The majority of dental professionals keep their money safe in mutual funds. This is known as a stable way to make a return on your money with a relatively low risk. However, for far too long, only the wealthiest of the wealthy could invest in private companies and funds. As such, the wealth gap continued to widen. Take Menlo Venture's investment in Uber for example. They made 93x on their investment in just a few short years. But that was reserved for the upper echelon of accredited investors.
In this episode, founder and CEO of Kingscrowd, Chris Lustrino shares more about equity crowdfunding. No, this is not like Kickstarter. Ever since the JOBS Act approval, nearly anyone can invest in private companies. This provides more opportunity for people like you to invest in start-ups. Though investing in a start-up is risky, the return can be quite magnificent.
To get your first 8 weeks of Kingscrowd for only $5, use coupon code DENTALKING. That's a steal :)
Also, as of today, June 3, podcast host, Ryan Vet, is raising money for his start-up, Boon, on equity crowdfunding platform WeFunder. Click here for more information. Boon is an on-demand, dental temp agency.
The majority of dental professionals keep their money safe in mutual funds. This is known as a stable way to make a return on your money with a relatively low risk. However, for far too long, only the wealthiest of the wealthy could invest in private companies and funds. As such, the wealth gap continued to widen. Take Menlo Venture's investment in Uber for example. They made 93x on their investment in just a few short years. But that was reserved for the upper echelon of accredited investors.
In this episode, founder and CEO of Kingscrowd, Chris Lustrino shares more about equity crowdfunding. No, this is not like Kickstarter. Ever since the JOBS Act approval, nearly anyone can invest in private companies. This provides more opportunity for people like you to invest in start-ups. Though investing in a start-up is risky, the return can be quite magnificent.
To get your first 8 weeks of Kingscrowd for only $5, use coupon code DENTALKING. That's a steal :)
Also, as of today, June 3, podcast host, Ryan Vet, is raising money for his start-up, Boon, on equity crowdfunding platform WeFunder. Click here for more information. Boon is an on-demand, dental temp agency.
Yes, this is the dental experience podcast. Here's your host Ryan Vet.
Ryan Vet:Welcome to another episode of the dental experience podcast. I have with me today a very special guest and today's a special day for me and I just want to put it out there. Right at the beginning that officially starting today, I am raising money on we funder for a new startup called Boon and we fund her as a crowd funding platform. Crowd funding has a lot of stigmas and investing in in the private markets versus public markets. There's just a lot of questions about, yeah,
Speaker 2:that new laws, I've made it more readily accessible to more people. So I have an expert with me today, Chris Lewis, Gino, who is the founder and CEO of King's crowd, a site that can help you know where to put your money wisely in the private market. So Chris, welcome to the show.
Speaker 3:Yeah, thank you so much for having me.
Speaker 2:You Bet. And I am really passionate about this. For most of my career I've been in the startup world, whether raising money from angels or Vcs and obviously on the side if you're in it long enough, you also have to become an angel investor. So I've done angel investing and in the market as well. And this is something passionate to me because so many people have so many misconceptions about fundraising as a whole and what it's like to invest and dentists as a whole, I'm in dental professionals are higher paid than many industries. I have an article coming out and dental economics and just a couple of months that talks about how dentists are one of the higher paid professions across the board, so all dental employees and yet they're most typical investing. You know where it is, Chris? Where's that in mutual funds, which is great. It's, it's safe, it's stable. But I was just reading an article in tech crunch that just came out about Menlo ventures when they invested in Uber, they got 93 times return in just a couple of years on their investment and that's one of the beauties of, of investing in a private company. That said, you can lose all that money to. So Chris, I just want to spend the next couple of minutes hearing from you and let's first talk about private investing and what that's like and what the opportunities are there.
Speaker 3:Sure, absolutely. So I think something that you know, a lot of people don't realize is that 97% of all investible assets are actually private. Um, and that includes everything from houses to commercial real estate to a loans and mortgages, right? All of these things. But it also includes startups, middle market companies, any company that's not listed on something like Dow Jones or Nasdaq. And what we've seen over the past, you know, 15, 20 years, we used to have 8,000 public companies on, uh, you know, on marketplaces like Dow Jones, Nasdaq is now about 4,000. It's been cut in half. So company is more and more are staying private. Longer reason being is that capital access to capital in the private markets is more and more accessible as you've had these massive venture capital and private equity funds be created out of pension funds and things like that. And so a lot of the growth opportunities of companies actually occurs before they ever go public. I mean, just think about the fact that what, you know, a few weeks Uber went public at a, you know, what was it? I don't know if it was 40, 50,$60 billion, some massive amounts. And it's like, well guess what, the person who invested when that was worth$3 million saw a ton of growth. The person who gets in at 50$60 billion to get a 10 x we're meeting needs to get to, you know, half a trillion dollars, which is crazy, right? So what was created was the jobs act in 2012 which said, look, we recognize that, you know, to date we've always said that nonaccredited investors, AK non millionaires and many dentists may already be millionaires anyway, but for non millionaires, um, access to the private markets was essentially closed up. It was illegal. And the jobs act said perhaps we should change that we should provide access to everyone. And so what we now have is marketplaces like we funder and 45 others that are FINRA registered, that have regulations around them to ensure that things are compliant. But end of the day, investors of all types from, you know, if you make$10,000 a year or it can make$10 million a year, can now invest in private companies online and partake in, in the growth stage of companies. Um, which used to be inaccessible.
Speaker 2:Yeah. And I want to just talk about that in the jobs act because a lot of people, I think they aren't aware of private investing because of the pre jobs act era where it literally, and you said it well it was illegal if you weren't a a millionaire or an accredited investor. And I want to caveat that because many dentists and many people listening, they probably have a high net worth, but that includes their home. So once you take that out, you might be an eligible as an accredited investor. So really you're talking about a very, very small portion of people who could have invested in the Uber's of the world, the lifts, the Airbnbs, the Facebook's, all, all of these companies before they went public. That just was such a limiting factor. Now the jobs act has totally made it available to just about anyone. Could you talk about who can,
Speaker 3:yeah, absolutely. So light like you mentioned, non accredited and accredited investors. So nonaccredited like I'd mentioned before, you can make as little as, you know,$10,000 a year and still be able to invest in these companies. And now when people hear that, they think, well, wait a minute. Um, you know, if people are making really little amounts of money, one, are they sophisticated enough to know how to invest and to, you know, how could they have any money to put in these deals? And I recognize that that's a valid point. At the same time, one, I don't think, um, that your level of wealth has anything to do with your sophistication or ability to think about how to invest in these companies. Um, so I think that's a total myth and it's something that I've seen time and again, frankly from our own user base, we now have people who reach out and you know, they make 50 60 cannon and yearly basis, but there are only two, three years out of school, which is kind of a general starting salary, right? But they also work in some sort of investment position in their day to day job and they're setting in doing due diligence on companies all day. So they're absolutely capable of doing this. And I think it all comes down to, you know, invest in things that you know and understand and care about. And that's the cool thing about as you can partake in those companies when they're early on, if you're a customer of it and you see real value, perhaps it's a company should be a part of, but better yet because the minimums are set so low on these companies, literally on platforms like republic, they could go as low as$10 minimums to invest in these companies. I would say the average is around$100 so you can partake in investing in 10 1520 companies and still only have spent about, you know, one to$2,000 that year investing in startups. And so we always say, if you're going to invest in this market, you know, invest across a large swath of companies, the, the worst mistake you can make is only invest in one or two companies. You're bound to lose your money in at least one of them. Uh, the reality is startup investing is really risky, but you can direct that by investing in lots of deals. And we typically save you get around 20. That's a great place to be. So if you decide, hey, I only have$5,000 a year to invest in startups because I only want five or 10% of my total portfolio to be in this asset class, that's great. Then put 500 into 10 or put 250 in to 20. Um, don't put, you know, 5,000 into one. And so that's, that's the caveat, but end of the day, because the minimums are so low because there's access and all of these platforms, anyone can partake at the level that makes sense for them.
Speaker 2:That's great. And I want to go back to one thing you talked about and that's investing in something. You know, I, I feel like right now a big trend, and you can probably speak to this better since you monitor all these sites, but a big trend that I have seen is all of these craft breweries, craft distilleries, small wineries all popping up and raising money. Now I own two coffee shops and wine bars serve coffee, beer, wine or whiskey. So I know that space and that's something that I'm comfortable investing in. Plus it's kind of a fun thing to invest in. But I think understanding your industry and not just investing, if you don't know about robotics, I mean robotics are cool and if you want to study them and get into them, that's great. But if you don't know about that, start with something you do know. Would you say that's, that's fair,
Speaker 3:Chris? I think it's a great first step. Yeah. And I think over time, you know, one of the things that we try and do is help people invest in this market into things that maybe they don't fully understand because we go through a traditional venture capital, private equity due diligence process and all the companies that we look at. So we try and help you maneuver things that you might not know about as well. But to your point, start with things that you understand and over time if you want to get a little bit more sophisticated, utilize resources, talk to people that can help you kind of invest in things that perhaps you don't understand as well so you don't end up, you know, in a bad deal where you just didn't understand the terms or what was going on.
Speaker 2:Yeah, absolutely. And I want to come back to due diligence in just a moment because due diligence, if you've raised money, makes you cringe. If you've never invested, you're probably scratching your head what is due diligence? And so I do want to come back to that, but before we get there, can we talk about equity crowdfunding on some of these platforms versus Kickstarter? Because Kickstarter was all the rage and you can invest in your local coffee shop or whatever it might be, which is great, but that's just more of a donation then in an investment. So could you talk and kind of some of the myths surrounding uh, platforms like we funder versus a platform like Kickstarter? Absolutely.
Speaker 3:Really. So the whole point of the jobs act and the whole point of creating finner registered platforms like we funder is the idea that you can own equity in the company just like a venture capitalist, just like a private equity shop and actually own that company. So if they do end up IPOing, if they do have an acquisition down the road, you own that piece of the company, then now when it's sold, you're going to get some sort of liquidity in some sort of gain from holding a piece of that company and investing in them early on. It's just like owning a share of Uber when it's public. Except when it was private. And so it's the same exact thing with Kickstarter, Indiegogo, it's truly just a donation. You know, you're not getting your money back. You might be getting early access to a product, you might get a tee shirt and that's great. That's a lot of fun. But there's no actual monetary value or thing that you're holding on to you with this. You're getting real equity in the company and with that comes a downside. So when you put that money in, don't think, oh you know, hopefully at a hundred xs and I had$10,000 or whatever. It could also be that you end up with zero and you don't even get the t shirt or anything else because end of the day you share in the upside or the downside since you now own equity in that.
Speaker 2:Absolutely. And you mentioned it, it's very much like owning stock in a public company. I mean it, it is an asset that you own it, part of that company. I would love to hear your thoughts on that.
Speaker 3:Yeah, no, I mean, end of the day, as I mentioned it is, it is equity in the company. You'd say it's a common share. It's a safe, it's a convertible note. These are the securities, um, that people utilize in the venture capital world. Um, and so, you know, we fund or for instance, I think they're safer a lot of times is actually very similar to what's user y Combinator. One of the most well known, um, you know, incubators, accelerators, whatever you want to call it out in silicon valley that have had companies like, um, you know, airbnb and Lyft, et cetera. So you're, you're doing the exact same thing as a venture capitalist just on a much smaller amount and just think about it, right? End of the day, the reason why these platforms can make sense and exist today is because now it's accessible to reach lots and lots of people with small dollar amounts because of the Internet. Right? Back in the day. The reason that Goldman Sachs went and became an investment bank, um, for the ultra wealthy was because if you're going to have to talk to 100 people in person, you might as well get a hundred people who have$10 million plus rather than, you know, 10,000 people that have$100 plus. Right? So it same idea in the venture capital role, it's like, look, if I'm going to go have a conversation with an investor, I want one that's going to put in$1 million because I don't want to have to meet with tons and tons of investors. But if I could put it online and I can host a Webinar and I could do all of these different things online and connect with hundreds of thousands of people, but in one setting, well guess what, now it's become efficient to do the exact same thing and give them access to the same securities at these big VC shops are getting access to.
Speaker 2:That's great. And I think one of the reasons why we chose to put boon on a crowdfunding platform, equity crowd funding against, as you and I were talking earlier, Chris, some VC said, don't do it. People that I've worked with in the past, you're like, you know, this is a terrible idea. You don't want to go that route complicates this, that and the other for future investors and other vcs in vcs. By the way, I don't know if we define that as venture capitalists or venture capital, but the other vcs are like, go for it. It's awesome. But the reason we wanted to put boon on platform like this was because we believe that we're going to positively impact dentistry. We believe that we're going to positively impact health care and medical and veterinarian and all of these different health care industries to help provide better patient care. And in doing that, we wanted to give people access to invest in that before we went to raise some institutional money. And we want people that are in the industry to be able to rally around to support this. So, and, and get a piece of the pie and have actual equity in the company. So that, that's why we chose to do it. We want to make it fair and we didn't want to limit it to the most wealthy of the wealthy as has been done in the past. I think it's just an incredible opportunity to reach more people and give more people opportunities that previously they might not have.
Speaker 3:I think that's exactly right. And we've seen the exact same thing. We've actually raised, um, you know, almost a couple of hundred thousand dollars via this mechanism for our own business. And what we've seen is, you know, I've had friends and family put in hundred dollars checks. I've had billion dollar company founders throw in 10 and$15,000 checks. I've had everything in between there. Right. And so it's given us an opportunity to have amazing investors come on board. I mean, some of my advisors have come out of the people who partook in our equity crowd funding round. Um, some of our, you know, people who have helped us with marketing, some of our service providers, all things because they care about the business now, right? They own a piece of it. So anything they can do to help grow the business is actually really valuable for them. We've gotten, you know, tens of paying customers out of this. It's like it's free marketing. There's so much more you get out of it. Then frankly just going into a venture capitalist. And a lot of times they say, well, you know, you see it's smart money. Um, there is a lot of VC shops out there these days and very few of them are in fact that smart money that I think a lot of people think of. Um, and so in fact, getting more people involved and people who could actually be your customers and build loyalty to what you're doing, I actually think is way more valuable.
Speaker 2:Yeah. And we took that same approach, not just with fundraising that we're launching today. Boone is a gig economy. It's dental temps, veterinarian techs, nurses on demand. With the click of a button, you can see them arriving just like a door dash delivery to your, your practice that day. You can get them in as little as an hour. You can schedule them in advance. In building a Gig economy platform, I decided to do something really different. So I went on to upwork, which is a gig economy. I freelanced for a while to understand what does a freelancer feel, what are the pain points and how can we do this better and differently. And then we built the entire, the one of boon and a lot of our team members were all hired via upwork, which is again the g Honami cause we wanted to build a gig economy platform on the Gig economy and then allow people who will use the APP, who will be able to pour into it. Like you said, Chris, allow them to invest. So we're trying to really make this something different. And our, our slogan is practicing good. It's this idea that so many people practice medicine, but we want to practice good in everything we do by providing high quality patient care. And all of that. So very much like you just said, that that's our goal. We want to build this community around this idea where we can really impact positive patient care, reduce practitioner burnout, help people, we'll have flexible schedules. So if they have to leave to pick up a kid from school, someone can pick up where they left off. If someone needs flexibility because they're their parent and want to stay home a couple of days, they can do that and work when they want. So we're really trying to empower individuals through everything that we do. And you know, that's just another reason that we chose to go on. We funder.
Speaker 3:I know, I think that's terrific and is completely aligned with what I hear from a lot of founders. There are many, like we were just having to a pound or the other day, um, who raised, you know, tens of millions of dollars from vcs on, on in Silicon Valley. He sold his company for tens of millions of dollars to Uber, um, you know, had great success and decided to go this way because he saw the pitfalls of going the VC route. Any saw an opportunity to engage a broader user base and do something really special and unique. Um, and I think we're starting to see a lot of founders like that think that way, which is, you know, this is about more than just capital. There's a lot more there. And I, I mean, just imagine had Uber and Lyft, right? Five, six years ago when they were just getting started. We're able to say to every one of their drivers and every one of their, their riders, Hey, you can own a piece of us and create that stickiness, right? I mean, that is such a powerful and valuable thing to be able to do. And I think we'll just continue to see more and more of that just like you guys.
Speaker 2:Absolutely. Absolutely. Chris. Well, we've talked a lot about due diligence throughout this conversation and that's really important as an investor, especially in a private company. I've been through due diligence many times with both acquisition due diligence, uh, on both sides of the table as well as VC due diligence. And it is a laborious process but it is extremely important. So do you mind talking a little bit about due diligence from your perspective and then we can kind of tie in how king's crowd actually helps with that?
Speaker 3:Yeah, absolutely. So I think something that, um, there's many studies out there that you can look at, but basically, you know, if you're spending less than 10, 20 hours on due diligence, uh, your odds of having positive returns over the long term go down drastically end of the day. Understanding things like what the market opportunity is, are these the right founders for the job? You know, can they actually execute on their vision that they have? Does the business model makes sense? Kenny's, you know, can this team scale this business and be profitable someday? Um, do the terms of the deal look good? You know, understanding whether or not you're actually getting a good deal, right? Cause it can be an amazing company. But if they're valuing themselves at$100 million in there, only making$1 million right now, um, they made have already priced in a lot of the value they're going to create down the road. And so the is lower. Um, all of these types of things, it's really important to understand and know before you get into that deal because you could be investing in what you think is an amazing company, but it turns out there's 15 competitors out there that are competing against them, are actually really well funded and can maybe beat them at their own game. So essentially due diligence is just taking the time to understand from top to bottom everything that you can about that organization from does the market look good too? Can these founders actually execute on the vision and everything in between? And I think, you know, you don't have to spend a million hours, you don't have to look at every line item in thing in the world about the company. But getting a good general sense of the organization, um, and whether or not all the prospects of it look good is, is really, really important. Um, and you can protect yourself from a lot of downside and try and de risk your investing strategy by taking the time to get to know that.
Speaker 2:And when I do private deals, a lot of these platforms have figured out how to make it due diligence really easy. And then I'm also in an angel network and they do the due diligence for you. But the things that I really look at, and I would love to hear kind of Chris, your personal experiences, but the things that I personally look at is a market size and kind of the market climate where, where is the market going? Who's in the market? So you mentioned competitors. That's something I definitely look at, but really what's their potential? And I think, uh, I'll say this, most of the companies that I look at have a grossly inflated perspective of the market that they can achieve, which is good. I mean they need to know the whole market, but I think that's something really important to understand really what is the potential because you can only, you can't make more money than the market is at least not for awhile. Now obviously companies like Uber and Lyft have pioneered a much, much larger market. You definitely have to look at the market size and then you mentioned this one too and I something I definitely look at his team. Are these people who are doing this as a part time side hustle or these people who are fully invested? Have they done startups before? Because I will tell you having done startups in multiple stages from zero revenue to about a hundred million dollars in revenue, no matter where you are in the lifecycle of a startup, it is grueling and it's hard work and if you don't have a team that's been there before and has done it and has contacts and to raise more money when money runs thin cause it's not a matter of if but when usually. Yep. Do they have the stamina to make some of those hard decisions? Have they been through team changes and team growth and having to right size the team and things like that. So those are some of the things that I personally look at and then is, am I aligned with it from a value perspective because I'm obviously not going to put my money into something where I don't agree with their philosophy or mission or things that they do with their money. For me, I look at companies that treat their team members well, take care of their team because usually a team that's treated well and as gel together, we'll be able to make it through some of the ups and downs of the startup world. So those are some the things I look at. But are there any things that like for you, is it the one thing that sticks out, maybe not as someone in King's crowd, but when you look independently, is there like one thing that you always look for
Speaker 3:short? So yeah, they're, they're, you know, we have five key criteria we look at and I kind of hit on some of them before. Then within that, we have, you know, 1520 questions that we ask on each dimension. But I think the thing that stands out for me more than anything is that question of, is this 10 x better than something that currently exists today? And you know, not to keep harping on a company like Uber, but you know, when you think about it, right? The taxi system, I mean, unless you live in downtown New York or you know, somewhere where there's a million taxis running by a on a momentary basis, the ability to find a taxi, the ability to pay, the ability to have a good experience. It was all really, really, uh, bet, right? It was just this friction filled experience. I was awful here. They come with this amazing solution that basically takes out all those frictions and completely revolutionizes away, you know, a simple process but just completely revolutionizes the way that it's done. Um, and I, I take another one, you know, you were talking about market opportunities, like, um, you know, are they interesting? Right? And so you look at swell water bottles. I mean they got into an industry that was highly uninteresting and nothing was going on in the water bottle industry probably wasn't really growing at all. And here they come with this really sleek, awesome design, something that was artistic and it was exciting and it just breathe new life into an industry that was completely flat and they basically cause all of the growth in that market. I'm seeing people like that who just have visions that are beyond what currently exists today I think is really powerful thing and knows they're the types of founders that I get really excited about backing cause it's like holy cow, you see a problem and you're making it so, so much better than anything out there that currently exist today. So I think that's something that I always look for.
Speaker 2:That's awesome. And speaking of this full water bottles, I've been getting more and more ads for new auto vitals entering the market. I mean that was something, no one, no one innovated in that space. You're right. Every day I see 10 new water bottles that someone's trying to sell me that I can talk to. You are a smart water bottle or whatever else. So
Speaker 3:and now look that. So, so to your, to that point, this is where you know, the vcs are going to come in and be like, Oh man, you know, let's get in on a water bottle crates. Right? Partake, but is it 10 x better because someone's already done it. Right. And I think that's where the consumer oftentimes can help dictate the these things because they're experiencing it. It's like, yeah, I bought a swell water bottle the other day. Everyone at the gym is talking about how awesome it is and they're right. And that's a company that didn't really accept any punting, right? Female founder who's just done exceedingly well and perhaps would not have been noticed by the traditional venture market, which is just too closed off to to recognize sometimes the innovations that are out there.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's so true. So true. Well, Chris, in our last couple minutes that we have here, I appreciate everything you've shared, so much wisdom and insight in, in this market that I think everyone should explore. I mean, there's so much opportunity. There's hundreds, maybe even thousands of startups and companies raising, um, crowd equity platforms. There's 46 platforms. Uh, we just touched on we funder, but there's 45 more. I highly, highly recommend people checking that market out, but they need to do some do it with training wheels at first I would recommend. And so that's what kings crowd does. Could you talk a little bit about exactly what kings crowd does and how you can help guide someone's decision making and just really encourage them and help them make sure they're making a wise investment?
Speaker 3:Absolutely. So if you've ever invested in a public stock, perhaps he read something like Wall Street Journal or Bloomberg or Morning Star, whatever it may be, wherever you go to learn about your equity research, we are the exact same thing. But for this new online private market. So our job is to provide you with vetted deal flow. We pull in all of the deals across all of the platforms that are raising. And then we actually go through a traditional private equity and venture capital, a due diligence process and look at things like market size and founder experience, et Cetera. And we provide you with the tools and resources you need to make quick informed investment decisions in this space. So instead of looking at 45 platforms and hundreds of deals at any one time, you could just come to us and you can find the exact things that you should be looking at. Either you just look at the best deals or perhaps you have certain criteria you want to look at, like you know, dentistry companies, whatever it may be, we can help you find it quickly and then help you do the due diligence on it in a really informed way. Um, we basically do that on a subscription fee that way. Uh, we're not know unbiased and being paid by startups or founders or platforms or anything like that. Um, so everything we say is truly what we think. Um, and yeah, so you could come to king's grad.com and subscribe and it's, you know, 10 or 20 bucks a month and you can feel free to reach out to me yet, Chris set kingsgrove.com and I'd be more than happy to answer any questions at all that you might have about our service and how we can help you invest in this new private mark.
Speaker 2:That's awesome, Chris. While I appreciate that, and I know on the king's crowd website you also have a link where people can schedule time on your calendar. I mean there's just a lot of ways to get knowledge and I would say investing in investing, meaning investing in a platform like this that can help guide you, especially at first, is definitely worth the money. So you can learn and understand some of the things that you should look for, especially if you're, you're one of those people who has put a lot of money in mutual funds over the years. Nothing wrong with a mutual fund, but if you can have one of those Menlo venture exits with a 93 x, that's pretty sweet. Aww, that's pretty sweet. So there's a lot of cool opportunities out there, so many new companies you can get behind and discover new things that, and you can be on the forefront and the first to know. So, uh, Chris, I appreciate you sharing all your wisdom and all your time today, so thank you so much for being on the show. Thank you. It's been a pleasure and I will link to a king's crowd in the show notes as well as Boone's we funder in the show notes. You can click the link for either one of those, but I want to thank you all for listening to another episode of the dental experience podcast. Until next time,
Speaker 4:thank you for listening to the dental experience podcast. For show notes. To ask a question or for more information, visit www dot the dental podcast. Dot. The ideas discussed it during this episode are the opinions of the participants and do not serve as legal, financial, or clinical advice. Until next time, this is the dental experience podcast.