Sean (1:36)

Yeah, he learned it from Mark Zuckerberg.

Darren (1:38)

Exactly. A couple of these guys that can swear the same thing always.

Sean (1:42)

Well, your mental capacity, a lot of these billionaires are aware of it and they don't want to make decisions all day.

Darren (1:46)

It's also a simpler life.

Sean (1:48)

Yeah, very simple. Well, talk to me about your show, man. Going public. Very unique show. Did you get inspired from Shark Tank?

Darren (1:53)

You know, my partner Todd Goldberg pitched me on this idea years ago in 2017 and he said, darren, we should create a show like Shark Tank meets Apprentice where the viewers can invest in featured companies while they watch. And that's when we founded the company. It's now obviously 2025. It's been eight years of building the infrastructure for this Thing. And we just released season three of Going Public on X on May 6th, or in the middle of the season. There's four produced episodes. And the show is really a profile of the founders under pressure. We take the featured founders, of which there's three companies in the season, out of their element, out of their comfort zone to show, you know, the viewers who these people are made of. And then at the end of the season, on Friday, June 13, the investments for the three featured companies actually open. And at that moment, viewers globally can click to invest and buy shares in any of the featured companies while they watch.

Sean (2:46)

Wow, that is so cool.

Darren (2:47)

Thanks, man.

Sean (2:48)

Yeah, what a. What an idea. And it's interactive, which I like.

Darren (2:51)

Yeah, I think that's the future of media is passive viewing is over. And interestingly, and we talk about this anecdote in our investor pitches when we're raising capital. One of the most successful television franchises ever is American Idol. And when they pioneered text to vote in the early 2000s, that was like a revolution in entertainment. The idea that the audience could actually do something other than just passively watch and consume content, that they could participate and have a vote that maybe had a small impact in the outcome of that show, that was a game changer. So whereas American Idol pioneered text to vote, we're bringing click to invest to market, where now you, the viewer, can own a small piece of a startup that could be the next Uber, the next Facebook, OpenAI, et cetera.

Sean (3:43)

Nice text about. Yeah. So they were the first to kind of pivot into that model.

Darren (3:46)

That's correct.

Sean (3:47)

Wow. And now it's invest.

Darren (3:49)

That's right. I mean, I think, you know, the everyday American doesn't just desire this opportunity. They demand access.

Sean (3:56)

Right.

Darren (3:57)

You can invest in meme coins without asking permission. You should be able to buy shares of startups that you know and love or products that you use in your everyday life just as easily. And so this show is a way for us to really ramp up the entertainment value and bring the stories of incredible founders to life through a series that's highly produced, has authentic challenges where the viewers can see the founders for who they really are and not just the founder when they're in their zone, pitching, selling, doing podcast interviews. We really want to show the founder kind of emperor has no clothes moment. Who are these people under pressure?

Sean (4:33)

Authenticity is important these days.

Darren (4:34)

Absolutely. Like, one of the challenges we did was actually in Vegas at Adrenaline Mountain, we took Ninja the Fortnite gamer, and his co founder, Joel. Joel Winand is the CEO of Nutcase It's a cashew milk company. They're one of the companies in season three, took them to a gun range. And the challenge was in business you have short term, midterm, long term goals. So the analogy was, here's your short term, midterm, long term goals, weapons and guns. And that's entertaining, that's mainstream. It's more interesting than people watching Joelle and Ninja in a conference room talking about their business. Right. Not to say they don't do that because they obviously do. They're running a company. But this is a show, it has to be entertaining first and foremost.

Sean (5:13)

Absolutely. I love that now because when I used to watch Shark Tank, I was always like, would I invest in that company? Everyone probably thinks that when they're watching it.

Darren (5:20)

Absolutely.

Sean (5:21)

Now you have the opportunity to actually do that. It's cool.

Darren (5:24)

You know, investing has been like this mysterious thing for everyday Americans for a long time. Not just mysterious. The average American has been excluded from the opportunity to invest. You previously had to be an accredited investor. You had to have a million dollars of net worth or annual income of 200, $300,000 for two years in order to be eligible to invest in a startup. And then not only did you have to have that net worth or income, you had to be able to stroke a check for 100,000, a quarter million, a million dollars, maybe even more. The average American obviously can't do that, but it doesn't mean they wouldn't invest $100 into an exciting company if they had the opportunity to. And so what makes this possible are new capital raising tools, regulation, crowdfunding or reg CF. It's been in effect since 2016, part of the 2012 Jobs act, where small companies in the US private company startups can raise up to $5 million from anyone over the age of 18 globally. And it's now legal for those companies to market their investments, which of course our show going public is a form of massive mainstream marketing. But it also allows the companies in the show, like Nutcase, to raise capital from thousands of hundred dollar investors versus one or two half million dollar investors. So it really levels the playing field.

Sean (6:42)

Yeah. Now one thing you did exceptional was getting views because there's thousands of shows. I'm sure people have attempted something like this, but you've 600 million views now.

Darren (6:50)

60 million views or 60 million, which we're, we're very, we're, we're blown away, honestly. So we signed a distribution deal with X. X has a new division called X Originals. And this is original content Being licensed by X Interactive, Investing shows like Going Public, Khloe Kardashian's new video podcast called Chloe in Wonderland. Anthony Pompliano has a daily finance show, shows like the Off Season, produced by Alexis Ohanian. It's a reality sports show. And so they're licensing shows like Netflix would license a show. And they're pushing our content out to tens of millions of people in the business and finance community. And we're very fortunate, very blessed to have gotten a nice introduction, a warm introduction to Linda Yaccarina, who's the CEO of X last year. And the timing was perfect because when we met Linda, who was hired by Musk to run the business, she's been the CEO of X for two years. We didn't just have a pitch, Sean. We had two seasons of this show already produced and under our belt.

Sean (7:55)

Wow.

Darren (7:55)

Season one, we put out in 2021 on entrepreneur.com, season two on marketwatch.com last year in 2024. So we had the proof and we had the traction and the high quality production and the execution of two shows. So when we brought this concept to Linda, it was not a concept. It was, this is the next season. This is season three of Going Public. Linda. It's going to be one of the biggest things in the future of entertainment. You should want this show. And I'm a huge user of the X platform. I love the platform. I'm on it every day. It's the most real time platform in the world. And she said yes in two minutes.

Sean (8:33)

Wow.

Darren (8:33)

I think we're maybe the 16th show that the X Originals division within X is licensed. And within three weeks, they've driven 60 million views across just three episodes. That's crazy. It's insane.

Sean (8:47)

That's actually insane.

Darren (8:48)

It's mind blowing.

Sean (8:49)

Like, shows are not getting those numbers.

Darren (8:51)

No. I mean, look, Jim Cramer's mad money on a good day On CNBC gets 130,000 views.

Sean (8:59)

That's it.

Darren (9:00)

No. And here's the reality. Like, first of all, people aren't watching CNBC anymore, okay? People that are watching that show are in their 60s, maybe their 70s. One day we'll be 60 and 72. But I, God forbid I'm watching CNBC because this is a dying channel, it's a dying network. And truthfully, those shows are boring. Nobody wants to see Jim Cramer in the studio pitching stocks when he's not even good at it. It's just not interesting anymore. So the future is on platforms like x that have 600 million monthly active users and the future is interactive and the future is equal access to exciting investment opportunities. Not just for the rich and the wealthy and the connected, but for everyday Americans. For small investors that might see a startup in the show and say that's a cool company, I'd put a hundred dollars and bet on Joel. I'd bet on Ninja. And that doesn't take a massive amount of analysis to pull the trigger on $100. So you multiply that.

Sean (10:00)

The tri light from therasage is no joke. Medical grade red and near infrared light with three frequencies per light. Deep healing, real results and totally portable. It's legit photo biomodulation tech in a flexible on body panel. This is the tri lite from therasage and it's next level red light therapy. It's got 118 high powered polychromatic lights, each delivering three healing frequencies, red and near infrared from 580 to 980 nanometers. It's sleek, portable and honestly, I don't go anywhere without it.

Darren (10:29)

By tens of thousands, maybe hundreds of thousands of investors, we think this could be the next big thing.

Sean (10:35)

Has anyone raised millions from the show?

Darren (10:37)

Yeah, the companies in season one and season two have raised $15 million.

Sean (10:42)

Wow.

Darren (10:42)

Between them. So that was again 2021 and last year 2024. There were seven companies between those seasons. They raised about 7 million from everyday Americans, which are retail investors. Another 7 million from strategic institutional investors.

Sean (10:56)

Holy crap.

Darren (10:57)

Now, the way that this show works is the first four episodes are an education about the founders, the businesses. You join our network, going public.com and you sign up to get early access to the investments, but you can't invest. You actually have to wait until the finale and that's on Friday, June 13th. So we've really, you know, kind of come into our own here and we've iterated on our own concept. In the first few seasons, the viewers could invest right away that without really knowing what's happening, what the show is, how it works, who the companies are. Now we're making them wait until the finale. You've watched the episodes, you've subscribed, you've joined the community, you've learned about the businesses, you've had an opportunity to review their financials. Because these companies can't just raise $5 million from anyone. They have to go through a regulated capital raising process where the companies provide reviewed or audited financials. At the end of the season, the deals open up. And so it's an event. And the deals may only be open for a day. Nutcase is only raising, you know, a million dollars. 1.2 million that could be gone in two hours. At least that's the goal.

Sean (12:06)

Right?

Darren (12:06)

The goal is to be able to help these companies almost have like an IPO as a private company where the capital comes in all at once. And there's in incredible demand because that demand has been building and gathering for the weeks leading up to the finale.

Sean (12:23)

Yeah, I love it. I saw you had Baron Davis involved too. I'm a big NBA fan.

Darren (12:27)

Baron's the man. We were really lucky to have Baron be our host for season two of going public. Two time NBA all star, prolific startup investor. And I often say, like, Baron was kind of the OG sports investor. Like before Baron Davis. You didn't see NBA NFL athletes investing in dozens of startups. That was Baron Davis paving the trail for others to follow him. And now you've got NBA guys that have their own venture funds. Kevin Garnett, there's so many examples. Baron was really an OG and we wanted somebody mainstream. We wanted a sports star. We wanted somebody actually that had the investing experience themselves, that could speak to the companies and could interact with the series in a way where they had a perspective, they had a point of view. Because he'd invested in a lot of companies himself and so he was phenomenal. We didn't bring him back for season three. Season three actually doesn't have a host per se, but we had a great time filming with Baron.

Sean (13:27)

I love it. I wonder if he picked up on that from living in San Fran 100%.

Darren (13:31)

Not only living there, but he also is like a networker, a hustler. He was learning from people asking questions about how does this work? What's an spv? Tell me about management fees and carry. You know what, what kind of deal should I look for? How do I evaluate startups? He absorbed it like a sponge. He's a very successful investor.

Sean (13:49)

Great at networking, man. I went to his event, All Star Weekend. He has an event every year for All Star Weekend and just met some great people there. Shout out to Baron Davis.

Darren (13:56)

Shout out to Baron. He's a badass. Baron, we love you.

Sean (13:58)

You've been following the playoffs, the NBA playoffs this year.

Darren (14:00)

I'm not really the basketball guy. I haven't been following it too closely. I am a Dodgers guy. I'm a baseball guy.

Sean (14:07)

You had a good year last year, right?

Darren (14:08)

That's. Yeah. And now we're going to kick ass and take names and Ohtani's off to the races.

Sean (14:12)

I love what he did with the.

Darren (14:13)

Taxes he's, he's, he's awesome.

Sean (14:16)

That was the biggest brain move I've seen any athlete pull off.

Darren (14:18)

Ohtani's a beast, and I have yet to see him play this season at Dodger Stadium, but I can't wait. I mean, he's just like a perfect athlete.

Sean (14:27)

I love it. So season three is all done filming with.

Darren (14:29)

It's all done filming except for the finale, which will be live streamed on X. And the goal is to get hundreds of thousands of concurrent viewers on that live stream where you can now interact with the cast, you can interact with Joel or Ninja, ask them questions. So it's produced, but it's not produced in advance. It's live and it will be promoted on the X platform by the X Originals account and at live account, which has 9 or 10 million followers. So we're very excited for that.

Sean (14:59)

That's cool, man.

Darren (14:59)

So that's right around the corner.

Sean (15:00)

I'm sure you're getting pitched hundreds of companies. What is your eye on these days? What's catching your attention mentioned?

Darren (15:05)

You know, I, I think we're looking at companies that we previously didn't look at. So like in season three, we have a consumer product company, which is not case. We have a real estate management company, Omnico Golf, and we have Employer.com, which is Jesse Tinsley's company. He, by the way, Jesse made a bid to buy TikTok.

Sean (15:25)

Oh, wow.

Darren (15:25)

With Mr. Beast. He's like an M and a finance prodigy. We're interested in AI technology. And now that we have this format where the story is actually less about the nuts and bolts of the AI and the LLM and how it works, it's about the founder. We can tell the story of an AI company and profile the founder in a way that makes the business interesting by virtue of the challenges we put that founder in. So challenges in season three, did a gun range challenge at Adrenaline Mountain here in Vegas. A polygraph challenge.

Sean (16:02)

Oh, yeah.

Darren (16:02)

Private jet.

Sean (16:03)

You made them take a polygraph?

Darren (16:04)

Absolutely.

Sean (16:05)

Wow.

Darren (16:05)

Are you the right CEO to run this company?

Sean (16:07)

I love that.

Darren (16:08)

Do you feel like an imposter running this business? Do you believe in your marketing? Would you invest? Have you ever have investors ever lost money with you? Some people, yes, they have. You know, you gotta be honest when these questions are asked now, you're not pitching. The viewer's looking at like, is this person being truthful? Is this a CEO I can trust? So if we have an AI company, that's crushing it. It's one thing to look at the business it's another thing to look at the founder. Who is the person? Where did they come from? How did they get here? How do they react under pressure? If we put them on a sniper, can they hit the target? Let's go to the polygraph. So there's things that we want to do. So AI companies, we do love certain consumer products companies. They're easier to understand. Obviously, drinks are doing well, they play well. Plus for the founders, they can promote the product. Yeah, like, we just launched a really cool campaign on X for Joelle and ninja. On drinknotcase.com you can pre order Mars Milk.

Sean (17:08)

Mars Milk.

Darren (17:08)

It's our new flavor. Oh, Mars milk. So Nutcase is now the unofficial milk of Mars.

Sean (17:15)

I love it. Is it orange like Mars?

Darren (17:17)

Absolutely.

Sean (17:18)

I gotta try that.

Darren (17:19)

And so we've taken like all these clips from like movies like Arrival and Space Odyssey, and we've kind of infused the nut milk, Mars Milk can in there. And part of what we're trying to do, admittedly, is to get Elon's attention. He's reposted me, quote, tweeted me, engaged with my content.

Sean (17:39)

Oh, yeah.

Darren (17:39)

And we haven't met him yet. We work with Linda, who's the CEO of X, and her content team, which New York team. They're phenomenal. We'd love to have Elon be aware of this show, be aware of Nutcase and some of the companies in the series. And so, you know, we're kind of running like a campaign within a campaign. And Joel has a perfect product, I think, to get his attention. So we just launched that today, which has been fun.

Sean (18:03)

Yeah. The top drinks all have. Well, the up and coming drinks like Nut Milk, Liquid Death and Prime all have really good marketing behind them.

Darren (18:11)

Brilliant marketing, like the best marketing.

Sean (18:13)

Yeah. I feel like that's what's really separating these companies these days.

Darren (18:16)

Yeah, I think, you know, look, marketing and distribution is maybe more important in a lot of ways than the product. If you don't have distribution, you have a great product that you actually don't have a business. If you have a great product and you don't have the right marketing, then no one's gonna find out about your product. So marketing and distribution, I think, are equally, if not more important than the product itself. Obviously, if you have great distribution and great marketing, but your product is subpar long term, you probably don't have a viable business. But I think more founders should be thinking about how are they going to create awareness for their brand, for their products in a highly saturated market where and even On X. As I say, like, people have the attention span of a squirrel. So, like, they're like, look at this and look at that. TikTok. Like, TikTok brain, my daughter. Like, I. I'm like, remy, you've got TikTok brain. I call my kids out because they're just scrolling and they're repeating lyrics they hear. So it is really hard to stand out in this kind of market. You have to be creative. And, you know, I think a show like going public gives founders the opportunity to tell their story in a really unique way and have their product exposed to a lot of people.

Sean (19:24)

I love what you said about the product has to have good quality because it reminds me of Mr. Beast with beast Burger. He had the distribution, he had the marketing, but the Ghost Kitchens couldn't make a good burger.

Darren (19:32)

That's a great point.

Sean (19:33)

And that's why it failed.

Darren (19:34)

You need all these things.

Sean (19:36)

Yeah.

Darren (19:36)

And that's why it's actually so hard. It's like, almost impossible to build a successful company because you need a great product, great marketing, and great distribution. And oftentimes you find founders that are really good at one of those things they lack in the other two. And that's where like, hiring and delegation come in. You can only be good at, like, one or two things. You can be excellent, maybe you're world class, but you're rarely going to be world class at, like, two of these things at once. You have to hire the right growth, hacker, marketer, product designer, head of product to complement the skills that you have or maybe lack as a founder. So that's where like, the team dynamic comes into play.

Sean (20:13)

Right.

Darren (20:13)

And I think that's one of the things we love about Joelle is like, she's got a great product, but then she brought on Ninja, who's got just an enormous fan base, and his fans look to him for his opinions.

Sean (20:25)

And Aoki, if you're going to.

Darren (20:26)

And Aoki and Phil Hellmuth. And she met a lot of these people playing poker in the poker circuit here in Vegas. And there's obviously a lot of very successful business people and entrepreneurs and talent and creators that love to gamble, love to play poker. And she really, like, worked that network to her advantage, ended up bringing on Ninja as a co founder of the business. And I think it was brilliant. So when we see founders like Joelle that are looking and thinking about product, but also distribution, that's a winning. A winning formula for success.

Sean (21:03)

How many exits have you seen? You've probably seen tons of them, and you've probably noticed similarities in them.

Darren (21:07)

Right? Yeah. Look, I think, you know, exiting the business is an interesting concept. I guess I would start by saying, I think on average, Sean, most founders don't realize how long it takes to build a real company. And let's just look at, like a hero like Elon Musk. That Guy's been running SpaceX since what, 2002. I mean, in the early two. He didn't start it yesterday. Guy's been at it for 20 years and look what he's built. So I think people overestimate what they can accomplish in a year and they underestimate what they can accomplish over, you know, five to 10 years or a decade. But if you're going to have an exit for a business, you've got to commit years and years of your life to sacrifice. You've got to invest in your own company and you've got to play the long game. And I think that in this economy where there's all this short attention spans and meme coins and people looking for like, oh, post this, let's go raid this coin and pump it up, there's a lot of people that don't want to put in that time and effort to build something worthwhile that's going to have staying power, that's going to last. But the biggest, greatest businesses in the history of this country and the most talented entrepreneurs, they're playing a very long game. And they start these companies and they go for 10, 20, 30 years. That's my goal. My goal is to be doing this when I'm in my 80s.

Sean (22:37)

Wow.

Darren (22:38)

And maybe that's not for everybody. I know guys that are super successful, wealthy, rich, they want to retire, they're done. They go buy an island, buy a big house, arrowhead, whatever. But for me, the greatest reward would be to continue doing what I'm doing for decades. But so it's. I mean, I kind of went on a tangent there. Yeah, we've seen companies exit, we've seen founders exit. And it's rare. I mean, you have to have the right combination of product marketing, distribution and staying power. And then maybe if you're lucky five to 10 years, you take your company public to NASDAQ or the New York Stock Exchange, or a bigger business comes along and says, we're going to buy your business, you know, but that's, that's the dream.

Sean (23:15)

It's hard because a lot of people will replicate your business these days. You gotta have really good ip, right? Really good ideas.

Darren (23:21)

Yeah. I think it's competition's Interesting. Like you, you will always have competition. Although I do think that category creators in the beginning often don't have competition. So when we were first raising capital for our series, we'd have investors say, well, who else is, you know, doing an interactive investing show? We'd say, I don't know. I think we're the only guys. Well, that's a red flag if you guys are the only ones doing it. Like, you're not being honest or there's no. There's no market here, but the early movers are often creating the market. And I do think you've got to play a very long game to be successful.

Sean (24:00)

Yeah. I love what you said, because my generation, I see it a lot with the instant gratification and the comparing and they want stuff fast. And it kind of worries me, honestly. Yeah, when I started the show, I knew it would be a five, ten year mission, probably.

Darren (24:13)

Well, also, like, I just came in here and it's like bitcoin week in Vegas and you're doing four interviews a day.

Sean (24:19)

Yeah. 20 episodes this week.

Darren (24:21)

20 episodes. And how many have you done before this?

Sean (24:23)

15. Over 1500 episodes.

Darren (24:25)

You. 1500 episodes and you've got this massive following and a brand and millions and millions of followers on. Across platforms, like 11 and a half million on Instagram.

Sean (24:35)

Instagram's our biggest.

Darren (24:36)

Yeah, you didn't build it overnight. You've done 1500 fucking episodes. So, like, that's what I'm saying is, like, you, the people that invest and play that long game, you get rewarded, but you often have to go through a great deal of pain and suffering to get there. And I just think the average person, even the average founder, doesn't want to go through that pain and suffering because it fucking sucks.

Sean (25:02)

Oh, it sucks.

Darren (25:03)

It's brutal. It's like constant rejection, fear, anxiety. You run out of money. Can you pay your team? Can you pay yourself? How are you going to pay your rent? Is this going to work? Did I pick the wrong business? Do I know what I. You know, you feel incompetent half the time.

Sean (25:17)

I tell most people that ask me about entrepreneurship not to do it. Honestly, just having gone what I've gone through, and if I know them well enough, it's a hard thing to pull off and make a sizable living off of.

Darren (25:28)

Yeah. And it takes many, many years. And there's no guarantees.

Sean (25:33)

None.

Darren (25:33)

Right. There's actually no guarantee that says if you do this for five or 10 years, there's like a pot of gold at the end. That's not how it works.

Sean (25:39)

Nope.

Darren (25:39)

Like it might work. It likely won't. But you have to be willing to make that bet and go all in to have a shot at that success.

Sean (25:46)

Yeah. Yeah. The odds are not in your favor.

Darren (25:48)

No.

Sean (25:49)

You're working double the hours and you're on average making less than a nine to fiver.

Darren (25:53)

Here's the beauty. The longer you play the game, the higher your odds of success.

Sean (25:57)

True.

Darren (25:57)

Right. Like, that's just how it works. But you have to be willing to invest and show up every day, every day, year after year. And then suddenly you look back, you're like, well, you know, I made the right call. 1500 episodes is what it took for me to build this brand, build this following. Didn't happen overnight.

Sean (26:13)

Yeah, Darren, it's been awesome. We'll link the the live episode. Thank you.

Darren (26:16)

Sean, you said June 13? Friday, June 13 on X.

Sean (26:20)

Link it in the video. Thanks for coming on, man.

Darren (26:22)

You're the man, dude. I'll create to be here.

Sean (26:23)

Check them out, guys.

Darren (26:24)

Thanks, dude.

Sean (26:25)

Peace. Move. I hope you guys are enjoying the show. Please don't forget to like and subscribe. It helps the show a lot with the algorithm. Thank you.