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Mike Stohler: Everybody welcome back to another episode of The

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Richer Geek Podcast. Today's episode is brought to you by REI

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Words, your go to SEO agency for increasing traffic to your

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website. Check it out at reiwords.com. Today, we have

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Yotis Tonnelier, he's the co-founder of YOBE. What they do

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is they help invest in unique founders, in addition to help

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them raise capital through transparent methods and

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unwavering passion. They also have a syndicate of investors

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that generate profits by investing and their exclusive

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projects that help align with their values. Yotis, how're you

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doing today? Yotis Tonnelier: I am doing great. Thank you for having me

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today, Michael. Mike Stohler: Absolutely. You know, this is very important. We

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have a lot of listeners out there that want to go into

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investing, maybe some of them are. And they're wondering how

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is it that they can, they've done five or six deals, but they

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need that $10 million raise, they need a larger raise, they

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need more sophistication, but they don't really know how or

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where to go. Let's talk a little bit about what you do and the

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history of where you come from, and how you can help these

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people out. Yotis Tonnelier: Of course.

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Let's start with a little bit of an intro of myself. I'm

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originally from Belgium, from the French part of Belgium. So

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this is why I've a French accent as everybody can hear. Moved to

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Miami 10 years ago. Before that I was involved with the

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incubator, a European incubator called The Family, the same as Y

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Combinator. But in Europe, we were really huge in 2014, 2015,

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2016. After that I worked for Prince Al Saud, a direct cousin

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of MBS. So I worked for his family office when I was in

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Europe. So overviewing first advising and then overviewing

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his investment in a startup in Europe. So it was really precise

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on that. Two years after that, I moved to Miami, stayed in the

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same field investment, startup, advising the two exits here in

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the US, worked for an investment bank, and opened my own

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structure in 2020. With COB to respond to the question you just

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asked, or to find their partner to raise funds in this industry

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and someone that can deliver and not just sell dream. What I like

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to say is we are selling reality, that's our job instead

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of dream, but it's not easy for sure. Mike Stohler: That's

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extremely important. And listeners, if you're out there,

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and you're thinking, I just want to invest passively because I

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need to diversify my portfolio, the IRA, my 401(k)'s not going

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to do it. But it's so scary to sit there. I'm you're inundated

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by LinkedIn ads, Facebook ads, raise money with us now there's

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email blasts, you don't know anything about these general

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partners. And it's so scary. Let's talk about number one. Why

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is it that scary? It seems like people know that they see all

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these YouTube videos, get rich quick schemes just create a

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syndication? How do I know that they even have done a deal? You

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know, it's a scary proposition. Yotis Tonnelier: So I

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believe as an investor, you need to go to a phone that has

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credibility, but as history you have Crunchbase. Crunchbase is a

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platform that you can even try for free if I'm not mistaken.

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And that will allow you to see the deal that this fund did in

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the past, I will not base my guess on only YouTube videos or

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LinkedIn. Everything can be bad. So let's be real. If you have a

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little bit of money, you good with online advertising. You can

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be the next green card in one month is not the problem. I

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strongly believe that you need to base your confidence and your

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trust on facts and try to go to this website like Crunchbase, to

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see what they did. And also, if you do a little bit of due

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diligence, you can find the real article about the deal that was

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found in the past. And that's all investors should do. If they

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don't have an advisor or something like that, it's really

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spent some time to find the right team, the right general

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bought their team for them. Mike Stohler: Yeah, and let's talk about some of the bad

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history, the SEC can only do so much. But if you're, let's say,

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an accredited investor, and you sign that you've looked at the

5:37

offering, and it goes under once people get an offering

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memorandum, what are some of the things that they need to kind of

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look at? And then based on kind of the bad history of capital

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raising? What are some of the things that people have tried?

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Yotis Tonnelier: Yes. That's a great question. Personally, with YOBE, part of

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our first step is to look at the deal as an investor because with

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our business model, we are investors at the end as well.

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And I will talk to you about that later. But what I'm looking

6:08

to deal is the transparency I have on the documentation. So

6:13

when I said the documentation is the deck is the financial or

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everything is explain the past performances, if you are trying

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to invest on the fund, that's where we I like to call that

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green and red flag. That's my personal talking about that. But

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that's where I'm trying to find red flag when I'm doing a due

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diligence, I'm not looking to your green flag, I'm not looking

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to the to the positive return, I'm trying to find what is

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negative about this deal, because when you know what is

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negative, that's where you can really base your investment and

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base your strategy. If you buy on the positive, everybody has a

6:51

great story, everybody is the best in the world, everybody has

6:55

the next unicorn. So don't worry about it. I heard sorry, like

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that. It's like 10 times a day. And that's part of the marketing

7:01

for fundraising. But you need to really go deeper on due

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diligence. And again, transparent financial, when

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someone sent me a deck and, or when I asked for financial,

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honestly, like 50 percent of the deal, I don't receive it. That's

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already 50% of the deal, you are not going to lose your money.

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It's simple. When you're an investor, you have every right

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to ask. And that's the biggest advice I will give to an

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investor. Just ask, ask the question, ask as much questions

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as you can. Ask to see everything, the financials, I

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have company, for example I'm asking the salary cap of every

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member of the company some of the founders saying, "Hey, I

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don't want to give that." Okay. If you don't want to give that,

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why I will invest my money if I don't know if you are, trustable

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enough to manage it? I want to see what you're going to do with

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my money. And every investor should be like that, when the

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investor we are representing, that's why we are representing

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them to be sure and to secure our investor in a deal that is

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legit, and high quality deal. Mike Stohler: Yeah, it's extremely important to

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everybody's are those types of things. Look at I know it can be

8:16

overwhelming. You may even want to have your attorney, look at a

8:20

contract attorney, look it over don't have your best buddy,

8:24

who's a divorce attorney or injury lawyer, look at it go to

8:28

a real estate attorney that knows those things. And look for

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those red flags. Are they some of the words I hate? It's like

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"we guarantee" as soon as you say that, that's a red flag,

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right? Yotis Tonnelier: It's not even red flag for me, it's illegal.

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When someone is telling you that the deal is guarantee is not

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even the red flag. You don't invest. Like you know that if

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you invest, you're going to lose your money. Because legally and

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you know the rules might go legally, you cannot guarantee

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any investment. There is always a risk, even if it's one person

9:04

putting your money in the bank account even now is better with

9:08

the IRA limit, but it's even a risk. So every investment has a

9:12

risk. Mike Stohler: Yeah, it's very important people's you've seen

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these videos on these ads, we guarantee up to a 40% return we

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do this or that. Like nobody has a crystal ball. I try to rub

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this bald head all I can foresee in the future. But you can't.

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And that's why you have prospectuses and things like

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that in my syndications, it's probably two or three pages of

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what the deal was. And then there's 40 pages of why you

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shouldn't invest with me but you want to pay attention to those

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three pages. And can you tell us some ways that you sit there,

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you look at the general partner. You'll also look at the

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prospectus and all the paperwork, all the marketing,

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the salaries, what are some of the other kind of bullet waits

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that you look at also, but then even if people want to go on

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their own, what are some of the major highlight things from

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first part of the maybe the syndication paperwork down just

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a few points. Yotis Tonnelier: Let's say a new investor, beginner investing.

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And that's what we do. That's part of our strategy with CRB,

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we are not going to early stage company, because when you're

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going to early stage startup, you need to understand that the

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right strategy with early stage is volume. Okay? So you're going

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to invest in 10, early stage startup, okay, nine of them is

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going to die. Okay, nine or nine of them, you're going to lose

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your money. And usually, on average, one of them is going to

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go well and cover the rest, okay. But you need to understand

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that you need to understand the strategy, it's a long term play,

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what we do is to minimize this risk, we invest only on growth

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stage, we call that growth stage, that's me, these can be

11:04

seen more seed breed share with a series B, but the company

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needs to have a market fit. So that means the company already

11:12

has revenue, the product works, the markets already gets

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Greenlight, that the market is a product fit market. That's what

11:21

we call that for the one that doesn't know. And so this

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minimize your risk already. And after that, which we do and what

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we look, we are a founder oriented. For us, 90% of the

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success of the company, is come from the founders. So what we

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like to invest in is serial entrepreneurs, founders, people

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that already had exit, people that already went through the

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pain of being a successful entrepreneur and has this

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experience. And so we know are two processes to execute with

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this company. So that's really our focus. And this allowed us

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really to ever a great return over the years. And the long

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term. Mike Stohler: And everybody again, we have Yotis Tonnelier

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here with the website, if you want to look at Y-O-B-E

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consulting.com (yobeconsulting.com) For those

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people that are listening that might be interested in YOBE,

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what industries do you look at for the founders?

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Yotis Tonnelier: Yes, so we are agnostic, globally. Why we are

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agnostic? Of course, we don't touch for example, for business,

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this business that is not like, it's different. It's not

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traditional, but the traditional industry will stick out. Why we

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are agnostic is because for every project that we out to

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raise the phone on we invest with our syndicate, as we are

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really focused also on the timing. Best example is with

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crypto and the blockchain, you know, right now it is getting

12:53

back to the front page, at the end of last year, it was cold,

12:58

but you cannot raise even one penny for them. So you need to

13:02

understand, also your all industry is performing and what

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will be the cycle because every industry is a cycle. So you need

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to make sure that you are taking the investment at the right

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time. So that's why we are doing that. And of course we have

13:17

database that helps us to have all this information and base

13:22

our due diligence and our analysis. Mike Stohler: Yeah, and that's good to know. And for one thing,

13:27

people that maybe my next hotel deals like do I want to go

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through? And this is what as a GP? Do I want to go through the

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pain of putting out a syndication and trying to raise

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$10 million on my own or my team? And not knowing is it

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gonna be two months is gonna be six months is gonna, “Wow,

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what's I'm going to list on my database and other people's

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database.” Or I could go to yobeconsulting.com. If I'm even

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strong enough and have enough experience and have them do it

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for us? What are kind of the steps involved? I go to

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yobeconsulting.com I click on, "Send us your deck." How does it

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work? Yotis Tonnelier: Yeah, so very simple. You can go to our

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website, send us an email directly or contact us. We have

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a live chat you can send by the button you said or you can find

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me on LinkedIn. I have a couple of followers on LinkedIn. And we

14:29

are really present on LinkedIn, Facebook, Instagram, you name

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it, we are there and my email is everywhere. So you can send the

14:37

deck you will be the best way to do it. Send your deck. We are

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going to do our analysis and get back to you saying "Hey, we can

14:44

help you." Our goal is to make sure we can help you and by

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helping you actually raise the fund. After that we have also

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for younger companies, we also have advising services that we

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are offering that's what we process so it doesn't cost

15:00

anything to anybody. We want to make sure first, we are eligible

15:05

to help you. So that's the process. After that we meet, we

15:08

have an intro call, I want you to meet the founder, ask your

15:11

questions, I will have questions, I will already know

15:14

your industry, I will know your deck. Mike Stohler: Now, how about on the other side, we also have a

15:19

lot of listeners that love to diversify on the limited side.

15:25

And we've been kind of in the background talking about your

15:29

investors, your investor pool and creating things and now you

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have a fund that's coming out you're kind of wanting to get in

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on the founder side because of some of the feedback you've had

15:41

from your pool of investors. Let's talk about that a little

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bit. Yotis Tonnelier: Yeah, so globally, right now, we are not

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a broker dealer.We are not holding the money. So we have a

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syndicate of investors where we are providing the deal and

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whether they are choosing to invest or not is very simple.

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When they choose to invest, we introduce them to the founder,

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and they invest in the deal as a direct investment of the

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company. Very, very simple, simple, but some of them now

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they and we got feedback saying, "Hey, I know you have to be

16:12

different," because we are doing multiple raises over the year

16:16

even if we are really oriented on the quality. So last year, we

16:20

did seven raises. this year, we are going to do maybe 12 raises,

16:23

not more. And they say, we would like to split the risk and

16:27

invest or all the deal , or can we do that? So we understand

16:31

that now we have the credibility to open a fund. So the goal is

16:34

to open a fund in Q3 to be able to welcome this investor that

16:38

want to invest in all the deal, but also for the founder, be

16:42

able to put a ticket up front. Also with the founder we are

16:45

representing instead of going through our syndicate is now

16:49

able to put a bigger ticket. And we are talking 250 to a half

16:53

a million ticket. That's really the goal we are planning to

16:56

raise 20 million for the fund. Mike Stohler: That's

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fantastic. We talked about sending us your deck, how can

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people say "Hey, you know, I'd love to be part of this with

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YOBE." How can they get on the investor side?

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Yotis Tonnelier: Yeah, on the investor side, they can contact

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me. I like to meet all the investors. So you know, all the

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investors that work with us know, my team knows myself or

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our Head of Investor Relations is Cesare Pesci, great guys

17:22

doing a wonderful job. So we meet with them. And after that

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we discuss we have an office here in Miami, for the ones that

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are based in Miami. We have an office in Paris, and we are

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opening Riyadh, at the end of Q2. We are working on it because

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we have good connections over there from my past experiences.

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So yes, I'm happy to talk with anybody, even people that have

17:44

questions,happy to help. We are here to out when your investor,

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the goal is to really to avoid, let's say not legit deals big

17:51

deal. I think that's the worst for everybody. For people that

17:55

doing that want to make money, don't get me wrong, we are all

17:58

here to make money. But we like to do it the transparent way and

18:02

with trustworthy people that work all day, every day to make

18:06

it happen for their investors. So that's what is really

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important to us. Mike Stohler: Yeah. And now everybody is investing on your

18:13

own doing yourself trying to figure out is this general

18:17

partner good? Is the syndication good. It's very stressful. If

18:22

you go the route , nothing is guaranteed, right? But if you

18:27

want someone to do a lot of the due diligence for you, a lot of

18:31

the safety net some of the things that will take the stress

18:36

off for you, contact Yotis at YOBE. And I think it'd be a

18:40

fantastic way for you to get inside of that limited partner

18:45

spot. And maybe as a founder on the general side. Yotis, is

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there anything else that you'd like to discuss before we go?

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Yotis Tonnelier: No. I certainly am waiting for your deal as well Michael, I know

18:58

you're working on it. So I'm waiting to have the opportunity

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to look at it. The only thing I will add for the end is when you

19:06

were an investor or you're a funder, don't trust the social

19:10

media, don't trust the fake information, do due diligence on

19:13

really bold websites and platforms, realistic numbers and

19:17

facts. That's the most important stuff to do and what I advise

19:21

you to do, and there are always people that will be there to

19:25

help you. That's the most important.

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Mike Stohler: Yeah, yeah. Fantastic. Yotis, thank you so

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much for coming on to The Richer Geek Podcast. Have a great

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afternoon. And God bless. Take care.

19:38

Yotis Tonnelier: Thank you, Michael. Thank you, Michael.

20:12

Thank you, everybody.