know, for email it
• 25:37
  Speaker 5: to me. I'm in able meeting right now. I can't talk.
• 25:39
  Speaker 5: And I mung the phone off and then this like
• 25:42
  Speaker 5: just happened for the next fifteen minutes. This kept happening,
• 25:45
  Speaker 5: and then he sent us He sent us an off
• 25:48
  Speaker 5: for just under one hundred and I said to him,
• 25:52
  Speaker 5: you know, I told him I stepped out of the
• 25:53
  Speaker 5: meeting and I said to him, look, I really want
• 25:55
  Speaker 5: to do this deal with you. I'm really going to
• 25:56
  Speaker 5: try it and if this number quite gets you there,
• 25:58
  Speaker 5: but I'm going to like stop these discussion so that
• 26:00
  Speaker 5: we can progress this. You know, let's take two or
• 26:04
  Speaker 5: three days, see where we can get it to. And yeah,
• 26:07
  Speaker 5: we got it to. We got it brilliant.
• 26:10
  Speaker 4: That's a brilliant So this is the third time yourself.
• 26:13
  Speaker 5: That was that was the second second, that was the second.
• 26:16
  Speaker 5: Yet since then things have been much more things.
• 26:20
  Speaker 6: Let's let's unpackage before you before you go to the
• 26:21
  Speaker 6: next topic. So this is a few valuable lessons for people.
• 26:25
  Speaker 6: And Okay, so you had enough courage to balk at
• 26:31
  Speaker 6: to it at to right and and you also kind
• 26:35
  Speaker 6: of finagled it with making up the story about the boardroom.
• 26:39
  Speaker 6: But then you also brought other people involved. And that's
• 26:43
  Speaker 6: another strategy as far as like, you know, the competition,
• 26:45
  Speaker 6: nobody wants to feel like they're losing to something else. Right,
• 26:48
  Speaker 6: You've done this a few times, so kind of break
• 26:51
  Speaker 6: that down as far as for people that are entrepreneurs
• 26:54
  Speaker 6: of how you have to remain calm under these type
• 26:58
  Speaker 6: of circumstances, because some people might have just you know,
• 27:02
  Speaker 6: fell to the pressure and did things that they would
• 27:04
  Speaker 6: have really regretted later on. Yeah.
• 27:06
  Speaker 5: Yeah, to be honest, I thought about that a lot
• 27:09
  Speaker 5: during that deal cycle. That I grew up in sales,
• 27:12
  Speaker 5: so ten negotiations were kind of familiar to me. I
• 27:16
  Speaker 5: grew up in football, where coaches would you know, become emotional,
• 27:20
  Speaker 5: so that behavior wasn't as threatening to me as someone else.
• 27:24
  Speaker 5: And I grew up in the projects on a housing
• 27:26
  Speaker 5: estate where you know, for all of his bluster, he
• 27:29
  Speaker 5: was nowhere near it intimidating people as people I'd seen.
• 27:33
  Speaker 5: So those things were super helpful to me. What I
• 27:37
  Speaker 5: learned in that process and have since always used when
• 27:40
  Speaker 5: exiting a company is that competitive leverage, competitive tension. You know,
• 27:45
  Speaker 5: it's key. Otherwise you're sitting opposite somebody trying to tell
• 27:49
  Speaker 5: them that they should just pay more for something because
• 27:51
  Speaker 5: you want more money for something, right, And that's difficult
• 27:55
  Speaker 5: when you both want to buy my thing, and I'm
• 27:57
  Speaker 5: able to say to you that the number you've offered
• 27:59
  Speaker 5: is it's nice, but it's not nice enough for me
• 28:03
  Speaker 5: to do the deal with you because somebody else is
• 28:05
  Speaker 5: willing to pay more. That puts a very helpful distance
• 28:10
  Speaker 5: between me and you and the negotiation. Right. If I'm
• 28:12
  Speaker 5: just saying, you know prices and one hundred has to
• 28:14
  Speaker 5: be one twenty, that's not as impactful as saying, if
• 28:18
  Speaker 5: you can't get above one twenty, there's somebody else who
• 28:20
  Speaker 5: will do that deal.
• 28:20
  Speaker 6: And it's crazy because we just spoke with a sports league.
• 28:25
  Speaker 6: They are we're in a contract with a major TV network, right,
• 28:31
  Speaker 6: and they were saying that the TV network pretty much
• 28:33
  Speaker 6: told them like, look, I know that you don't have
• 28:36
  Speaker 6: anybody else that's bidding for this contract, so we really
• 28:40
  Speaker 6: can't negotiate. But I know that at some point you
• 28:44
  Speaker 6: probably will have so at that point in time then
• 28:48
  Speaker 6: where you're going to be in a position to actually
• 28:50
  Speaker 6: have a conversation with us. But until then you have
• 28:53
  Speaker 6: no leverage. So it's important for people to know that,
• 28:57
  Speaker 6: you know, it's always good to have somebody else exactly
• 28:59
  Speaker 6: that is bidding for it because even if they're not
• 29:02
  Speaker 6: going to buy it, at least it raises exactly your interest.
• 29:06
  Speaker 5: Exactly in the last process, so with Fortira, where we
• 29:10
  Speaker 5: sold at a billion euros, I did something I never
• 29:14
  Speaker 5: did before, which was we had free parties competing until
• 29:18
  Speaker 5: the moment the deal was signed, right, so we ran Normally,
• 29:22
  Speaker 5: what you do is you get offers, you say, okay,
• 29:25
  Speaker 5: I like your offer. I'm going to negotiate with you
• 29:26
  Speaker 5: for thirty days to get it done. You have exclusivity
• 29:29
  Speaker 5: for thirty days to get it done. It's what you
• 29:30
  Speaker 5: normally do. In the last process, which was twenty twenty two,
• 29:35
  Speaker 5: we said, first man to the finish line, you know,
• 29:38
  Speaker 5: get to it. As long as the offers financially were
• 29:40
  Speaker 5: in the right zip code. Whoever get it done first.
• 29:43
  Speaker 5: And that was a new experience for me. And what
• 29:47
  Speaker 5: that done in the negotiations was something I hadn't seen
• 29:49
  Speaker 5: in my previous free transactions, which was, you know, somebody
• 29:52
  Speaker 5: said I need this condition in the contract, and it's
• 29:55
  Speaker 5: a completely normal condition. I did it in the previous
• 29:59
  Speaker 5: free deals. It's not something you want to do, but
• 30:01
  Speaker 5: in this situation, I was just like, oh, actually, we
• 30:04
  Speaker 5: don't really want to do that no, you know, no
• 30:06
  Speaker 5: market conditions, deal norms. A lot of them didn't get
• 30:10
  Speaker 5: done because everybody understood that this was a race to
• 30:13
  Speaker 5: the finish line and was highly competitive. So that like
• 30:15
  Speaker 5: that changes dynamics in the negotiations when you've got that
• 30:18
  Speaker 5: kind of competitive Dang. Yeah.
• 30:20
  Speaker 4: I think in terms of deals, a lot of times
• 30:22
  Speaker 4: people might have taken the twelve because they haven't done
• 30:24
  Speaker 4: the proper valuation of their actual business. What they might say,
• 30:28
  Speaker 4: we may not get another offer, we'll do it here
• 30:31
  Speaker 4: and we'll try to work up to this. So, like,
• 30:32
  Speaker 4: what's that process for you? Obviously that was you wanted
• 30:34
  Speaker 4: the one twenty five. The next deal is we had
• 30:37
  Speaker 4: a billion dollars, how are we figured out the valuation
• 30:41
  Speaker 4: and how are we negotiating on that?
• 30:43
  Speaker 5: So good thing about tech is there's tons of comps
• 30:47
  Speaker 5: and there's a lot of you know, there's a lot
• 30:51
  Speaker 5: of formulas that guide you to what the price should be. Right,
• 30:54
  Speaker 5: So a company, you know, a company in our space
• 30:58
  Speaker 5: that has over thirty percent margins, over seventy percent of
• 31:02
  Speaker 5: the revenue is recurring, that company's valuation will start at
• 31:06
  Speaker 5: nineteen times. It's EBITDA Like that's you know, everybody knows that,
• 31:10
  Speaker 5: and nobody's going to come into the room and try
• 31:12
  Speaker 5: and offer you fifteen because everybody kind of gets that.
• 31:15
  Speaker 5: It starts there, So that's helpful. Then from that nineteen
• 31:18
  Speaker 5: times foundation, Yeah, it's on you to sell your kind
• 31:23
  Speaker 5: of strategic advantage that you're offering a buyer, the opportunity
• 31:26
  Speaker 5: you're offering the buyer the eternal investment. That buyer is
• 31:29
  Speaker 5: going to realize that bits on you between nineteen and
• 31:33
  Speaker 5: twenty five or thirty times. Ebit done where the deal
• 31:35
  Speaker 5: gets done. But you get in tech, you get good
• 31:38
  Speaker 5: you know, you get good formulas that give you foundation
• 31:41
  Speaker 5: of value. I think that the main threat to underselling
• 31:45
  Speaker 5: in those situations is people sometimes think, well, they must
• 31:48
  Speaker 5: know about right. So in that case, we're a tiny
• 31:51
  Speaker 5: company selling to American Express. I think in that situation
• 31:55
  Speaker 5: it would have been easier for someone to say, these
• 31:58
  Speaker 5: guys must know what the valuation, they must know better
• 32:01
  Speaker 5: than we do. They buy companies all the time. He's
• 32:04
  Speaker 5: a smart guy. I think that's actually a bigger risk.
• 32:08
  Speaker 5: It was pretty easy for me. I didn't make I
• 32:09
  Speaker 5: wouldn't have made any money at twelve million euros. So
• 32:14
  Speaker 5: discussion closed is there.
• 32:15
  Speaker 4: A number for the multiple that you look for a
• 32:18
  Speaker 4: sweet spot, or if it's nineteen as a standard, are
• 32:21
  Speaker 4: we figuring out how we add components to the company
• 32:24
  Speaker 4: to get to that twenty five thirty.
• 32:26
  Speaker 5: Yeah, exactly, exactly nineteen, Like there are in our space,
• 32:30
  Speaker 5: so where tech company erp in our space, the things
• 32:34
  Speaker 5: that move the valuation needle are pretty well understood, right.
• 32:38
  Speaker 5: So I use an example a moment ago where you
• 32:40
  Speaker 5: would say seventy percent of the recurring of the revenue
• 32:42
  Speaker 5: would be recurring. If seventy percent of your revenue for
• 32:45
  Speaker 5: a company like US is recurring, the valuation is then
• 32:49
  Speaker 5: done on the last six months profitability and the next
• 32:52
  Speaker 5: six months projected profitability, because if so much of the
• 32:56
  Speaker 5: revenue is recurring, the next six months is very predictable.
• 33:00
  Speaker 5: If eighty five percent of the revenue is recurring, then
• 33:02
  Speaker 5: the valuation is done on the next twelve months, not
• 33:05
  Speaker 5: the last six the next twelve months because the markets
• 33:08
  Speaker 5: assume that the revenue and profitability will be pretty well
• 33:13
  Speaker 5: solidified because so much of it is on long term,
• 33:16
  Speaker 5: long term contracts. Right. So one of the things I
• 33:19
  Speaker 5: would try to do if I wanted to get above
• 33:20
  Speaker 5: nineteen is I would make I would work hard on
• 33:23
  Speaker 5: making seventy percent recurring eighty percent. So these these components
• 33:27
  Speaker 5: in tech are pretty well, pretty well understood.
• 33:31
  Speaker 6: So okay, so where does fort Arrell come into play?
• 33:36
  Speaker 5: So we so after KDS and the AMEX steal, one
• 33:40
  Speaker 5: of the one of the kind of exciting things about
• 33:43
  Speaker 5: the AMX deal was the chairman with whom negotiated. Once
• 33:47
  Speaker 5: we were doing the deal and we had, you know,
• 33:49
  Speaker 5: we started to sign paperwork, he became very very friendly.
• 33:54
  Speaker 5: You talked a lot about what we were going to do.
• 33:55
  Speaker 6: To talk about that too, and I think, all right,
• 33:57
  Speaker 6: so don't take anything personal, right because he is alted
• 34:00
  Speaker 6: you multiple occasions. That's another lesson. How were you able
• 34:07
  Speaker 6: to not take it personal? And how did was it
• 34:11
  Speaker 6: that weird to kind of still be cordial at like.
• 34:15
  Speaker 5: In that meeting one on one when he was screaming.
• 34:18
  Speaker 5: It took everything in my life's being, you know, not
• 34:22
  Speaker 5: to behave in a certain way. And I remember sitting
• 34:25
  Speaker 5: there just thinking, I just got to get out of
• 34:26
  Speaker 5: the room. The thing I have to do is just
• 34:28
  Speaker 5: get out of the room. And in subsequent conversations I
• 34:32
  Speaker 5: just had in my back, in the back of my
• 34:34
  Speaker 5: mind that I was going to win in this scenario.
• 34:36
  Speaker 5: I said, this game ends when I've won, right, And
• 34:40
  Speaker 5: as things progressed, it became there were two victories I
• 34:43
  Speaker 5: could see that I could pursue. One was getting the
• 34:45
  Speaker 5: deal done at a great valuation, especially in the manner
• 34:48
  Speaker 5: in which it got done like that gave me a
• 34:49
  Speaker 5: lot of personal satisfaction that he bit against himself, like
• 34:53
  Speaker 5: he talked himself up from ninety five to one hundred
• 34:55
  Speaker 5: and twenty five. That was That was beautiful for me.
• 34:58
  Speaker 5: The second thing was that we'd shaken hands, that I
• 35:01
  Speaker 5: would work for American Express for three years afterwards. And
• 35:08
  Speaker 5: I'd always say to him, he'd always say, I'm going
• 35:10
  Speaker 5: to send you the contract. I've sent your contract. We
• 35:11
  Speaker 5: should talk about it, so don't wory about it. Well,
• 35:14
  Speaker 5: we'll talk about it later, like we'll figure out later.
• 35:15
  Speaker 5: We've got tons of other stuff to deal with. So
• 35:17
  Speaker 5: I never signed the contract that would have committed me
• 35:20
  Speaker 5: to work in there. So the day the money cleared,
• 35:23
  Speaker 5: I never went back to American Express. I just didn't.
• 35:26
  Speaker 5: I didn't. I didn't go back. So that those two
• 35:28
  Speaker 5: things were my my my victory that I just I
• 35:31
  Speaker 5: just walked to I just walked away. Okay, so for terror. Yeah.
• 35:39
  Speaker 5: After KDS, I went to run an Irish tech company
• 35:42
  Speaker 5: which we sold to Access, which is the UK's largest
• 35:46
  Speaker 5: privately held tech company.
• 35:48
  Speaker 6: And you okay, you start in the UK, then you
• 35:51
  Speaker 6: go to France, then you go to Ireland.
• 35:53
  Speaker 5: Yep.
• 35:54
  Speaker 6: So I got to ask you this question, is the
• 35:55
  Speaker 6: elephant in the room here? When does racism come in to
• 35:59
  Speaker 6: play here? Because Europe is has been a notorious racist
• 36:03
  Speaker 6: continent for a very long period of time. Everybody knows
• 36:06
  Speaker 6: the history. You're in. This is a unique situation, a
• 36:11
  Speaker 6: black person whose parents are immigrants running companies in white
• 36:18
  Speaker 6: countries that we have no representation of black You you
• 36:22
  Speaker 6: think of Ireland, You're not thinking of black people France.
• 36:24
  Speaker 6: Like I said, everybody knows the history. UK has a
• 36:27
  Speaker 6: terrible history across the world when it comes to racism
• 36:30
  Speaker 6: and colonization. How is this.
• 36:34
  Speaker 4: Happening in a sector that well, I don't even when
• 36:37
  Speaker 4: he was underrepresented, very scarce.
• 36:42
  Speaker 5: You know, I only have one recollection of a of
• 36:48
  Speaker 5: a rumor I was siting where I was like, oh, okay,
• 36:52
  Speaker 5: this is racism. Like what's happening right now is racism.
• 36:56
  Speaker 5: I've had tons of situations where I think, is this
• 37:01
  Speaker 5: is it? It doesn't feel right like this is But
• 37:05
  Speaker 5: I can't. I couldn't say to you, like with my
• 37:07
  Speaker 5: hand on my heart, that that is the reason this
• 37:08
  Speaker 5: person is behaving poorly. I've had I've had tons of
• 37:11
  Speaker 5: those moments. But the truth of the marror is I
• 37:15
  Speaker 5: think my mind was so focused on the next thing
• 37:19
  Speaker 5: I wasn't really paying any attention to it. So when
• 37:21
  Speaker 5: people behave poorly, I was just like, Okay, well, how
• 37:24
  Speaker 5: do we get around you? How do we get over you?
• 37:26
  Speaker 5: How do we get to the point you can't affect
• 37:28
  Speaker 5: the thing that I need to I need to get to.
• 37:31
  Speaker 5: So it's possible. It's possible that I experienced tons of racism,
• 37:35
  Speaker 5: but I just didn't slow down long enough to realize
• 37:39
  Speaker 5: it was it was happening. And that's my experience. I
• 37:42
  Speaker 5: know tons of other people have very different experiences, and
• 37:45
  Speaker 5: I know a lot of those people, but I can't
• 37:47
  Speaker 5: give you, you know, a set of circumstances where I
• 37:50
  Speaker 5: was clear that that was happened to me. Only one I.
• 37:53
  Speaker 4: Know, We're going to go to Fort Over. I'm I'm
• 37:56
  Speaker 4: thinking right when especially with companies here in America, especially
• 37:59
  Speaker 4: when it's al our CEO and they sell a company.
• 38:01
  Speaker 4: There's a stigma that comes with it. We've sold out,
• 38:04
  Speaker 4: we've done the service to the community and tech. Uh,
• 38:08
  Speaker 4: we haven't seen it as much. Was there any feedback
• 38:11
  Speaker 4: as you're selling companies? Are people aware that black ceo
• 38:14
  Speaker 4: sales company?
• 38:15
  Speaker 6: I think it's different, I'm saying from his stake he's
• 38:18
  Speaker 6: taken over. I think we're looking at it from Consumer
• 38:20
  Speaker 6: Goods in America. It changes because it's like a Robbers
• 38:23
  Speaker 6: Nobody nobody's ever criticizing Robbers tech company, and he's taking
• 38:28
  Speaker 6: over companies. It's not like he's starting a company from
• 38:30
  Speaker 6: the beginning.
• 38:31
  Speaker 4: True, but this, I mean, you're selling them. There is
• 38:35
  Speaker 4: there any feedback towards that process or are people even
• 38:38
  Speaker 4: know where that has happened?
• 38:40
  Speaker 5: I think to your point, there's a few things that
• 38:43
  Speaker 5: help into you from that one. There's external investment in
• 38:46
  Speaker 5: the company. So if it's an entrepreneur, a founding entrepreneur,
• 38:50
  Speaker 5: especially consumer Goods, who sells that company and they're a
• 38:52
  Speaker 5: big following, big for it and they're a big employer
• 38:56
  Speaker 5: in the community, that's where you get some of that.
• 38:58
  Speaker 5: When Vista Roberts.
• 39:01
  Speaker 4: This episode is brought to you by P and C Bank.
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• 40:51
  Speaker 1: An illegal alien from Guatemala charged with raping a child
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  Speaker 1: in Massachusetts. An MS thirteen gang member from El Salvador
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  Speaker 1: accused of murdering a Texas man of Venezuelan charged with
• 41:03
  Speaker 1: filming and selling child pornography in Michigan.
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  Speaker 2: These are just.
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  Speaker 1: Some of the heinous migrant criminals caught because of President
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  Speaker 1: Donald J.
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  Speaker 2: Trump's leadership. I'm Christy Noman, the.
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  Speaker 1: United States Secretary of Homeland Security. Under President Trump, Attempted
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  Speaker 1: illegal border crossings are at the lowest levels ever recorded,
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  Speaker 1: fine nearly one thousand dollars a day.
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  Speaker 2: Imprisoned and deported, you will never return.
• 41:35
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  Speaker 2: To return legally. Do what's right. Leave now.
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• 41:49
  Speaker 3: Sponsored by the United States Department of Homeland Security.
• 41:51
  Speaker 5: Smith's Companies invested tuesday invest into a company. Everybody knows
• 41:55
  Speaker 5: at some point in time that company is going to
• 41:57
  Speaker 5: get sold to that so that helps you, and my
• 42:01
  Speaker 5: track record helps me. When I show up, people go, Okay,
• 42:03
  Speaker 5: we know that this is a five years, seven year,
• 42:05
  Speaker 5: ten year, so yeah, it helps. It helps it in
• 42:10
  Speaker 5: our community, there's an expectation. So when people in our
• 42:14
  Speaker 5: community understand that you sold, and if when they understand
• 42:17
  Speaker 5: that you make money, then the conversation quickly becomes if
• 42:20
  Speaker 5: you may ten you know, fifty of that needs to
• 42:23
  Speaker 5: come back and be visible to help us all in
• 42:26
  Speaker 5: some way, shape or form. So that's more the thing.
• 42:29
  Speaker 5: You kind of have to deal with it. When you're
• 42:31
  Speaker 5: doing what do you have the money now?
• 42:33
  Speaker 7: What?
• 42:33
  Speaker 5: Yeah? And nobody knows how much money you have. They
• 42:35
  Speaker 5: just decide for themselves how much money you have, and
• 42:38
  Speaker 5: they decide for themselves. They decide for themselves how much
• 42:41
  Speaker 5: money you have, and they decide for themselves how much
• 42:43
  Speaker 5: money you should you know, play back, and they decide
• 42:45
  Speaker 5: where exactly that money should should go back to.
• 42:48
  Speaker 6: Yeah, I know all about it. So all right, sorry
• 42:50
  Speaker 6: I cut you off a few times. But let's get
• 42:52
  Speaker 6: to this for Tarot story. So you got it.
• 42:55
  Speaker 5: Access so we sold out. So we at Croata in Ireland,
• 43:00
  Speaker 5: which Access bought incredible company run by an incredible CEO,
• 43:04
  Speaker 5: Chris Baine, and we were wondering if I would be
• 43:08
  Speaker 5: could be his successor What I learned that Access was
• 43:12
  Speaker 5: it's a much bigger company than Corey hr and Kles was.
• 43:17
  Speaker 5: So I learned what it's like to run a big,
• 43:20
  Speaker 5: much bigger software company because I was. I was president
• 43:22
  Speaker 5: of Access for a while working with Chris, and I learned.
• 43:26
  Speaker 5: I learned one thing, which was how to operate at
• 43:28
  Speaker 5: that scale, because that was the first time I'd really
• 43:30
  Speaker 5: operated at that scale. And the other thing I learned
• 43:33
  Speaker 5: is that I was a lousy number two right to Chris,
• 43:35
  Speaker 5: so he was the CEO, and I just didn't enjoy
• 43:38
  Speaker 5: being a number two. And it took me a while
• 43:41
  Speaker 5: to say that out loud, because it's like, well, what
• 43:43
  Speaker 5: is it?
• 43:44
  Speaker 4: Is it?
• 43:44
  Speaker 5: Ego? Is it? You know? Why can't you just it's
• 43:48
  Speaker 5: a great company, you're a great role, You're well compensated.
• 43:51
  Speaker 5: But in the end, I was just like, yeah, I'm
• 43:52
  Speaker 5: just not enjoying being a number two. And the chairman
• 43:55
  Speaker 5: of core Hr called me and said, I know for
• 44:00
  Speaker 5: I know the investors at for Tira they're looking for
• 44:02
  Speaker 5: a CEO. I think you'd be great. I've told them
• 44:05
  Speaker 5: that you might look at it, and you know, he
• 44:07
  Speaker 5: teed up because we'd work together effectively at co HR,
• 44:10
  Speaker 5: he teed it up. At for Tira, I met, I
• 44:13
  Speaker 5: met the investors. We didn't really interview, We just talked
• 44:16
  Speaker 5: a lot about the company, and then boom.
• 44:19
  Speaker 6: He became CEO became So what exactly is for what
• 44:23
  Speaker 6: does the company do?
• 44:25
  Speaker 5: We make technology? We make software that manufacturers run their
• 44:30
  Speaker 5: production lines and their accounting and financials such, right at
• 44:35
  Speaker 5: the core of how they run and operate their business.
• 44:39
  Speaker 6: And that position. That's when you acquired You had seventeen
• 44:42
  Speaker 6: acquisitions by the.
• 44:43
  Speaker 5: Time I got there, the company had done eight and
• 44:45
  Speaker 5: then in the first two years we did we did
• 44:49
  Speaker 5: nine more. So in total of the company's done seventeen acquisitions.
• 44:54
  Speaker 6: You've done nine and they did two prior.
• 44:56
  Speaker 5: Yeah.
• 44:57
  Speaker 6: Right, And how those nine that you acquired you sold
• 45:00
  Speaker 6: all nine of those?
• 45:01
  Speaker 5: No, So now we're now four terras is holding a
• 45:05
  Speaker 5: group structure. We're now unifying it into a single company.
• 45:09
  Speaker 5: But it's like fifteen sorry, seventeen acquired businesses that were
• 45:13
  Speaker 5: now moving into one.
• 45:14
  Speaker 6: So you haven't sold any of those companies.
• 45:15
  Speaker 5: No, no, no, So like.
• 45:17
  Speaker 4: When you now, as you acquired those you sold, you
• 45:20
  Speaker 4: had the billion dollar evaluation as you acquire more assets.
• 45:24
  Speaker 4: Now we're starting to see the evaluation, right, climb and
• 45:27
  Speaker 4: climate climb as you add more, right, is that the
• 45:29
  Speaker 4: goal to push the values into a certain umber.
• 45:31
  Speaker 5: Yeah, So we did the deal so Battery Ventures, who
• 45:34
  Speaker 5: brought me on as CEO. We exited Battery Ventures by
• 45:37
  Speaker 5: bringing in Partners Group, so you know, another much bigger
• 45:41
  Speaker 5: private equity firm, and they're acquired the company at billion
• 45:43
  Speaker 5: billion Europe. So when I went a CEO, normal thing happens.
• 45:46
  Speaker 5: You get equity and I invested my own money too,
• 45:50
  Speaker 5: So when that deal happened, I reinvested behind a partners
• 45:53
  Speaker 5: group at a billion at the billion euro evaluation, and
• 45:56
  Speaker 5: now the plan is to scale to four billion. We're
• 45:59
  Speaker 5: two years in and we should cross the two billion
• 46:01
  Speaker 5: mark evaluation in September this year.
• 46:05
  Speaker 6: So it sold for one billion dollars correct, but the
• 46:08
  Speaker 6: money was reinvested into the company. Yeah, correct, And now
• 46:13
  Speaker 6: you're seeking a two billion essentially four billion valuation.
• 46:16
  Speaker 5: Yeah, we're climbing through two billion, should be September and
• 46:19
  Speaker 5: then hopefully two years.
• 46:21
  Speaker 6: Was the process of That's what I remember. They said
• 46:24
  Speaker 6: that you were the only how many black CEOs had
• 46:29
  Speaker 6: achieved Unicorn status in the UK.
• 46:33
  Speaker 5: At the time, Bloomberg said seven of privately held I
• 46:38
  Speaker 5: think it was in Europe of privately held companies with
• 46:42
  Speaker 5: billion year over more seven?
• 46:44
  Speaker 6: So what was the process of actually selling the billion
• 46:49
  Speaker 6: dollar valuation and then the restructure and then moving the
• 46:54
  Speaker 6: company forward to where it's headed them?
• 46:56
  Speaker 5: So when most of the time I spent with Dave
• 46:59
  Speaker 5: when I was joining was on how we were going
• 47:01
  Speaker 5: to get him a good exit, right because he'd been
• 47:04
  Speaker 5: an investor in Forto for twelve years at that point,
• 47:08
  Speaker 5: and I knew the now investor from before, so you
• 47:10
  Speaker 5: know the power of your networking, your previous relationships. We
• 47:14
  Speaker 5: kind of brought them to the table, and then we
• 47:16
  Speaker 5: brought some others to the table and that drove the
• 47:18
  Speaker 5: number to a billion euros. But we were really pitching
• 47:22
  Speaker 5: the opportunity to get to four billion. That's what we
• 47:24
  Speaker 5: talked to Partners Group and the other parties who bid
• 47:28
  Speaker 5: on the company. We said, this is an opportunity to
• 47:30
  Speaker 5: invest in something that will become a four billion euro
• 47:33
  Speaker 5: software company. And in Europe, like thet there aren't many
• 47:37
  Speaker 5: software companies at that scale on the private markets in
• 47:41
  Speaker 5: that sector, so that's why we had so much interest.
• 47:43
  Speaker 5: It was a good strategy, I guess, you know. I
• 47:46
  Speaker 5: had a good track record of delivering outcomes for private
• 47:50
  Speaker 5: investors and we had a good plan to get to
• 47:53
  Speaker 5: four billion, and that's that's kind of how we got everybody.
• 47:55
  Speaker 5: Everybody to the table.
• 47:56
  Speaker 4: You've made a transition from athlete to businessmen. Now as
• 48:00
  Speaker 4: you look back and even how your peers who used
• 48:03
  Speaker 4: to be footballers with we know in that space just
• 48:06
  Speaker 4: a short term career, there's only going to be five
• 48:09
  Speaker 4: to ten years where you're going to be great and
• 48:10
  Speaker 4: hopefully you can make as much as you can during
• 48:12
  Speaker 4: that timeframe, whereas you're doing something that is sustainable. How
• 48:16
  Speaker 4: does that relationship now with your former peers are are
• 48:18
  Speaker 4: they still your peers and how are they viewing you
• 48:20
  Speaker 4: at this point?
• 48:21
  Speaker 5: I love it. I love it because at the beginning
• 48:23
  Speaker 5: of my career, like when they were all thriving, I
• 48:27
  Speaker 5: found that very difficult. I was happy for them, right,
• 48:29
  Speaker 5: really happy for them, and a lot of them was
• 48:31
  Speaker 5: still I'm still very close to a lot of them.
• 48:34
  Speaker 5: So it's great to see them five playing for their country,
• 48:37
  Speaker 5: you know, playing in the Premier League. It was brilliant.
• 48:39
  Speaker 5: But for me it was hard and I was just
• 48:42
  Speaker 5: starting my career. Now their earning potential has peaked and
• 48:47
  Speaker 5: you know, and they've done well. It's not about money
• 48:51
  Speaker 5: but my you know, I'm just kind of finding my
• 48:54
  Speaker 5: stride now. Right, the next ten years could be better
• 48:57
  Speaker 5: than the last ten years for me from a career perspective.
• 49:00
  Speaker 5: So sometimes, like that's a good joke that we have
• 49:03
  Speaker 5: amongst us that they're like, I tell them all was
• 49:05
  Speaker 5: kind of old and washed up and nobody cares about
• 49:07
  Speaker 5: you anymore. But like I'm just hitting my stride. So
• 49:09
  Speaker 5: that's a bit of a funny exchange that we that
• 49:12
  Speaker 5: we have.
• 49:13
  Speaker 6: So let me ask you this as far as the
• 49:15
  Speaker 6: face of mergers and acquisitions currently, right, that is rising
• 49:18
  Speaker 6: costs of debt. So how has that affected you guys's strategy?
• 49:24
  Speaker 5: It it hasn't, It hasn't. I mean, it definitely changes
• 49:28
  Speaker 5: the way we look at things because before we could
• 49:32
  Speaker 5: buy a business for one hundred million euros, we could
• 49:35
  Speaker 5: do that all with debt. That debt might cost us
• 49:39
  Speaker 5: five million euros. That company we buy might be, you know,
• 49:43
  Speaker 5: making five million of profit. So from a cash perspective,
• 49:47
  Speaker 5: completely neutral on the company. You just bought an asset
• 49:49
  Speaker 5: for one hundred million, your valuation has gone up as
• 49:52
  Speaker 5: a result, and there's no negative cash impact on the company.
• 49:55
  Speaker 5: Now that same deal might cost you twelve million a
• 49:58
  Speaker 5: year in debt and that company still only making five
• 50:00
  Speaker 5: million euros, So there's a net seven million cash out
• 50:04
  Speaker 5: position for us. So in terms of strategy, it doesn't change,
• 50:08
  Speaker 5: but the economic engineering of those deals changes a lot.
• 50:13
  Speaker 5: To give you an example that you know, that example
• 50:16
  Speaker 5: I just I just gave you, we would now have
• 50:18
  Speaker 5: to be much more aggressive in making that company able
• 50:21
  Speaker 5: to cover the cost of the debt when we acquire it,
• 50:24
  Speaker 5: so we would be more aggressive in taking cost out,
• 50:28
  Speaker 5: for example, or trying to accelerate the top line, whereas
• 50:31
  Speaker 5: three years ago we might be able to be a
• 50:33
  Speaker 5: bit more thoughtful, a bit more strategic, and a bit
• 50:35
  Speaker 5: more patient.
• 50:36
  Speaker 6: So you say that the debt, you could do a
• 50:37
  Speaker 6: one hundred million dollars and pretty much borrowed money. Where
• 50:40
  Speaker 6: is it coming from? Banks? Is it coming from hedge funds?
• 50:42
  Speaker 6: Is it coming from where?
• 50:44
  Speaker 5: Like?
• 50:44
  Speaker 6: Where where would that money come from?
• 50:46
  Speaker 5: As far as from you banks? Banks? Thanks, Yeah, we
• 50:49
  Speaker 5: have a good and it's pretty common in our space.
• 50:50
  Speaker 5: You have a good network of banks. You have a
• 50:53
  Speaker 5: set of what we were called debt relationships. You find
• 50:56
  Speaker 5: an asset you want to buy. You got a good
• 50:59
  Speaker 5: track record of buying companies and creating value. You can
• 51:02
  Speaker 5: get good terms on the debt. And that's exactly how
• 51:05
  Speaker 5: we would fund, you know, our acquisitions, because our growth
• 51:10
  Speaker 5: and our profitability are what drives the nineteen times valuation.
• 51:16
  Speaker 5: If I've got debt, we just let it out at
• 51:19
  Speaker 5: the end of the transactor. It's a billion your evaluation,
• 51:21
  Speaker 5: Oh you have two hundred million of debt. Okay, now
• 51:24
  Speaker 5: it's eight hundred million of equity value, nobody, you know,
• 51:27
  Speaker 5: nobody back to annihilidate it. If I don't have profitability
• 51:30
  Speaker 5: because I'm servicing debt with cash, then there's a smaller
• 51:35
  Speaker 5: thing to multiply by nineteen and it brings the company
• 51:38
  Speaker 5: valuation down. So we're much better off financing acquisitions with
• 51:42
  Speaker 5: debt than with cash to the company.
• 51:45
  Speaker 4: Race hasn't been as much of a challenge. Does seem
• 51:47
  Speaker 4: like debt is a challenge? What are the biggest challenges
• 51:50
  Speaker 4: that you face during this process of mergers and acquisitions?
• 51:55
  Speaker 5: Well, race, I've experienced like cultural disharmony more than I
• 52:03
  Speaker 5: would say, you know, direct race. So when you're a
• 52:08
  Speaker 5: young black guy trying to buy a company from a
• 52:12
  Speaker 5: old white Italian, there's a longer journey to walk to
• 52:17
  Speaker 5: you know, to get on the same page, to have
• 52:19
  Speaker 5: him become comfortable that he's going to you know, he's
• 52:22
  Speaker 5: going to sell his life's work to you. Right. Those
• 52:25
  Speaker 5: deals often happen when me and you find a good,
• 52:28
  Speaker 5: good rhythm of good alignment. We you know, we eat together,
• 52:31
  Speaker 5: we spend time together. I get you comfortable that I'm
• 52:33
  Speaker 5: the right person to continue the legacy you've created. You're
• 52:36
  Speaker 5: going to sell me your company you want, and I'm
• 52:38
  Speaker 5: going to treat your employees well, your customers well. It
• 52:41
  Speaker 5: just takes longer to you know, to get that cultural
• 52:45
  Speaker 5: alignment when you're me trying to do that across Euroupe
• 52:48
  Speaker 5: so that I notice and see that more. The other
• 52:53
  Speaker 5: big challenges is talent, like getting and keeping good, you know,
• 52:58
  Speaker 5: good good people because it's because of the economy, people
• 53:04
  Speaker 5: are just staying in jobs longer, and it's average people
• 53:09
  Speaker 5: that stay in jobs longer. Like the top people can
• 53:12
  Speaker 5: find an opportunity and move, so average people stay for longer,
• 53:16
  Speaker 5: and that, like that can be problematic. And now you're
• 53:19
  Speaker 5: trying to wrench our top performer out of another company,
• 53:22
  Speaker 5: and that company knows that that's their top performance, so
• 53:25
  Speaker 5: that person incredibly well compensated, they're incredibly well looked after.
• 53:29
  Speaker 5: So it makes it harder to get top performers. And
• 53:33
  Speaker 5: you know, average people just stay stay for longer.
• 53:36
  Speaker 6: So when you're actually looking for a company to acquire,
• 53:39
  Speaker 6: what are you looking for.
• 53:45
  Speaker 5: We're looking for things that are we kind of have
• 53:51
  Speaker 5: a playbook, right, so we're looking for things which are
• 53:54
  Speaker 5: serving serving the same types of customer that we already
• 53:59
  Speaker 5: have we're looking for things which are adjacent technology, so
• 54:03
  Speaker 5: we have, you know, our suite of enterprise resource planning applications.
• 54:07
  Speaker 5: We're looking for things that we can bolt on or
• 54:10
  Speaker 5: add to that, or we're looking for things in new geographies.
• 54:13
  Speaker 5: So we're not in Italy at the moment, So can
• 54:15
  Speaker 5: we find something that gives us a platform or a
• 54:18
  Speaker 5: first entrance into the Italian market. But it has to
• 54:21
  Speaker 5: be within that sphere of what we're you know, what
• 54:24
  Speaker 5: we're currently doing. We don't want to step too far
• 54:26
  Speaker 5: outside of this what we call our our aperture.
• 54:29
  Speaker 4: So in the world of technology, especially in a business
• 54:33
  Speaker 4: that you have with analytics and make it things more efficient.
• 54:37
  Speaker 4: Over the past two to three years, how has AI
• 54:39
  Speaker 4: affected adjusted to the game plan? What adaptations have you
• 54:43
  Speaker 4: had to make if any?
• 54:46
  Speaker 5: Well, the first it took us a while to figure
• 54:49
  Speaker 5: out that in considering AI, we had to divide our brain.
• 54:53
  Speaker 5: There's one brain looking at how AI will enable internal efficiencies,
• 54:59
  Speaker 5: how can we aim at at ourselves to make us
• 55:01
  Speaker 5: more effective, more efficient and as a consequence, more profitable.
• 55:05
  Speaker 5: Then there's how do we aim AI at our customers
• 55:08
  Speaker 5: to help them become And it's two very different thought processes,
• 55:12
  Speaker 5: So that took us a long time to kind of
• 55:15
  Speaker 5: figure out that dividing the thought process would be would
• 55:18
  Speaker 5: be helpful. Internally, we've done a lot of good things
• 55:21
  Speaker 5: that automate, you know, automate processes like customer support for example.
• 55:26
  Speaker 5: You know, we've been able to train AI to answer
• 55:29
  Speaker 5: most frequently asked questions and now we deflect a lot
• 55:32
  Speaker 5: of support inquiries that don't need a human being to
• 55:35
  Speaker 5: address that AI can take care of that. On the
• 55:37
  Speaker 5: customer side, it's a little bit more difficult because remember
• 55:40
  Speaker 5: we're acquiring businesses, so we have seventeen different product lines
• 55:45
  Speaker 5: with seventeen different data models. So in order to get
• 55:48
  Speaker 5: the best from AI, you need AI to you know,
• 55:51
  Speaker 5: you need to aim AI a consistent like data set
• 55:55
  Speaker 5: up where we have seventeen different and that's making it
• 55:57
  Speaker 5: a little bit a little bit harder to figure out
• 55:59
  Speaker 5: the AI the external AI strategy, but it's age. It
• 56:03
  Speaker 5: will be a huge advantage for us once we get
• 56:05
  Speaker 5: once we get our heads around it.
• 56:07
  Speaker 6: So you have teams in eleven different countries with the
• 56:09
  Speaker 6: companies that you.
• 56:10
  Speaker 5: Represent, no more, we have teams in about sixteen.
• 56:14
  Speaker 6: Sixteen, So how does that work as far as you
• 56:17
  Speaker 6: have a CEO for each one of those companies, you're
• 56:20
  Speaker 6: like the head of the operations. You check in with
• 56:23
  Speaker 6: them periodically. Do they speak different languages? How does this work?
• 56:27
  Speaker 4: Yeah?
• 56:28
  Speaker 5: Historically we had fifteen sixteen CEOs, But as I mentioned before,
• 56:34
  Speaker 5: we're unifying the company. So now we have we're structured
• 56:38
  Speaker 5: what we call functionally. So I'm the CEO. There's a
• 56:40
  Speaker 5: head of sales, and that head of sales is responsible
• 56:43
  Speaker 5: for all of the sales teams in all sixteen seventeen
• 56:47
  Speaker 5: different product lines. There's ahead of marketing, that head of
• 56:51
  Speaker 5: marketing responsible for all of the marketing across all of
• 56:53
  Speaker 5: the product lines. So we're moving from the structure that
• 56:57
  Speaker 5: you described where each product has its own functions to
• 57:01
  Speaker 5: a unified so.
• 57:03
  Speaker 6: You're ahead of all of it.
• 57:04
  Speaker 5: Yeah.
• 57:05
  Speaker 6: So all right, So how does that work? When speak
• 57:07
  Speaker 6: dealing with different languages, different cultures, different How are you
• 57:12
  Speaker 6: able to delegate authority effectively to sixteen different satellites.
• 57:19
  Speaker 5: I've been doing that since Primvara, Like when I was
• 57:23
  Speaker 5: you know, employees six at Primavera and we grew internationally.
• 57:26
  Speaker 5: I was hiring people in Japan, I was hiring people
• 57:30
  Speaker 5: in China and I was pretty young. So one of
• 57:33
  Speaker 5: the one of the advantages I gained is I was
• 57:35
  Speaker 5: able to spend I could stay in China for four weeks.
• 57:38
  Speaker 5: I didn't have kids, I wasn't married, so I would
• 57:40
  Speaker 5: stay there and I would become attuned to the culture
• 57:43
  Speaker 5: in ways that you know, people who didn't have the
• 57:46
  Speaker 5: opportunity weren't. I'm probably quite culturally sensitive because of that.
• 57:50
  Speaker 5: But I don't speak any other any other languages. So
• 57:53
  Speaker 5: my senior leadership team all speak very good English, and
• 57:56
  Speaker 5: then they have their second sometimes third languag which but
• 58:01
  Speaker 5: business is pretty international now, like it's not. You know,
• 58:04
  Speaker 5: it hasn't been a major issue issue for me.
• 58:08
  Speaker 6: And what countries do you do you have presence in
• 58:11
  Speaker 6: with these countries?
• 58:12
  Speaker 5: My biggest Germany, France, Spain, huge center in India, huge
• 58:19
  Speaker 5: center in Bulgaria, big center in Morocco, a little bit
• 58:24
  Speaker 5: here in the US. So where wherever youwhere?
• 58:28
  Speaker 4: In terms of impact, you said that, you know, when
• 58:31
  Speaker 4: you when you actually have a sale, people understand that, yes,
• 58:35
  Speaker 4: you've made money, and the automatic thing is like, oh,
• 58:37
  Speaker 4: this is how you have to give it back. And
• 58:39
  Speaker 4: I'm thinking community when you say that. But in terms
• 58:42
  Speaker 4: of the space the sector. Are you are you seeing people,
• 58:45
  Speaker 4: are you in coming into the space or are you
• 58:48
  Speaker 4: still the guide? And it's like when when are the
• 58:50
  Speaker 4: crowd's going to come? When are people going to take interest?
• 58:52
  Speaker 4: When they're gonna have an idea that this is the
• 58:54
  Speaker 4: opportune way to expand your career.
• 58:57
  Speaker 5: People of color coming into space? Oh yeah, yeah, I mean,
• 59:00
  Speaker 5: and there's a ton of great networks who are really
• 59:05
  Speaker 5: driving that agenda and a fantastic why you've got Black
• 59:09
  Speaker 5: Tech Awards, You've got byp in the UK. So they're
• 59:13
  Speaker 5: a handful of organizations who are really really driving that agenda.
• 59:17
  Speaker 5: And there's like I get hundreds of messages a week
• 59:19
  Speaker 5: from young black people trying to get into tech or
• 59:22
  Speaker 5: early in tech. We just had an event throughout my
• 59:26
  Speaker 5: foundation three hundred people, most of them in or around
• 59:32
  Speaker 5: tech enabled services. So yeah, it's brilliant to see the
• 59:37
  Speaker 5: energy from the black community coming into tech.
• 59:41
  Speaker 6: So what's your advice for companies that want to get
• 59:47
  Speaker 6: to a level where they could potentially be purchased by
• 59:50
  Speaker 6: somebody like you? Right? Like, what should a founder be
• 59:54
  Speaker 6: working on the early levels as far as implementing systems
• 59:57
  Speaker 6: because sometimes it's hard to kind of re reverse the
• 1:00:00
  Speaker 6: engineer after it's already three years down line you've made
• 1:00:03
  Speaker 6: systematic mistakes. That's kind of hard to what should they
• 1:00:05
  Speaker 6: be thinking about at day one with the plan in
• 1:00:08
  Speaker 6: five years, I'm going to be trying to sell my company.
• 1:00:12
  Speaker 5: Two things I learned which have really helped me so
• 1:00:16
  Speaker 5: one is team especially for founders, because one of the
• 1:00:20
  Speaker 5: most one of the most value crippling scenarios that I
• 1:00:26
  Speaker 5: see founders walk into time and time again is maintaining ownership,
• 1:00:32
  Speaker 5: not just equity ownership, but ownership of each function, everything
• 1:00:36
  Speaker 5: that needs to be done. It's their things, so they
• 1:00:39
  Speaker 5: keep a hold of it. They don't want other They
• 1:00:41
  Speaker 5: don't let others who have experienced expertise relationships in easily.
• 1:00:48
  Speaker 5: And by the time I show up, there's some parts
• 1:00:51
  Speaker 5: of the company that are performing well below the level
• 1:00:55
  Speaker 5: they should be, just because the founder hasn't got the
• 1:00:57
  Speaker 5: experience or the time to service those areas well. So
• 1:01:01
  Speaker 5: get people in who are brilliant on topics, narrow and deep. Right,
• 1:01:07
  Speaker 5: that's the first thing. The second thing I learned is
• 1:01:10
  Speaker 5: to start to manage your company in the way that
• 1:01:15
  Speaker 5: your your target acquirer might manage your company. So for
• 1:01:19
  Speaker 5: me in software, I look at something called the rule
• 1:01:23
  Speaker 5: of that's the percentage of profit the company makes plus
• 1:01:28
  Speaker 5: the rate at which it grows, and that's a starting
• 1:01:31
  Speaker 5: indicator for health of a software company. If a software
• 1:01:35
  Speaker 5: company grows at fifty percent and break even, that's okay.
• 1:01:38
  Speaker 5: That's a rule of fifty. If a software company grows
• 1:01:40
  Speaker 5: at fifty percent and makes ten percent margins, that's a
• 1:01:43
  Speaker 5: rule of sixty. That company is better than the one
• 1:01:45
  Speaker 5: that grows. It's a starting indicator. So that rules that
• 1:01:48
  Speaker 5: company is better than the other one. If it grows
• 1:01:51
  Speaker 5: at twenty five percent but makes a ten percent loss,
• 1:01:53
  Speaker 5: that's now a rule of fifteen company. Right, So think
• 1:01:56
  Speaker 5: about that rule of Then there's something like a CAC
• 1:01:59
  Speaker 5: customer position cost. That's where you take the total cost
• 1:02:04
  Speaker 5: sales cost, marketing cost, any cost you have to acquire
• 1:02:07
  Speaker 5: a customer, and you put it up against the amount
• 1:02:10
  Speaker 5: of sales that you made, and that gives you your
• 1:02:13
  Speaker 5: customer acquisition cost, and that cost should be as low
• 1:02:15
  Speaker 5: as possible. That says that the sales and marketing engine
• 1:02:18
  Speaker 5: is highly performant. So in our space, there will be
• 1:02:21
  Speaker 5: six or seven of those things that are long distance
• 1:02:26
  Speaker 5: indicators for the health of a company. And when I
• 1:02:29
  Speaker 5: sit with a founder or entrepreneur in an acquisition conversation
• 1:02:32
  Speaker 5: and they sit down and say, my CAC is one
• 1:02:35
  Speaker 5: yuro ten now it was one euro twenty five last year,
• 1:02:39
  Speaker 5: and I think I can get it to ninety nine.
• 1:02:41
  Speaker 5: I almost stopped thinking about whether that number is good
• 1:02:44
  Speaker 5: or bad. I just now know that this company sells
• 1:02:48
  Speaker 5: a marketing engine is running a way that is highly
• 1:02:51
  Speaker 5: considerate of optimizing the CAC. That's a brilliant thing, right.
• 1:02:54
  Speaker 5: That means that the company thinks about it, they calculate it,
• 1:02:57
  Speaker 5: they know it, they know what they spend on. That's
• 1:03:00
  Speaker 5: a very comforting thing. So when when I've been building companies,
• 1:03:05
  Speaker 5: I start to understand what the ultimate acquire is going
• 1:03:08
  Speaker 5: to be interested in and start to manage my company,
• 1:03:12
  Speaker 5: you know, using terms, languages and KPIs that ultimately they're
• 1:03:15
  Speaker 5: going to measure me on.
• 1:03:16
  Speaker 6: So you start with to end.
• 1:03:18
  Speaker 4: I literally was good, that was gonna be my next
• 1:03:20
  Speaker 4: question when So that's how they prepare for it. But
• 1:03:22
  Speaker 4: that literally sounds like what you're doing when you're looking
• 1:03:25
  Speaker 4: to acquire. I'm looking at every one of these metrics.
• 1:03:28
  Speaker 5: I look at what I acquire in that way, and
• 1:03:30
  Speaker 5: I run my company because I know I know what
• 1:03:34
  Speaker 5: questions people are going to ask me when I'm selling.
• 1:03:36
  Speaker 5: I know what things they're going to look at. Yeah,
• 1:03:38
  Speaker 5: but the thing not to mistake that for is to
• 1:03:41
  Speaker 5: run your company to be bought. You mustn't do that either,
• 1:03:45
  Speaker 5: because you know you can have you can have a
• 1:03:48
  Speaker 5: relationship with American Express. You can think this is the
• 1:03:50
  Speaker 5: most natural bio on earth, This is a no brainer
• 1:03:52
  Speaker 5: of a deal, and then the thing can go the
• 1:03:54
  Speaker 5: way like it was going with me. So you can't
• 1:03:56
  Speaker 5: run the company to be sold, but you should run it,
• 1:04:01
  Speaker 5: you know, using the metrics, the language, the standards of
• 1:04:04
  Speaker 5: excellence that potential potential acquirers are going to be going
• 1:04:08
  Speaker 5: to be interested in.
• 1:04:09
  Speaker 6: So all right, So using that that framework, and your
• 1:04:13
  Speaker 6: plan is to so this company at four billion dollars, right,
• 1:04:16
  Speaker 6: you want to sell that four billion is over?
• 1:04:20
  Speaker 5: Yeah, Well we have to define over because it could
• 1:04:22
  Speaker 5: be brought by a new investor who has a plan
• 1:04:25
  Speaker 5: to get it to eight billion valuations. It could be
• 1:04:27
  Speaker 5: brought by the oracle.
• 1:04:28
  Speaker 6: The exit is four billion.
• 1:04:30
  Speaker 5: The exit is four billion? Correct?
• 1:04:31
  Speaker 6: What are you doing? So what are you doing to
• 1:04:34
  Speaker 6: prepare for that four billion dollar exit.
• 1:04:39
  Speaker 5: Lot. Look where I think we bought the first nine
• 1:04:45
  Speaker 5: companies in twelve years. We bought the next nine companies
• 1:04:48
  Speaker 5: in just over two years. I think in the next
• 1:04:52
  Speaker 5: two years will probably buy another fifteen.
• 1:04:54
  Speaker 6: But even like structurally, right, like when you have made
• 1:04:56
  Speaker 6: the analogy of like if you're looking to like do
• 1:05:00
  Speaker 6: but you know that somebody is going to buy is
• 1:05:03
  Speaker 6: going to do, right, So are there systems in place
• 1:05:06
  Speaker 6: that you're purposely putting in place because you know that
• 1:05:10
  Speaker 6: this is going to be appealing when we get to
• 1:05:12
  Speaker 6: this point.
• 1:05:12
  Speaker 5: Okay, yeah, yeah, definitely. So to two examples. One is
• 1:05:20
  Speaker 5: I mentioned before that we have kind of seventeen companies
• 1:05:23
  Speaker 5: with seventeen different products and seventeen different data sets. We've
• 1:05:26
  Speaker 5: got a big tech platform investment that we're making to
• 1:05:29
  Speaker 5: multimillion euro every year investment to put a harmonized platform
• 1:05:35
  Speaker 5: across or fourteen. The quickest way to describe the reason
• 1:05:40
  Speaker 5: to do that is so when I want to acquire
• 1:05:42
  Speaker 5: things that I can sell to all seventeen customers, right,
• 1:05:48
  Speaker 5: and what I don't want to have to do is
• 1:05:49
  Speaker 5: acquire something and go and walk the streets in all
• 1:05:52
  Speaker 5: seventeen countries to sell it. Can I buy something integrated
• 1:05:56
  Speaker 5: to this tech platform that all seventeen products are are
• 1:06:00
  Speaker 5: part of, and suddenly, you know, the day after the acquisition,
• 1:06:04
  Speaker 5: all of the customers of all seventeen products have access
• 1:06:06
  Speaker 5: to a new product that they might pay me for,
• 1:06:09
  Speaker 5: that they will pay me for. That's something we can't
• 1:06:11
  Speaker 5: do today because everything is siloed. So that's one example.
• 1:06:15
  Speaker 5: Another example is improving the profitability of the company by
• 1:06:19
  Speaker 5: by unifying it. Simple example that is, I have seventeen
• 1:06:24
  Speaker 5: relationships with laptop providers. Each company negotiates its IT procurement itself.
• 1:06:31
  Speaker 5: If I go to Dell and say I buy one
• 1:06:34
  Speaker 5: thousand laptops a year for new starters, I'll get a
• 1:06:36
  Speaker 5: better price than this company who's buying fifty, this company
• 1:06:39
  Speaker 5: who's buying twenty five. So the company can use its
• 1:06:42
  Speaker 5: scale to improve its purchasing power and buy things for less,
• 1:06:46
  Speaker 5: and as a consequence, the profitability the company improved.
• 1:06:49
  Speaker 4: But it sounds like a semiconductor where it's like I
• 1:06:51
  Speaker 4: create the chip, all these companies will need it. I
• 1:06:53
  Speaker 4: can sell it to each one of the game. Right,
• 1:06:55
  Speaker 4: So when you get to this point, like the exits
• 1:06:59
  Speaker 4: four billion in does the equity structure change for you
• 1:07:02
  Speaker 4: every time you do the deal or is it is
• 1:07:04
  Speaker 4: it strictly the same, like I'm going to keep this
• 1:07:06
  Speaker 4: amount of equity no matter what the exit is in
• 1:07:09
  Speaker 4: what sense? So let's say you there was a seven
• 1:07:13
  Speaker 4: percent equity state in the Unbroiller company. If it gets reinvested,
• 1:07:17
  Speaker 4: if the company gets sold at the eight billion dollar valuation,
• 1:07:20
  Speaker 4: do you restructure that or does it stay at the
• 1:07:23
  Speaker 4: How does that work?
• 1:07:24
  Speaker 5: Normal? Normally as the company scales, the percentage goes down,
• 1:07:28
  Speaker 5: like that's that's an unfortunate it's an unfortunate market trend
• 1:07:32
  Speaker 5: that haven't been able to change to change yet. Normally,
• 1:07:36
  Speaker 5: what happens is, you know, if you are what we
• 1:07:39
  Speaker 5: call go forward management, the new investor wants to see
• 1:07:43
  Speaker 5: you leave as much money in the company as possible.
• 1:07:45
  Speaker 5: So if you're seven percent is worth one hundred million,
• 1:07:48
  Speaker 5: they don't want you to take one hundred million off
• 1:07:50
  Speaker 5: the table and then give you another seven percent because
• 1:07:53
  Speaker 5: if you're if you're telling them that this can go
• 1:07:55
  Speaker 5: from one billion to four billion, they kind of saying, well,
• 1:07:58
  Speaker 5: why wouldn't you why why would you want to take
• 1:07:59
  Speaker 5: a any of your money out now? So I'd like
• 1:08:02
  Speaker 5: to see you leave a lot of money in. What
• 1:08:04
  Speaker 5: I've done is I always leave my money in, and
• 1:08:07
  Speaker 5: I always tried to put more money in and use
• 1:08:10
  Speaker 5: that as a way to negotiate up what might be
• 1:08:12
  Speaker 5: the seven percent you're going to give me. I say, well, look,
• 1:08:15
  Speaker 5: I'm leaving everything in. I'm putting even more money in.
• 1:08:17
  Speaker 5: Now I'm super invested. This is why you should incentivize
• 1:08:21
  Speaker 5: me even further because of how invested I am in this.
• 1:08:25
  Speaker 6: So what do you think makes an effect of CEO
• 1:08:28
  Speaker 6: in today's landscape?
• 1:08:32
  Speaker 5: Well, the thing I've found, The thing I've found hardest
• 1:08:39
  Speaker 5: and most impactful or most accelerating when I do it well,
• 1:08:45
  Speaker 5: which I don't do as often as I should, is
• 1:08:49
  Speaker 5: communication is communication, and especially in our context, as you
• 1:08:55
  Speaker 5: described right, there's languages, there's cultures, there's time zones. I
• 1:09:00
  Speaker 5: was working for this one hundred person German company and
• 1:09:04
  Speaker 5: I'm now part of a three thousand person multinational company.
• 1:09:08
  Speaker 5: Like I never traveled out of my office before, I
• 1:09:11
  Speaker 5: never spoke to anybody who who wasn't German before, but
• 1:09:13
  Speaker 5: suddenly now I'm in this. So being able to communicate effectively,
• 1:09:20
  Speaker 5: motivate effectively, correct effectively thousands of people across multiple countries,
• 1:09:29
  Speaker 5: multiple cultures, multiple experience frames. Is the number one accelerant
• 1:09:37
  Speaker 5: to performance in that company?
• 1:09:40
  Speaker 4: Is that the most unique trade that has led to
• 1:09:42
  Speaker 4: success for you?
• 1:09:43
  Speaker 5: Right?
• 1:09:43
  Speaker 4: Because when you're talking about you have to show somebody
• 1:09:46
  Speaker 4: who's selling the company that you're the best person. So
• 1:09:49
  Speaker 4: there's something unique about what you're doing. Is it the
• 1:09:52
  Speaker 4: communication or is there something that a gift that you
• 1:09:55
  Speaker 4: have just been given with that is like, I'm that
• 1:09:58
  Speaker 4: guy to do this.
• 1:10:00
  Speaker 5: I would There's two things I don't say. There's two
• 1:10:05
  Speaker 5: things I don't know that I'm brilliant at anything. I
• 1:10:09
  Speaker 5: am extremely resilient, like life has made me, you know,
• 1:10:13
  Speaker 5: very very resilient. So I'm against my peers and other
• 1:10:17
  Speaker 5: people I see, I'm more able to wake up tomorrow
• 1:10:20
  Speaker 5: after a terrible today and get right back at it
• 1:10:23
  Speaker 5: like quicker than most you know, most other people. And
• 1:10:26
  Speaker 5: I think that's how the positive drag on the company. Too.
• 1:10:29
  Speaker 5: Bad things happen in business, Bad things happen in the company.
• 1:10:31
  Speaker 5: So when my team or my organization know that today
• 1:10:35
  Speaker 5: was bad and they see me bounce back tomorrow and say, Okay,
• 1:10:38
  Speaker 5: you know it's gonna be fine, let's go again. I
• 1:10:40
  Speaker 5: think I've been able to get us out of the
• 1:10:43
  Speaker 5: down moments pretty quickly, So I think that's one thing.
• 1:10:46
  Speaker 5: And the other thing I tried very hard to do
• 1:10:50
  Speaker 5: is translate the aspiration of the company into something that's
• 1:10:54
  Speaker 5: meaningful for employees, right because I just don't fundamentally believe
• 1:10:58
  Speaker 5: that employees come to work for the company that unless maybe, well,
• 1:11:05
  Speaker 5: people like Google and Facebook a few years ago, that
• 1:11:07
  Speaker 5: was the tone that people are so proud that they
• 1:11:09
  Speaker 5: worked for Google and Facebook. That's not really the case
• 1:11:13
  Speaker 5: at Fotira, like me explaining to three thousand people come
• 1:11:17
  Speaker 5: to work because we're trying to be a four billion
• 1:11:19
  Speaker 5: euro company, and nobody leaves their kids in the morning
• 1:11:23
  Speaker 5: to come to do that, especially when they don't have
• 1:11:26
  Speaker 5: you know, they don't have to gain what I have
• 1:11:28
  Speaker 5: to gain. So what I've tried hard to do is
• 1:11:32
  Speaker 5: is figure out how to talk about the fact we
• 1:11:34
  Speaker 5: do need to become a four billion euro company in
• 1:11:36
  Speaker 5: a way that you will care about and will make
• 1:11:39
  Speaker 5: you motivated and excited to come to work. And I
• 1:11:42
  Speaker 5: spend a lot of time on adjusting the message or
• 1:11:46
  Speaker 5: adjusting what I'm going to say or write or present
• 1:11:50
  Speaker 5: so that it lands on employees like that.
• 1:11:52
  Speaker 6: So how do you look at other asset classes, whether
• 1:11:55
  Speaker 6: it's for business or your own personal investment like real
• 1:11:58
  Speaker 6: estate or stocks or so, like, you know, do you
• 1:12:02
  Speaker 6: indulge in that or what's your thoughts on those other
• 1:12:05
  Speaker 6: asset classes? I?
• 1:12:07
  Speaker 5: Uh so, personally, I only invest in things I know
• 1:12:11
  Speaker 5: and understand. I always say that, right, So I know tech,
• 1:12:15
  Speaker 5: so most of my investments in tech. I know property,
• 1:12:18
  Speaker 5: most of my investments in property. And then there's like
• 1:12:20
  Speaker 5: a small handful of things I did because I was curious.
• 1:12:23
  Speaker 5: So I liked the person. I'm invested in a Champagne
• 1:12:26
  Speaker 5: brand because I'm just you know, that would be cool.
• 1:12:29
  Speaker 5: There's a small handful of those things. But tech and
• 1:12:33
  Speaker 5: and property. I didn't do the crypto thing at all.
• 1:12:36
  Speaker 5: I still don't really a crypto.
• 1:12:40
  Speaker 6: So property like talk about that.
• 1:12:42
  Speaker 5: What's your.
• 1:12:44
  Speaker 6: Philosophy on how you buying houses or commercial real estate?
• 1:12:48
  Speaker 5: Like? What's your So what I did for a long
• 1:12:51
  Speaker 5: time was just as we were getting cash, my wife
• 1:12:56
  Speaker 5: and I were getting cash, we owned every house we
• 1:12:59
  Speaker 5: lived in. We've continued to own every house we ever
• 1:13:01
  Speaker 5: lived into. That was one way, and then as we
• 1:13:03
  Speaker 5: saw deals opportunistically, we bought places and we rent them
• 1:13:07
  Speaker 5: and we rent them out, and we were quite liquid buyers,
• 1:13:11
  Speaker 5: so we were able to get good, you know, good
• 1:13:13
  Speaker 5: good deals because we would close quickly. So that is
• 1:13:16
  Speaker 5: one strategy. Now, you know, one of my well my
• 1:13:19
  Speaker 5: two best friends are developers, so they're always out finding
• 1:13:24
  Speaker 5: properties to buy and adding a lot of value through
• 1:13:27
  Speaker 5: doing development. So I'm cash investor along a passive cash
• 1:13:31
  Speaker 5: investor alongside them, like they really know what they're doing.
• 1:13:34
  Speaker 5: So I'm just a cash investor. There does your wife
• 1:13:37
  Speaker 5: working inside of the business. She works in the foundation.
• 1:13:39
  Speaker 5: So we've set up a foundation, which is that's the
• 1:13:42
  Speaker 5: vehicle through which we do our community work, you know,
• 1:13:45
  Speaker 5: back in the community. So she runs, she runs that.
• 1:13:49
  Speaker 4: What I'm thinking is like everybody talks about generational wealth
• 1:13:52
  Speaker 4: and you know, having a family as part of that, right,
• 1:13:55
  Speaker 4: creating sustainability. But when you talk about financial freedom, I
• 1:13:59
  Speaker 4: wonder for you, is it a number or is it
• 1:14:01
  Speaker 4: a mindset? More so, at this level.
• 1:14:07
  Speaker 5: It's not a number, because how do I explain this?
• 1:14:17
  Speaker 5: My life, My life now is well beyond the wildest
• 1:14:23
  Speaker 5: of my wildest dream growing up. So to sit here
• 1:14:26
  Speaker 5: and say, you know, the number at which life would
• 1:14:29
  Speaker 5: be good would be It's like ridiculous, such a ridiculous
• 1:14:32
  Speaker 5: thing for someone like me to say, coming from where
• 1:14:35
  Speaker 5: I come from. I'm I'm still competing with myself and
• 1:14:41
  Speaker 5: the prize in the in the sport. I mean, is
• 1:14:43
  Speaker 5: it happens to be money, like it happens to be
• 1:14:44
  Speaker 5: exits which attract money. So I'm still trying to see
• 1:14:50
  Speaker 5: can I do a thought? But can I build a
• 1:14:52
  Speaker 5: company to four? But like that would be pretty cool
• 1:14:55
  Speaker 5: to do that, and with that comes money. When I
• 1:14:58
  Speaker 5: think about my life after working, I just think about time,
• 1:15:01
  Speaker 5: like just having just the thing I don't have at
• 1:15:05
  Speaker 5: the moment. I have any time at the moment, So
• 1:15:07
  Speaker 5: I don't look forward to money or luxury. I just
• 1:15:09
  Speaker 5: look forward to waking up in the morning and thinking
• 1:15:12
  Speaker 5: I'm well my dogs for two hours instead of one
• 1:15:15
  Speaker 5: like that. That's that is the thing I'm ultimately trying
• 1:15:18
  Speaker 5: to attain, just getting back total time and freedom. I
• 1:15:22
  Speaker 5: think that's what wealth is. Time and choice. That to
• 1:15:25
  Speaker 5: me is what wealth really is.
• 1:15:27
  Speaker 6: So before we leave, you talk about your foundation, like
• 1:15:30
  Speaker 6: what is what are you guys doing, What does that
• 1:15:33
  Speaker 6: consist of, and what's the division for that.
• 1:15:34
  Speaker 5: The foundation is called Falls Having Group. So yeah, so
• 1:15:39
  Speaker 5: our foundation is is the Falls Family Group. And what
• 1:15:44
  Speaker 5: my wife and I realized is as our life was changing,
• 1:15:46
  Speaker 5: we had this incredible network that we built up or
• 1:15:50
  Speaker 5: you know, that I built up as my career was developing,
• 1:15:54
  Speaker 5: and we're just scratching our head saying, how do we
• 1:15:56
  Speaker 5: put this network to good use? And we try to
• 1:15:59
  Speaker 5: cup different ways at the beginning that didn't quite work,
• 1:16:02
  Speaker 5: weren't scalable, weren't received in the way that we intended.
• 1:16:05
  Speaker 5: But now the foundation is about you know, connections, it's
• 1:16:10
  Speaker 5: about community, it's about capital. So it's about using the
• 1:16:14
  Speaker 5: network to connect young aspiring entrepreneurs or young professionals to
• 1:16:19
  Speaker 5: people who can help them on their entrepreneur or business journey,
• 1:16:23
  Speaker 5: professional journey. It's about capital. So we've got a lot
• 1:16:27
  Speaker 5: of friends who are investors, private equity friends, venture capital friends.
• 1:16:31
  Speaker 5: So we're dragging them back to say there are good
• 1:16:33
  Speaker 5: businesses in the community, there are good businesses, good entrepreneurs.
• 1:16:36
  Speaker 5: We know invest and will invest alongside you because you know,
• 1:16:39
  Speaker 5: we get incredibly underinvested as a people, So we're doing that.
• 1:16:44
  Speaker 5: And then there are a couple of charities which are
• 1:16:47
  Speaker 5: very close to us personally. One is Power the Fight,
• 1:16:50
  Speaker 5: which is an anti knife crime charity, and the other
• 1:16:52
  Speaker 5: words the Africa Caribbean Leukemia Trust. Very you know, we're
• 1:16:56
  Speaker 5: very attached to those personally because we're aways getting into
• 1:17:01
  Speaker 5: philanthropy conversation. So we said, instead of doing twenty things
• 1:17:04
  Speaker 5: for twenty different charities, everything we do is for these
• 1:17:07
  Speaker 5: two and that's what we use the foundation for the community,
• 1:17:10
  Speaker 5: the connections and capital.
• 1:17:13
  Speaker 6: Well, it's been a pleasure, my brother. Anything else that
• 1:17:16
  Speaker 6: you want to discuss before we let you go.
• 1:17:19
  Speaker 5: So as a friend of mine who started a Champagne
• 1:17:22
  Speaker 5: brand with originates in Africa, it's finished in the UK,
• 1:17:27
  Speaker 5: but the spirit of it is he opened up that
• 1:17:30
  Speaker 5: brand to me to invest in, like it was already
• 1:17:33
  Speaker 5: he'd already raised money, he already had product, he was
• 1:17:35
  Speaker 5: already going to market. And I said to well, you know,
• 1:17:38
  Speaker 5: I wouldn't mind being part of this. He was like,
• 1:17:41
  Speaker 5: if you want to be part of it, I'll make
• 1:17:43
  Speaker 5: way for you to be part of it. And I
• 1:17:44
  Speaker 5: think it's just a good story of sometimes we don't
• 1:17:48
  Speaker 5: see enough among us, just just making way for us
• 1:17:51
  Speaker 5: both to do something together. Like he didn't he didn't
• 1:17:54
  Speaker 5: need me. He's very well known in the culture. He's
• 1:17:56
  Speaker 5: got a lot of connectivity. He had this business going,
• 1:17:59
  Speaker 5: but when I said I wanted to be part of it,
• 1:18:00
  Speaker 5: it was like very very accommodating. And now it's doing
• 1:18:04
  Speaker 5: he's doing really, really well. But just that that openness
• 1:18:09
  Speaker 5: to say, yeah, let's make room, let's let's make there
• 1:18:11
  Speaker 5: be a seat at the table so you can be
• 1:18:13
  Speaker 5: you can be part of it. I guess we just
• 1:18:15
  Speaker 5: did it. It's called it's called seven Severn.
• 1:18:20
  Speaker 4: That's what we'll be sipping on.
• 1:18:22
  Speaker 5: Did you have it?
• 1:18:23
  Speaker 6: Mogul's edition. Appreciate your time. Thank you coming to America.
• 1:18:28
  Speaker 6: I know you've got a feel of the things I
• 1:18:29
  Speaker 6: should be doing while your state side. So next time
• 1:18:31
  Speaker 6: we're in London, we gotta connect.
• 1:18:34
  Speaker 5: Absolutely, we shall have them coming.
• 1:18:35
  Speaker 6: We'll be coming. Uh So we'll.
• 1:18:39
  Speaker 4: Have dinner, We'll have Severn on the table, and we'll
• 1:18:42
  Speaker 4: just make the table a little bigger.
• 1:18:43
  Speaker 5: There you go. That's it.
• 1:18:44
  Speaker 6: That's the movie. Sure well, I appreciate it. Keep up
• 1:18:48
  Speaker 6: the great work, and let's stay in touch. When you
• 1:18:50
  Speaker 6: hit that four billion mark, let's do a follow up. Absolutely,
• 1:18:52
  Speaker 6: Thank you guys, Thank you guys. Rocking See you next week.
• 1:18:57
  Speaker 1: An illegal alien from Guatemala charged with raping a child
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