Venture Capital: Hacking Private Investment Success From The Inside

Welcome to another episode of Making Billions. Today I have my dear friend Drew Spaventa

Drew is the Co-Founder and CEO of The Spaventa Group. After over a decade in finance, Drew decided to build the Investment Firm of Tomorrow.  Not only is he part of the Forbes Investment Council, but he’s also invested in such companies as Stripe, Epic Games, Airbnb, Coinbase, SpaceX, and more.
 
What this means is that Drew understands all of the hidden elements of Venture Capital that make you successful and he's about to share it with us today to help us all in our pursuit of Making Billions.

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[THE GUEST]:  Drew is the Co-Founder and CEO of The Spaventa Group. After over a decade in finance, Drew decided to build the Investment Firm of Tomorrow.  Not only is he part of the Forbes Investment Council, but he’s also invested in such companies as Stripe, Epic Games, Airbnb, Coinbase, SpaceX, and more.

[THE HOST]: Ryan is a Venture Capital & Angel investor in technology and energy. He achieved market-beating placement growth in his first 5 years in the industry.

Transcript

Ryan Miller  0:00  
My name is Ryan Miller and for the past 15 years have helped hundreds of people to raise millions of dollars for their funds, and for their startups. If you're serious about raising money, launching your business or taking your life to the next level, in the show will give you the answers so that you too can enjoy your pursuit of Making Billions. Let's get into it. 

My next guest shocked me at his secrets for success in this industry. Like many of you, my next guest has not taken a traditional road into private markets. Join us as we chop it up over the success criteria that no venture capitalist is talking about today. So the question is, how will you use what you're about to learn to get you on the path of making billions? Here we go.

Hey, welcome to another episode of making billions. I'm your host, Ryan Miller. And today I have my dear friend Drew Spaventa. Drew is the co founder and CEO of the splinter group, after over a decade in finance drew decided to build the investment firm of tomorrow. Not only is he part of the Forbes investment Council, but he's also invested in such companies such as stripe, Epic Games, Airbnb, Coinbase, SpaceX, and more. So what this means is that drew understands all of the hidden elements of venture capital that makes you successful, and he's about to share it with all of us today. So Drew, welcome to the show, man. 

Drew Spaventa  1:16  
Glad to be here. Man. I know, we've been talking for quite some time. And finally here, 

Ryan Miller  1:20  
Awesome, man. Well, it's good to have you, you know, how did you go from where you're at? You're you're in New York. And now you're investing in all these big name companies. I just rattled off, you're on Forbes Council. I mean, I'm sure fans around the world would love to know, like, how did you even get into that? 

Drew Spaventa  1:31  
Well, number one, as you know, we've been talking for quite some time, and I love your community, man. You know, you've been following me for some time, we've been talking and you have one of the best communities out there for making billions. So it's pretty cool to be here. That being said, I know you've got you and I have shared life stories multiple times, you know, crazy backgrounds, nothing given to us, right? Both you and I, you know, from from the being homeless and struggling with money and knowing how it is to actually put $1 in the bank account because you're negative 17 cents, and you don't want to be overdraft. So my story is my story rather starts that I always wanted to have businesses and that's because of my upbringing, you know, struggling and not having any money and my father wasn't around. I always wanted to know really what creates wealth, and how do you become rich. So naturally, that led me to eventually becoming a stockbroker? Not on purpose. Going into my late teens, music was always a passion, started out DJing eventually had my own DJ company started partnering up with a lot of DJ companies on Long Island, New York, Connecticut, this whole New York metro area, and then from there in my mid 20s. You know, it starts dawning on me. Alright, listen, I could continue to grow in a DJ company, but I always wanted to own businesses, not really learning anything, right? And How scalable is this? Do I want to be 50 years old and schlepping equipment around and stuff like that? Yeah, it's cool to go to Ibiza? Maybe But uh, you know, I need another long term plan on an actual concrete plant. One of my clients had the nice house and the nice car, you know, the cliche story and I asked him, What are you doing, and he goes, Oh, I'm a stockbroker, and boom, all of a sudden, that's, that's what started my career, I actually started working with him, he had a branch out of a major regional brokerage. And that's where I started learning how to build client portfolios and everything like that. And that was, what, 11 years ago, 10 years ago, something like that. And then that just, you know, increased from there, you know, started out being focusing on stocks, and then eventually led into VC secondaries and venture capital, small caps and working for a hedge fund and then managing director of this fund. So over the last 10 years, I definitely have my battle scars. I could tell you that Yeah. All right. So we got the scar tissue man proved battle tested. I love it. You and I have been beginners at one point. But I certainly with your track record, it's it's been a while since you've been a beginner, you've been you've been rocking for a while. I don't feel that way. I feel I feel like when I'm going to be 80 years old, and I'm still gonna feel like a beginner. It's more you know, the more you realize you don't know anything, you know, it's one of those things and a lot of people don't want to admit that but it's 100% True, you might know more than the next guy. But you still realize in the grand picture you don't know 

Ryan Miller  3:58  
You got that right. And I think as anyone is on their way to mastery of any subject I think the more you know, the more you realize there's a lot you don't know so that's a true sign of the master is humility in meets that and I would certainly categorize you in that as far as venture capital. Now that being said, at one point we were beginners it's bumpy when you don't have the guidance and you and I both said like we honed our skills on the streets man like we didn't have mentors or anything like that. We had to come up and figure it out and nothing but respect for you on that brother. So with that said, think about the time that you are a beginner because I want to address the beginners here what are some ways that either beginners or both? Either How does it beginner in your industry? How do they win and or how do they not lose? I'm curious of what you think in those areas for beginners starting out on the same path that you are 

Drew Spaventa  4:46  
Yeah, I mean, and that's the thing you know a lot it's crazy because I've read not having a father I've read all the books you know the world's great the greatest salesman in the world and how to win friends and influence People and and Rich Dad Poor Dad, You know, we were discussing thinking Grow Rich, all of them, the commonalities and all the successful people that I used to study and everything like that, it seems that everything's a cliche, it's the easy answer. But it seems like the cliches are cliches for a reason. But you could answer it. And it's until you actually live it, it actually starts seeping in. So the number one thing I always say is, you got to control your mindset and your attitude in life. And that was a really hard lesson for me to learn because as I tell everybody, I was an extremely angry, going into my 20s. Unfortunately, my mother and I don't really talk anymore, but she always victimized herself. And you know, I kind of learned a lot and she always played victim. And unfortunately, with her being the only figure around that's kind of how I portrayed my life as a teenager, then as I started growing older and reaching my, you know, 1516, I decided to flip the switch, switch, one negative attitude of being a victim with another negative attitude. And that's been just the angriest guy in the world, where all of a sudden, in my 20s, I could go into a convenience store to get coffee, somebody looks at me the wrong way. And I'm like, you want to get stabbed? You know, it was pretty bad. But that doesn't attract anything, I still had some sort of level of success, just by pure persistence and persistence, rather. But the moment that I started realizing it wasn't, and you got to change your attitude, you got to change your mindset. And everything is going to be attracted to you accordingly, was a major, major differentiator. So although cliche, yet, you have to change your attitude towards life, you have to focus on positives, and you really have to focus on more importantly, that vision that you have for yourself, I kind of make it akin to having some sort of purpose, if you can kind of have that every single day with some sort of purpose, how the hell you're going to keep on pushing through when the obstacles mount, and things start seeing unbearable, like, it's never gonna get better. You need that vision, you need that purpose. 

Ryan Miller  6:40  
And, you know, listening to thank you for that. So, you know, one of the things further beginners is to put a few points on the board. This is great. I did not expect that I'm thinking, you know, it's a math equation, but what he's talking about, I absolutely agree. It thank you for being vulnerable brother, this is important. And I find that some of the best leaders in the world also are okay with being vulnerable. And you remind me of a quote, I believe it's by Rumi, if I pronounced that philosophy, right, is he said the wound is the place where the light enters you. And this is a place that often when we come up, and Drew and I both will say we didn't have quite the we had a very unorthodox paths into venture capital and high finance. But I can tell you, my friends, embrace those sides. And that vulnerability, I had a great I have a great friend, his name's Jeff Sekinger, and he's a big crypto guy in Miami, go follow him. But, you know, this guy encouraged me a lot, too, and drew as well to own your vulnerabilities. And, in fact, people tend to respect the fact that you're like, Yeah, I got some scar tissue, it's all good. But more importantly, dealing with it. And as the phrase goes, we repeat what we don't repair. And so Drew was like, the only the only reason why he's able to talk about it now is because he can look back and say, I used to be this way. And it wasn't great. For me, this is why he's speaking to beginners. He was like, when I started out, there was some turbulence and those wounds and that scar tissue was working against me, even though it was me, it wasn't the most helpful version of me. And so I think Drew and I don't want to put words into your mouth. But I think what you're saying is, if any of that is rattling around, and you want to move and have a great career investing and making, you know, it was we know and venture capital is 50, 100x returns, where you turn a million into $100 million. If that's you, in this is an interest for you. If you're going to get there, you need to figure out and allow the light to come in, and really have your mindset in the right place. And as you do that, you start bringing more things you start with people use the word manifest. But as I like to say that instead of chasing butterflies, build beautiful gardens and let the butterflies come to you. And that's what drew did is that he turned himself into that garden. Now I'm sure you have probably more manly versions of that. But what you tended to that garden, which is you which is your soul, your intentions, your personality and everything, and you said I got a few weeds I need to pull out and as you did, I'm assuming keep me honest here. I'm assuming that as you resolve some of those earlier things, value started to come. People started to come and the butterflies started coming to you. Is that a fair statement? 

Drew Spaventa  9:05  
Yeah. 100% I mean, I'm a big believer that you create your own reality. Yeah, you know, I've my organization I have used many analogies and one of them are, you know, the whole dynamic of being negative and how we're looking at your day. So one example like if to make a really quick Imagine if your car and you're driving and all of a sudden you hit a pothole, you blow out your tire, and all of a sudden you're stuck on the side of the road. You know, it's 830 in the morning, nine o'clock in the morning on your way to work and you're like, great, I'd be late now. Most people are gonna get in a pissed off mood, they'll call the wife the husband start yelling Jesus, what happened? Is that any other thing and I've seen him many times, you know, you just driving by you see somebody on the side of the road and you know, hitting their hand or they're yelling or something like that. And you know, listen, nobody wants that. That type of obstacle early in the morning, especially at idle. If you don't have a cup of coffee, right? However, I always bring up the point. Imagine, close your eyes and imagine how many times every single day you get into your car and drive to work or you drive to pick up the kids or you drive to the store or multiply that how many days and how many times you've driven. And how many times in your life did you actually blow out a tire and hit a pothole or whatever it is and got pulled over on the side of the road. I've been driving, I can't remember the last time it happened to me, it has to be well over 10 years ago. So if it happened tomorrow, which Imagine if it does now, then I'm bringing it up. But imagine if it happened tomorrow, I've spent 10 years. And if I drove every single day, that's, you know, over 3600 days, without an instance of anything, and the one day that it happened, you let it get to you. So the whole point of creating reality comes down to your perspective. Are you looking at your reality in your life, that everything's constantly going wrong? And you're just trying to cherry pick every single thing that goes wrong? Or do you take a step back and look at the grander picture and realize, especially in this country, we haven't made, right? Even in Canada, I know you're in Canada, just realize that but in America, Canada, you know, Western Civilization we haven't made, right. So it really comes down to perspective and creating your own reality. And listen, it's, I'm a preacher, too, I still get angry. It's something I've been battling my entire life, for whatever reason, I still have my angry moments. But on the whole, I'm a pretty positive guy. And I could tell you right now, when I'm on point on point, but if I let those hints of anger come in, I could feel it, my organization could feel it, there's that energy in the air that Oh, Drew's not in a good mood. They could read it in emails, they could hear it on my voice, even with the remote individuals that I work with are calling my other office or one of my other executives, people could hear it and they could, you know, listen to it. So it's imperative that you create your own reality. Do your best to control your attitude, because it does, it will have effect on your success as you continue to evolve your career 100% Well, oh, 

Ryan Miller  11:35  
That is brilliant. You know, we're talking about tending that garden within us. And as I like to say, and this is what Drew and I are really talking about, if I could summarize a saying that many of you have been following the show have heard me say that success is an inside job. And you know, you can try to surround yourself with this car or that new girl or guy or you know, all these as Ray Dalio warns us just be beware of the trappings of wealth. That's not real wealth. And you know, a show like making billions, we do talk about making money. But really what we're talking about, and where Drew's taken us is very, very important, we don't cover this subject often is, it's, it's an inside job. And if that if you've got some serious rocks rattling around in that cage of yours that we call a brain, and they're not helpful, they're just banging around, it's gonna be really, really tough to try to bring that to the exterior and let your reality go in the direction that you want. However, and I'd love to get your opinion on this Drew. So we were talking about internal things and dealing with those and you know, the the wound is where the light enters you. But that doesn't mean that external factors have no impact on our success. And so I'm curious for the beginners still, what do you what have you noticed about, say, the kind of people you're hanging out with? And, you know, how do you how do you know if you got a good one? Because I know a lot of people are looking for employees or partners or just a friend who's a confidant, how have the exterior environment of the people you hang out with influenced you? And how did you build that exterior reinforcement for your success? 

Drew Spaventa  13:01  
Yeah, well, it could be kind of torn between personal and business, right? I mean, it's all to say, either way, you don't want to surround yourself with you know, subpar people, I guess. But you know, I've made mistakes early on where, you know, I was, I had a different mindset. So who was I attracting, I was attracting more the angry type, or the person that wanted to share in my sorrow or whatever it is, and what kind of like magnets, so if anybody that's positive or successful, they're gonna be repelled by that. So like, attracts like. So the more that you can focus on having a better attitude, and everything like that, you're gonna attract that. So the first thing is, on a personal level, before you even get into business on a personal level, as much as it might hurt. You got to cut the people out that are cancer in your life. Again, another cliche, but it's 100% True. that pertains to both friends and family. And maybe it's easier for me because you know, my dad growing up without a father and my mom's not around, don't have any brothers or sisters, I do have a brother, I haven't seen him in 20, 30, 30 something years, so I don't even know where he is. So I kind of grew up without that family. So maybe it's easier for me to say But anybody that contributes negatively negatively to your life, you must cut them out because it will affect you. And as soon as you start surrounding yourself by like minded individuals, or at least people that contribute positively to your life, it will spread out and you'll start attracting others the best friends of mine that I have, and I've had quite a bit of friends even going back into DJing I've met a lot of people have three core good friends of mine. Technically, I guess you could say I'm the only white collar collar guy or the only business owner right but they're my boys I could go out there we can make fun of each other if anybody walks in they're like all these guys What the hell are these guys about to fight me? Well it's all in good fun and these there's not a jealous bone in these guys body I know if I call them they would be there same with me to them. Everything's left at the door and we only go out to have a good time and as it used to be party now which is you know, once in a while, go out to the bar, watch the game have a few drinks, shake hands. They go home to their wife and kids I go home to my fiancee, you call it a day but it's imperative imperative to surround yourself by positive people and on a business and surround yourself by not only positive people, but those like minded individuals. And when it comes to actually having a business, you're going to make mistakes. Trust me when I tell you I've hired and fired and had people quit. I've had people call me bipolar, which I am, and then they quit. I get it. But that goes into the question. I'm sure you're gonna ask next, how can you read the correct people to hire? And I've really pinpointed three things. Number one, you want to pay attention to their habits, have a conversation with them? What are they doing in their free time? No problem watching Netflix once in a while. But if they say all they talk about our shows and movies and how they watch Netflix, six times, six hours a day, you know, you might have a problem, because they're not trying to advance their life. There's no purpose there. All right. You also want to see how they present themselves. Right? I have a problem. As I joked around with you. A lot of people have called me the Joe Pesci of Wall Street. Why, because of my, my chosen language, for lack of a better word. But I also present myself in a different way, or at least I do, or I try to at least. And then I think the most important thing too, is, and this is the harder one that if you're interviewing somebody, or looking to go into a business, a business project with or an endeavor with, you want to make sure that they execute on what they say. And they're just not a big talker, they talk to talk, but they do they walk the walk. And that's the one that's really hard, at least from my experience, because you can't really figure that out. Like that Tom has to go by you got to pay attention to what they say intricately, that can even go back to something as Oh, I'm planning on doing this tomorrow. And if you speak to them after two, three weeks, and they don't do it, that might give you a cue that this is somebody that says they're going to do something but they don't back it up. They don't make the time. That might not be somebody you want on your team. That's not going to be somebody that's going to help you grow your, your project or your organization to the level that you want it to be.

Ryan Miller  16:35  
Man,  that is brilliant. From from the Wall Street Joe Pesci himself I love it row. Yeah, so pay, you know, when your cars in you remind me is not a political stance by any means. But there's a guy, obviously, who's quite controversial named Donald Trump. Now, I'm not talking about the politician Donald Trump talking about the businessman. And there was an older quote of him saying, You know what, I've often said many times that I wish just for like a little bit that I lose, I would have nothing just so I could see who my real friends are. So I remember when you're like, I got a lot of friends. I'm like, Yeah, so I and I'm sure you do. And you and I both know what we're talking about. But the real friends, man, like you said, I'm like, I got three that I know, doesn't matter. Anytime a day columns are there for me, right? That my friends is true wealth. And even one of you know, very wealthy person even said, You know what I can tell that material wealth can kind of cloud some of these relationships that I have. And what Drew's talking about is like, start building those now on your way up. And even Mr. Beast is another one who said like, yeah, like you want a group with people, and you guys are all headed in the same direction. And then you guys can learn from each other's mistakes and successes as a group. And now you have like a wolf pack, rather than a lone wolf. This is phenomenal stuff. So as we talked about on this show, your two most valuable assets are your reputation and relationships. And that will definitely grease the wheels. Now, I'd love to just transition a little bit from beginners. Let's let's let's punch it up a little bit. Now, you've been you've been in this market for a long time. I'm curious. Just on the market side, where do you see the mark your market right now? What are you seeing? And second follow on question is where do you see it going? So where's the market right now? 

Drew Spaventa  18:06  
Yeah, It's just been craziness over the last few years, you know, to dial it back, investing in VC. And I like to make it abundantly clear that our focal point is mid to late stage. I don't want anybody thinking we're coming in there as angel investors and we're building up these companies and building up Airbnb and SpaceX No, not not as of right now, eventually, we'll, we'll start dipping our toe into more early stage stuff. But right now, our bread and butter is the mid to late stage. And we really took take a private company stock picker approach to what we're going into leveraging a network and everything. So valuations have been crazy. I mean, we're living in a time where we had multiple multi trillion dollar companies and Microsoft and an apple, apple, I think Tesla reached a trillion dollar valuation. So who would have thunk that a company could reach that type of value? It's absolute insanity. And I was really beating the drum back in 2017 2018. And looking at these valuations of these VC backed private companies saying, you know, some of these companies are making, what, $10 million a year and they're trading a $10 billion valuations, that doesn't really seem right, and then all of a sudden, boom 2021 happens. And these valuations are getting hair cut by 50% or more, not all of them, but a bunch of them. Now we're starting to see the pendulum swinging back up, where valuations are starting to meet their 20 178 their 2021 valuation levels, right. Things are starting to appreciate Yes, yet again, people are starting to come back and institutions are starting to come back to invest in private companies. That being said, you know, it's investing in seed and precede we it's been on a downtrend. Now that downtrend, but it's definitely the worst since like 2018 2019. So we're kind of really all over the place. I haven't really been able to pinpoint a specific dataset to say, Okay, here we are. And again, it's just because we're crazy times. And I think a major reason for that is the prevalence of social media. We have access to information like we never have before. It affects what individual investors go into whether it's, you know, obviously individual investors, the retail investor isn't really investing in private companies unless they're accredited, but that could I go into the stock market you see in the stock market with all the information that everybody has accessible to institutions, all the information that they have. We're seeing everything going on fortunately, in Israel and Palestine now and it's just been pure insanity over the last few years where open AI is another one. I think we discussed that at one point you in Iran, you know, $30 billion valuation, all this chatter GBT hysteria now is trading at a $90 billion valuation in about nine months. And it's that type of overblown hysteria that really could affect other investors, once companies decide to go public where they're holding, you know, holding the bag, I should say. So the bottom line to answer your question, where are we? Where do we see where we're going? I don't know. I can't time the market. I never know what the hell's going on. Everything's conflicting. All I know is at any given time, I always put capital to work no matter what. And you just got to build a strategy and pivot. If the market collapses, it collapses, we pivot. If the market continues to go, we pivot and we strategize as the time comes. Because it doesn't matter who you are. Nobody could time. Nobody knows what the hell's going on. No economist does. So I'm not going to sit here and try to figure it out. All I know is I'm going to do your point of externalities. I'm just going to control what I can. And I'm going to control our strategy. I'm going to throw whatever externality happens, we pivot. And luckily enough, we've been able to, you know, we haven't won all the time. But you lose battles and more times than not fortunately for us, we do win the war. 

Ryan Miller  21:22  
I love that man. And are there sectors that you think are kind of the up and comers that you're looking at? Like I know, we talked about gaming, are there other ones that you're seeing there? Still have some some energy to run? 

Drew Spaventa  21:34  
Yeah, I mean, the obvious one is military defense. We were We started really allocating into military for military defense in early 2022. Coincidentally, right before Ukraine, so that was just kind of, and I hate to say it, you know, that's such a Ukraine and what's going on in Israel, it's it's really unfortunate. But, you know, we do have military defense companies that are looking to disrupt defense tech. So defense, we're big hot, we're very high on defense. We're very high on space. SpaceX is obviously the 100 pound gorilla. But we've isolated a couple other names that are very interesting to us. I know clean tech is big. I know you're big on clean tech, I think it's very saturated. But there's a few that we've pinpointed that are more down the line in the supply chain that I think would be a good bets. So those are really some of the things that we're looking at. We think food tech is there. But unfortunately, another thing are these public comps, the all these public comps being slashed, are having a detrimental detrimental effect on private companies and VC valuations. And at the end of the day, everybody wants the flavor of the day. So that being said, aside from public comps and just kind of just looking at the industry itself, where we want to put our capital, space, military defense, food technology, biotech, we haven't touched a touch biotech yet, but we've had a few companies on our radar, we haven't pulled the trigger. You and I have discussed psychedelics, which we're very, very interested in. So I don't know if you want to touch on that. But those are the industries that we are we've been really pinpointed over the last call it 18 months. 

Ryan Miller  22:59  
Those are wonderful areas. And yeah, I do believe that we are going to see what I like to say, a renaissance of mental health Renaissance era that we've constantly been, as a society is, specifically, you know, North American or Western society, a lot of the pills for mental health, and yet people still suffer. And you know, that's obviously a gross overstatement. But what I mean by that is there's a lot of promising medicines that are being approved. They've been around for a long time. So psilocybin, MDMA, ketamine, I think, is the first one to roll out even some cannabis stuff to help people with other issues. And so really, whether you you know, morally or whatever, agree or disagree, the issue that we're dealing with on psychedelics you mentioned, this is an area you, you brought it up. So I gotta say something I'm really excited about that sector. I believe these medicines and the research that are being produced are showing phenomenal results as far as fixing the human mind working on different pathways other than dopamine and serotonin. So there's a powerful movement right now that's happening and a lot of research is coming out a lot of old research is coming out to say, hey, you know what, these, these drugs, when properly administered in a medical environment, can actually create a lot of healing for people with anxiety, depression, PTSD, and so we're starting to see things roll out. So this I've given everybody that my personal Hot Tip, he's you're starting to see it, I believe military was just approved through the VA for so in Canada, we call it the right to try but there they do now have the right to try on military vets who are suffering from PTSD. Thank goodness, that's something I care deeply about. And so now psychedelics, I believe, the compounds as far as the research has been shown to be effective, but that's not what we're investing in. What we're investing in is regulation. And that's a tricky one, right? So if you're investing on regulation going your way, just know regulate being a regulator is hard, and it's unpredictable. And as one of my my guests, has free previously said regulators keep tapping brakes until something flies through the windshield. So either way, it's it's really a big challenge. But if you're willing to invest in some of these treatments through medical investments, that's a tricky one. So I'm not giving investment advice, but just my opinion, the if it looks like the regulation is swinging in our favorite, but anything can happen. Right. Any any other remarks on psychedelics? 

Drew Spaventa  25:22  
Yeah, I mean, I agree with you 100%. You know, another obstacle over here is Pharma. But I agree 100% regulation is a tricky one. I mean, in the States, look at cannabis, it's still not federally legal. I mean, you got states that have legalized it recreationally and medicinally. But it's still not legalized on a federal level. Look at crypto look at the issue that Coinbase is having or crypto and all these crypto exchanges facing the SEC and, and everything that they're having with other regulators and trying to get that mainstreamed without having this stigma. So as far as psychedelics, yeah, I think I think it would benefit people to see progress within the industry, because I do believe that psychedelics can be helped helpful to a lot of mental disease out there. And, you know, that's the thing that you look at us, like, you know, westernized country was their anxiety and anger and depression, you know, everybody has a well, but no, it's part of life, you know. So if you could have something where you're not relying on everything else that's legal, like oxy, and all these other painkillers that are extremely detrimental, and you have hundreds of 1000s of people dying a year, you have something that could actually be a net net benefit to humanity, by alleviating a lot of these mental diseases that people have. So I'm 100%. Pro psychedelic, we haven't invested in anything yet. Obviously, that would not be a mid to late stage investment. That would have to be an earlier one. Because everything is you know, in the early stages of getting the ground up with those but yeah, I'm 100% for psychedelics, and I have been for him for many years. And I told you I was supposed to do a Ayahuasca retreat in Peru over the summer, I couldn't because of business, but I will be going there in February March. Let me know how that goes. And for those of you are watching on YouTube, Drew Drew was joking when we were talking about psychedelics. So the picture behind me kind of summarizes his investment thesis space is 100% capital and your percent trippy psychedelic stuff going on drinking explosive, what is it look like? Explosive champagne over there? Yeah. Or some sort of liquor? Yeah, that looks great. Yeah, that's an awesome picture. 

Ryan Miller  27:18  
If there was a photo that, that summarize this event, investment thesis, there you go. 

Drew Spaventa  27:23  
Yeah, there you go. 

Ryan Miller  27:24  
Awesome. Well, let's round third base. And I'd love to just spend the remainder of the time that we have together because I know you're busy guy and got nothing but love for you coming on the show and sharing your wisdom with myself and our community. I wonder if you could leave behind just a few competitive advantages for our listeners, could be anything from your experience, starting out raising capital mindset stuff we talked about? Anything at all that you feel is absolutely pertinent, and super valuable? What competitive advantages can you leave behind? For our listeners? 

Drew Spaventa  27:53  
Yeah, well, you just mentioned raising capital. And the big thing is, don't be afraid to ask and don't think with your wallet, especially when you're starting out. So what that means is, you might be speaking to an institution or an angel investor, whatever endeavor you have. But if you're starting out, and you would like me, and you didn't, you had to put the you know, the dollar into the bank account, because you got overdrawn, 17 cents, and you didn't have two pennies to rub together. Don't think with your wallet, because the more you think with your wallet, you're just going to minimize what you're getting. You know what I mean? So don't think with your wallet. And don't be afraid to ask, ask for the order. Ask for that large number. Because what's the worst that could happen? They say no. But at the same point in time, you just set your negotiation a lot higher, by thinking the way you should, instead of a lot lower. So it's, I don't want to throw in numbers, especially on podcasts that's going to be public. But you know, it's to use an example, it's a lot easier to get $5. If you ask for 10 Instead of asking for one, if that makes sense. So don't think with your wallet, and don't be afraid to ask. The next one I would say is and it's a big one, find good lawyers, I learned the hard way. And trust me, I've spent a lot of money on lawyers to the way to the way I operate now is I have consultants for every single one of our divisions, whether we have private funds or financial planning or insurance of consultants, they're a little bit cheaper than lawyers, but they provide me that quick advice that could get the job done. And then you have your more expensive lawyers, right? So you could cross it and make sure that you're getting sound advice. So I'm always getting advice on certain regulatory matters or compliance matters or legality by multiple individuals within my sphere. So it helps me make a sound decision. So that's another one and I think you and I discussed it. I know you had a term for it. I can't remember so I like to call Yeah. 

Ryan Miller  29:36  
Yeah, okay, so this is really good. So Drew and I you know if this isn't the first time we spoke obviously but I've always found it helpful to and you call it whatever you want. But I say you know if you're in this industry, and a lot of it is quite legal intense, right? You just need a you know, an agreement, a term sheet, there's, your lawyers are making a few bucks off you. You're putting somebody's kid through college, that's for sure. If you're in this industry. So you pay a lot of legal bills, but it's very important. But the thing is, is that when it comes down to those bills, not everybody needs to be the big city, New York lawyer, not at not every not every legal issue needs to be resolved by these $1,500 An hour attorneys, but some do. And others are actually pretty light touch. And so I've heard it said that it's actually beneficial to have a country lawyer and a city lawyer. And that's not disrespectful or anything on the on either side, you just you have these large firms that are really expensive, but they have tons of resources, and they can hook you up, if you got heavy lifting go there. And then there's a what I like to call it country lawyers. But these are people who are really, really brilliant. It's just a smaller shop, but they're good at what they do. And so these are like term sheets and operating agreements and those kinds of things. And you can actually save a few bucks by doing it. But that does not negate what you're saying. And what he's saying is get good lawyers. Now good is relative, depending on what you're asking, or what you need. But either way, I'm just curious that when you say a good lawyer like to you, what makes a good lawyer? Like how do you know how do you find a good lawyer? And what advice can you give to people 

Drew Spaventa  31:01  
Somebody that knows more than me when I'm not a lawyer. And they are, that's that's the easiest way. So when all out of all the legal teams would and I didn't do this in the beginning, because, you know, I was learning and everything like that. But then it got to a point where I actually took the effort to study myself and learn some of the rules and everything like that. So at least I had a base understanding. And that's, by the way, another thing that people could do or a cheat code, if you want, if you will have to use that term, educate yourself to a certain extent, no matter what it is marketing software, whatever endeavor you want to get in or business project, educate yourself to a certain extent, so at least you could carry on a conversation, and not sound like an idiot with somebody that is an expert in their field, or it's just part of their daily routine or their daily job, because number one is going to gain more respect from that individual when you speak to them. And number two, more importantly, you'll be able to start kind of separating the BS from what's real, is this person trying to pull a fast one on me? Or are they actually providing some information? So when it comes to lawyers, yes, you know, good, bad, it's all relative, what constitutes a good lawyer to you might not be this for a good lawyer to me, and vice versa. But I would ask them and just pinpoint certain things that were very minut. And very obscure that not a lot of people would know, question them about it, or see if they knew the answer. And as long as they hit me back and kind of put me in my place, to a certain extent, I would say, alright, this might be somebody that I could hire, and it could be good. That being said, no matter what it is, you could think you have the best person, but you don't really know until they're higher. That's why in the VC world especially, and I can't even say the VC world just in life in general, you see the same people doing business with each other multiple, multiple times, because it's really hard to find good quality people that could assist in an effort and have that shared vision to get a company or an organization to the next level. So you see the same people involved in involved because once you find somebody that's an asset to your company, or an asset in your life, you don't want to let him go. So if you're building a company, and you hire somebody, and then that person builds a company, and that person builds a company, you find yourself, Oh, do you know anybody that could fill this role? And you say, Yeah, I know, Joe, I know, Jane, so on and so forth. So it's imperative that you don't blindly trust somebody else, you do have to educate yourself to a certain extent, because it's also going to help you sniff out the people that might not be the best fit for you. 

Ryan Miller  33:11  
Man, brilliant. You know, in those early days, I found everything I could, and I would go on the SEC website and read everything that I could whether it made sense to me or not, but term sheets, I would try to understand that participation rights and all of these different things where I was like, I don't know what any of this means. But I'm in keep with it, figuring out and then what to Drew's advice, once you really have a good foundation, you don't have to be a lawyer. But you do need to maybe speak the language a little bit. And based on that, then you can start to figure out okay, does this guy understand, you know, full ratchet? Does he understand all of these different terms that you hear in venture capital? And so that that is one of those things? And then you mentioned you had consultants? How does that work? As far as how do they work with lawyers? 

Drew Spaventa  33:53  
Yeah, well, they're separate. So some of the consultants that I work with have, you know, 2030 years experience and one line of business. So I'll use them for, you know, pretty basic things. But even when there's larger things like you know, if I need to, for ppm, if I need to create a new ppm, or I have to restructure a certain entity, I will always go to my consultants first, and then I'll cross what's provided to me with my legal team, because I need as many as many opinions as possible, because, unfortunately, in the world of finance, when it comes to the rules, and I learned the hard way, I really did. But when it comes to the rules, you could have regulators, you could have, and I always use this analogy. You could have regulators, you could have lawyers, you could have compliance people, and you could have a tomato, in the middle of the table, and the tomato could be bright red, to everybody. Anybody could look at and say, Well, unless you're colorblind, what color is this? It's red. But the regulators might say, well, you know, their sense of orange, then your lawyers are saying, I see a little green in there, and then your compliance or your consultants saying, What are you talking about right, it's friggin yellow, but who always wins the regulator. So that's that's the that's the thing. There's, there's so much left to interpretation that you gotta make sure to cover your butt to make sure that you have all your i's are dotted and T's are crossed. Now, depending on where you are, when you just launch a company, depending on how much capital you have, how strong your connections are, you could have maybe a Ford and just through your network to get the right people, that was not me, I learned the hard way I didn't have I spent my money to build my company and everything like that. And I use the lawyers that I could and as my company scaled, and I became more and more profitable, then I pivoted to hiring the appropriate people. But it really depends on your on where you are. But you know, especially in finance, getting the right legal team behind you is is crucial. 

Ryan Miller  35:35  
Brilliant man. So hire consultants to cross check legal work, and then make sure the regulator's cool with it. I love it. And, you know, how about just understanding you mentioned before people and communication, I'm wondering if you could really expand on that a little bit? How have you found just mastering people, communication, all that stuff? How have you found? Or what advice can you give as far as mastering that area? 

Drew Spaventa  35:59  
It's hard to it's hard to fake you know, the whole thing. Not that I fake it. But it's hard to fake. And I never like to use the word master. I haven't mastered anything I've mastered, I've mastered failure. That's what I've mastered. I know how it is to fail. But when it comes to communication, it really comes down to passion and what you feel inside and sharing that vision. That's the best way I could, that's the best way I got you know, 30 plus people all with 2030 plus years experience all hell of a lot older than me to come apart, become a part of my organization and what I'm building over the last several years, and module, I definitely have a lot of room to grow and a lot to do. But we're definitely not small, we've gotten to a point where we have some solid connections, and our name is really our brand is growing. So within the next five years, I'm pretty sure I wouldn't say a household name. But we're going to start getting pretty freakin close. And I think a major reason for that, again, to go back to how we opened up this show is my attitude has changed. I still struggle with bouts of anger, depending on the day, but my attitude has changed, my mindset has changed. And in addition to that, I'm very good at showing people my passion and what my vision is. And that's what really wins people over. And that's one thing that unless you're a slimy, you know, grease ball, you can't really cheat that, you know, unless you're just like I said that the snow is gone. But so that's not something that I'd be cheated. So if people see that passion that you have for something, and you have a great vision that people could buy into, I think that's going to really stand out. And people will that's something people will get could get behind. But in order to get there, you've got to find something that you're passionate about. And that goes down to your purpose and getting the reason out of bed. And you can't just be in it for the money. As cliche as that sounds, you have to have some sort of purpose. I'm in a position where I wouldn't say I could retire right now. But I'm getting pretty close. And I'm only 37. That being said, what am I going to do with my life, if I can retire today, I need a purpose, I need a reason to get out of bed. And the reason why I love doing what I'm doing is I get to deal with a lot of different investors. I'm a people person. I like speaking to people. And the coolest thing about is investing in businesses. You know, I think it's really cool. You're investing in businesses that some of them are changing the world. Some of them are pretty boring. But at the end of the day, what is a business it's a combination of people, a people that have a common theme, a common goal, to put out a product. And I think it's really cool. I always make it akin to like a little small nation that you're you're managing and you're dealing with these people, and it's really cool on and I love doing it. It's really fun. Brilliant. And so as we wrap things up, is there anything else that you'd want our fans to know anything at all? Closing remarks, I'll end with this. If you're ever worried about confidence, or taking that step or anything like that, or second guessing yourself, it's still it still happens to me, I just don't buy into that.

You always have to take a step back and realize that what you're good at one day, you're gonna be dead. And none of this is gonna matter. It's not. And I don't know about you. But what keeps on dropping me when those obstacles pile on trust me when I tell you we got a lot of stuff we're dealing with right now where I got people saying how the hell are you doing it? And it's like, well, listen, I'm focused on my vision. And at the end of the day, I'm 37. Technically, I'm close to half my life being over. The worst thing I want is to be 80 years old on my deathbed and saying, oh, I should have done this, I should have done that one day we're going to be done and none of this is going to matter. So keep on plowing forward, keep on plowing forward, it's not easy. But the moment that you start little by little not giving into that BS, it starts becoming really real realer and a lot easier to deal with any obstacle that's thrown your way. And to Donald Trump's point. I mean, it comes down to you know what you're made of, if you hit adversity and you overcome it, it just makes you more confident because you're you I could do this, you know, I overcame that now I could overcome anything, you know, so, so always keep that in mind. One day, you're going to be done and none of this is gonna matter. Any single time. Anything single time you think about quitting Are you having a negative thought? One day you're gonna be done and none of this is gonna matter, 

Ryan Miller  39:41  
Man. Brilliant. Okay, well, just to summarize everything that Drew and I have talked about develop a healthy mindset. We talked a lot about that in this especially in the beginning. The second thing is become a master of people in communication and whatever that means to you. But really understand that how you present it, how you show up and who you associated with it matters a lot, probably a lot more than most people give credit. Also get great lawyers. And don't be afraid to hire consultants to cross check. But make sure that like you said, it's the regulator who's right even if you could see that the tomato is red, whatever they say is the law of the land. And so make sure that your alignment to the authorities that be is good, and it's airtight. And finally on that closing remark, which I absolutely love, live in a way that creates no regrets as Stephen R. Covey says Begin with the end in mind. And so with Drew, he said, Look, I don't want to be on my deathbed and say, I wish if only I had more time, I would have done some or I would do something different. Don't be that person. Live it now. You do these things, and you too will be well on your way in your pursuit of making billions.

Unknown Speaker  40:51  
Wow, what a show. I hope you enjoyed this episode as much as I did. Now, if you haven't done so already, be sure to leave a comment and review on new ideas and guests you want me to bring on for future episodes. Plus, why don't you head over to YouTube and see extra takes while you get to know our guests even better. And make sure to come back for our next episode where we dive even deeper into the people the process and the perspectives of both investors and founders. Until then, my friends stay hungry. Focus on your goals and keep grinding towards your dream of making billions

Transcribed by https://otter.ai