Investment Fund Legal Pitfalls: Raising Money or Breaking The Law?

Hey welcome to another episode of Making Billions, I’m your host Ryan Miller and today I have my dear friend Marty Tate.

Marty a lawyer at KB&A and is one of America’s foremost experts on securities regulation and crowdfunding.  He was an early innovator for Crypto Legislation as well as one of the key contributors to the US Jobs act.

What this means is that Marty understands how to help you structure your next investment fund, syndication, or capital raise for your project and he's about to give you a master class on how to avoid breaking the rules so that you can win and win more in your pursuit of Making Billions.

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[THE GUEST]:  Marty a lawyer at KB&A and is one of America’s foremost experts on securities regulation and crowdfunding.  He was an early innovator for Crypto Legislation as well as one of the key contributors to the US Jobs act.

[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.

If you want to raise capital, like Elon Musk, or Warren Buffett, then you need to know about the legal changes that will set you free or lock you away. My next guest is a legendary attorney that is here to help you navigate all the rules for raising capital. So the question is, how are you preparing your company to raise money without breaking the law? All this and more coming right now. Here we go.

Hey, welcome to another episode of Making Billions. I'm your host, Ryan Miller. And today I have my dear friend Marty Tate. Marty is a lawyer at KB&A and is one of America's foremost experts on securities regulation and crowdfunding. He was an early innovator for crypto legislation, as well as one of the key contributors to the US jobs act. So what this means is that Marty understands how to help you structure your next investment fund syndication or capital raise for your project. And he's about to give you a masterclass on how to avoid breaking the rules so that you can win and win more. So Marty, welcome to the show, man.

Marty Tate  1:13 
Hey, thanks, Ryan. It's a honor and a pleasure to be here. I've been following your show for a long time. And it's cool to be on this side of the screen. So thanks. It's, it's great to be part of the community.

Ryan Miller  1:27 
Yeah, and you certainly are part of the community. And you know, you and I, we've gotten to know each other a little bit offline here and your experience with contributing to the US jobs act to helping America figure out this new crypto thing and crowdfunding, I mean, you are really rolling up your sleeves, putting your hands in the dirt, and really figuring out how to help people do private deals, crowdfunding and crypto, I mean, you are in all of the big cool, sexy stuff that we get to work on as emerging fund managers and entrepreneurs. And there's Marty Tate right there with the Banner of Truth to bring us home to the promised land. So that was a little dramatic intro. But the reality is, in all seriousness, your your background and experience has proven to be very, very helpful, not only for emerging fund managers and entrepreneurs, but also for helping people and the government to write some better legislation. So let's jump right into it. Maybe we can address the beginners in this sector? How do beginners get some early points on the board? And more importantly, after that, maybe we can discuss how they can avoid getting knocked out too early in the game. So how do we put some points on the board early on?

Marty Tate  2:27 
So you know, I think, and I appreciate all of that, and the the introduction and the compliments and, and hopefully I can, can provide some information that is helpful and help people, you know, as like you said, as they move forward to put points on the board. So what I do, and maybe I'll give a little bit of background, and then I can kind of go to your point, but you know, what I do, my practice revolves around primarily, two main things. One is I deal with fund formation I deal with with fund managers and fund management companies that are putting together funds, these can be new funds, I have funds that have been together for refunds that around for 20 years. And so that's working with them, making sure that they structure things correctly, make sure they are doing things in line with the regulations. The other thing that I am active in is in crowdfunding and mostly helping companies funds, businesses, raise capital using the internet. So the common thread across all of that is all of that requires that you navigate securities regulations, which can be really daunting and really difficult. And there's lots of different areas and lots of different laws that you've got to comply with. So the couple of things that I would say right out of the gate, or surround yourself with good people who have done it before, talk to lots of people, talk to people who have had success in your industry, it's really important that you hear their battle stories and hear their do's and don'ts. This is the way that we did it, this is the way to succeed. So I think that's one of the biggest things to do right out of the gate. Just again, surround yourself with the right people. And those can be like said people that have been in the field, they can be people that can be lawyers, they can be accountants, they can be you know, VCs, fund managers, whoever that might be, you know, another thing is on that same lines is although you want to surround yourself, you don't want to get yourself too far over your skis like don't immediately go on say, Okay, I want to do this fun, and I want to so I'm just going to start spending money and and, you know, make sure that you've mapped that out. And a good lawyer is going to help you say, Hey, this is where you need to be before you start spending money with me. And again, then just surround yourself, like I said before with the right professionals, the right lawyers, the right accountants, fund administrators and so forth, broker dealers, if necessary, that can help you stay in compliance along the way.

Ryan Miller  4:41 
I love it. So so the relationships and so for many people that follow the show, we know that reputation and relationships are your greatest assets and in your possession and Marty certainly advises on the relationship but guess what he also advises on your reputation because if you don't follow the law, that's not great for your reputation. So we definitely want to help folks to ally In that, Marty, you certainly do a great job doing that. I remember to that point that you talked about don't overspend if it's your first project, your first startup, your first investment fund, whatever it is, I remember when I started the first legal firm that I contacted, and they were like, sure. $150,000. And, and I think I choked a little bit. And I was like, Oh, my goodness. So I definitely started sweating sitting down and, and I thought, Wow, is that what it really costs? So I was, you know, early days doing angel investing, and I thought, I'm gonna put on my big boy pants and start a fund. And so $150,000, I had a little bit of sticker shock, and I was like, I should have bought that Benz. So instead of a benzo, you could have a lot of fun. And so shopping around, folks, there's a huge range. And Marty, maybe you can kind of help me understand that. But I've seen, the cheapest I've ever seen is about 15 grand in the most expensive I was ever quoted was a million dollars. So this is like this is quite the range. But for people starting out, let's say investment funds, I know that's an area that you specialize in what sounds like a good range that really first time founders should really budget for as far as just getting their foundational legal docs started.

Marty Tate  6:05 
Yeah, and I think that that, you're right, and you do see all sorts of things. And I think that you could start, you know, I've seen even people say, hey, I can put together a fund for $5,000, you're gonna get what you paid for the lawyers going to find a replace the last guy's name and probably miss half of the things that he you know, spell your name wrong and address wrong. So I would say 15 is kind of on the low end, probably 30 is pretty average. And then if it gets complicated if you've got offshore aspects, you've got complicated assets, digital assets, that could be more, that could be more complicated, right? And so that's going to cost you more. You know, I have a story. Maybe I told you this before, but years ago, when I was, you know, getting into this, I was hired by I wasn't you with a firm, I was Moonlighting, I was general counsel for a, a fund management company, and a large real estate company came said, hey, help us put together your fund. I said, Great, I'm gonna charge you $30,000, which was, which is definitely like set on the low end. So we put together their fund documents, they went out, started talking to institutional investors. And again, I wasn't with a firm, I was just kind of Marty tait solo guy that's moonlighting is no, he's also general partner of harbor capital put together these fund documents, they went out and said, you know, they, they were raising a billion dollar fund, and some of their investors said, Hey, we've got to have, you got to have a name brand on there. So they went out and paid $750,000 for their fun documents. The I said, Hey, great. When they finish, can I see him? I got him back. And they were just my documents with their name on them. So. So yeah, a lot of times, you're, you know, you're paying for the name brand, you're paying, you know, that comes with that. I'm feeling I feel like that trend is, is going away, I haven't had that problem. I haven't had anybody kicked me off the job, you know, in 10 years or so if you if we put together your fund your it's going to be it's going to be accepted. So anyway, so yeah, you can't see a range. And again, you just have to be careful.

Ryan Miller  7:58 
And so so you're the muscle you did all the heavy lifting. And then they just rubber stamped it with their with their logo on it. That sad as it is hilarious. I'm not sure what reaction after

Marty Tate  8:10 
they needed that to seal the deal. So great. More power to them. If that manager, they were getting a $100 million investor, it was probably worth it. So

Ryan Miller 8:18 
yeah, I guess. So surround yourself with good people, great lawyers don't overspend in the early days. That's how we get some early points on the board. Now, that doesn't tell the whole story. So also, when you're starting out as a as a serial entrepreneur, first time entrepreneur, and sometimes launching a fund, you're also starting a business. Either way, you can get kind of you can get your wrist slapped a little bit, or worse, if you don't do things properly. So I'm very curious for the beginners out there. What are some easy things that you can just advise on that would help people to just not lose in the beginning?

Marty Tate  8:51 
Yeah, so you know, I think the easiest way to not lose would be to, you know, make sure that again, losing would be breaking the law, right. So again, surrounding yourself with the right people. It's about, we've hit that point enough. The other thing is, you know, as you go out and you start to raise capital, this can be applicable to a fund, this can be applicable to somebody that has a company that says, hey, we're trying to raise money, you want to make sure that you have a plan, you want to understand who you're raising that money from, and how do you plan on doing it? Those are the two questions I have, when people come to me and say we're going to do a, you'll maybe hear people say we're going to do a private placement or a ppm or a 506 C or A 506 B offering. I always say Okay, great. Tell me where that who it is. So you want to have a really good idea about who you're raising that money from, because because that's going to tell you, you know, the regulations you have to comply with that's going to tell you kind of your limitations, and then know how you're going to do it or you're going to just raise it, you're going to talk to people, you know, are you going to you know, put up a billboard, are you going to have a website, all of those things will determine kind of how we're going to go about doing that. And then also have a really good idea of, you know, sort of your anchor investor. You know, I always tell people that, you know, let's make sure that we've got some people soft circled, that you know are going to invest before we start putting pencil to paper and you start current legal costs. So those are you know, that's that's really important. Otherwise, you might spend 15 or $30,000. And then for a piece of paper that sits on a shelf,

Ryan Miller  10:18 
Yeah, lucky you that it would be disturbing. Every time I looked at that shelf. I would be so mad that I spent that money on something that I didn't even use. So okay, so then retail versus anchor investors versus institutional capital. So be sure where are you going to raise when I say retail? We just I don't know about you, Marty. But I typically just refer to that as just regular investors, individual investors, high net worth individuals, just nothing on the institutional side. That was one thing. The other one is how are you going to market your offering, whether that's a v offering or your startup? How are you going to market that? Where are you going to place advertisements, there are some restrictions when it comes to advertising for raising money. And so we just want to make sure that you check in if I'm going out to raise money before you talk to Marty, or any attorney, make sure you have those figured out, who am I raising money from? And how am I going to market is that would you say that's a fair summary?

Marty Tate  11:08 
Yeah, that makes sense.

Ryan Miller  11:10 
Perfect. So let's talk about your industry. As far as legal requirements go, I know this is a hot topic, right? So it's, it's better to have this knowledge and not need it than to need it not have it. And then you're really having a lot of fun. But in the market, I'm just curious, like, what's going on as far as regulatory changes? What are you seeing as far as Gensler and the stuff that they're doing at the SEC, what do you what are you seeing over there?

Marty Tate  11:34 
Yeah, so and again, the things that I touched on are, it's pretty broad, right. But I think that, you know, with German guns are you're seeing, you're definitely seeing an uptick in regulation. And the biggest thing you've seen as an uptick in enforcement actions, the SEC has really focused on, you know, whether it's increased by increasing their staff, and they've really focused on the bad actors, the people out there that are, are committing fraud, the people that are, you know, in the industries that are suspect, so you've seen in the crypto space, for example, you've seen a lot of enforcement actions, a lot of settlements with people who have gone out and done token offerings, with respect to fund managers, you are seeing an increased scrutiny as well, you know, that's, in some cases, that makes sense, because there are some bad dudes out there. I also represent some companies that honestly, you know, weren't out align in the SEC is kind of overstepping. So I it's a little bit of a mixed bag, but you're seeing, you know, with, with respect to advisors, there, they came out with a whole new set of proposed rules for investment advisors. And one of the big things is under this proposal was this. And I think these makes a lot of sense was to pay prohibited preferential treatment. So one of the things that fund advisors do a lot of times is they'll say, hey, let's enter into a side letter. And I'll provide you with, you know, different terms on maybe the management fee or the carrier, whatever it might be. And what they've said is basically, if you're going to be doing that you have to be, you have to be fair across the board. Now, the example that I just mentioned, is actually a bad example, because there's nothing you can still use side letters to have different economics, what they're saying is, you can't have preferential redemptions, you can't say, hey, if things go to pot, you get your money out. First, you have to treat all the investors the same. The second thing that they basically said is, you have to give everybody the same information, you can't give somebody just like special insight information. So those are the two big areas that they proposed, that they proposed changing with, with regards to side letters and and preferential treatment. So that that was a bit that was one of the big things that we saw recently and regulations.

Ryan Miller  13:45 
Perfect. Okay. And do you see any like, what, how is the market adapting to that? What are some of the strategies that you're seeing people do with some of these changes? Like, how are people adapting? I'm wondering if you could talk about that,

Marty Tate  13:56 
what you're seeing where, at least from my perspective is, you know, we're getting approached by a lot of advisors saying, Okay, how do we need to address this thing, or these these changes? So I mentioned the side letters, the other changes that that have perhaps even a bigger impact is, is that private fund managers that are registered with the SEC, which isn't everybody, there's some private fund managers that are registered with the state, there's some people that fall into the the category of an exempt reporting advisor. And there's some people that are advising on assets that don't fall within the Investment Advisors act. So private advisors registered with the SEC have to one of the bigger changes, they now have to provide quarterly statements that talk about your fund level expenses, they also have to get an audit for the fund, which that can be a huge change. And then there's some other financial things. So what we're seeing now is again, these are proposed rules so and they haven't gotten in effect yet, but we're helping people prepare for those as as fund advisors,

Ryan Miller 14:53 
perfect. I love that and honestly, all of those I know and there's more regulation, sometimes the regulator He did have a little bit of heartburn over it. But everything that you've just said, I see that as a positive, no special treatment, right? If you come into an investment fund, that fund manager has a responsibility to treat you the same as everyone else. Yeah, I think that's a great thing. You must provide audit, and like you said, these are all proposed, but you must provide audited financial statements. Yeah, great, that helps them to trust you. And it also drives further integrity in the industry, it's very hard to be a regulator, as one of my previous guests have said is regulators tend to tap the brakes until some flies through the windshield. So they're still tapping the brakes a little bit figuring this out. But regardless is not an easy job. So tip of the hat to regulators who are really just trying to drive integrity in the markets, whether it's audit, no special treatment, be careful with side letters, meaning, basically, you have a term in your fund that investors get one of the strategies I can I can share whether it's a good strategy or not. But one that I've been seeing Marty is that sometimes to provide that equal treatment for all investors to not give certain special deals to one and not the other, one of the things that we're able to see is just different tiers in your offering. So we say the more you invest, the better terms I can get. And that's available to anybody, so I'm treating you different. So if you want to invest more, you're gonna get a better deal. So the typical 2/20 fund structure, we can actually start tapering that down, depending on the commitment, size that you invest, are you seeing anything like that where people have multiple tiers and on their offerings to say, we'll give you better terms for a bigger check? Have you seen any of that start happening a little bit more?

Marty Tate  16:25 
Yeah, and I mean, that's, that's common, and that's something you just don't, and that's what I, you know, referencing site letters and those different sort of better terms. And that still allowed and people you know, can have in their, their fun documents that, hey, we'll do site letters, and they have to basically disclose that they could offer these better terms, a lot of times, what will happen is, you'll have an investor come in and say, hey, I want the, you know, most favored nation terms, basically, whatever the best thing, you're given somebody else, I want it and, you know, if the investors big enough, then they can force their way into that, or if somebody comes in, and they're gonna be your anchor investor, and they say, Hey, listen, rather than a 2% management fee, we want a one and a half percent management fee. So you just have to be aware of that and know that somebody else might come in and ask for better terms. So that one is through a side letter. The other is just to basically say, Hey, if you write us a check, at this size, this is these are your terms, you guys check this size, these are terms, so both of which are acceptable.

Ryan Miller  17:18 
Yeah, we do that second one as well. So we have kind of prescribed terms with a range of investment. So the better the term, the terms get better, the bigger the check, you cut. So that's definitely a strategy I'm not recommending I'm not not recommending we're just calling it as it is. So you know, as we round third base, I'm just curious on what, after all of this experience, all of these things that you've done, I'm wondering if you could just leave behind maybe two or three things, not just helpful advice, from your perspective, but also on how well will default default to execution on some of these things. But what are two or three things that you can leave behind with all of your experience for emerging fund managers? Or even entrepreneurs? What would you say?

Marty Tate  18:01 
Yeah, so one of the things that we get into is that people want to have a lot of flexibility with their font, a lot of times people, you know, new fund managers especially want to come and say, Hey, we want to do some real estate. But we also want to, you know, if there's a venture deal that comes up, or hey, if we want to do some loans, we want to be able to do that. And my advice to them, is, if you're a first time fund manager, be specific, be focused on be focused on a particular asset class, be an expert, and not a generalist, right. I think that, you know, maybe a Warren Buffett, if he comes out with the fund, and he says, Hey, I'm gonna just kind of do whatever I want. I think we would all jump into that, because we would trust that but if you're a fund, first time fund manager, focus on what you are going to do, tell your story saying, Hey, this is what we do. We focus on multifamily properties in the size of markets, or we do self storage in third tier markets. So whatever it might be something that, you know, right, versus sort of the Frankenstein fund, where you're trying to say, hey, we can kind of do whatever I and the reason I say that is, one, there's some there's there's some legal reasons behind it. Because you're, if you're trying to do a lot of different things, you're potentially exposing yourself to, you know, failure, or liability and a bunch of different areas, and claims that that your investors could come back and say, Hey, you weren't focused, you weren't an expert. But the bigger thing is just, it's harder to raise capital. Like if you can, if I get a lot of deals across my desk and the people that are focused and say, This is what we do. We just are raising capital for this type of deals. It's uh, you know, we are raising capital for a preferred debt, or, you know, on commercial property, or we're raising capital to invest in single family homes in this market, that's going to be or fixing flips in this market. And this is our experience with that. That's going to be I think that's a big advantage that, you know, when you're going out and trying to raise capital, I'm going to help you in that effort,

Ryan Miller  20:00 
I love it. And as the saying goes better be two inches wide and 100 miles deep than 100 miles wide and two inches deep. So I remember one person launching a fund and he's like Ryan got the best idea. So sometimes we use big words like multi-strat fund, right makes you sound real smart, but sweet surprise, the best idea for fund and I said, Dude, That's awesome. Tell me about it. He said, Okay, you ready for this? And I was like, I don't know about you. This is quite the buildup, what? What are you going to say? And he said, Okay, you're gonna love this. He said, we're going to invest, we're going to go to investors, and we're going to invest in crypto, cattle and real estate. And I said, I have no words, I totally cut me off. I was like, who am I to say that it's right or wrong, but I've never heard of that. And so to Marty's point, it's not that it was right or wrong. This is just my opinion, my observations of Marty, feel free to disagree. But my first thought was not Oh, that's not going to work. I don't think like that. And I was like, I mean, I know what I know. But maybe it will, I don't know any of that stuff. But the thing that I thought about is putting myself in an investor's shoes, you have to give them a clear line of sight for profit. And so when you're like, Hey, man, give me a million dollars. And we're gonna put it a crypto, cattle, and real estate. And he's like, I don't see like profit town on the other side of that I like it, you're all over the place. And number two, it's really hard for me to really believe that you are the best expert I'm going to find in all three, right? I believe you're good at one or like, so you got to help me understand, do you have the team and the team individually as experts? And then on top of that weaving these three bizarre asset classes are great asset classes and to a bizarre combo. I'm like, you know, is that is that going to be something that I'll enjoy? And so to your point, Marty, you know, it is better to be an expert in one area than is generalist? Not necessarily because it's a bad investment thesis, maybe it is, I don't know. But I think more importantly, from my perspective, is just saying, as an investor, I just need to see that clear line of sight. I need to see the shore on the other side of what you're asking me to take a boat across, I still, I still need to see land on the other side. And if you've created this blurry vision and smoke and fog, and I can't see anything, it's gonna be really hard for you to raise capital. Do you have anything you can add to that? Is that a fair summary?

Marty Tate  22:11 
Yeah, no, that is a fair summary. It's funny. I so you know, I can almost one up you than that. I was approached by maybe it's the same guy. I don't know. It sounded like, so he had crypto bison. So kind of cattle, bison and cannabis. So you know, I don't know, they, maybe those maybe we're missing something here that maybe? Maybe there's a crossover that we're just not seeing. But no, I think I think that that's important that you're focused. And I think that the best managers can bring their experience in, you know, whether it's in real estate, or whether it's in precious metals, or whether it's in oil and gas, they'll bring that to the table. And that's what you want to see. You know, as an investor as Oh, they have the experience, they've done this before. Not Hey, this is our first time, you know, might be the new first time Have fun, but it's not the first time that they're, you know, to circle back around. It's not our first rodeo. It's not our first crypto cannabis, real estate rodeo. But yeah, so I think that that's, you know, that that would probably be the first thing I would say, the second thing is, you know, once you get into it, like, once you started your fund, and you raise money from investors, or you know, whether it's a fund or whether it's just, you're running a company, and you brought in investors, you brought in, you know, friends and family or people that you know, venture capitalist, or whoever it might be they did invest it, make sure that you're communicating, I think one of the biggest complaints that we get from, you know, if we get investors that are coming and saying, you know, they're upset about an investment, or they want to bring an action against a company, it's primarily it's because they're not hearing from the company, the company or the fund isn't communicating. So the more communication that you can give, the better. And, you know, I think that even if it's bad news, right, you want to make sure that you're always just staying on top of it. That tends to create, you know, a trust, you know, it's like a relationship. If you can tell somebody the bad news, then they're going to trust you more with the good news. So I think that's important.

Ryan Miller 24:07 
Yeah, thank you for that. And I remember one of our former guests, I believe I told you about him. And another time we spoke, he, he runs, he has a $4 billion fund. He was on the show. And he's Michael Episcope, and wonderful man. I encourage everybody listening to really investigate all the cool stuff that he's doing over there in Chicago, so but he actually gave us expression. And he echoes the same thing, Marty that you mentioned, what was his exact words where we walk out good news, we run out bad news. And so really, that investor communication is something that I agree it can be not appreciated until you wish you did and if there's that moment of regret, wishing that you ran the bad news out the door, because that goes back to your reputation, right? So you never want to be perceived as skewing information, slow rolling, or investors or anything like that just being a bad communicator. But if you're like, hey, I trust this guy, even if I don't like the words that come out of Ryan's mouth and Marty's mouth, I know I can trust it, even if I don't like it, I can trust it. And that is important friends, it's important for your investors, whoever they are, if you're a fund manager or an entrepreneur, your investors need to trust you, they need to trust warts and all is sometimes they say that you're gonna reveal the entire outcome on that I love it. What would be a third thing that you could say, as a piece of advice, parting advice for our friends around the world,

Marty Tate  25:23 
You know, I'll probably go full circle back to where we started, which was just again, I'm a lawyer. So I'm going to say this, but just compliance making sure that you are surrounding yourself with the right people so that you are following the law. So with, for example, with a fund, there are multiple silos of regulations that you have to navigate, you have to regulate the the Securities Act of 1933, you have to navigate the investment advisors act, you have to navigate the Investment Company Act. And a lot of times people think because they've done one, they ignore, you know, the other areas. And so they'll say, hey, well, we're, you know, we are a Reg D fund a 506,C, Fund, so, we're good. But they don't realize that there's all these areas of compliance, they have to follow. So, again, surround yourself with the right people, make sure you've got a good team, a good lawyer, a good accountant that can help you with things that you've got a, you know, perhaps even a chief compliance officer that can help you navigate through all of those advisory things. So if you're managing a fund, generally, unless it's you know, you've fallen an exemption, you're going to have to also be an investment advisor, which means you're going to have to register with the SEC or with the state. And that's going to require compliance, it's going to mean, it's going to mean you're also have to, you will have to comply with FINRA rules. And you'll have to register with FINRA. So there's, you know, another regulatory agency that you've got to deal with. So making sure that you have either like set a part time compliance officer, full time compliance officer, a really good lawyer that can help you with those things, all that's going to be helpful, it's going to help you avoid audits, it's gonna help you avoid penalties and fines, it could also keep you out of jail. So make sure that you're I can go in full circle, but back where I started, which is surround yourself with the right people and the right people that can help you be compliant going forward.

Ryan Miller  27:19 
I love it. So as we wrap things up, is there any parting advice anything at all, you'd like your fans to know how to reach out to you how to find you if they want to get to know you better? Or really enjoy the depth of your knowledge? How can they reach it reach out to you?

Marty Tate  27:33 
Yeah, so probably the best way is you can find me on LinkedIn, you can find me are my company's website is kpa.la, you can email me at M Tate at Kba dot law, or I think I'm also on Twitter and threads and everything else. So I'm, I'm out there, there's I also have, you know, I've participated in panels and things a lot of those are on online as well. So if you want to find out more, I'm sure you just Google me and you can, you can take what you want from what you can find

Ryan Miller 28:05 
awesome. Oh man. So just to summarize everything that Marty and I have talked about, it's better to be an expert, be an expert, not a generalist. The second thing that he mentioned is communicating with your investors is absolutely critical. really prioritize excellence in that area. And of course, compliance is extremely, extremely important. So make sure that you design your business with compliance in mind. You do these things, and you too will be well on your way in your pursuit of making billions.

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