← The Everyday Millionaire and Mindset Matters Podcast
The Everyday Millionaire and Mindset Matters Podcast
TEDM – Marques Colston – Built for the Team Win, Powered by Integrity (Episode 215)
01:00:30
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- [00:00]
Patrick Franci
With Chewy, get all the food your pets love delivered right to your door. Get a free $20 E gift card with your first food order. And get mealtime essentials from all the brands you love with an extra side of savings for low prices. For life with pets, there's Chewy. Hi there and welcome to the Everyday Millionaire podcast. My name is Patrick Franci and I am your host. And I want to begin by saying thank you for listening. On this show, I am having conversations with seemingly ordinary individuals who who have achieved some amazing and extraordinary results in both their life and business. My intention is to inspire and help you learn and grow by having my guests share their journey of how they face and overcome their challenges, but also how they celebrate their many wins. And now let's get on with this show and have a conversation with today's guest. From overlooked prospect to super bowl champion, my guest today knows what it takes to turn obstacles into opportunities. Marcus Colston didn't just defy the odds in the NFL. He's now doing the same in business, building pathways to wealth and providing opportunities for those who have been underestimated for too long. And he's doing it in his business. Champion Venture Partners. As an entrepreneur, financial advisor, and investor, Marcus is leveraging his hard earned to help others break barriers and build lasting success. In this conversation, we dive into the mindset, shifts, strategies and the lessons from the locker room to the boardroom that can also help you level up. Whether it's in business, in investing, or in life, his business capital Venture partners is aligned to make a difference in the world and without any further delays. Listen in. Enjoy. Marcus Goldston, welcome to the Everyday Millionaire podcast. Thanks for joining me, man.
- [02:07]
Marcus Colston
I appreciate you having me on.
- [02:09]
Patrick Franci
So listen, Marcus, let's, you know, we're going to talk a lot about your NFL career and I want to hear all about it. You know, you have gone through the NFL. You now into business CVP or Champion Venture Capital. What is Champion Venture Capital? Let's start there. What are you doing today when somebody asks you, you know, what do you do? And you know, what are you telling them?
- [02:35]
Marcus Colston
Sure. So that, that's all. That always seems to be the toughest question you get. So I'm, I'm the one of the founding partners of Champion Venture Partners. And we are a, we're an investment firm that is really focused on what we like to call the value chain of sports. And what we mean by that is most sports investment today is, is kind of the, the conversation starts and ends with owning teams that are in the NFL, mlb, NHL, mls. And you know, that again, that's kind of where the conversation starts and stops with, with team ownership. And what we know is that there's only a handful of people on earth that have the, the financial wherewithal to participate in those deals and they just are, are, you know, they're reserved for a very, very small fraction of, of, of folks. So what we do is we look at the sports ecosystem as a whole and yes, we look at some of the team and league opportunities, but we also look at a lot of the businesses that kind of make up sports and make sports what it is. Everything from fan engagement technology to sports performance technology, sports medicine, hospitality, real estate, some media content. You know, so, so we kind of talk about the picks and shovels of, of the sports, the sports industry. That's, that's really our, our thesis. We, we're, we're looking to invest in companies across the sports ecosystem and really build a pretty robust portfolio in doing so.
- [04:03]
Patrick Franci
So you're looking at actually infrastructure perhaps or you know, add ons, something that plays into the whatever primarily or all professional sports. That's, that's the game.
- [04:17]
Marcus Colston
Yeah, for sure. We're even having, starting to have some conversations in collegiate sports. I think there's, there's a trend that, that we're starting to see kind of kind of become more and more mainstream. So if you've been to a, to a professional sports game or, or even a high level collegiate game recently, what you've probably seen is like these entertainment in these sports districts that, that are starting to pop up. And yes, you have the sporting venue in the game as the main attraction, but then you have retail and, and you know, rest, restaurants and hospitality around the stadium. Parking is, is kind of a business line of the whole ecosystem. And then you just have these different opportunities to, to, to kind of plug and play within that ecosystem that once you have fans, they're captive, there's an opportunity to, to create different types of experiences, different types of, of of engagement opportunities. So like those sporting districts are really a microcosm of our investment thesis and our strategy.
- [05:15]
Patrick Franci
So give me you know, for context. You know, this is really interesting and it's brand new to me. So you know, I'll kind of approach it the way I need to approach it because to understand it and I love the concept already. You know, if we said okay, well if I wanted to, because my real, my background is in real estate. If I want to invest in real estate, you know, I can do it kind of hands on I can go buy a property, do it, manage it, do all those things. Or I can say, no, that's too much work. I see the opportunity in real estate. I'm more interested in a private reit. So I'm going to look into a real estate investment trust is, you know, is your venture capital is Champion Venture Capital. Along that lines, where you're building a portfolio of things that are kind of catered to that sporting industry, whether that be the, you know, an NFL, NHL, as you said, or any sport, collegiate even potentially. And businesses that kind of feed off of that. So they're good investments because of the fan base, because of what the organization's doing, because of all the business that gets wrapped around that. Is that a kind of a high level description of what you're doing?
- [06:26]
Marcus Colston
Yeah, you nailed it. You nailed it. And, and it's, and it's really more from, from the investor standpoint, it is really more of that passive vehicle. So we kind of see ourselves and we'll probably dig into this more, but we've built a team of operators. We're not professional investors per se. Each one of our team members is an entrepreneur or operator that's been in and around that intersection of sports and business. So what we're really good at is identifying talent, identifying opportunities to grow businesses and scale businesses. And what we're doing with this, with this investment vehicle is we're allowing people to come along for the ride as passive investors that want exposure to the whole ecosystem without having to go out and find their own individual deals, take the risk of vetting a deal and doing diligence and all of those different things. And our fund is really kind of a diversified passive investment vehicle for folks.
- [07:23]
Patrick Franci
So would you look at, in this structure that you've got then, Marcus, would you then be looking at local businesses or are you looking at. Now we don't want to just do the local thing. It's got to be a national base or it's got to cover X amount of states. Or do you really get into even the local stuff of something that's happening in a specific state slash city.
- [07:45]
Marcus Colston
So, so everything that we tend to look at we scale is big for us and partially because we want to be able to take a business. I'll give you a tangible example because I think it'll make it clear. So we're looking at like service businesses, companies that come in and they do H Vac or they do. They're kind of components of the supply chain of like building a stadium. Right. So A company like that, that might be local in geography now, but has a scalable service, those would be companies that are intriguing to us because one, we're able to get into a company at a really good valuation but then we're also building, we're kind of building in, in house deal flow for that company. So if, if we're able to invest in that service company that might have a local footprint now, but, but we're able to walk them into other stadiums and other, you know, operations and other portfolio companies, then that gives us the ability to invest in a, in a smaller company, help it scale up so that company sees its growth, but it's also servicing the rest of the portfolio. So everything that we look at is really kind of with an ecosystem mentality tied to it.
- [09:04]
Patrick Franci
Love this. Yeah, I love this concept. So how long has CVP been kind of in operation?
- [09:10]
Marcus Colston
So in operation for about a year. We filed paperwork right around this time last year. But it's been a concept that we've been kind of workshopping for 18 months, two years. And you know, we just hit the ground running last, last January and, and we're a year in now.
- [09:26]
Patrick Franci
Yep. So what did you, what have you got under your belt? So if you look at Aum, you know, how are you measuring that now? And, and you know, if somebody said to you, well, what have you got going on so far? What am I investing in? Do you have a range of things that you've already got capital tied up in or where you at in that kind of process?
- [09:44]
Marcus Colston
So we, we've got a, we've got a bunch of term sheets out with companies that, that are, you know, pretty far down the diligence pipeline for us. Anything from professional teams, professional sports teams to service companies to, we've got a couple companies that are in the food and beverage space in stadium. We've got another one that is kind of a digital wallet type of technology that's, that's in the fan engagement lane. So we, we're looking at opportunities that, that, that kind of run the gamut and really what we've been doing for this last year is kind of building the foundation of our ecosystem. So we, we've kind of went out and identified, you know, domain experts in, in certain, in certain, in certain areas. So that as we go and we stand up a real estate fund or we go and we stand up a hospitality fund, we were, as a core team are able to go out and identify the opportunities and you know, pass it to a domain expert to, to actually, you know, diligence, manage the investment. So we've kind of been taking this last year to fill up the deal flow pipeline and then build our foundation as a platform so that, you know, in the next six to eight months here, we should be ready to rock and roll.
- [10:56]
Patrick Franci
Cool. And then you're part of the overarching team. You're part of the foundational team. You're partners with the rest of the crew. Now you have a background in the NFL. You played in the NFL, I think, from 2006 to when?
- [11:14]
Marcus Colston
2006-15. Yep. 10 years.
- [11:17]
Patrick Franci
Yeah, because it was like a decade of playing NFL. So, you know, when you think about now, did you come into the NFL? Did you go to college? Did you go through that process, get drafted that way, or were you a walk on? How did you get into the NFL?
- [11:30]
Marcus Colston
Yeah, so I went. Went to a. Did undergrad at a small school in New York called Hofstra University, fortunate enough to get drafted out of there after, after my, after my senior year there. And yeah, was fortunate and blessed to be able to play 10 years, man, through some injuries, some trials and tribulations, but I was able to put together a pretty good 10 years that I feel really good about now.
- [11:54]
Patrick Franci
Did you have a background, what did you come out of college with? Did you have a business background? What did you do? What got you on this path? You come out, of course, you come out of the NFL and you say, okay, well, I'm still young, I got a life ahead of me. I need to make a living, whatever the story is. How did you kind of go down this path?
- [12:15]
Marcus Colston
Yeah, so. So, interestingly enough, I actually went to school. My degree is in interdisciplinary studies, which is kind of a blend of sociology, psychology. So none of this was in my background coming up. So my first real exposure to, you know, this level of business, you know, came in my first three or four years as a professional athlete. At the time, it was. It was kind of new and new and fresh, you know, seeing athletes getting involved in the venture capital world. And I was kind of part of that first wave. So probably year three or four is when I started to look at investing in private companies. Most of them were technology companies. I tried to stay, you know, in that intersection of sports and business so I could, you know, I knew what I didn't know, so I wanted to come in at least a. A master of the sports side so I could kind of lessen the learning curve on the business side. And, you know, a lot of, a lot of that first couple years Was, you know, just having conversations, just immersing myself into the, into the ecosystem, did a couple investments. And, you know, in those first couple investments, I started to figure out that there was a real connection between, that I could make between my, my life as a, as a, as a professional athlete and the journey to become a professional athlete. And a lot of the entrepreneurs in the early stage companies that I was looking at and potentially investing in, I was able to kind of connect the dots between, you know, someone that had a vision, saw an opportunity, you know, in market, had a vision, and, you know, went to work kind of building it from scratch without a ton of resources, you know, always looking for that validation and eventually looking for that seed funding. In my case, that seed funding came in the NFL contract. But a lot of that process really made a whole lot of sense to me because it was a life that I was accustomed to, you know, kind of trying to put myself in position to get drafted. And when I was able to make that connection, it kind of opened up the world to me in a different way. And I started to feel like less of an outsider. And it allowed me to kind of move in a way that allowed me to kind of let my guard down and really get the full experience and really dive in and learn, you know, in a bunch of different areas.
- [14:26]
Patrick Franci
So when you look at, you know, your journey to where you got this was. Were you one of the initial. I got an idea. I want to bring this, like, here's some things that I see opportunity. Were you one of the, you know, founder initiators of the concept?
- [14:40]
Marcus Colston
Yeah, absolutely. Because this is something that it really stems from, I'll call it the last 15 years of just being in and around the business ecosystem. All right, so I started as a, as an early stage investor, and that quickly turned into advising companies and consulting with companies. And as I got going, I just, I was always someone that. I'm a lifelong learner and I'm somebody that I'm going to dive into opportunities and learn them for myself. Because one thing that I realized, you know, pretty early on was that if I just kind of stayed in the box that everyone expected me to be in, the opportunities were always going to look and feel a certain way. Like I was always going to be endorsing a product. I was always going to be a brand ambassador. I was always going to be front facing, but never really getting into the, into the, you know, the meat and potatoes of how the business runs, how the business operates. And, you know, I'm just, my brain is just not wired that way to just be, you know, in front of a product and not know what it is. So. So for me, the ability to dig in one, it. It gave me, you know, kind of a roadmap to try to figure out what are my skill sets outside of. Outside of the game, you know, what are the things that I'm good at, what are the things that I need to learn to become better at. But it also gave me a lot of autonomy in kind of creating the roles that I wanted for myself as opposed to just being stuck in that, that mascot, brand ambassador role now, you.
- [16:08]
Patrick Franci
Know, like football, I mean, you know, at the end of the day, it's all about the team that you surround yourself with, you know, and of course, what, you know, NFL, any professional sport certainly opens up the door to, you know, business talent as well. You know, you get to meet some pretty significant people in the business world. Is that part of, was that part of your strategy in building this out, to surround yourself with some real talent in terms of the, the business model, if you will, and the talent that it takes to do something like this?
- [16:40]
Marcus Colston
Yeah, absolutely. I mean, that, that you hit the nail on the head coming from team sports and what I, you know, biased or unbiased like to consider the greatest team sport in football. Like you, you do realize that in order for the team to win, everyone has to be kind of moving in lockstep and there has to be enough complimentary pieces, you know, for, for you to be able to execute the strategy right. There are. There are no one man bands that are going to win the Super Bowls. So just kind of having that mentality and having that understanding embedded, really, in my experience, from the time I was seven and started playing football to the time I was 32 and stopped, that's just kind of the default way of thinking for me. And, you know, as we were looking at building out a team, a lot of, I would say at least half, if not 70% of our team played sports at a collegiate level or higher. And that's really important just because, one, we see things and we see competition in the same vein, in that, yes, we can individually excel, but if we're not able to connect the dots and connect all of these pieces in a way that kind of builds this team and builds this platform, you're always going to be susceptible to things that can go off the rails and the ability to have a team that's complimentary, a team that knows how to gap fill, you know, which I think is important with small teams and really understands that my role is not, is my role in my swim lane is not necessarily this silo that I have to operate in. More so it's, this is my contribution to the team's win and I may cross over into other swim lanes. And you know, each, each team member has to be kind of in lockstep with the strategy and be able to understand where, where do I need to lead versus where are the opportunities that we might need to collaborate or I might need to kind of take more of a supportive role and having former athletes as part of the team, a lot of that process has become seamless.
- [18:45]
Patrick Franci
Well, certainly from a communication and understanding, a fundamental understanding of it, which is also play your position, be brilliant at it, don't stray outside your swim lane too far, and we'll do really well. You know, let's go back to some fundamental philosophy, if you don't mind, Marcus, is that, you know, when you take, you know, when you add the initial concept of cvp, you know, what was the problem you were solving, the gap or the problem you were seeing that you thought needed to be solved? You know, what, what kind of drove the initiative, if you will, and was there, you know, out of that, did you come with a, a fundamental mission, if you will? You know, something along that line. How did that whole concept even come to be that you saw that gap?
- [19:33]
Marcus Colston
Yeah, like our mission as a whole is really around access. And you know, that, that is something that, from, from an indiv. Like, as an individual, I've, I've just kind of in, in the roles that I've been in in these last, you know, 12 to 15 years. There's always kind of been a choke point that I recognize in each one. You know, as, as an early stage investor. The choke point is, is getting access to high quality deals. Right. If you're, if you're investing in the riskiest asset class, then your ability to succeed is, is a function of your ability to get in high quality deals. The access to those deals becomes a choke point. I spent, you know, a handful of years as a financial advisor, you know, advising athletes, entertainers, and the choke point that you recognize there is that the key to building long term and sustainable wealth is a diversified portfolio. Right?
- [20:24]
Patrick Franci
Yeah.
- [20:25]
Marcus Colston
The challenge becomes the traditional financial advisor relationship is one that only deals in stocks and bonds. And if a lot of the wealth is accumulated and earned outside of the traditional market, I have an advisor that's sitting there getting paid off of a fee, off of the aum, off the, the money that are managing. For me, they have no motivation to go look at private deals that they're not going to get paid on. You know, so like a lot of these different experiences that I just went through, either as a client, as a practitioner, as an entrepreneur myself, you start to kind of recognize where these choke points are. And the theme that I quickly recognize is a lot of it, it stems from access either to deal flow or access to information education. And when we started to build the CBP platform, those are the things that we put at the core and started to build the platform and the strategy around those things. And you know, ultimately the end result is a platform that, you know, on the surface level, we do very similar things to other private equity firms and other venture capital firms. But the way that we do it is what's different. Who we're doing it for is what's different. Our platform is really a vehicle to drive meaningful ownership and access to a broader pool of investors, not just the same 1%, you know, they get access to the high quality deals and the team and the league ownership deals. So that access piece is really core to our mission and our vision and a lot of the strategy and the way that we execute it is kind of built into that.
- [22:04]
Patrick Franci
So do you have a, you know, I love this concept by the way. So when you look at who you're serving, you know, if, you know, first point is, okay, well, do I have to have a hundred thousand dollars to invest or $5,000? What's my point of entry?
- [22:19]
Marcus Colston
So in, in one of, in one of our vehicles, like remember I, I talked about kind of building the foundation and building the ecosystem out. One of the vehicles is, is what's called an evergreen fund that allows both accredited and non accredited investors to invest. And the reason that's important is, you know, just looking at the athlete community. A professional athlete might start out as an accredited investor and then over time after retirement, because it's really, it's just really hard to replace that income. I don't care who you are, it's really hard to replace that income, you know, in a second act. So a lot you, you'll see a lot of professional athletes go from accredited investor status and kind of slowly drift into non accredited status. And in seeing that you, you start to lose access to a lot of these opportunities to build wealth. And you know, one of the focuses that we had with this vehicle was to make sure that we could, we could, you know, work with a broader pool of investors to where, you know, $1,000 or $5,000 that you can, that you can save. And you want to go into an investment vehicle that's not a high yield savings account or that's not the s and P500. This is a vehicle that's now available and accessible to you. And you know, it's really important for us knowing that that's part of our investor base and part of our target investor base. Like education has to be equally important. Making sure that the folks that we're engaging, you know, understand and we're teaching them about the alternative asset class, we're teaching about the diversification, we're teaching about liquidity and risk and all of those different things. So it kind of puts us in a position where again, with the ecosystem mentality in mind, if we're engaging this audience, we've got to be able to educate this audience and make sure that we're creating investors that are doing it for the right reasons and giving them a vehicle to allow them to execute.
- [24:22]
Patrick Franci
So in this particular model that you're building out, if I say, okay, well I got ten grand, you know, I want to, I want to place it with you, am I looking at this going, this is a, you know, I'm going to invest and it's going to hang out there for five years, 10 years, forever. What's kind of, what's kind of the model in that regard? Can I just, and then add capital? Maybe I go, this is kind of cool. Oh gosh, they're taking on more, you know, I want to, I want to actually increase and, or I want to exit. Like what's the thought processes around there that you've got set up?
- [24:55]
Marcus Colston
It's built around those exact questions that you just asked. Yeah. So again like dealing with the non accredited investor, dealing with somebody that this isn't throwaway money. This is, this is money that we want, I want to invest and I want it to grow over time. You know, we, we made sure that the vehicle allowed for liquidity. So there are semi annual, what are called redemption periods where you know, two times a year, if you're an investor in this fund, you're able to go and sell your shares back either through a secondaries exchange or sell them back to the firm. Right. Because that, that liquidity piece is, is, you know, is really important for this, this, you know, subset of investors. The other piece is we're not a traditional, a traditional VC fund in that we're taking a 2% management fee and then we got 20% of the carry the carried interest on, on profits coming back to Us, there is no carried interest and we don't really have a time frame. This is permanent capital. So it puts us in a mode where we don't have to try and chase quick wins, we don't have to go and hunt for unicorns. We can invest in quality businesses that have significant upside and growth potential. We can embed our expertise into these companies and help them grow at a more sustainable and higher growth pace. And we can sit in these companies as long as they're continuing to grow. Right? So it puts us in a position. We're not chasing unicorns. It puts our, the companies that we're investing in, they don't feel the heat to try to create an exit because that's not what we're looking for. And because of that, it allows us to get in higher quality companies. It allows us to kind of reduce the volatility and the investor, at the end of the day, benefits from all these things.
- [26:43]
Patrick Franci
So let me kind of, you know, give you some thought processes that I have given, you know, what I do outside of my podcast. You know, one of the things that we're seeing at a global level, global macro, is certainly, you know, the devaluation of fiat currency. You know, the US Continues to be, you know, the joke is, and it's not a joke, it's just like the US Dollar happens to be the cleanest shirt in a dirty laundry basket, right? Like it's, everybody's devalued, you know, now Trump is moving the needle differently because he's going, okay, no, we're, we're going to get rid of this debt. We're going to tear everybody, whatever his strategy is, by the way. And I, and I'm, I'm a bit of a Trump fan. At least I'm a fan of the team he surrounded himself with. So I'm a Canadian that's observing. But having said all that, when we look at the disruption that's happening, the literally the quantitative easing that was, followed, that plan through the whole meltdown, lockdown, we're finding that of course, our dollar has less and less buying power. So I'm a huge fan of anybody and I'm encouraging people to get out of fiat currency. So I look at and say, okay, whether that be real estate or Bitcoin or precious metals or assets, and this is so fundamental to me that so many people don't understand this concept is that the rich get richer because they invest in hard assets, stores of value. And that could be art or Rolex watches. Nowadays, it still continues to Be the thing. But what you're talking about is giving people the opportunity to invest in, in a fund, if you will. Is that is. Am I using the right terminology for what you're using? Okay. Where you actually own hard assets called businesses. So they're, they're diversified in terms of if you build this, as you build this fund. Not if, but as you build this fund, you're expanding the diversity that's within that. But it gives just kind of everyday people the opportunity to invest in businesses that they would not normally have the opportunity to invest in. And you're building it around this thing called, I guess we'll call it sport. Will we call it specifically NFL or just sport in general?
- [29:11]
Marcus Colston
It's sports. Sports in general. Sports and sports adjacent. And to your point, to your point, I agree with everything you just said just in terms of the shift and I think that's part of the reason. If you look at kind of the global, the macroeconomic landscape of where investors are going, you're seeing a lot more of these, these, you know, Main street firms focus more and more on these alternatives. And you know, for us, being in sports is more than just a passion play. It's shown over time that sports is, is as resilient as you can get to economic conditions. Yes, right. These teams, the NFL is going to play, people going to consume, people gonna buy tickets. Same with NBA, mlb. Like sports is one of the truly, you know, resilient industries that if you can get in, there's an opportunity that, that you can kind of create this, this uninterrupted cash flow for, for lack of better word to put. Way to put it right. Because if you kind of break down the business of these sports, a lot of it is driven on these long term media deals and that's how the valuations are jumping through the roof. Because you ha, you know, you have this sustainable revenue stream for the next 10 years. Easy to value that. So you know, we're, we're taking a lot of, of sports because it is a passion play. It is a thing that connects people. It's a thing that people understand, is a thing that people consume that makes it less, that makes it less intimidating as an investment vehicle. But we also, we definitely understand that that resilience and the ability to be in alternative assets that don't correlate with the S and P, that don't correlate with these traditional financial metrics that are shifting and changing by the day, we absolutely see that and realize that that's part of our strategy.
- [31:04]
Patrick Franci
Is it fair to say? And I want to go back to this just so it's really clear that part of this was really to serve. And I'm going to use the term the common man. Those individuals that would not normally have the opportunity, now they have the opportunity. They don't need millions of dollars to get into this particular venture, but they, they, they can still get into it. And so, you know, when. Where's I going to go with this? I guess the question is, is that, you know, within the context. And I'm going to go off on a little bit of a tangent. I think it was years ago, you know, that an NHL friend of mine actually bought a franchise through Interstate Battery. And the reason, and Interstate was actually formed by, I believe, an NFL player many years ago who was seeing that the players were coming through, they were making millions of dollars. To your point, they're making big money, but they came out of it, they spent it. They didn't know how to manage it. They were just in the moment of, okay, I've got all this money, I'll spend it. They come out the other side of it and now what? Number one, do they have any money left? Number two is how do we continue to thrive given that, you know, I'm 30 some years old and I got a whole lifetime ahead of me and they opened up the door for that opportunity within Interstate. Now I just still don't know if that's still what Interstate is doing. But ultimately the reason I kind of go off on that tangent is that when you look at cvp, is that also part of your opportunity or your goal is to support other players in the league? To say, guys, you know, you're going to run out of, you're going to have money, you're going to make a lot of money. What are you doing with it into the future and what are you doing into the future? So, I mean, arguably, I guess you might have some NFL player that, you know, that has, you know, he's playing football. In the meantime, he's building a great business that serves the industry in some way. And you go, gosh, you know, why don't we add you to this portfolio? So I've said a lot there, I think. Am I in line with your thinking in a market?
- [33:07]
Marcus Colston
Yeah, absolutely. Like, it's, that's just, that's just, it's second nature, you know, just to support, support the community that I come from. And, you know, it's. What's interesting is that it's not just an investment play either. It's because, because of where we kind of where we frequent. It's an opportunity, it's almost another, another entry point for, for players and athletes that want to get into the business world and don't want to go and become coaches or they don't want to go and become scouts or, and they don't want to get in line to become sports broadcasters because those are really the three roles that are reserved for athletes. And anything outside of that, you kind of, you're looked at as an outlier. And you know, what we provide again with the ecosystem mentality in mind is as we're investing in these companies that are in sports, there are going to be opportunities for players to get involved if they want. You know, there's going to be internship opportunities, there's going to be hiring opportunities there. There are more and more athletes that are becoming creators and entrepreneurs. The dream scenario would be to, to be able to invest in an athlete led company and grow it and scale it so the, the ecosystem itself presents these natural entry points that are just different than, than the traditional ones that the world's going to open up for athletes. So we are absolutely mindful of that and absolutely, you know, again, it's, it's part of, it's part of, it's on the front of our brain as we're thinking about building this thing out and scaling it.
- [34:38]
Patrick Franci
So have you, how do you, do you have an OM and offering memorandum that you have in place? Like what's the, you know, if I say well gosh, this sounds all really interesting, I want to know more. Would I look at it, an offering memorandum or what, what is the kind of, the dynamics of how you position it and saying okay, read this document.
- [34:57]
Marcus Colston
From, from which, from which perspective from you, you as an individual or if.
- [35:02]
Patrick Franci
Somebody'S listening to this and go, this is really interesting. Where do I find out more? I would like to kind of put, insert that now and go okay, well no, reach out. We'll send you whatever documentation that you need to review before you invest.
- [35:15]
Marcus Colston
Gotcha. So right now we are literally in the process of spinning up that Evergreen fund that I mentioned earlier and hopefully within the next week or two weeks we should have our landing page up and we will be able to take people that are interested in investing and they'll be able to join our waiting list. And you know what, what that, what that will do is, is it gets you in our queue, it will be able to keep you updated with, with, you know, things as they're coming down the pike. Updates we're in conversation back and forth with, with all the, the powers that be to make sure that we stay in compliance and all of those things. But for right now, people, people in the next week or two should be able to join our waiting list and just continually get it, get information and updates as we are are, you know, getting ready to come online.
- [36:05]
Patrick Franci
I love it. So let's go back. I want to talk a little bit about you. I mean, you had an NFL career, you get into business, you go to school to learn what you learn, and here you are today with a startup and a big vision. Take me back a little bit. When you're a kid growing up, I mean, to get into a business venture, were your parents entrepreneurial? How did you, you know, where do you get this entrepreneurial spirit from? And so growing up, where, where, where did that all start, do you think?
- [36:42]
Marcus Colston
Yeah, I mean my, my parents, I, I, I give a lot of the, the entrepreneurial spirit that, that, that, that came from my dad. He, he was, he was someone who was what I like to call a renaissance man. You know, he, he owned businesses, he was in the construction business. He was kind of like the community dad. He was the coach for everyone in, in every sport. So just having the ability to see him create was different and it was, it kind of planted a seed in that anything that he wanted to do, I saw him go out and create it with his hands and you know, in just growing up in that environment and seeing that and you know, being on, on some of the site projects with him and whether it was cleaning up trash or helping, you know, with the, you know, construction and you know, all of those different things, he was a very hands on person and he made every opportunity for us to get hands on with him and kind of join in. And that was huge for me. Just seeing something, that, just seeing him create something from scratch is, is I think a seed that got planted in me and, and you know, the business side of it, I didn't get exposure to until, you know, I got into the NFL and I, I was able to get access to some capital. But those seeds were planted really, really early on in my childhood. Just seeing him create from the ground up and it, when I got my opportunity to, to engage, I wasn't, it's just not in my nature to be passive. It's not in my nature to cut a check and say, hey, I'll see you in five years. Just make sure my K1's hit on top. So I was always somebody, if I was going to invest my capital. I'm going to roll up my sleeves and invest my time, effort, and energy, not just to help the venture move forward, but so that I'm a more informed investor and I'm learning as I go. And a lot of that stems from watching him.
- [38:37]
Patrick Franci
So that's great. Now, when you go into the NFL, and certainly I'm sure there's lots of stories about getting there and, and all the things that you do, did you go into the NFL knowing and thinking about, you know, my career at some point's going to end and I have a vision of what that might be into the future, whether it be CVP or not. Regardless. Did you go into the NFL knowing that? Of course you're going to get as many years in as you can. You're going to make as much money as you can in that window of time, and then you're already thinking about, but at some point I'm going to exit. And, and although I'm not suggesting that you were obsessed on that you're obsessed in playing football, was there somewhere out there that you're going, you know, when this is over, I know it's going to end. And these are, I'm going to do something in business. Was that already in your mind when you got into the NFL?
- [39:30]
Marcus Colston
Nope.
- [39:33]
Patrick Franci
Oh, so even you had your entrepreneurial accident or your entrepreneurial awakening?
- [39:38]
Marcus Colston
Yeah, no, I was, I was laser focused on just being a great player going in, like in, in a lot of my situation, getting drafted. When I got drafted, so I was a seventh round pick, which is the last round of the NFL draft, I was literally the fourth to the last pick of the entire draft. So, you know, in that process, every single round that passes, you're, you're, you're getting humbled a little bit more and more. And at some point, you're, you're a fool if you don't understand that the odds exist. So the odds of me making a roster or probably like 1% at that point, just based on where I got drafted. So you're a fool if you don't understand the odds. I just didn't want to listen to the odds. So I went in laser focused on making the roster and becoming a great player. But that, that entry point was always in the back of my mind because the exit door, my journey started with the exit door way closer than I wanted it to be. Right. So it was always in the back of my mind. But those first couple years, I was just so laser focused on creating value on the field because I Realized that if I create value here first, that gives, that's the launch pad to do everything else. And I didn't know, I didn't know anything about what off the field could look like. I didn't care about business, I didn't care about marketing deals, any of that stuff. I wanted to be a great player first because I knew if I did that it would open up all the other doors that I needed.
- [41:05]
Patrick Franci
So. And of course you're going to bring that work ethic to what you're doing today. And that's kind of just how you're wired now. It's how you've trained yourself. That's the mindset that goes into doing that. So just a kind of a question is that, you know, when we go back to, you know, the comment around interstate battery because somebody, and I don't remember who the original founder was, it doesn't really matter. But point of it is, that was your observation as well, or has it been over the years that, you know, NFL players come in, they get caught in the big money, but they're not planning for the future. Is that a thing? Do you see it as a problem? I, I hear different stories, whether it be NFL, NBA, it doesn't matter. Any professional sport. I guess I've seen it over the years in, in the NHL. What's your experience with that?
- [41:52]
Marcus Colston
It's, it's, it's a touchy one because it's, I always go back to this, right. It's the place where people are shining a light on it. But I always ask this question, if you, at 21 or 22 years old, won the lottery and overnight had access to millions of dollars, your decision making process is not going to be the best. Right. So when you're someone that doesn't come from that type of wealth, doesn't come from that type of money, probably doesn't understand even the role of managing it, Managing that money doesn't understand the role of what that looks like. You're kind of at the mercy of trying to make decisions based off a gut and instinct and then truly trusting your financial advisor that you're hiring. Which if you, if the situation is anything like mine, I had no idea what a financial advisor did until I had to hire one. It's not really the best way to vet somebody. Yeah, right. So the light always gets shined on the player and the behaviors, but there's really a whole ecosystem that is faulty at its best, is faulty. So I think over time you've seen less and less of those Stories as the horror stories of the 80s and early 90s have kind of come to surface. I think this generation has seen a lot of those and learned some of those lessons. And the, the challenge becomes the, the. What used to be the old restaurant or the old car wash, like the old anecdotes of where the money goes to die. Those types of businesses don't exist anymore. But it's kind of shifted into venture and it shifted into these other, you know, investment vehicles that just have more layers and more compliance and more people that can get their hands on your money. And when you. It's, it's, it's a similar conversation. It's changed. But the thing that's. The thing that has always been in the middle are the people that, you know, create a skill set in extracting money from young people that will never go away.
- [44:02]
Patrick Franci
Yeah, you know, I, it would be nice to live into or believe that, you know, the benchmark for how agents are qualified or how they're referred and, or financial advisors, that that bar has been raised. But it sounds like maybe it has, maybe not so much. I think that, you know, you make it such a great point, is that the expectations of athletes, because they're athletes, you know, and I, I just worked with too many professional athletes over the years to, you know, you add a really, really important perspective, which is they're just kids, you know, and, and I often look at professional sports and I see how people idolize individuals, but they idolize them. And it's like all of a sudden their opinions about politics or their opinions about what's going on in the world matter. No, actually they're 23 years old. They're really good at this sport. Just if you're going to put them on a pedestal, they're just really good players. It doesn't mean they're worldly or, or that they know what the hell they're talking about when it comes to anything else. That's the first part of it. But the understanding of just how much money is involved and what that attracts in terms of, you know, individuals who are probably don't have the best interest of the player. I mean, gosh, you know, how do you protect that? You know what? So it's good to see somebody like yourself come out and kind of start to say, well, no, we've got this thing. This is an opportunity for players. It's an opportunity for the general public. Common man, so to speak. I don't know where I'm going with that, but am I kind of opening the door to some of the things that you've seen and maybe even some of the problems that you potentially will solve with cvp.
- [45:52]
Marcus Colston
Yeah, absolutely. Like these are all firsthand problems that, firsthand challenges that I've gone through and witnessed on both sides of the spectrum as, as a player, as a, as an entrepreneur, as an investor, as a financial advisor. Like that was one of the reasons I got into the, into the, I went and got my licenses was, you know, just seeing how many advisors are just kind of coasting on AUM fees and not really educating. Not really. They're just very comfortable being in a spot where their, their client is fully dependent on them. And that's one of the reasons I got into the industry only to realize that, you know, compliance only allows you to do so much. Right. So there's this whole ecosystem that kind of has to be deconstructed. And in a lot of ways, CVP is a piece of the puzzle and we feel like we built a piece that has a lot of answers. But it's a landscape that continues to change. Right. If you're looking at what's happening in college sports, everything that we've talked about today, around the challenges around athletes and finance and where the holes in the boat are, all of that has just gotten moved up four more years, right? So now you got 18 year olds dealing with this. So, you know, there, there's, there's some, there's some challenges that are embedded in the, you know, just in the ecosystem as a whole. And you know, we're just trying to do our, our small part to make sure that we're creating a vehicle that, that folks can benefit from and create value from, but making sure that we educate at the same time. So that my goal, you know, my, my selfish goal is that as players, you know, come into, you know, good situations financially, by the time that they leave, they're no longer fully dependent. Their financial advisor is truly an advisor. They're somebody that you can bounce questions off of. You understand your portfolio, you understand where your money's going, you understand where it's at. You have a strategy that you're pulling together and you have advisors that are helping you execute, not full service bankers that do everything from soup to nuts, pay bills and, and you know, when you get into a, any situation that you're in, I don't care who you are, and you're fully dependent, solely dependent on one person for your livelihood, there's a risk there that, that you just don't want.
- [48:11]
Patrick Franci
So, Marcus, I'm gonna I'm gonna ask you a question. It's, it's actually a bit of a two part question and because I know that we're winding down in terms of your time and that's all good, by the way, but I would like to know, you know, like, so you know, I know that, you know, in a team and in an industry, the NFL is like many professional sport, it's a, it's as big as it is. It's small. Like people know, you know, other players you've played with, other players, they come, they go. There's always this transition. Were you, were you on the same team for the whole, your whole career?
- [48:44]
Marcus Colston
Yeah, so I played, played with the New Orleans all 10. Yep.
- [48:47]
Patrick Franci
Yeah. Okay, great. So let me, I'll kind of phrase it this way. So Marcus, when you look, you know, you're, you're still a young man. You're now into the business world and you know, if I walked into, you know, into your dressing room and you weren't there, and I'm going, you know, who is Marcus? They would have a story, some, there would be all sorts of stories about who you were as a player, who you are as a man, who you are as a teammate. Who do you want to be known for as you go forward? Like if, you know, if, if in 10 years from now somebody brings up Marcus and what do you want them to be, to say about you in the world of business?
- [49:23]
Marcus Colston
I, I think first and foremost somebody that, that operated with integrity with the team, win in mind with every move, and someone that consistently showed up. I mean, those, those three things like that was, those were the kind of the hallmarks that I tried to build my career on. And you know, that, that's one of the reasons I was able to stay in One place for 10 years is, is those, those three pillars and those are the three, the same three that I carry into the business world with me. Like if, if you can say I operate with integrity with, with the team winning mind and I'm consistently showing up, then, then I'm good to go.
- [50:03]
Patrick Franci
So you're the pointy end of the spear with CVC or cvp. When do you go? Champion Venture Capital or Champion Venture Partners?
- [50:12]
Marcus Colston
Partners.
- [50:13]
Patrick Franci
Partners. Okay. So I don't know Marcus. I just know Capital venture Partners. I'm a client and I'm going to spread the word because I have an experience in 10 years from now, what do you want to hear from your clients? What you want them to say about cvp?
- [50:36]
Marcus Colston
I would say really, really the same three pillars. I think if people that engage with cvp, invest with cvp, partner with cvp, if they can walk away saying that this is a firm that operated with integrity, they did exactly what they said they were going to do. They created access and we're aligned with a global win. That's really what we want to be. We don't need to be in the limelight, we don't need to be celebrated. We need to be in position to help a more diverse investor base get access to quality deals and build wealth. That is our sole purpose.
- [51:19]
Patrick Franci
Love it. Okay, so as we wind things down and I'd like to run through a couple of just fun rapid fire questions that sometimes aren't so rapid fire, but we're going to do our best. I start with an easy one just to warm up, you know, kind of fun because it's always a little bit of controversy around. Are you Android or are you Apple?
- [51:39]
Marcus Colston
I'm Apple, I'm Apple all day. The whole ecosystem.
- [51:42]
Patrick Franci
Your whole ecosystem. Okay, got it. I am as well. But you know, I'm kind of born again Apple. I, you know, I started out Android and converted and very happy I did, by the way. So do you have a favorite band, favorite genre of music that you listen to?
- [51:58]
Marcus Colston
I'm a, I'm a rap fan. Not more, not the more recent rap but, but ultimately I love R and B. Love like 70s, like Motown soul music. That's kind of my go to cool.
- [52:12]
Patrick Franci
Favorite movie, any man.
- [52:18]
Marcus Colston
Is a funny one is a movie called the Last Dragon. I grew up watching. It was like, it was like one of my favorites growing up.
- [52:24]
Patrick Franci
Great movie. That's the first one. That's the first time anybody's mentioned that movie. I mean I get repeats of, you know, Shawshank Redemption and Matrix and that kind of stuff. That one I've not heard before. So that's, that's awesome. So when you look at, you know, you know, over your learning and the things that you've got, was there a fork in the road kind of book that you read? Something that you go, this is a book that really changed how I viewed the world a little bit that you would, you know, recommend to people that because you were so excited about it, any of that stuff show up for you?
- [52:58]
Marcus Colston
Man, it's, it's crazy because over the last couple years I've become a pretty avid reader. I'm. I'm thinking back through the Atomic habits is, is a really good one just because it's so actionable. The. One of the first books that I read was the Effective Executive. I think it's by Peter Drucker. And it was, it was at a time for me where I was trying to figure out how to do more like efficiency, efficiency, efficiency. I was trying to take my calendar and I was trying to squeeze as much into it as possible. And reading that book can completely shifted my mindset and maybe kind of my bias changed towards effectiveness. Right. So what are the most impactful tasks that you can do? So I've started to kind of schedule my day around, knock out the most impactful stuff first and then whatever small, you know, intangible things you can't get to. They're not really moving the needle like that, so it, it doesn't weigh in you as much. So I've, I've gotten to a place where my calendar is a lot more effective than efficient at this point.
- [54:04]
Patrick Franci
Do you have, you know, I mentioned it earlier just in the last question, but, you know, it kind of led me to the question, is there a fork in the road moment for you in your career, in your business, the path you went on? Like, I look at my own entrepreneurial journey. You know, I've been an entrepreneur for 40 plus years, but I, I can go back to the fork in the road moment, where that journey began and why it began. Do you, do you have a fork in the road that was really kind of instrumental in the direction that you went in?
- [54:34]
Marcus Colston
Yeah. So interestingly enough, this was probably 2011 or 2012, so I was in my fourth or fifth year and I decided to do an executive MBA program. So I was still a current player right in smack dab in the middle of my career. My wife was pregnant at the time with our first child, and at the same time, I'm literally running an indoor football team my hometown in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. So I took on all of these things feeling like I'm Superman. I can do all of these things. And it there, there was one day, I'm sitting in class and I can't stop thinking about the stuff that I have to do with this team. And I'm sitting in class trying to learn how to operate a business while I'm literally operating a business real time. And there was this light bulb moment that said, like, dude, you have the NBA experience right here. Go do it. Go do it. And I ended up dropping out of that MBA class and I kind of kicked myself every now and again because it was one of those accelerated programs and I would have had my MBA in 18 months. But the experience and the learning, the boots on the ground experience that I got running that team for three years, I could have never got that in the classroom. It would have all been conceptual in the classroom. And, you know, getting those hands on experiences, getting punched in the gut and actually feeling what it feels like to get punched in the gut and get back up and have to do it again, that was the NBA experience that, you know, kind of catapulted the rest of my career because I figured out I can take a punch in the business world and keep on going just like I can on the field. And when I figured out that no flaw is a fatal flaw and you can learn from it, when I figured that out real time in business, as opposed to sitting behind a desk learning about a case study about somebody else doing it, that changed everything for me.
- [56:30]
Patrick Franci
You know, it's interesting is that many years ago I had a similar, you know, decision kind of, that I had to make. Anyways, the point of it was, is that, you know, somebody I respected, you know, when I was going through that process and I was. I hated school and all the rest of it, and he said to me, he goes, I'll just tell you this, he was a mentor, old, much older than I was at the time. And, and he just said to me, he goes, I'll tell you this, he goes, there are more high school dropouts that employ MBAs than there are MBAs that employ high school dropouts. And I went, well, that's really interesting. He goes, you know something? Always consider yourself going to the university of life and get in the trenches and get shit done, because that's what you're going to learn. And you'll learn it way more effectively than you will, to your point, in a classroom looking at case studies. And that's not to negate it, but I'm sure that even, you know, as you've gone into this new endeavor, and if you've left your career, you know, I'm sure nobody's looking at you. K. Marcus, do you have an mba? Is anybody really asking you about your education? You know, how you show up, how you occur, how you speak, your passion, your knowledge, the work that you've done, your history of work ethic to do what you've done? I mean, that is a far bigger statement in my world as a business guy than the statement of I've got an mba. To me, it kind of goes, okay, well, that's interesting. Oh, good for you. Let me see what you really know. That becomes how I look at the world. So anyways, we go off on that tangent. So I love it. Favorite swear word.
- [58:06]
Marcus Colston
Man. I'm not supposed to have one. I got a two year old.
- [58:09]
Patrick Franci
Okay, listen, I have guests that go, no, I don't swear. I go, are you. Are you kidding me? What the hell is that? No, it is.
- [58:20]
Marcus Colston
They're in there. I'm just being polite today.
- [58:24]
Patrick Franci
Of course, of course. So if there is a thing called God, what do you want to hear them say when you get to the gates?
- [58:32]
Marcus Colston
Back to my three pillars, man. It's.
- [58:34]
Patrick Franci
It's.
- [58:34]
Marcus Colston
For me, integrity is everything. If people don't trust and take my word at face value, then what do you have? You know? So for me, it's. It's about doing the right things for the right reasons, always true to your.
- [58:46]
Patrick Franci
Values, being true to your values. I love it. I love it. Okay, final question. What are you grateful for, Marcus, man?
- [58:56]
Marcus Colston
What am I not grateful for? No, I. I'll say it this way, man. I'm. I'm not supposed to be where I'm at, right? The. The odds, the statistics, how, however you create statistical analysis, there is no calculation that puts me from where I came from to where I'm at. And I'm grateful for the opportunity to have gotten here, taken the path less traveled, and really an opportunity to kind of repackage my experience to help other people that started in my situation. That's what I'm most grateful for.
- [59:32]
Patrick Franci
I love it. I'm grateful for having had the conversation today with you, Marcus, and the opportunity to meet you. I love your humility and groundedness in who you are and how you define what you're doing going forward. It's been really insightful to hear some of what you've got going on. And again, in the context of the Everyday Millionaire podcast, if Marcus can do it, we can all do it. So thanks very much for sharing your time and your stories and your energy with us today. Much appreciated.
- [60:07]
Marcus Colston
I really appreciate you having me, man.
- [60:11]
Patrick Franci
Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for listening. If you found value in the podcast, please take the time to rate and review and share with others. Share with your friends as it is my. My goal to always improve and to provide the highest value for you, the listener. If you have any comments, suggestions, or questions you'd like answered, please email me@ceoraincanada.com that's ceorincanada.com I look forward to hearing from you. And until next time, Patrick O.