0:00

I'm David Grosso, and you're listening to

0:02

follow the Profit Today

0:09

I'm joined by someone who has a pretty

0:11

interesting perspective into raising money

0:14

and to getting businesses started. His

0:16

name is Mac the VC, otherwise

0:19

known as Matt Conwell. He's joining me today

0:21

from Maryland. What's up, Mac, how's

0:23

it going? David is good to be here, man. So

0:25

when you meet people in the elevator, what's the elevator

0:27

pitch? You give them? What's the

0:29

elevator pitch I give them?

0:32

I tell them give me your money. I'll

0:34

make you more money. Well

0:37

that's pretty convincing. Tell me more. That's

0:40

the point of elevator pitch, right, you want

0:42

to get to the point where somebody says that actually more.

0:45

Um No, so um

0:47

at rare brief ventures, you know, we look to

0:50

invest in companies with

0:52

rare brief founders that can be found anywhere,

0:54

not just the major tech hopes. So we're looking

0:56

for the opportunities that are overlooked

0:59

and counted out. So

1:01

let's talk about that money gets distributed

1:03

to tech companies. Basically in the Northeast

1:06

and in California and everywhere else, it's

1:08

just absent. Why is that? Um?

1:13

I don't know, well I

1:15

do know. It has to do with the density

1:18

of where the venture firms

1:20

and the capital are. So you got

1:22

Boston, but Boston's because that's where the

1:24

life science help bigs and so there's a density

1:27

of capital life sciences. You got in New York

1:29

because that's the financial capital. So that's

1:31

where all the big pe firms

1:33

are financial firms, and they got

1:35

interested into doing venture investing.

1:38

So it's a big, you know collection there.

1:40

And then you got to look on Valley, which is his own unique

1:42

thing. But in the early

1:46

you know, nineteen hundreds,

1:48

when we get around the times of

1:51

World War two and even a little

1:53

earlier, you had a lot of government money going

1:55

in to support the war efforts and

1:57

support all this creation of new technology,

2:00

which led to this boom of technology

2:02

companies and led to a boom

2:04

of capital that just kind of centered

2:06

there. And so you just got this density

2:09

of technology and capital which attracted

2:11

more and by the time everybody else would

2:13

figure out what was going on, they had a fifty year on so

2:18

dense pockets. So how did

2:21

this happen though, because you know, even when we were

2:23

little kids, Matt, because you I'm gonna assume you're about

2:25

my age. There wasn't really a big difference

2:27

in cost of living and in jobs across

2:30

the country, right, And now there seems to be two

2:32

America's, right, these hyper

2:34

expensive technology forward

2:37

America and then this

2:39

left behind America. How did that happen?

2:44

That happened as when

2:47

you get past the great

2:50

migration in the sixties, and

2:52

then too the nineteen seventies and

2:54

nineteen eighties, you had this proliferation

2:57

of people leaving out of the

2:59

rural parts of the country and going into the metropolis,

3:01

into the metropolis and major cities, right,

3:04

and as you have people chasing

3:06

the American dream. What we've

3:08

seen over time, what we've seen time

3:10

and time again is that money

3:13

leads to more money, right,

3:15

and so the rich get richer, and as they do,

3:18

they start to leave more and more people behind. That's

3:20

how you get a minimum wage that's

3:22

been left behind for

3:24

free. Damn their generations at

3:26

this point, because

3:29

the folks making money are only thinking about

3:31

how to make more money, like we see this in Mars

3:33

tech firms where. But that's why

3:35

the show was undercover Boss

3:38

is so interesting to me because

3:40

you have all these I've seen it, the CEOs

3:43

who work at a point where they're

3:45

detached from the day to day work. So the way they

3:47

see people spreadsheets. And then on

3:49

the spreadsheet, every person has equates

3:52

to dollars. And so if we can

3:54

say fifty cent here here

3:56

or a dollar here, that's saving

3:58

a dollar and every person here ease to us,

4:00

saving millions and aggregate. So

4:03

yeah, let's start to cut things, or you have things

4:05

like shrinkage. So like over time, as

4:07

inflation goes up, the sizes of products

4:09

go down because it's easier

4:11

for a serial company to shrink the size

4:13

of a box that it is for them to make it cheaper and

4:18

so or make it more expensive. So instead of

4:20

chaining and making the price more expensively, just make the boxes smaller.

4:22

And those little things add up to Moore money.

4:25

Because greed is undefeated, right,

4:27

So that's what happens. It's really all the smell greed. But

4:30

in the end, MAC, we know that most

4:33

job creation, most big

4:35

ideas, most economic

4:37

growth doesn't come from people who

4:39

make cereal boxes. It comes from small

4:41

business, right, It doesn't come from these big

4:43

conglomerates. In fact, these big conglomerates,

4:46

by these small businesses, they gobble it

4:48

up to guarantee growth. So how do

4:50

we support small business We

4:53

support small businesses by shopping

4:55

and spending our money there, right, and you support with your

4:57

capital if you want to support small businesses,

5:00

the small businesses, right, Like

5:02

you know, instead of going to the

5:04

major jewelry store and your local mall,

5:07

go to the local jewelry store down the street from

5:09

your house. Right. You know, the way

5:11

you support small businesses is you fund them.

5:14

You give them capital, You give them the opportunity

5:17

to give you that high

5:19

touch feeling. Because like once you get to the big companies,

5:21

you know that that white glove, you know, community

5:24

feel disappears, and they all

5:26

try to do it. They all come up with like department

5:29

so their their their companies

5:31

to try and do community outreach and community

5:33

touch, and it's never the same. Right, It's

5:35

like going to a Delhi where you know the owner

5:38

and you've known them for years. And so the way we support

5:40

them is we give them capital. The way we support

5:42

them from like a venture standpoint is we

5:44

don't like

5:47

unfortunately a lot of small businesses do

5:49

not fit the financial

5:51

model of venture capital, which is why venture

5:54

capital is only one portion of the financial

5:56

stack. Right. I think very often people

5:58

look to vcs and be like, hey, you need

6:01

to solve this. You can't just do the big tech

6:03

companies. You gotta do these small businesses

6:05

to the business model isn't

6:07

fit for that. And the problem is

6:10

we haven't innovated to allow other

6:12

new financial products or

6:14

to really pump up other financial products like

6:16

revenue based investing that really do

6:19

fit the small business models. So we need more people

6:22

actually innovating and creating new

6:24

financial products to support small business. We've

6:27

gotten to this point where everybody's just like, well,

6:29

this is how things have been done, has been this done this way forever.

6:31

It's like, no, we can do new things.

6:33

This is this is what we're about. We create things

6:36

to solve problems. This is a problem we have. Let's

6:38

create something to solve it. And I don't feel like enough

6:40

people are spending enough brain

6:42

power to solve these issues. Now we

6:44

just try tried and true formulas.

6:47

That seems to be the problem across society. But

6:49

I want to push back on you, Matt, because we always say

6:52

that like, oh, you should shop at

6:54

a small business. But I'm a millennial.

6:56

I'm just trying to make it here economically, I'm

6:58

not responsible for the aid to the world. I

7:01

like my Starbucks points, I like my five

7:03

percent back on my Prime card. I

7:05

like my predictability. I want to

7:07

save money. And as much as

7:09

I care about small business and want them

7:11

to succeed, I also care about

7:13

myself. So how do I balance

7:15

those That's the personal decision.

7:18

You gotta decide what matters for you, right,

7:20

does your small the small businesses of your

7:22

local community matter more than

7:25

you're getting that Starbucks coffee. If you have to pay an

7:27

extra fifty cents more to get

7:29

coffee at you know, Jenny's coffee shops,

7:33

where are you going to go? And those are the

7:35

personal decisions that we have to make every day.

7:37

And to your point, you know you just want to say money,

7:39

you're just trying to just trying to make adman. There

7:41

are a lot of small businesses that actually offer

7:44

better price products. We've been

7:46

conditioned to believe that, like, oh, all the places

7:48

we go now give us the best prices. In the actuality,

7:51

we actually stopped searching for the best prices. We

7:53

just got lolled into just going to the same place as we

7:55

always go. But at the end of the day, like those

7:57

are personal choices, like where you go to show

8:00

where you spend your money. You get to decide that.

8:02

And if you just want to go to all the places to save

8:04

the most money, fine, But if you really

8:06

want to support your small businesses, then you've got to do

8:08

that. You can't say I support my small businesses,

8:11

but then they'll spend your money there and then you don't really support

8:13

them. Just now, just being a performative.

8:16

You're just being a performer, right you virtual?

8:20

This is how you get clicks on twitterly. Now

8:23

you make a really good point about big business. They

8:25

have convinced us that they are the best deal, but oftentimes

8:28

they are not. That is an excellent point. So

8:30

let's talk about the proverbial,

8:34

you know, low income neighborhood.

8:36

We'll call it, some people call it the hood, whatever

8:38

you want to call it. How do we change that?

8:40

Because you know, we have this idea in our society

8:42

that poor areas are poor because you

8:45

know they deserve it, or I don't know, or

8:47

because of historical adjustices, or

8:49

you know, name your basket of tropes

8:51

about bad neighborhoods. So how

8:54

do how do we make it better? We

8:58

need to stop discarding

9:01

portions of our communities.

9:05

Um, I'm from Baltimore,

9:07

right san Chester, Win towns of

9:10

a part of Baltimore where the

9:12

median income it's seventeen

9:15

thousand dollars a year. That's

9:18

like a fraction of the media and income

9:20

in America. That's that's that's basically

9:23

a middle income country right there. But

9:25

that's per household. That's not per person.

9:28

That's per household. So

9:30

devastatingly poor. Yea devastatingly

9:33

poor, but it's not from lack of

9:35

effort. Like these are people who get up every

9:37

day go to work. These are people have

9:39

to catch two and three buses to get the work and get

9:41

home like they're trying. Like think about the people

9:44

complain about being in traffic trying to get the work

9:46

and it takes you forty five minutes and traffic to get the work,

9:48

where you just get there in twenty minutes. We're

9:50

talking about peopleho have to take two and three busses where

9:52

it takes them two and three hours to get the work, sitting

9:55

outside and the heat, sitting outside in the snow.

9:57

But yeah, we're gonna say they're poor because

9:59

they were to people, we're not the only want to be poor, right,

10:02

But when you're young,

10:04

and you're going and you're growing up in a city like Baltimore,

10:07

and you're you're in a household where

10:09

you don't know what it's like to have running water

10:12

or electricity every day when you're

10:14

just used to your water getting cut off, you used to electricity

10:16

getting cut off, you're used to not having you're used to

10:18

not having food. You will do whatever

10:20

it takes to survive and eat. And

10:23

along the way, you

10:26

don't have people in your community showing

10:28

you what success looks like. You

10:31

don't have people showing you like how you

10:33

go to school two, then go to college

10:36

to then get a career. Like careers

10:39

aren't talked about right like

10:41

in these communities because everything

10:43

about their daily life is survival.

10:45

They don't even have the they don't even have the bandwidth

10:48

to strategize a better future.

10:51

And we don't give them those support. The

10:54

support we do give them, we give them resources to live.

10:56

So we give you food, might give you shelter if

10:58

you can get finance, if you can get federal aid,

11:01

but even within and then we'll show you how to

11:03

put a resume together. But what's the resume when

11:05

you haven't worked anywhere for like four

11:07

or five years because nobody will hire you, right,

11:10

And so what do we actually do to

11:12

move these people for We don't give them the

11:14

opportunities to grow financially.

11:17

Like if you didn't make it in high school and make it to college,

11:20

just gotta let you go. It's not like

11:22

you can go get a job at Bethlehem Steel and make fifty

11:25

year and support a family that didn't exist anymore.

11:28

And that's why you know, we need more programs. So

11:30

like there's a company called Catalyite where

11:32

if you go there, they have a test. If

11:34

you pass their test or aptitude tests, they

11:37

say they can train you to be a software engineer

11:39

in six months, no matter who you are. You walk off

11:41

the street, take this test, six months, you have

11:43

a job off revolutionary. It makes sense

11:46

we should have things like like this

11:49

for all types of jobs. Like you don't have

11:51

to go to college for four years to work in HR.

11:54

You don't have to go to college for four years to be

11:56

a media buyer. You can literally

11:58

like we have haven't thought about

12:01

what the next wave of apprenticeship could look

12:03

like like so many of these jobs we say

12:05

you have to go get a degree, Like no, you

12:08

can literally set up apprenticeships where you

12:10

can learn to be a media by you can learn to

12:12

do you know, social media as, you can learn

12:14

to do that's all these things that we can

12:16

learn, but we don't give people the opportunity to do

12:18

that. So you have a whole swap of

12:21

of our country who's left

12:23

out of the opportunity to grow economically.

12:27

That's really interesting because we make it rain

12:29

in these areas with federal money, right, and

12:31

it doesn't seem to move the need all right, So

12:34

it's like these apprenticeships

12:36

are a way to make an investment instead

12:38

of just blowing money that

12:40

doesn't really lead to better outcomes because

12:44

the money that we're blowing is just deal

12:46

with your basic needs of just survival.

12:49

You need to get beyond survival to a place where

12:52

you can be comfortable enough to actually

12:54

move forward. Like here's a crazy

12:56

stat the number

12:58

one reason for people dropping

13:00

out of community colleges like community college

13:02

where you trying to do better, you're you're going

13:04

away, can one life of it? One

13:07

life of it, and that one life of it could beginning your car

13:09

to because now that you've got your car to, you

13:11

don't have a way to get to work, and you don't have the money to get your

13:13

car out of impound, and so how are

13:16

you gonna go back to school? You're not like

13:18

little things like that can throw somebody's

13:21

life off, But you're like getting your

13:23

car. Told like, just get your you

13:25

don't have a problem. Like if you

13:27

come from a community where the meeting household

13:30

makes seventeen thousand a year, you

13:32

gotta make a lot of hard choices. And

13:35

so we just give you and so we make

13:37

it rain and give you money just to go, just

13:39

to continue with the survival mode and survival

13:42

mentality without actually investing

13:44

in the people to help them grow. Um,

13:46

that's just the way I think about it. But there

13:49

are exceptional people in these areas, and

13:51

we see that time and time again throughout history.

13:53

Is that you know, wealthy areas don't tend to

13:55

produce more exceptional people

13:58

than poor areas. In fact, it's it's

14:00

that's the one thing that's equal opportunity.

14:03

The one thing that is different is environment

14:05

and opportunity. So how do

14:07

we empower exceptional people

14:10

that are not born into such luck to

14:12

help their communities change because

14:16

the problem is wedify

14:18

exceptionalism. You

14:20

can't view these communities through

14:23

the prism of the folks who were exceptional, because

14:25

that's fundamentally going to leave out the majority

14:28

of folks. And then what you do is you deify

14:30

these folks who were exceptional and you put it

14:32

on them to solve the problems for their community

14:35

when it wasn't the problem they started to begin with. Right,

14:38

and so, everybody has

14:40

decisions to bake in their own life. And I can't

14:42

fault anybody who says, like, look, I made

14:44

it out, I'm going to be happy.

14:47

I'm not going to deal with that stuff anymore. That's perfectly

14:49

fine. It makes sense, of course,

14:53

but we're not setting

14:55

these communities up for true success.

14:58

If all we want to do is to a look

15:00

so and so made it you can too. Well.

15:04

I'll give you an example. There was a young

15:06

lady who um, I was working

15:08

with the Robotics Club and the Inner City Baltimore.

15:10

This one young lady on the team was exceptional.

15:13

She was doing really great. Then all

15:15

of a sudden she and you know, she was on her

15:17

path to being a computer science major,

15:19

going to college and everything. And one day

15:22

she stopped coming and then she stopped

15:24

coming to school, and so checked in

15:26

with her to find out what was going on, And what

15:28

happened was she had gotten a job

15:30

at McDonald's to help her mom

15:32

pay bills because they didn't have electricity,

15:36

and they hadn't had electricity for three months, and she's

15:38

like, I just need to help, and it's like who whoa, whoa

15:40

wha whoa. You were on the path to real

15:43

success to getting out in

15:45

her whole things like one, I don't

15:47

know if I'm good enough for college to I can't

15:50

afford college. Three we need

15:52

electricity right now, And you shaid

15:54

know you know what we did. We got

15:56

her an internship working

15:58

for the guy who was like the cold for the robotics

16:00

team. He ran a tech company, and

16:02

through her internship she was able to help her mom. She

16:05

end up getting scholarship

16:07

with a full rider at the college and is

16:09

now a software engineer. She

16:12

is an exceptional story.

16:14

But did you hear all the things along the way where

16:16

people had to step in to make sure she got there? But

16:20

we are all like that. If people hadn't stepped

16:22

into my life, I wouldn't be where I am today either.

16:25

We're on that situation we

16:27

are, But then we need more

16:29

people like that gentleman who hired

16:31

her as an intern to help more

16:34

kids like her, because the amount of exceptional

16:36

folks that are in these communities is

16:38

much larger than the amount of exceptional folks and

16:40

actually make it out. And that's

16:42

the part that's getting missed, right, And so it's

16:44

like, how do we truly support all

16:47

of these exceptional people to make

16:49

it out? And we don't

16:51

and we don't provide the resources for that.

16:54

We don't come like. It can't just be the exceptional

16:56

people who made it out to come back. It's all

16:58

the other folks in the community who care about the community,

17:01

support the local leaders, the local businesses,

17:03

to really pour into these young people in these

17:05

communities and not just the young people, their parents

17:07

too. We don't do enough of that.

17:20

So, Mack, you're someone who you

17:22

know still goes to these communities. Is

17:24

it demoralizing to be there? These are violent

17:26

places, these are places with poverty. Like

17:29

I feel like I get anxiety when

17:31

I when I go to you know, poor areas.

17:34

So do you Because

17:36

I feel like I want to change it. I feel like I want to, you

17:38

know, make a difference, and you know,

17:40

and it doesn't seem like we know where to start

17:43

with this type of stuff I

17:45

do my I don't feel uncomfortable

17:48

because like, I'm from those communities, Like

17:50

I know these people. These are like my friends

17:52

and my family members. These are people I grew up with.

17:55

But it is heartbreaking. But it's

17:57

heartbreaking more so because so many people

17:59

don't under stand the true realities of

18:02

these communities. Right do you see

18:04

the stories? You watch the wire, You

18:06

think that's all it is, But there's

18:08

so much more of the stories

18:11

to be told. That's like, these aren't lazy

18:13

people. These aren't people don't want to work. These

18:15

are people who want to be poor. These aren't people

18:17

who want to live on the system.

18:20

These are people who are just trying to survive and

18:22

they need to figure out way to live life

18:25

beyond just survival. But we never

18:27

give them that grace. We automatically put

18:29

them in these buckets. And so

18:31

for me, I'm always encouraged

18:34

by the work

18:36

that a lot of community leaders are doing. And like, for

18:38

me, you know what little bit I can

18:40

do helping You know, I'm a VC. I'm

18:42

investing in companies because I want to find companies

18:44

that can grow the unicorns

18:46

and be worth billions of dollars. But

18:49

that's also why I invested in a

18:52

black woman out of Baltimore who was a single

18:54

mom who had an amazing idea

18:56

for a product that nobody wanted to back. I'm

18:59

not backed her and her company is now growing.

19:02

You know what, she's employing and

19:04

helping people from her community. You

19:06

know what else she's doing. She also has

19:08

a nonprofit where she goes into these communities

19:11

and she teaches young black girls and

19:13

gets them excited for stim education

19:15

for you know, science, technology,

19:18

and engineering through makeup

19:20

and jewelry. Last week she

19:22

had a session where she had young girls

19:25

like elementary and middle school ages creating

19:29

led ear rings. They

19:32

created ear rings that live up right.

19:37

But like, but like it's a young lady like

19:39

that who's now empowered to do

19:41

more good works. And so you

19:44

know, that's how I help and

19:46

hopefully one day I'll be able to do more. But

19:49

yeah, for me, like it's heartbreaking, but moments

19:52

like that are encouraging. So

19:54

what is VC? For people who don't know? What's

19:56

the simplest term? Is it just money that you

19:58

invest in people and you take a piece of their company.

20:02

So venture capital is a subset

20:04

of private equity, which basically

20:06

means we make investments into

20:09

private businesses. Right, most

20:11

people know, like financial advisors,

20:14

they take your money and they invested into public

20:16

companies, they invested in stocks. Right,

20:19

we do the same thing. We just invest into

20:21

private companies and in my case, companies

20:23

are just getting started. So I'm a glorified

20:26

financial advisor. Wealthy people giving

20:28

their money and I put their money behind companies

20:30

to help me them make more money. So

20:33

your company, rare breed is the rare

20:35

breed the founder that you're referring

20:37

to. Yes, rare

20:39

breed is the founder I'm referring to. So

20:43

you invest in founders, you're a people first company.

20:45

What what do you look for in

20:47

someone who fits the rare breed? You

20:49

know, ideal Every

20:53

company and every founders his own unique

20:55

situation. But I'm looking for one

20:58

from a business standpoint. I'm looking for people

21:00

who are having a very unique and

21:02

direct opinion of WALM, how they

21:04

do customer acquisition, experience

21:06

of retention. If you show me you know how

21:09

to find customers, you can get them to buy your product

21:11

and they can keep coming back, then you

21:13

might have a chance to actually win. And

21:15

by having that mindset allows me to take out

21:17

my own biases where I don't have to know

21:19

exactly what market you're in. If

21:21

I know that you find customers,

21:24

they love it and keep buying it. They love it and

21:26

they keep coming back to buy it. Well,

21:28

that's how we become the firm that never misses

21:30

out on the opportunity to invest in a copy like Spans right.

21:33

You can imagine you know when Spens

21:35

is first pitching to a bunch of vcs, like, there

21:38

are a bunch of folks who don't get it. But

21:40

the moment she says, well, you know, I

21:43

go to these department stores and sell it to women. Women

21:46

love it, and most women are going to buy four

21:48

these a year, Like the all

21:50

need to know everything about this. You clearly

21:52

figured out a market that and

21:54

something that's working, and then

21:57

you know it's it's sometimes it's the intangible.

21:59

So like the the woman I mentioned whore

22:01

I backed in Baltimore. I

22:04

was working with her for like three years and

22:06

nobody wanted to invest in her. So

22:09

what she did was she became a Serican mother. She

22:11

gave birth to twins to raise the money start

22:13

building her prototype. You

22:15

can't tell me that's a person won't do whatever it

22:17

takes and makes to be successful, you

22:20

know, like that level of grick

22:23

most people will never be able to see. And

22:25

then on the flip side, I invested

22:27

in a seventeen year old kid

22:29

out of Baltimore who basically

22:32

hacked them oh to get his first twenty

22:34

five thousand customers. One

22:36

of the smartest people I've ever met in my life. I

22:39

just made the bet on him because he was one of the smartest people

22:41

I've met. Right, So, every

22:43

found in every situation is different, but

22:46

it's those unique things about them

22:48

that kind of set them over the age. We just committed

22:50

to a company the other day where we're talking

22:52

to the founders a really cool company

22:55

and I know it's on lengthening that he ran this nonprofit

22:57

helping returning citizens or

22:59

people who were returning out of jail, and I asked

23:02

him about it. He's like, yeah, you know, my dad

23:04

was a lawyer and he was a pioneer in justice

23:06

reform, and he's like, you know, really

23:08

helping people, supporting people is really important to me.

23:10

And that's why they're like, oh, yeah, yeah, you're

23:12

definitely the kind of person we want to invest in. Right.

23:15

So it's those it's those things

23:17

that sometimes go beyond just the business

23:19

that we look for. And these are

23:21

these are people that the traditional

23:24

venture capitalists would have never discovered because they're

23:26

not in Baltimore, they're not in your community, They're

23:28

not interacting with these people, and you're going to events

23:31

to meet these people. Correct? Absolutely?

23:33

I mean before

23:36

we had a global pandemic, I

23:38

spent a lot of time in my community and other

23:40

communities. You know, I spent a lot of

23:42

time in Birmingham, Alabama, and

23:44

St. Louis and Detroit. Where

23:47

you get to meet these folks, you get the Golden's communities.

23:49

You go, you go speak at a Chamber of Commerce

23:51

event, you go speak at UM Urban

23:54

League event, you go hang out at the Lesbians

23:56

who Tech local meetups. I can't

23:58

tell you how much crap I got when I used

24:00

to work for the Investment on the State of Maryland going

24:02

to the Lesbians who Tech meet up there Like, why

24:05

are you going to this event? I was like, it says who Tech?

24:07

Like I'm looking for tech entrepreneurs, like I

24:10

might find one there. You don't discriminate

24:13

equal opportunity here. That's

24:15

such a novel concept, right, um,

24:18

And so I just learned that when you go Wow,

24:20

and you're intentional, you get access

24:23

to far more people the farm entrepreneurs,

24:25

and you do just waiting for them to come to you.

24:29

Yeah. Well, you talked about the seventeen year old

24:31

kid right that sent people a

24:34

penny on Venmo to bring him to

24:36

scholar meat dot com. That's pretty

24:38

interesting what ended up

24:40

happening to that seventeen year old. So

24:43

that's seventeen year old sami

24:45

Um ended up getting some money

24:48

from US at the State of Maryland. Use

24:50

that to go live in New York and race five

24:53

d thousand from a bunch of ex Goldman

24:55

Sacks folks. Ended up going to

24:57

y Combinator, which is the premier a

25:00

startup program in the country. Raised

25:03

two point five million coming out of that,

25:06

got some money directly from the founder, and

25:08

got led by large venture firm,

25:11

and now has a company that's

25:13

growing by leaps and founds and we'll have

25:15

some major updates coming out soon. He's

25:17

now twenty one. He's now twenty one year old

25:19

black kid from Baltimore running

25:22

a company worth multimillions and it's

25:24

on the pathway to being a really large five

25:26

fintech company. H So, scholar

25:29

me dot com check it out. Big

25:31

things coming. So

25:33

I have all these investments been profitable for

25:36

you? Because you know, it almost seems like people

25:39

would say, oh, you know, you're just doing social

25:41

good, right, like are you making money?

25:44

That's what's the point of the business, right,

25:46

So I have to ask, I have

25:48

to ask the obvious question. Mac. It takes

25:51

a long time to get the money back because here's the

25:53

thing. Like, as a VC, when

25:55

we invest in companies, we get paid back typically

25:58

one of two ways. The company goes public or is acquired.

26:01

That's a really high bar that takes a long time.

26:04

So but I will say

26:06

many of the companies that we've invested

26:08

in and that I invested in previously are

26:11

still doing well and are

26:13

moving in the direction of being very successful

26:15

investments. I do not do

26:17

this just for the social good, Like,

26:20

yes, do I care about diversity,

26:22

that I care about social goody? I do. But

26:24

my job, the point

26:26

of my job is to make

26:28

money for my investors. That is my job.

26:31

People give me their give me their money to

26:33

make the more money. So every investment

26:35

I'm making, I'm making it with that in mind.

26:38

Now, most companies are going to fail, I

26:40

know that, but that's why we invest

26:42

in companies. That's why we're looking for companies that are going

26:44

to be worth a billion dollars. That way, those

26:47

successes outweigh and cover

26:49

up all the failures because it's

26:52

running a company so fragile. So

26:55

it's this model of VC a

26:57

bit more profitable because you're dealing with all

27:00

who don't have family access to capital or

27:02

friends and family. Typically when you start your own

27:04

business, the first money you get

27:06

is from friends and family. Well, if

27:08

you're of a modest background,

27:10

that's not possible, is it. No,

27:13

it's not possible at all. And so well

27:15

I will say about investing as early as we do,

27:17

is it can be very, very

27:20

profitable with smaller dollar amounts

27:22

because when you invest in the company, you're basically putting

27:25

money in at a certain valuation.

27:27

Right, You're at a certain value and the value

27:30

grows out over time. Well, if

27:32

you go out to Silicon Valley, you'll see companies,

27:34

like when they're first getting started, getting valuations

27:36

of twenty million, twenty five

27:38

million, these very inflated numbers. You

27:41

go to like a Baltimore, a

27:44

Philadelphia, Detroit, you

27:46

might find an early company where the value starts at

27:48

four million, five million, six million,

27:51

something far more reasonable, something

27:53

with much easier to attain expectations.

27:56

But then from the investor standpoint, the opportunity

27:59

to general it a lot more so, Like in the

28:01

case of a company of starts at twenty

28:03

million as their valuation and then they

28:05

grow to a forty million dollar evaluation.

28:08

If you put money in, you now to extra money.

28:10

That's awesome. You double your money if

28:12

you invest in the company at a four million

28:14

dollar evaluation and then they go to

28:16

a forty million dollar evaluation, now ten

28:18

extra money, right, So but

28:22

the profitability goes up very significantly

28:24

from an investment standpoint, so it goes

28:26

well. So you know, there there's some real advantages

28:29

to finding companies outside of these overpriced,

28:32

overcrowded hopes. Well,

28:35

it seems like, uh, the economy

28:37

large, everything's overvalued and overinflated

28:40

in certain markets and just clinically

28:42

dead and others. So speaking of that, you

28:44

worked for the state of Maryland and investing in

28:46

companies. Is it smart for the government to

28:48

support you know, small business

28:50

in areas that need it. You

28:54

know, the largest purchaser

28:57

in the country is the government, right

28:59

the uh, the

29:01

the the company

29:04

that has the largest amount of money to spend

29:06

in the United States is the government, right,

29:08

and so we want to jump start these communities

29:10

if we know, like, hey, we're

29:13

we're we're lacking in jobs. We need

29:15

more jobs in America. You said it already.

29:17

Most jobs come from small businesses. But

29:20

small businesses don't fit the venture financing

29:23

world or other kind of investment worlds.

29:25

Then where you get your money to go? The

29:27

government should be there the kind of supplement and in

29:30

my opinion, right, um. And

29:32

then well, it's the teach a man

29:34

to fish principle. Right. If you teach them to fish,

29:36

they'll go fishing by themselves. If you just give

29:39

away money, the money runs out and then you're done.

29:42

Yeah, but that's assuming that the

29:45

person you gave the fish didn't

29:47

take that fish and turn the bait to make more fish to

29:49

go and catch more fish, right, Like

29:51

how it like that

29:53

discredits people's ingenuity,

29:56

right, and people's want to

29:58

do more. Um So, fundamentally,

30:01

I believe that in the state

30:03

of Maryland, UM,

30:05

where I work, the Maryland Technology Development Corporation

30:08

is the largest fund of really states tech companies in the state of

30:10

Maryland. Right, here's

30:12

an interesting fact. They were the first investor in squarespace.

30:15

Square Space is an amazing product that supports

30:17

small businesses every day. And there was

30:20

three young men out of University of Maryland who

30:22

got their first check from the State of Maryland.

30:24

Now multibillion dollar company. They

30:27

are based in New York, but they don't

30:29

get that money from Taco. I don't know square

30:31

space exists today. I will also

30:33

say that, and within that organization

30:36

they have a fund completely dedicated to

30:39

stem cell research and commercialization. Because

30:42

they have been doing that work for the last ten

30:44

years. They are now companies being commercialized

30:47

from the technologies that they were investing

30:49

in years ago. They are now saving people's

30:51

lives. That technology

30:54

doesn't exists without, you

30:57

know, the funding from the government. So do I think

30:59

the government should be putting money in this, Yeah, I do. And

31:01

I think they should be doing programs like that all

31:03

over the country because then that's when you don't

31:05

have these like dense hubs and

31:08

these three locations, but you actually have strong

31:12

ecosystems that both startups and small businesses

31:14

all across the country. Because, oh yes, I

31:16

think they should. Our

31:27

economy seems to be engineered to attract big

31:29

business, right. It's very traditional

31:31

for a big business to announce that they're searching

31:34

for a new headquarters, and local

31:36

and state governments, you know, whip out all these

31:38

incentives. Why don't they turn it on its

31:40

head and invest in local people instead of trying

31:43

to attract business, because

31:45

that's the way we've been done for so long. You need

31:47

a community to see the value of

31:50

a local business grow for them

31:52

to really understand. And I'll give you a great example. So

31:54

in Birmingham, Alabama, they have they

31:56

have a tech eco system is growing and it's growing around

31:58

one company. It's been called Shipped. Shipped

32:01

is a company that basically does grocery deliveries.

32:04

Well, a few years ago, Shipped, which

32:06

is based in Birmingham, Alabama, got acquired

32:08

by Target for five million

32:11

dollars. So half a billion dollars

32:13

for a tech company in Birmingham,

32:15

Alabama. I promise you half a billion dollars

32:18

goes a much further than

32:20

a billion dollars in San Francisco, of

32:22

course, But because of that

32:25

they've created all these jobs. They

32:27

also have all these folks who worked there who

32:29

have seen how to grow a company, who are now starting their

32:31

own companies. You now got a bunch of people

32:33

who got wealthy through this funding

32:35

round or this acquisition, who are now

32:37

becoming angel investors, who are now investing

32:40

in the local community, right, who are now

32:42

starting their own restaurants, right. Like a

32:44

whole bunch of things came out of this one

32:46

central company. And so now

32:49

the folks in Birmingham are like, how do we get another

32:51

shipped? Like instead of us talking about bringing

32:53

Amazon here, let's let's have a

32:55

homegrown company actually cares about being here.

32:58

How do we create more more of those? And as

33:00

we start to see more communities have

33:02

local winners like that, I think we

33:04

will start to see these things happening, Like that's

33:07

really what I want to see for these communities around

33:09

the country. Well, it's really funny

33:11

you mentioned that because we just went to Birmingham

33:13

and Atlanta and talk about two cities that used

33:15

to be the same size, the same economic

33:18

might, and now Atlanta has the world's largest

33:20

airport, is the home of Coca Cola, Chick fil

33:22

A, too many other things to name, and

33:24

Birmingham is kind of fading into obscurity.

33:27

I have friends who lived there, I've been there many times,

33:29

but this seems like the way out of their hole

33:31

for communities that have fallen behind economically.

33:34

It definitely can be a way out of the whole. But this

33:37

also goes back to something you mentioned earlier. Right,

33:39

when something like that happens, the

33:42

founders and individuals who got

33:44

wealthy through those acquisitions

33:46

need to pour back into the community.

33:48

Right. Every time you have a successful exit

33:51

like that in one of these communities, and

33:53

that doesn't lead to the creation of

33:56

angel groups, venture groups,

33:58

new companies, new small businesses,

34:01

it sets a community back by a decade

34:04

because you get one of those, like what's the decade?

34:06

But once you get more of them, it starts

34:09

to build on itself. So it goes from once a decade

34:11

to once every five years. So now you're

34:14

just getting a bunch of them. Well, the

34:16

moment you have one and they don't pour back

34:18

into that community, then it

34:20

leaves a gaping void and you

34:22

have to wait for the next one. So

34:26

I see Twitter as a place where most trolls

34:29

go to bother other people. And somehow you've turned

34:31

Twitter into this hub for you know,

34:33

finding talent and investing in people.

34:36

How the hell did you do that? Um,

34:40

I don't know, man, it was just luck, Like I

34:42

just I was just tweeting

34:45

about I was. I started

34:48

off just tweeting about

34:50

the things I learned in my you

34:52

know, time being an entrepreneur now being an

34:54

investor, because there's there's so many

34:56

things that we take for granted

34:59

in this in this in street. They're just known,

35:01

right, you just know, you don't that

35:03

vcs don't sign in the a's right,

35:06

you just know that, like valuation

35:08

is don't really how much to do with the business at the early

35:10

stage, far more about leverage, like or

35:13

or reality for that matter, reality

35:15

for that matter, right, you just know,

35:17

like to get to vcs, you got a network and

35:19

meet people. You just know, like for a

35:21

pitch deck, these the slides you need. And

35:25

there's a new first time founder every

35:27

day who doesn't. And so all

35:29

I was doing is just trying to give advice and

35:31

like demystified venture capital. And as I did

35:33

that, you know, just more

35:35

and more people were gravitating towards it, and so

35:38

I just decided to keep doing it and be consistent

35:40

with it. And it's really the consistency

35:42

of it. And then also like you know, the content

35:45

I'm I'm I'm talking about, I'm always trying

35:47

to help people, and so I

35:50

have the majority of people on my time.

35:52

My majority of people who follow me are

35:55

of the same mindset. They're looking for help, but they're

35:57

looking to help others and you know,

35:59

not as many of the trolls. The trolls still happen,

36:01

like trolls like get haters,

36:03

like it happens, but like that's not what I do it for

36:05

our door for all the people that help, and then you

36:08

know, let's let's be honest, do it for me selfishly,

36:10

right, Me growing a president

36:12

on Twitter helped me raise my fund right,

36:14

like I'm still fundraising, but like me putting

36:16

my presidents on Twitter and growing that like definitely

36:19

helped. You know, there are there are people who I

36:21

admire and look up to who

36:23

know me now because of Twitter, which is like the

36:25

coolest thing ever. Well,

36:28

it seems like you're in the right place right time too,

36:30

because your name is Mac the VC right,

36:32

Like you've branded yourself right

36:35

and we're we're going through a moment here where

36:37

we're having a lot of cultural awakenings

36:40

about wealth gaps, specifically between

36:42

black communities and just other communities

36:45

will call it. So have

36:47

you leveraged that to try to, you know, advance

36:50

the cause here? Because you know, wealth gaps concern

36:53

all Americans, not just black Americans.

36:56

I have, but I also I

36:59

pushed back order because people talk about

37:01

venture like it's supposed to be the answer to

37:04

the wealth gap. And the problem

37:06

with that is that assumes that

37:08

most companies are going to be successful, or that

37:11

a lot of large swamp of these companies are gonna be successful,

37:13

and naturally most of these companies aren't. Most

37:15

of these companies that I see are coming

37:17

up are going to fail. They just just

37:20

the numbers, the status. This is what's

37:22

going to happen. And so knowing

37:24

that when you think about

37:27

what it takes to close the racial wealth gap

37:30

or just the wealth gap in general. You

37:32

know, one of the things that happened as

37:34

I was getting the fund up and growing and started

37:36

to make investments was one of the companies

37:39

that invested this is really fast growing, high

37:41

growth uh start up a silicon bats

37:43

standard Silicon valley. You know a

37:46

founder who had started two companies they

37:48

both exited. You know, he's been done

37:50

really well, this is third one. This is gonna be

37:52

the big one. So that

37:54

company went from like zero to sixteen

37:57

million in revenue and like seven or eight months

37:59

something crazy right, raised a whole bunch

38:01

of money, and so I got my best

38:03

friend, who was my former CTO from my startup.

38:06

I got my best friend a job as an engineer

38:08

at that company. He's one of the he's

38:10

one of the first like three black people they hired.

38:13

He's one of the first fifty employees. They

38:16

paid him more money than he ever made in his life.

38:18

They gave him better benefits than he had ever had,

38:21

and they gave him more stock than

38:23

I own in the company as an investor. And

38:27

so when this company does well or does

38:29

like a quarter of what everybody thinks it could

38:31

be, he'll become independently

38:34

wealthy, which means my

38:36

godson will never have to worry about paying

38:38

for college. That means

38:41

my godson will probably

38:43

have a trust account, you know, for

38:45

when he turns eighteen. Right,

38:47

my friend and his wife will be able to

38:49

do more real estate investing. That

38:52

means the next generations of their family

38:55

will actually have money to

38:58

generate. Wealth that had nothing

39:00

to do with or has everything to do with access.

39:02

Because the only way you ever get a job to a company

39:05

like that is you've got to be in these circles. And

39:07

so now a big thing that I'm working

39:10

on is how do we give access to

39:12

those types of jobs to more people, because

39:14

it's not just going to be the founders,

39:16

it's also going to be the employees. And so how

39:18

we really have a diverse employee

39:21

pool where people can become one of the first

39:23

fifty to a d employees at the next

39:25

uber Because if you were one of the first one hundred employees

39:28

Ober, you're rich today. So of

39:30

course, talk

39:32

about a viral app uber. But

39:35

you know what you're suggesting to speaking of virility

39:38

is basically culture

39:40

is infectious. So you place

39:42

your friend there, right, he's gonna make some money.

39:45

He's gonna, you know, lead to different

39:47

decisions at the company. Right, his descendants

39:50

are going to have a different situation than he did.

39:53

And it's kind of like, that's kind of how

39:55

you change things correct, having a very long

39:57

term view on things.

40:00

That's how you change things. It's the long term

40:02

view. And you know, when people

40:04

ask me, you know, most my

40:07

most proudest things I've done having

40:09

started my fund, one

40:11

is investing the woman who became a Serican mother.

40:13

But two is getting my friend that job. Like

40:17

I always felt

40:19

bad at the starter we had when as biggest

40:21

we thought it could be. But this is

40:23

my chance to like give him that, to

40:26

give him that access and to change his

40:28

family's life and trajectory.

40:30

And that's completely separate from what I

40:33

do, where I say, you know, this is how we're going

40:35

to change the world. Like, let me just

40:37

get my friend the job, and he got two of his friends

40:39

jobs there, right, Like that that helps and that makes

40:41

a difference. And so you know, some

40:43

of his money and some of his access, and hopefully

40:45

I'll be able to bring a little bit of both. So

40:48

when you take these startup founders, right, and

40:50

you find them, right, you found this seventeen

40:53

year old, right, and then you kind of just stick them

40:55

into this new ecosystem, what's it like?

40:58

It's scary for them. It's a lot to learn,

41:01

there's a there's a huge learning curve.

41:04

There's a bunch of skills they got to pick up along

41:06

the way. But that's the stuff

41:08

I can help you with, right, Like

41:10

I can I can teach you how to do a financials

41:12

I can I can teach you how to put a

41:14

pitch deck together. I can't

41:17

teach you how to use a vimo hack to get

41:20

users. No, that's pretty novel.

41:22

Right, So, like, I

41:25

know there's a bunch of stuff that we take for granted

41:27

that a lot of vcs just want entrepreneurs to already

41:29

have. I'm okay if you don't have that stuff, because

41:31

we can get you there. It'll take some time,

41:34

but we can get you there. Um

41:36

because you know, a lot of them are gonna be

41:38

no scared, they're not going to trust investors.

41:41

Like it's just all these other things that come into it,

41:44

and a lot of that just has to go with like cultural

41:46

competency, Like I'm okay giving these founders

41:48

grace with like you don't need to know everything. That's

41:50

okay. You know you're you're gonna

41:52

make mistakes. That's fine, we can work through

41:54

them. They're not like these aren't the

41:56

most astronomical things to get over, So

42:00

you know that's was like, you know, you don't

42:02

just throw them into the wolves. You kind of hand

42:04

hold them as much as you can, and you know,

42:06

you give directions when you can. Isn't

42:09

it crazy with telecommunications

42:11

and you know, mass travel, that we've

42:14

developed these bubbles of culture and

42:16

we kind of don't talk to each other, and

42:19

like this creates all sorts of you

42:21

know, hilarious and serious

42:23

problems in our society. Like,

42:25

seriously, we don't talk to each other. We all

42:28

we all live here, we all pass each

42:30

other in the street. Like how

42:32

do we not speak the same language

42:39

because we don't grow

42:42

Like we're all in the same communities,

42:44

but we're all in different we all experience

42:47

different cultures, right, and

42:50

so it's very easy to not speak

42:52

the same language when we

42:54

are some combination of nature

42:56

versus nurture. If you asked me, you're a little bit of both. But

42:59

like then the nature you're in and

43:02

forms the way you view the world.

43:04

Like if you live in a community where

43:07

the cops are always helpful, where

43:09

you see people in your community like go to

43:11

dunk and Donuts and buy coffee

43:13

for the cops, and you're always

43:16

happy, and it's always pleasant, and they're around

43:18

at the local fairs. You've

43:20

only ever seen good from them.

43:23

It's really hard for you to fathom somebody

43:25

telling you that they see cops as

43:27

the enemy, that

43:29

they come from a community where cops don't care about

43:32

them. Where I tell you that the first

43:34

time I had somebody pull a gun on me, it was a cop

43:36

when I was a kid, Right,

43:38

the first time I was stopping at first, I was thirteen

43:40

coming back from playing basketball. The

43:44

only time I had my jaw broken as when I

43:46

got pistol with five police officer because a

43:48

good friend of mine was dating a white woman. Like

43:51

if I tell you that, you're gonna look at me like I'm crazy

43:53

and not have two heads. And you're like, that can't

43:55

be true. I know cops. All

43:57

the cops I know are good people, and they've only ever

44:00

done good things. And

44:02

I'm telling you the

44:06

truth is somewhere murkier than that.

44:08

I don't think there's this idealized corps.

44:11

But here's the thing. You say that, But

44:13

I had this exact conversation with somebody

44:16

like I literally had this exact conversation with

44:18

somebody who told me. He'd like, I don't

44:20

believe you. All the cops I know

44:23

were good people. Why would you be scared

44:25

of the police that they're here to help us?

44:28

And it's because he wanted to ask some police

44:30

officers from the from some directions and

44:32

I was uncomfortable. He's like it, what's

44:34

wrong with you? I was like, yeah, we don't don't

44:37

deal with police like I had that conversation

44:39

with a white counterpart of mine,

44:43

right, And so that's how we end up speaking to different

44:45

languages because we all experienced the world very

44:47

differently. And then when you have difference

44:50

of experiences and try to come to

44:52

a consensus, it becomes really hard because

44:54

if I've never experienced it that way, then

44:56

it's hard for me to understand

44:58

what you've gone through or even the leave you.

45:03

No, It's true, our experiences do shape

45:05

who we are, and we do view the world very differently

45:07

because of our experiences. I guess I try

45:09

to see things that you

45:11

know, the truth is much murkier and messier

45:13

than our experiences would suggest. I

45:17

mean, I agree with you, Um,

45:20

I just wish more people do too. So

45:25

how do you, uh, how did you get past

45:27

you know this? This? How how

45:29

did you grow up in these surroundings

45:31

and one day just decide, you know what, I'm

45:34

gonna make it, And not only am I gonna make

45:36

it, but I'm gonna help people make it

45:38

as well. I have really

45:41

good parents. I have really good parents,

45:43

and I had a really good father who

45:45

always instilled in me one the idea

45:48

of entrepreneurship and ownership, and

45:51

who who let

45:53

me know that it was

45:55

okay for me to chase my dreams because he didn't

45:57

get a chance to chase his right. And

46:00

so having my parents,

46:02

they're really helped. They

46:05

give me grounding and then you know, just

46:08

hard work and luck along the way,

46:11

right, um, and then also recognize

46:13

me like to your point, the only reason I'm

46:15

here today is because to all the people helped me, and

46:18

so I would be doing them a disservice

46:20

if I didn't help others. Well,

46:24

I think it again, it sounds like you're the rare breed.

46:30

There's a little something to that.

46:32

There could be a little something to that. Where

46:35

do we find out more about Go

46:37

ahead? Mac? I was gonna say, I guess I look

46:39

for founders who remind me a little bit

46:41

of myself sometimes, isn't

46:43

that right? Yeah? It's sometimes it's

46:46

hilarious that we look for talent and a lot

46:48

of times we're looking for different versions of ourselves

46:50

because we understand that we don't understand

46:54

people who don't resemble us. Um,

46:57

where do we find out more about you? About rare

47:00

breed and about Mac? The VC so

47:02

you can find you can check out rare Breed dot

47:04

vcs our website, or you can

47:06

find me on Twitter, is I'm at

47:09

Matt Conwell at m A

47:11

C C O N W E l

47:13

L. So check me out on Twitter.

47:15

Uh, Mac the VC, I'm

47:17

pretty active. Yeah, I saw

47:19

that and we'll be Well. You're inspiring

47:22

me to get on Twitter, because to me, Twitter is this

47:24

garbage camp. It's really hard

47:26

to find good stuff on Twitter.

47:28

So thank you for inspiring me to spend more time

47:31

on Twitter. Mac, absolutely

47:33

and looking forward to tweeting back and forth.

47:35

Which so

47:41

we live in the world where bigger has

47:43

been better for quite some time. We

47:46

live in a world where everything is tooled

47:48

toward big business, but really small

47:50

business is the future. They're innovators,

47:53

they create more jobs, and they really

47:55

have more disruptive potential. But

47:58

we see local and state governments

48:00

pretend it's still the seventies, eighties

48:02

and nineties and really, like the music

48:04

stations tell you, we're in today.

48:07

Right today, you need

48:09

home grown businesses, specifically

48:12

technology businesses. That's where

48:14

most of the future wealth of tomorrow

48:16

is going to come from. So we need to have

48:19

our policies reflect that

48:21

reality. When you have under

48:23

investment, when you have brain drain

48:25

in your area, whether you're in an urban

48:27

area or rural area. You need

48:29

home grown technology firms.

48:32

When you create local venture

48:34

capital funds to invest in local

48:37

businesses, you're building in your

48:39

tax base of tomorrow. And really

48:41

we don't see that. We saw our guests talk about

48:43

it, and how you know one company

48:46

in Birmingham, Alabama can make all

48:48

the difference because in the end, culture

48:50

and economic growth is infectious

48:53

and whole swaths of the country

48:55

are being left behind. And the only way

48:57

to reverse that is really to you

49:00

the power of the purse to make investments

49:02

in people who already live there. We

49:04

can't always import prosperity.

49:06

Prosperity has to come from the ground up.

49:09

So let's stop giving subsidies to

49:11

big companies to relocate jobs,

49:13

which in the end that doesn't create more jobs,

49:16

it just shifts them around the country. Instead,

49:18

let's empower local entrepreneurs to

49:21

create solutions that makes sense in their

49:23

communities. And I think that's a much

49:25

more practical way to do things

49:28

in America today. Thanks

49:30

to all of you for joining me as we followed

49:32

the profit with mac the VC. What an interesting

49:34

way to disrupt the way we're doing things, and

49:37

as we all know today, we need a lot of disruption

49:39

and many corners of our economy.

49:41

A shout out to our team of producers who work

49:43

hard to make this happen. I'm David Grasso.

49:46

If you enjoyed the podcast, please give us

49:48

five stars and give us a review so

49:50

that others can learn what the show is all about.

49:53

Follow The Profit is a production of ging Ridge

49:55

three sixty and I Heart Radio. For more podcasts

49:57

for my heart Radio, visit the I Heart Radio

49:59

app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you

50:01

get your podcasts. You can also view us

50:03

on YouTube,

50:11

part of the Gingwich three sixty network,