← The Money Mondays
Loading summary
Transcript135 lines
- [00:06]
A
Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to a special edition of the Money Mondays podcast where we cover three core topics. How to make money, how to invest money, how to give it away to charity. As you guys know, these episodes are under 40 minutes for your listening pleasure because the average workout is 45 minutes. The average commute to work is 45 minutes. So this episode will be between 34 and 38 minutes. We want this not just for you. Keep in mind your friends, family and followers. People from your past, present and future might want to listen to this next episode because this gentleman sold his company for $115 million and he's going to do it again and probably do it again and again after that. So we're going to dive into this episode and as you're listening, it's not just for you. Think about the people in your life two months from now, two years from now. You might share this episode with without further ado, Eric Spofford, give us the quick 2 minute bio so we get straight to the money.
- [00:57]
B
Born and raised just outside of Boston. Troubled youth. Was a really really bad kid. Got caught selling weed. My first entrepreneurial endeavor at I think 11 years old, 5th grade North Salem Elementary School. Got caught up in addiction oxycontin turned heroin addict. 100 tried and failed attempts at sobriety and changed my life December 7, 2006. Finally find recovery and sobriety for God willing the last time went on the run for some criminal stuff after a drug deal gone bad. Crawled into recovery. 135, 140 pounds, high school dropout without a single dollar left in my name. Unemployable, you know, worst credit score. Just I mean as bad of a shape as a human could be in was me at that period of time. Worked on recovery, worked on personal development, worked on becoming a better version of myself every single day since then. That was more than 19 years ago. Started a recovery business which was my home state's very first sober living house in 2008. Scaled that from one location, one guy running it me to multiple locations. 325 employees, $55 million of top line revenue and I sold that for $115 million off $13 million, almost $13 million. TTM, EBITDA. So trailing 12 months earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, amortization. If you want to get rich and you don't know what I just said and you don't understand that, you better learn that because that is how real wealth you money, generational money is created. Sold that company December 21st of 2021 have taking those proceeds, had a hell of a time. Can't deny that. Made every wrong move that you would make or right move, depending on your perspective on it, after selling the company, but back building businesses, own and operate a portfolio of companies and real estate today.
- [03:09]
A
So you mentioned something that actually just triggered in my mind when you said the entrepreneur. Your first entrepreneur, part of your career was selling weed.
- [03:16]
B
Yeah.
- [03:17]
A
I think drug dealers would be amazing business people in other categories outside of drug dealing.
- [03:22]
B
I know many former drug dealers that are amazing business people in other categories. I think there are two types of entrepreneurs in the world. Right. One is the type that stayed in school, they got good grades, they went to college, they got an MBA and they went the traditional path. And then the second type of entrepreneur sold weed.
- [03:42]
A
Right. Because when you really think about when I say that they have distribution, they have dealing with collections, they have to have the capital to either take it on credit or hopefully they don't get their legs broken. If they take it on credit and something bad happens or they have the money to buy it in advance. They got to figure out inventory, risk management, the territories and the situation that go on expansion, scaling. What if you want to be in multiple cities? Really think about it and go back to the mafia days. The same concept of they had real companies, real businesses, they just happen to be selling illicit things, but they could be selling chess sets or books or put in another widget in there. And I think those same drug dealers could become zillionaires in other categories.
- [04:21]
B
100% fully agree.
- [04:23]
A
Okay. On the make money side, what would you say holds most people back? Like most people in our society, they're making their 60k a year. They get their 2 weeks each year to go on vacation. They got their pension plan happening 36 years from now. Like they have it all planned out, but. But they're kind of capped in this thing because it's easy and consistent. Why do you think most people just take that route in life?
- [04:43]
B
Because most people take that route in life because it is easy and consistent. You have to have hunger, you have to have the desire to want more. And that desire has to be so large that you're willing to do everything that it takes to create wealth, to build businesses and to, you know, break out of the slave trap of a 9 to 5.
- [05:04]
A
You've interacted with a lot of entrepreneurs, you've been at events, speak at events on social. You see a lot of people that are out there in the streets, on social, online, et cetera. Do you think that most people should be the CEO or an entrepreneur.
- [05:16]
B
No, no, I think most people, most people have important parts in organizations. But to be an entrepreneur, to be a CEO, to be a number one, takes a very, very peculiar archetype of person. Right. You have to be, I think, the main thing that separates real entrePR or real CEO from the rest of folks. It's not intelligence, it's not skill set. It is their ability to navigate stress and pressure. And if you are not willing to live your life in a pressure cooker and find a way to get comfortable there, then this game is not for you. You should be a W2 employee, which there's nothing wrong with that. I know people that have made more money than me. As employees and organizations, there's a path to a lot of success, or they
- [06:06]
A
have less and they're happ you or
- [06:08]
B
they make less and they're happier and they're not dealing with the stress. The real deal entrepreneur, the real deal operator, I believe, and I am this person is not only able to navigate and handle stress and pressure, they kind of fall apart without it. You know, it's. You look at. When I sold my company, I had enough money that I, in many generations of spoffords after me, never had to work again.
- [06:36]
A
Sure.
- [06:37]
B
And I made it months in 2022, and I was bored out of my skull. I could not handle the quiet, the silence. I had to get back in the game. Not for money, because game, the game. And I guess that's a real great way of saying it is the real entrepreneur, the real operator has just a fucking thoroughbred love for the game. And a lot of people get that twisted. They get it fucked up. They think that, oh, look at this person. Like, how many people have said to me, eric, why do you need more money? Why do you need more cars? Why do you need this? Why do you need that? I'm sorry, do you think this is about the money?
- [07:18]
A
Right.
- [07:18]
B
I fucking. You know, Tom Brady didn't need another super bowl ring, right? But he loves to play.
- [07:23]
A
He wants to go play today, 100%.
- [07:25]
B
And that's the same thing with me and most real operators that I know in this game is that we just love to play. We love the game, we love the pressure. We love everything that comes with it.
- [07:36]
A
So we live in an interesting time in society where there's a lot of entrepreneurs on social media and a lot of guys flexing the things you just mentioned that might be leased, that might not be theirs, might be someone's on the street probably know in front of these Lamborghinis, why do you think that there's a lot of guys that are creating the perception of success before they built it?
- [07:58]
B
The perception of success opens doors. Right? It gets, you know, when you look successful, more people are willing to meet with you. They want to, you know, open the doors, door for you. Girls are interested in you. It has benefits. And so I think that intrinsically is the reason why people try to fake it until they make it. But for, and listen, to be, to be honest, to be candid, most girls don't know the difference between a guy that is actually wealthy, that has built something real, that has a Lambo in a nice place, or a guy that is leasing Lambo, leasing the place, restaurant, same, it's same carbon dinner, same car, same apartment, same house, and they can't really tell the difference. I think that's why there's so many people in a very fake environment on social media, looking and pretending to be the part that really aren't.
- [08:48]
A
So a lot of times people are pitching you deals, but you're mostly investing into your own things. When someone's pitching you a company, whether it's at an event, in your DMs, in your email, in the elevator. Oh, Eric, I wanted to meet you. I got this idea. How do you say no?
- [09:04]
B
Me? I'm pretty straightforward. I just, I say no. Just say, listen, respect and love and, you know, it's just not something. It's not part of my investment thesis at this time. I invest mostly in my own stuff. I have recently, in the last year, started to make direct investments into companies. But for the amount of investments that I've made in equity that I've taken in operating companies, compared to opportunities that hit my desk, it's a very, very small minority of what I see I go in on. But for the ones that I do go and make the investment in, I'm looking at the market, the opportunity, the ability to, to survive, that it's not going to be disrupted by AI, by tech and the operator.
- [09:50]
A
Yep. So you guys have heard me say these numbers before. I've done 43 angel investments. Sounds like a lot. That's over a decade. It's like four year. The last four years, I raised $56 million for different brands. It sounds like a lot. Let's say 18 companies. Four years, three or four a year. I'm seeing 300 deals in a year and doing three or four a year.
- [10:14]
B
Yeah.
- [10:14]
A
Think about the success rate. That means 1 or 2% are getting through for me to want to invest or raise capital to invest into those companies, it is hard to have an exit. And so I'm trying to reduce my risk by finding entrepreneurs that I believe in, products that I believe in that have a version of them having a chance at exiting. And so three or 400 pitches, three or four getting through. So when you guys are out there, considering you're messaging Eric, you're messaging me, message 100 investors. I don't care if you're copy and pasting, DMing, tweeting at them, LinkedIn, whatever costs you nothing. But so often people are coming to me about raising capital and they've done like, oh, I've been trying to raise money for weeks. Weeks. It might take you six months or a year to even get the meetings for it. How many people did you pitch? Oh, I messaged four different people. My uncle and his friends.
- [11:04]
B
And I'll tell you, and maybe you're different at this, Dan. Maybe not. I don't know. But I think the days of cold messaging on any of the platforms, emailing or even calling me are dead. You were never gonna get over, you know, across the moat, right into my world. Yeah, by coming in, it's no to all of those. That is 100% rejection rate. Because the amount of noise and the amount of work that it would take to filter through all of those opportunities, it just, it's untenable. It's impossible, I think, for anyone trying to raise capital or find investors or move the needle in a strategic way like that. Get in the room. Like you throw 42 events a year. I will tell you that if you message me, email me, or call me, the answer is automatically no. If you show up at Dan's events and you're able to connect with Dan or someone else I have a relationship with, and Dan is like, hey, Eric, you know, likes home service businesses or healthcare. You should meet Eric. I will at least take the time to stop you because you come on the back of someone else's credibility, even if they just met you, like, oh, I know. I, I, you know. And so I think being very strategic and finding ways to stand out is incredibly important in business in today's environment,
- [12:30]
A
why do you think it's important for people to invest into themselves? Why should they get coaching masterminds?
- [12:35]
B
That's really the, that's. God, that's really the conversation I want to have. Like, how to make money is technical and, you know, I could talk on it all day long. And creating wealth and starting businesses and creating, you Know, a framework within the company that at a business that is able to sell and then playing the EBITDA multiple game, right? I make a dollar, and because of the level of this company, it trades at a 6x, 8x, a 10x, a 12x, I make a million, I apply the multiple, it's worth 8 million, 10 million, 12 million, I make 2 million. That whole thing. But what people, people want to focus on that and that what they miss is the person you have to become to be able to do it. The personal development work, right? Like, I don't know what the odds are or the statistics. I do know that 4% of the American workforce makes over $100,000 a year. 2% makes over 200. So if you're looking to make a million dollars a year, you are like the 0.01%. You have to become the fucking point 01%. Then you have to build yourself up and develop the internal assets. The. And the resiliency to manage the stress and pressure to become an interesting, important person that people want to do business with. It is just, it is the one thing that I see people fail on the most is they're like, I want to make money, I want to get rich. What the fuck does personal development have anything to do with that, Right? What does that have to do with this? It has everything to do with it. Everything. I like to tell people that, listen, I became. I was a homeless, broke drug addict with, you know, nothing at 22 years old. I was a millionaire at 27. And what happened between 22 and 27 is not that I made a million dollars first, is that I had to become a guy that makes a million dollars and then I made a million dollars. And that's the process. And so my original focus in changing my life was not I'm going to get sober, I'm going to give up drugs and alcohol and I'm going to get rich. My original focus was I'm going to get sober, and I'm going to come the best version of myself fucking humanly possible. And then I took that and channeled it into business, entrepreneurship and wanting to better myself. But the focus was always recreating myself over and over and over again. Because it went from becoming the guy that was the guy that could make a million that made a million to the guy that could make 10 million to the guy that could amass, you know, an enormous net worth and walk into rooms confidently and hold that space.
- [15:30]
A
The wealthiest guys and girls that I know, especially the billionaires, literally just ask Questions the whole time. They're still coachable. They want to know because let's say you're doing $100 million in sales, or a billion dollars, whatever the number is. A 1% change is a lot of money.
- [15:46]
B
100%.
- [15:47]
A
And literally dinners, lunches, breakfast, text messages I get from the billionaires and Zillows of the world. It's just questions because they know that if they learn something, it changes everything. Why I say that is it leads into it. There's a guy out there doing 1.5 million in sales who thinks he knows everything, and he won't listen to you. Who's sold for 100 million plus. He won't listen to me. He won't listen to that person or even Tony Robbins because he thinks he knows it all. What would you say to that kid that's doing 1.5 million that thinks he knows everything?
- [16:15]
B
You have to be a student of the game. Some of the most valuable moments of my life that have unlocked millions and perhaps tens of millions of value were what I call aha moments. They were that light bulb, that eureka moment, right, that ah. And it's just taking you from here and looking at it just a little bit different. And if I do it this way, I can do it that. That comes from being teachable, being a student of the game, being, you know, hungry for information, and having the humility to be able to learn from others. You know, the guy that knows it all is always the fucking poorest guy in the room.
- [16:55]
A
At what point did you know it's time to sell? Is there the right time to sell? Or is it just like, you're on your progress and then companies come to you or private equity comes to you? Or is it like, you know what, Let me start to package this thing up and prepare to sell.
- [17:08]
B
For me, my journey with selling the company was as much a business aligned with business thesis as it was personal and spiritual to me. I, you know, ran the. One of the largest addiction treatment businesses in the country. I was on the front lines of America's opioid epidemic and addiction crisis. It was a lot. It just became to a point where I felt God was nudging me, that it was time to move on and it was time to do other things. And I started that process. I started being interested in selling my. In selling businesses and private equity and mergers and acquisitions. In 2017 is when I started obsessively studying it. I completed my first minority transaction in 2019, knowing that I was going to chip away and build the company. And divest into other things with an eventual exit. And then in March of 2021, sitting in my backyard, in my house at the time in Fort Lauderdale, it hit me and I was just like, when you know, you know. And I just knew. And I was like, it's time to go. Interestingly enough, it was at that same time period where I was like, I wanted to start building a personal brand. I want to get on social media. I wanted to be influential to people and use my story and my life experience to get out there and show other people that if a up, you know, drug addict can turn his life around and become successful, that absolutely anybody can. And so it was just it. I listened to my heart. And so strategically, could I have grown that business larger and sold it for more money? Yes. But it was just time for me to go. And so I made the decision in March of 2021, made the call to the team, said, guys, we're going to market. Called the investment banker and said, let's go. And signed a contract with him, took it to market. It was a ten month process. And then we sold in late December, four days before Christmas.
- [19:10]
A
So oftentimes people think that's the goal, but they actually are not watching part of the journey, meaning they just think one day I'm going to sell the company or take it public. And they don't realize how rare that is. It's very hard to have an exit of a company.
- [19:24]
B
Yes, it is.
- [19:25]
A
It's not just that. Even if you have a good EBITDA or you have a good business, not like there's just a line of buyers just because you did X amount of dollars in sales. You have to package it up and be prepared for it. You said it's a 10 month process. What parts of that can you tell us about those 10 months?
- [19:40]
B
I think the 10 month process might be misleading. It was several years prior to that process that I spent professionalizing the company.
- [19:50]
A
Nice.
- [19:50]
B
And so when I started professional, and I'll talk about the 10 month process of the transaction, but when I started professionalizing the company in preparation for its sale, what the company looked like was it was the Eric Spofford show. I had to show up to work every single day. I had a dozen direct reports. I was central to the company. It was very mom and pop. There's a ton of key man risk. I didn't even know what key man risk was. I was like, what are you talking about? It's my company, I'm here to run it, like. And so I Had to learn the information first and then I had to execute in the business. And the things that I learned was businesses with the institutional knowledge is written down in written policy standard operating procedures that operates with a dashboard of key performance indicators, KPIs and metrics that has a leadership team that could run the business. If the owner and founder got hit by a bus that operated professionally One were able to transact period. Not every business is a sellable business in the state that it's in. And two would sell for instrumentally more money than something that didn't have. And there's a lot more that goes into it but didn't have those core factors of professionalizing the company installed. And so when I saw that and understood the equation right, it is earnings EBITDA. In a multiple, a lot of people think about the value of their company and they focus exclusively on how much money we make. The variable is also the multiple. The multiple is driven by professionalization of the company and how well packaged this is. So if you have a company that does say $10 million a year in earnings, but it runs like a sloppy piece of shit, a buyer might come in and look at it and go, well, they have earnings. It has a lot of potential. We're going to have to come in, we're going to have to take the risk. We have to build the leadership team. We have to protect ourselves and investment against the owner founder and start to build a team around him, replace him as the CEO. We're going to take a lot of risk. We'll pay you 5 to 6x this company great, it's 50, 60 million. But if you as the owner of the company understand that this business is worth more without you than it is with you and all these other key factors of how to professionalize the company and you take the time to do that work, you could take that same company without ever increasing earnings, professionalize it and go out to market and get a 10 to 12x. The earnings are the same. The business valuation can be double at times based huge. And so I took the time to start to professionalize the company. I documented everything I hired. The biggest thing that I did was I hired a leadership team and onboarded them and trained them and hired the right people and got them in the right seats. When I brought all of that stuff into the realm of of professionalization, leadership team and, and all of that, what actually interestingly happened with the company as well is I had less and less time obligation to it. So much so that I was fucking bored. Sure and revenue exploded. We doubled in revenue and doubled in ebitda. And so when we made the decision to go to market, I hired the banker, the investment banker, that is someone who represents your company. Typically they work for a success fee. It's a percentage anywhere, 2 to 4% is market on the transaction value of the business. They came in, they started to work with the team. They compiled what's called a data room, which is exhaustive, you know, I mean it is burning, you know, burning midnight oil. Getting all this information together on your business. You think you have everything together until you see that request list.
- [23:39]
A
Right.
- [23:40]
B
That data room is then put into a teaser which is a no name document that says it's in the business, is in the northeast. Here's some key facts about it. And you know, it does this service, this revenue this, employees this, that. The other thing that that teaser goes out to a buyer list. And we went out to like I think 130 different people, buyers, private equity firms and strategic buyers. About 80 of those folks came back and said we're interested. Next you send out a non disclosure agreement, the NDA. Some of these folks just sign it. A lot of them, you wouldn't believe it. They want to go back and forth and volley this NDA over minor details. It's like, it's very annoying. It's an NDA, it's not a big deal. You get the NDA signed and you send them a full deck. This is, you know, has full financials. Everything about the company is in this package, just brochure essentially about the company. But it's very extensive and deep information. And then you schedule what's called an I.O.I. due date, which is indication of interest due date. And then the companies get to look at the financials and look at the company and they come back with IOI letters on this day. You know, it's a fun fact about buyers and private equity companies is they all do the same thing and they wait till the last 10 minutes and so like you'll say it's due on, you know, Tuesday, February, whatever, by 5pm they're going to come in between 4:45 and 5pm so interesting. It's so weird. So you're open, you're like ripping open these emails and these letters because the letter is telling you we're interested in the company, here's who we are, here's where we're sourcing the money, this is what we plan for the business and here's our range of value. So you're just sitting there on IOI Day. Clicking emails, opening. Opening PDFs, reading, scanning. Look, just looking for the numbers. Okay. 100 million. Great, great, great. And our IOIs ranged from like 65 million to 185 million.
- [25:49]
A
Whoa.
- [25:50]
B
It was such a broad. Yeah. And I was like, well, I'm never selling to 65 million and I don't really believe that person at 185 million.
- [25:59]
A
Right.
- [26:00]
B
I think it. And it ended up being. I was like, the right number is probably in the middle.
- [26:03]
A
Exactly. Yeah.
- [26:04]
B
And that's where we end. 115 after IOI day, you schedule management meetings where all the key players of the private equity group or the buyer come and visit the business. They want to meet the team, they want to see the business, they want to dig in, they want to meet the team. It's typically a dinner the night before and then all day the next day with a schedule. You're going to meet marketing, you're going to meet sales, you're going to meet operations, you're going to. And you're just running people through, meeting them and they're just drilling them with questions. We, we boiled it down from 130 buyers in the buyer list. 80 IOIs. We got a. We cut out half of those and then picked the top nine. Told others to go back to the drawing board and pick the top nine. And had managed meetings with them and then went on to loi letter of intent, which is a binding document. They're like, okay, we're really in this. Here's the exact number. And if you sign this, you're exclusive with us. And we're entering a due diligence period to purchase the company. And then you go into due diligence where they're going. It's a full rectal exam. And simultaneously you're, you're negotiating and drafting purchase documents and other necessary things to get over the finish line of closing. And then you schedule closing.
- [27:29]
A
Yeah.
- [27:31]
B
And on closing day. God, the amount of anxiety and the amount of like, just electric energy. Right. Like, I don't care. You can be as stoic and as disciplined as you want to be when you're in this process. You're spending the money in your head. You're like, I can't believe this. My life, my kids lives. This is about to change this family forever. And so December 21st of 2021, I woke up, I was like, it was closing day and it was scheduled for 10am and I went to my new office, which I had set up, and I sat at a conference room. With my right hand at work. And we got on this call and they, you know, they go around, they have the bankers, the lawyers, the buyers, me, the seller, the executive team that's staying behind. And they sign off and they, they sound off, they go around and everyone has to verbally commit to closing. And so they got to me and said, Eric, you're, you're good to close? I said, yep, clear to close. And everyone else, clear to close. Clear to close. Clear to close. Clear, close. It's like 20 people. And at the end, they said, all right, congratulations guys, this deal is closed. And my hood ass was like, hey guys, send the wire. When do I get my money? Where the. My money? You know what I mean? Back, back up the Brinks truck. I'm getting out of here. It's been a bank robbery, you know, I'm out. And they said, the wires have been initiated. And I waited all day and it was like 5:30 at night. Refresh the banking app, right? The banking app, over and over and over and over and over again waiting for that wire to hit. And about 5:30 at night, and I was like getting pissed. I was ready to start calling people because I'm like banking hours over, where the fuck is the money? We close at 10:00am and you know, you just. There's all this tens and tens of millions of dollars. Just where is it? Like, why, why is it when you press the button here, it doesn't just show up there, right? It takes all day. And so I thought I was gonna have to wait till the next day. I was sitting at my kitchen table with my feet up and I refreshed one more time and boom, the numbers were just like line numbers. And I was like, God damn. To be clear is eight numbers. Because I'd already sold three minority shares. I didn't make the whole 115 people get that up. But nonetheless, it was more money than I'd ever seen or ever thought I was going to see. And I just sat back and I was like, holy, we did it. This is crazy. I immediately turned to prayer. I said, God, thank you. This is unbelievable. You know, what a testimony of what someone can do when they put their mind to it and make the. Make the right decisions.
- [30:15]
A
The next morning.
- [30:17]
B
The next morning. Listen, I never took a day off. The next morning I was up in, at my house in New Hampshire and I woke up and grabbed my number two very, very close person to me that's been with me a long time. And we drove like almost two hours to a city called Fall River, Massachusetts, to look at these brick buildings.
- [30:38]
A
Come on the next morning.
- [30:39]
B
The next morning, yeah. December 22nd. It's cold. It's cold as out. And we're looking at these brick buildings that I'm looking at buying them and developing them into apartment buildings. I have a hot Dunkin Donuts coffee in my hand. I'm all bundled up, it's freezing, and my right hand at work literally elbows me. It's 9am We've been up the way all on since 5:30, and together we're looking at these big buildings and have architects and engineers with me and all that. And she looks at me and goes, we're never going to take a day off, are we?
- [31:17]
A
It's a fair question. I agree with it.
- [31:19]
B
I just laughed and I was like, no, no, we're certainly not.
- [31:24]
A
All right, let's go to the final chapter. Let's talk about the charity side, but I'm going to do a different twist with you. So obviously you're passionate about the sober industry and getting people sober.
- [31:33]
B
Yeah.
- [31:34]
A
That's not exactly philanthropy, but there are philanthropy versions of that. There are ways to donate to that, but it's more about the message that you send and the energy you put into it. And I've actually. You've told me about stories of guys that have come to you and that you've guided on and pushed them to go get sober. Which is. Which is the butterfly effect. If they fix their life, obviously it helps their family, their friends, their community, etc. How does someone find that for themselves, like, to get behind something? Because it's very different to just donate a hundred bucks, thousand bucks, ten grand, whatever, to a charity versus finding something that they're passionate about.
- [32:11]
B
I'm going to answer your question with a question because I think it's important. Have you had pain in your life?
- [32:18]
A
Yes.
- [32:19]
B
The pain is the purpose. The pain is the purpose. Right. Whatever it is that you've been up against, whether it was childhood abuse, homelessness, you know, the, the hundreds and thousands of problems that's, you know, people sickness, illness, health problems. You lost someone to cancer. The grief is overwhelming. Like, I advise people to look to what has personally impacted you and caused you pain. And if you can't find a way to get excited, to have some sort of purpose that is driven by the pain that you've been through. Like, do you think it's coincidence that we struggled that way? Right. Like God fucking himself chose that I was a drug addict or however fate works. Right. Fate brought me to addiction and it was unbelievably painful. It destroyed my life. It destroyed the lives of people around me. It caused a lot. A lot of chaos and a lot of. Of harm. But. But it inevitably became the greatest gift that I could possibly have because it gave me a purpose for my life. My life is important, and my life is meaningful because I was able to take the most painful experience of my life and turn it into a purpose. I don't know a person that I've met yet that hasn't had their own story of pain. At some level, it doesn't need to be addiction. It can be anything. Sure, right. Your purpose and the thing you can get excited about and where you can make a difference is there. It's. It's on the other side of your pain.
- [33:55]
A
It might be something that happened to a significant other, a child, a parent, a grandparent.
- [33:59]
B
However, it impacted someone who's influential to your life, you know.
- [34:03]
A
All right, so you're one of my only repeat guests, because I really have repeat guests. So you've already answered this question, but we're going to ask it again. The only question I ask on every single episode, and I've never gotten the same answer. And I think I'm going to actually get a different version of the same answer from you because over time, people think about things different. You just had another baby.
- [34:20]
B
I did, yeah.
- [34:21]
A
And so you sell more companies for another 100 million here, 100 million there. Hopefully, God willing, a billion and 2 billion over the course of time. But eventually Eric Spofford passes away, unfortunately. What percentage of your net worth do you leave to those children?
- [34:39]
B
It's an interesting question on how do you think. And I've just recently, because I just had my third child, I went back and have started in them again right now back in my trust estate and will docs redoing them because I have two boys and so the rules that I had in place for my two sons don't really translate to my daughter. Right. These are very different things. And revisiting them, my wealth will all go into my trust. And my trust is left to all three of my children, but they do not have open access to it. There is a criteria that for them to even be eligible to benefit from my wealth. One, because sobriety and abstinence from drugs is such an important piece, central fact of how I made this wealth and what's important to me, I give them the choice that if they want to be, you know, on drugs, smoking pot, you know, doing whatever it is with their life, they can do that on their own dime. They get nothing from me. They also need to be, you know, gainfully employed in school. Like there's all this stuff that is a requirement for them to participate in the wealth. But one of the things that that terrifies me is that we'll pat, you know, we pass this wealth down to them and you know, we work our whole lives to create it. We don't live long enough to get to spend it all. And we pass it down to them and they it up and it doesn't benefit my grandchildren, my great grandchildren, my, you know, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. Generational. And so how I currently am setting mine up is that they're only allowed to access 4% of the total value of my trust, the wealth, annually.
- [36:36]
A
Nice.
- [36:37]
B
Right. And so how that works is that, you know, if you invest the money, you can safely predict over time an average return of 8%. Right. 3% can stays in the portfolio and it grows to grow the basis.
- [36:54]
A
Compound it.
- [36:55]
B
Yeah, to compound it and to keep up with and hopefully beat inflation, 1%. So 5% comes out. They cannot access more than 5% of the wealth in any one annual calendar year. 5% is distributed. 1% pays the tax, capital gains, and 4% is the net. So they have to meet all of this requirement. But this is never going to be guns blazing, Yahoo.
- [37:21]
A
Here's 700 million dead.
- [37:23]
B
Here's millions and millions of dollars. It's going to be enough to. And mind you now that 4% needs to get divided at this time amongst three.
- [37:31]
A
Sure.
- [37:32]
B
And so it's an assistance, it's a guide. It's something I could do. I can ensure that they'll never be hungry and hopefully they'll never be homeless as long as they aren't losers and don't it up for themselves. But I could also ensure that it will precede them, it will survive them, and it will survive the next generation. And the next generation. And the next generation.
- [37:50]
A
Yeah. All right, where can people find you on social media or anything that's going
- [37:54]
B
on in your world at Eric Spofford. Easy.
- [37:56]
A
Nice. Drop the mic. Boom. Yeah.
- [37:58]
B
Boom.
- [37:59]
A
All right, guys, as I mentioned earlier, this podcast is not just for you. You might be sitting somewhere four months from now and someone's going through something that they might need to get sober or they might want to be getting some help in their life. And you might refer them to start following Eric across social media. You might. Some of the things that we talked about here on this episode, maybe a friend is trying to sell their company. Come here and listen to the masterclass Eric just put on about preparing this 10 month situation to prepare for an exit and the years before that to actually be dialed in for it. Because it could save your friend a lot of time, money and that could. It will save a lot of time, money and energy because if you're not packaged prepared at Pinkyswear, you're gonna go through a long headache before that even allows you to exit your company. As you guys know, we run this commercial free. I am sponsored by fan basis because I actually use fanbasis.com for years but there's no affiliate code. It's just a company that I actually work with. Same thing with GoHighLevel. I've been working with them for years to handle my entire backend. But there's no fancy affiliate codes. I just work with high level and fan bases. As you guys are listening to these podcasts, just keep it in mind. It's not just for you. I'm gonna keep saying this because every time I say it I get messages and messages and messages. Like you're right. I was listening to an episode about restaurants and then my friend had the restaurant, I sent it to them and I saved them all this money. Those things are burned into my mind and I want to burn it into your mind. Follow Eric Spofford across social media. Check out his content. It's obviously been fantastic to watch him over the last few years go like a rocket ship in the social media world. And he's going to be pouring a lot of gasoline on that fire over the next few years. In particular, to really spread his message about straightforward actual business content from an actual business operator. Appreciate you guys. See you guys next Monday here@themoney Mondays.com. Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to a special edition of the Money Mondays podcast where we cover three core topics. How to make money, how to invest money. How to give it away to charity. As you guys know, these podcasts are under 40 minutes because the average workout is 45 minutes. The average commute to work is 45 minutes. This episode will be between 34 and 38 minutes for your listening pleasure. Why do I say that? It's because we have a 93% listen through rate which keeps us way high up there on the podcast ratings. Because you like, comment, subscribe and share. So when you see these clips when you're listening, it might not just be for you. You might hear something from our guest today that you're like, oh wow, this is interesting. Two months from now, or two years from now for the podcast. You never know what might happen. You might help them learn something new, get a new job, fix something in their company. Just from the little tips and tricks that you hear today on this podcast. So it's not always just about you. It could be for someone from your past, present or future. As you guys know, I run this commercial free. I do work with Fan Basis, obviously, because Fan Basis is a company I've been using for years. That's fanbasis.com. there's no affiliate code. It's just a great company. And High Level. I happen to be wearing the sweater as we speak because Go High Level powers the world. My entire backend system, multibillion dollar company. So check out Go High Level if you are an affiliate, agency, coach, course creator, et cetera. All right, let's dive right in. The goal is to cover all things money related. Because we grew up thinking it's rude to talk about money. I think it's ridiculous. We have to talk about it. Loans, leases, taxes, investing, should I buy? Should I rent? There's so many questions. What if my friend borrows $600? How do I ask for it back? These are real life things that go on our daily life and for so many years. We grew up thinking it's rude to talk about it. We have to talk about it. We're about to talk about it right this second. Justice, give us the quick 2 minute bio so we get straight to the money.
- [41:18]
C
Sure. So. And thank you so much, Dan. Great to see you. Thanks for having me on this beautiful set. Quick two minute bio. I'll give it even quicker than that. I was very blessed in life. I was born in Canada. I was born on third base. If you're born in Canada or America, you're already born on third base. You might not realize that, might not believe that really, because maybe you grew up in a lower middle class or, or even maybe a welfare state or a welfare household. But the reality is if you were born in one of these two great countries, you're ahead of 80% of the population. So my first day when I was born in Canada, I actually was fortunate. I was blessed to be born in Canada. Now I did grow up in a lower middle class household. I struggled. I lost my father at a very young age. I became enamored with money because of the fact that we had money. Then we kind of lost our. The money that we had. Father passed away. So I went on this pursuit to try and obtain money and figure out some tips and techniques not having a father around to really not only help myself, but to help my family and my friends around me. So I've had this pursuit. I'm 43 years old now. I've done exceptionally well. I've co founded and founded many companies that have gone to hundreds of millions of dollars of value and actually even a couple that have gone to billions of dollars of value.
- [42:30]
A
What's the primary focus now? What's, what are you working on in this time frame in your life?
- [42:34]
C
Well, the primary focus, I mean, so I, you know, I used to be, you know, my firm, we used to be global investors for a long period of time. About four or five years ago when I came down to Miami here, we opened up operations and offices in the US I looked around this beautiful country and I realized, holy crap, this country doesn't make anything anymore. I'm not talking about T shirts and blue jeans and things like that. I'm talking about the real bread and butter, the stuff that's going to carry this country forward 50, 100 years. So I went on this very aggressive pursuit to change our investing focus. And we started buying great things. Like we bought a rare earth mine, for example. Sounds crazy, but we bought a rare earth mine in Texas. We bought the largest uranium measured and indicated deposit in the country. And so if you know anything about energy, you probably realize you need your nuclear to sustain the energy in the future. And so uranium is the byproduct that goes into nuclear, for example. And so a little bit less high tech and SaaS types of things. But I guess you could call myself more of an industrialist. So we've been very aggressive in those industries, aerospace, defense, all sorts of things like that. And so those areas are very important for a number of reasons. One, they're going to help to sustain this country for the next 50 and 100 years. I think that's extremely important. I think it's, you know, America is falling behind in a certain way. I think we've lost our way to a certain capacity. It's not that we can't get it back on track, but, but we've got $39 trillion in debt. Some would say the next generation's lazier than the previous generation. So there's some structural issues. I'm a man of faith. Faith is not as prevalent, church and things like that in our society and values having families that are husband and wife and having kids. We're not reproducing like we were or are. And so there's a lot of things that are fundamentally, I Think that need to get better if we want to continue to grow this thing through. But from a financial perspective, I've been really aggressively trying to find great world class American assets. Build them, grow them, take them public or exit them. And along the way we create some great American jobs.
- [44:38]
A
So there's so many different options and categories to invest into. Real estate, stock market classes, tech companies, AI companies, cryptocurrency. Oh my gosh, there's so many things. How do you guys filter down to the things that you want to focus your money, time and energy into?
- [44:54]
C
That's a great question. And so, you know, I go to Vegas a lot for different reasons. I actually have season tickets to the Vegas Raiders. I know they're not a great team, but I still support them. I love the underdog. But the reason I say that is like, even so, for example, when I go to Vegas, I don't gamble. Could I gamble?
- [45:10]
B
Sure.
- [45:11]
C
Like, have I gambled? Yeah. But I don't enjoy it because psychologically I know I don't have an edge. Right. Best case, it's 51, 49, give or take. That's the best it's ever gonna get. And that's the best it's ever gonna get. And so for me, just, you know, I think life about having an edge, right? So if you grew up and say your dad's in some industry, maybe it's the garbage industry, doesn't have the greatest industry in the world, but you're going to learn a requisite skill set or you're going to have certain advantages that 99% of the population won't have. And I think it's going to behoove you if you're not aware of that and you don't embrace that in a certain ability because you kind of have a leg up. And so life is also about math and probability. It's about more than that. It's about skill and luck and timing. But if you've got an edge on something, you want to use that. And so going back to my, I guess, gambling analogy, right? So I don't gamble because I don't think I'll win over time. And to answer your question, Dan, so the reasons we operate in the arenas we do, first and foremost, it's because I believe the country needs these things. And if the country needs them, that's a great starting point. But I don't live in Silicon Valley. So we're not in deep heavy tech because I don't have an edge. Most of the folks in Silicon Valley are going to be able to develop a better AI technology than I'll ever be able to fathom or my team will be able to fathom. And we try and find these areas with an edge. And so the industrialist nature of me is I grew up in Canada. I was a portfolio manager. We invested hundreds of millions and billions of dollars into industrial projects. So that's primarily why I like the industrial stuff. And I think because of the administration, there's been a return to, let's say, greatness and doing things the old way, the new way, but the old way. And so in the limelight, there's the commodities business. And so that's why, you know, I pick the commodities, because I've got an edge over 99 of the people out there, I believe.
- [46:56]
A
So let's say someone wants to get into finance. They want to go work for a company like yours or a firm like yours, they want to work on Wall street or Silicon Valley, etc. How do they start? How do they go down that path to go work in the financial services firm?
- [47:08]
C
That's a great question. And the one thing, you know, I'm a big proponent of education. I. I do think education, generally speaking, it's not perfect, but it's a great equalizer if you can learn and do things better than other folks. But, you know, I've gone to great colleges and things like that, but they don't really teach you the minutiae of VC and some of these really important things. And certainly I think you alluded to that earlier in grade school, they don't teach you about a balance sheet or p, or credit cards or is this good debt? Is this bad debt? You got to kind of ask yourself, why. I don't want to turn this into Conspiracy Corner, but it's just not set up the right way. And so fortunately, because of people like you, podcasts like yours, the. The information that's readily out there on podcasts, you can educate yourself. And I encourage the people at home to educate yourselves, because no one's going to do it for you. Nobody's going to do anything for you. And so, ironically, you know, I find people spend more time on booking their next vacation than they do about their own life plan or their life goals or their balance sheet. So you've got to. You've got to spend your own time and energy to kind of figure this stuff out. And so what I will say is, in regards to finance, it's extremely lucrative if you can figure it out. But it's not for everyone per se. And so if you have that burning desire, the information's out there, maybe you catch a break or two. You can do exceptionally well in finance. Absolutely.
- [48:23]
A
You've been on television, press, building up your social, et cetera. So as more people see you and they hear, oh, he's got a VC firm, he's investing in deals. You get pitched, you get Bombarded, you get DMs, texts, emails, people approach you at events, et cetera. How do you filter through to make something stand out? Like what? What would stand out to you? If I said, hey, invest in my chessboard company or invest in my AI company, what would make it stand out to you?
- [48:47]
C
So the interesting thing is, I mean, you know, much like everything in life, we evolve, right. So wherever we started, hopefully isn't going to be where we end and maybe it's going to be somewhere in the difficult, in the middle. I and we pride ourselves about being fluid, being evolving, kind of always moving and adapting. So we are a typical VC firm. So we want kind of hyper growth, let's call it. But we're also more of a PE firm. We're a blend between VC and pe. And I only say that and I'll maybe educate some of the viewers at home is that pe, they take a little bit more of a pragmatic approach. VC basically looks like this. You make 10 investments, it's usually somebody else's money. You make 10 investments, one skyrockets, does 10x 10,000x more percentage you can ever imagine. Maybe the next two did do quite well and the balance of them are pretty much zeros. So the idea is that the one that shoots the lights out takes care of the entire portfolio and that's the way VC works generally. I've never really loved the genesis of that, maybe because I hate losing Dan. I don't know why, but I just, I don't want to be wrong eight times and being super right once. I think that's junk. What we've kind of gravitated towards is maybe we won't hit the 10,000x returns we don't necessarily need. We're not running outside portfolio where it's an inside portfolio. And so what we're trying to do is we're trying to take a more pragmatic approach and we're trying to find companies that are, let's say, out of proof of concept. They can be in any arena that helps America. That's the only mandate. They've got to be American companies. We take a, a very active approach. Right. So we'll put a board member or two, we'll, we'll be there 24, 7, as little or as much as you need us to be. And that's not there to impede your business. It's just things that I've Learned in my 43 life, 43 years of life. Some of our team members who've learned great expertise and great adjoining skill sets, we want to be there. Complimentary. And I guess what I'm saying is we were looking for companies in private equity as well. They don't have to have crazy cash flow, but they've had a, they've got to have a growth propensity and if we can fund them, if we can build them, if we can get in their sub 50 million dollar or so market cap or valuation and we can help to build and grow them into many hundreds of millions. And, and as I was mentioning before, if we get lucky, it's in the billion or two or four billion dollars of the value. I mean we don't need much more than that. And so that's kind of the framework, that's the genesis. That said, we're not, you know, we're not as crazy as it sounds. We're not not here to compete against Silicon Valley. There's better Andreessen, there's a lot better Silicon Valley firms that would take your business on. But we're a blend between the VC and private equity.
- [51:31]
A
So how much has AI changed the way you look at investments when some companies or some categories could be disrupted? How has AI changed what you're looking at?
- [51:41]
C
Well, we're still so early days, right? I mean, I just, I think we're, you know, we're still so early into it. There's going to be so many ebbs and flows. I think people naively think it's going to happen overnight. Like I just, I can't see it at this point in time as a, from a user perspective, you know, we're investors of chat GPT. It's a passive investment. I'm sure it's going to do well. OpenAI but like the user experience is to better train search at the moment. That's the capability of it. And so I think in this coming year, 2026, I think it's going to evolve for the user perspective, not the founder perspective, but the user perspective. Actually it could be the founder perspective where if you can work with AI, it'll help to train your firm, meaning that you'll be able to use assistance, internal assistance. They can go through all your documentation, all your emails, if you can prompt it. Right. It can help you be more efficient as a founder of your firm. It could be any type of firm. So I think we're going to start to see a lot more of those real world applications in 2026. But in the grand scheme of life, in the grand scheme of things, Dan, we're still so early from any meaningful headway. And so for us, that's obviously very exciting. You know, I'm a large shareholder of SpaceX. SpaceX is going public this year. There's been talk over the last week or so that Xai might actually merge with, with SpaceX, which is, you know, blows your mind. But this, this is a guy who's blown our mind for, for a very long time. Because the reality is, is that with his open, with his Xai, I mean, his goal now is he's trying to get, he's, he solved the problem of the launch, right? He can get things up and down on cadence into outer space. And so Falcon 9 goes up three times a week when the starship comes online, unless, let's say next 18 months or so. And to give you perspective, I think you'll enjoy this. You're an interesting data guy. So when you hear about the starship, this is the Elon's Mars rocket. You might hear about it. I don't think anybody really knows the perspective of it. But to give you some sort of breadth, the starship rocket that Elon Musk is building, that he will have operational, is bigger than the Statue of Liberty. So it's bigger than the Statue of Liberty, and it's going to fly 16 to 18,000 miles an hour.
- [53:49]
A
Whoa.
- [53:50]
C
And Dan's like, wow, that's pretty fast. But to give you better context, a bullet and a gun travels 3,4000 miles an hour. So it's going to travel four times the speed of a bullet and it's going to be bigger than the Statue of Liberty. That's what this guy is building. And so if that doesn't blow your
- [54:09]
A
mind, airplanes are 400 miles an hour. So that's 40 times 40.
- [54:15]
C
Yes. Yeah.
- [54:16]
A
Sixteen thousand.
- [54:17]
C
Sixteen thousand. Sixteen,000.
- [54:18]
A
Forty times faster than the airplane.
- [54:20]
C
Yeah.
- [54:21]
A
That's nuts.
- [54:21]
C
Yeah.
- [54:22]
A
Yeah.
- [54:23]
B
Whoa.
- [54:23]
A
Are humans going to be on them?
- [54:25]
C
Humans will be on them. There's debate whether they put the Optimus robots on them first to start doing things, but absolutely there's going to be payloads, inevitably, is gonna be humans because he wants to, he wants to use that rocket to initially develop the lunar surface. Right. So they want to go back to the Moon, they want to build colony there and then they also want to go into Mars.
- [54:42]
A
Sure.
- [54:42]
C
And then the interesting thing about Mars is you can't just launch a rocket whenever you want. There's only a window once every two years with the trajectory of the, of the solar system and the way the planets are, and that's that the launch window is going to happen in and around December of 2026, if he's able to hit this two year window. If not, he's got to wait another two years to try and get.
- [55:01]
A
Oh my gosh, that's fascinating.
- [55:03]
C
Totally fascinating.
- [55:04]
A
Okay, on the investing side, I could talk about that all day. Let's focus on money. On the investing side, when you find a company, when do you decide if you're going to do follow on rounds? Like let's say you invested the first time you threw in 5 million bucks into this company, it was a $40 million round. You and your guys threw in 5 million bucks, but now they're doing a $200 million round later on. What things make you decide, you know, what, I want to invest again or you know, what I'm good with our initial small investment. That's it.
- [55:31]
C
So, I mean, as the evolution of myself, my firm that we were talking about earlier, I'll give you a couple different answers. And so one traditional vc, back to your gambling analogy. And playing blackjack, you always want to buy if it's an up round and there's momentum, you always want to double down your winners, you want to let your winners ride. As counterintuitive as it may sound, we're like, oh, this thing's up. It's 3x from where I put my money in, I'm already positioned cheaply. There's too much risk. Traditional and mathematically, the better VC performers always buy the higher rounds because they're trying to find the thing that takes off as quick as it can. For us, we kind of look at it a little bit differently because we don't invest as passively anymore. It takes so much energy. We're small and so we try not to invest as passively. And so back to the pe, we want to take more meaningful stakes. And the answer to that question is unfortunately, whether it's a up round, middle round, or sometimes even down rounds, you know, we're all in. We put our chips on the table, so we, you know, we take the shot and we battle in the trenches with these folks and we celebrate on rooftops with these folks, but we're all in. So we don't necessarily Discriminate. Unless there's something so wrong with the company or the management or the industry or something like that. We physically can't, but we're. We back companies.
- [56:49]
A
All right, let's talk about the charity side of things. Why do you think it's important for a brand, product or service to have some type of charity for their staff or their employees, their clients, vendors, investors? Why do you think it's important to have some type of charity, whether it's money, time or energy involved in a company?
- [57:05]
C
I think you hit on that a little bit earlier when I walked in. I think it's more to do with the butterfly effect and just paying things forward. Right. And so we don't. I don't live in a scarcity mentality or aspect. I always try and pay things forward. I think, you know, making that culture, sometimes you don't even know where it's going to come from or why it's going to come, but as long as you keep giving. I'm a big, you know, I'm a spiritual guy, I'm a universe guy. I'm thinking, you know, and there's been so many instances in my life where I didn't know something really good was going to happen, but I just inadvertently did something good for somebody. And you can never, you know, as Steve Jobs says, you can never connect the dots moving forward. You've always got to look backwards to connect the dots. And I'm sure yourself, Dan, I'm sure some of the viewers, you've seen things where you've just done something nice or kind, not expecting anything or maybe even did expect anything, that's fine too. But then you look back in some time and that's opened a door, made a relationship or got you a job or got you a promotion or got you a flight or an interview on a podcast or something really, really nice. And so I think not being open minded to doing that and pushing that forward is very naive, very self serving, very close minded. And so I'm of the camp that you want to do as much as that within reason, as humanly possible. Yeah.
- [58:15]
A
Why do things important for people to invest into themselves invest into their mind? Whether it's coaches, courses, colleges, personal brand, why should they be investing into themselves?
- [58:24]
C
That's a great question. And I'm a big fan of your friend Tony Robbins. I actually started reading his mentor Jim Rohn years even before I got into Tony. And so I think Jim does the best job of kind of articulating that where it's the only. And I Kind of articulate as well as he him. So I'll paraphrase it. But, but at the end of the day you can't rely on other people. You've got to make your own skill set, right? And it's back to the kind of the hunting and fishing and having that kind of sense of yourself, of sense of self worth and self being. And that's how you become, I think, a provider. I'm old school, I'm traditional. If you look back to the lineage of human beings to caveman days, we were hunters and gatherers, right? And so you, you can't just. Is it important to rely on the team? Absolutely, you have to rely on the team. But it's really that person, the man or the girl, looking yourself in the mirror and having that ability and confidence and just going through the motions like it's everyone. I think one of the biggest problems, I think also in this day and age is everyone's so scared of failure, right? You meet these young 30 year old kids and they've never asked anybody out. They've been hiding behind this computer and they're socially awkward and it's like what chance do you have to I think reproduce? I mean it's tough, right? And you know, guys like Tate talk about this stuff quite a bit where it's like you've got 80% of the women chasing 20% of the men, something like that. And so I think just going back into. And again, not a trip back memory Dane, but just like more traditional, more like you know, getting out there, failing, embarrassing yourself, trying to ask a girl out that you have a crush on, maybe she shoots you down and you feel like crap for a week or two, but somewhere something inside you that's really good as a male human being. And there's great examples for women as well too. But I think going back to the just the traditional, not everything. I mean obviously things are good in some capacity, but just going back to being self serving, self sufficient is really going to help our civilization out.
- [60:18]
A
Do you think that most people are cut out to be a CEO of a startup company?
- [60:23]
C
I don't think so, actually. I wouldn't encourage it for everyone. You have to be, you have to have a certain kind of a little bit psycho. You know, there's something's obviously off if you think you can do something that most people can't. And you know, and it's not all. I'm sure when like, you know, things blow up, like in a good way, it's obvious. But the, the math isn't on your side. Generally speaking, I think you're trying something really hard. I think I would actually implore and encourage people to not even be CEO, because maybe you're not. You don't have that right skill set or you're 60% of that skill set, you're just as good being somebody's number two. If you're at somebody's number two or four, a great CEOs, you're going to learn way more and you'll be more collaborative and you'll create more value because you're more conducive to work with somebody who might have a better skill set for that. And I'm not here to, you know, shatter people's dreams. That's not what I'm saying. But I'm just saying be real on who you are. And if you're willing to, you know, get hit in the face and fail and feel on the mat for and an indefinite future with no guarantee of success. And by the way, as a CEO, and you're CEO of many companies, Dan, like, it's very selfless. Right. And so if you have any level of like people pleasing or you want people to give you accolades, it's tough as a CEO. Sure, a couple people give you accolades, but usually there's a longer list of vendors or somebody that bills lots of. And so you have to. And I say kind of tongue in cheek because I've got tough skin, but like, you have have to be okay to do that. And if you get a lawsuit or something, shit hits the fan, you can't buckle because it's not just you at that point, it's the rest of your company. Right. And so you have to have that kind of, kind of strength within you. Yeah.
- [62:02]
A
So I'm going to say something very blunt. Employee number six is better than employee number one if you want to get paid. Yeah. Employee number one, the founder or the CEO is literally last on the list of getting paid, not just of humans. Vendors, bills, rent, lawyer bills, accounting, vendors, shipping, food for the office. Every little thing is first before you get paid. If you're employee number one, that's exactly right. Stone cold last. And by the way, when there's extra money to pay, employee number one, guess what you do with extra money? Put it back in the company.
- [62:39]
C
Yeah.
- [62:39]
A
And if things are going good, you put it all the way back in the company. And so I say that because sometimes people should actually consider just be employee number six, get paid your salary on time and don't try to be that cr. Entrepreneur because you're unlikely to get paid unless you have a good success later on down the road.
- [62:53]
C
That's exactly right.
- [62:54]
A
All right, let's talk about the last and final key piece. There's only one question I ask on every single episode, and I've never gotten the same answer out of a couple hundred episodes now.
- [63:04]
C
Wow.
- [63:04]
A
Ready for this one? Okay. You build up this VC firm, you build up some of these companies you're part of, you build up these investments, and you have billions of dollars of exits over the course of your career. But unfortunately, at some day you finally pass away, what percentage of your net worth do you leave to your children? Wow.
- [63:24]
C
What a great question. So I'll maybe answer it a different way. And I don't know if the other hundred people said the same thing or not. But the key thing for me is I'm not sure what the percentage as of yet, but I want to make sure that whatever I leave behind, it's not just a check. It's not just a here, take X amount of money and figure it out. There's got to be something that's parameters, not even parameters with some level of sustainability. I'm not talking about sustainability for the Earth, but sustainably for the business. And because again, the idea that you want things to reoccur and compound and grow over time. And I've seen so many examples of, you know, friends of mine have got kids who give a lot of money to their kids and they struggle because they lose the value of money because they know there's more behind it.
- [64:05]
A
It.
- [64:05]
C
And if you, let's say, arbitrarily give a billion dollars to your. Your kids, they're not stupid people. They know if they can, they can eat through this because there's still 400 million left or 300 million and 200 million. And so I don't think it's actually the percentage for me at least it's more, can we set something up that they're so passionate about that they want to run and build and grow? Hopefully it's my business. Maybe it's their own business, I don't know. But it's got some sort of sustainability future where their kids are going to be able to inherit that. And so there's a lot of planning around generational stuff and trusts. And, you know, I'm a member of Milken Instit and a lot of these, you know, foundations. I bought my own foundation, so we do some planning around that sort of stuff. But again, the key for me is more so just like, what does that look like? Less about the dollar amount. Dollar amount. But how do we ensure that this business has the right footing? So when my kids, who are one in four now, when they're 84 and, you know, 89, I guess right. At 88, is that still a business that they can pass down to whoever's coming behind them? Yeah.
- [65:04]
A
Where can people find you on social? Where can they find any of the companies or any of the fun investments that they can look at?
- [65:09]
C
Yeah, I think probably the best way just at Justice. J us Tus Parmer P M A R. That's the Instagram handle. It connects to a lot of stuff. I'm going to bug you about the omnipresence nature as well. And then. Yeah, and you can find a lot of our stuff on my. On the company website. Invest fortuna.com investors f o r t u n a.com all right, guys, as
- [65:33]
A
I mentioned earlier in this podcast, this is not just for you. It might be for someone from your past, present or future. Could be two months from now, could be two years from now. Someone might be thinking about investing. Someone might be thinking about raising capital. You might want to forward this episode to them. And the butterfly effect could occur. They might start pitching him. Boom. They get a $10 million investment because you passed along this podcast episode. So just keep in mind as you listen to these episodes, it's not just for you. It's also for your friends, family and followers. Appreciate you guys. We'll see you guys next Monday here@themoney Mondays.com.