Grant Johnson's Journey: From Bankruptcy to Billion-Dollar Success! | 100 Ways to Make $100k

Grant Johnson, an accomplished executive with a fascinating journey, takes us through his personal and professional milestones that began in Edmonton, Alberta, and led to major successes in the business world. Grant shares how his early passion for rowing and his father's influence molded his philosophy of resilience and discipline. From high-stakes corporate challenges to pivotal roles in companies like StarNet and innovative ventures in the satellite and internet industries, his story is a testament to overcoming adversity.

In this episode, listeners gain insight into the rollercoaster of entrepreneurship as Grant recounts the highs of a billion-dollar market cap and the lows of personal bankruptcy. Despite setbacks, his resilience shines through as he ventures into the realms of natural health products with Swiss Medica and the dynamic world of online gambling and esports. He unravels the complexities of acquiring gambling licenses and mastering strategic corporate maneuvers, all while focusing on lessons learned from navigating volatile markets.

Grant's forward-thinking vision extends to the integration of real and virtual racing experiences with the Race to Real venture. He emphasizes the potential of sim racing, the challenges of making it accessible, and the innovative use of emerging technologies to engage younger audiences. His entrepreneurial spirit and dedication to partnership and perseverance offer invaluable lessons for anyone navigating the evolving business landscape. Tune in to discover Grant's strategies, mindset, and the transformative experiences that have marked his remarkable journey.

Transcript

Journey of Grant Johnson

Javon 0:00

Ladies and gentlemen , I want to welcome you to another episode of 100 ways to make 100k and I cannot wait to introduce our next guest , mr Grant Johnson . The one and only listen .

Grant 0:12

Okay .

Javon 0:12

I'm very excited for this story . It hasn't even happened yet and I'm very excited to introduce you guys because number one , grant's been at the executive level since . I could probably walk Okay , so we'll start there . But you have to realize , like not everybody has gone through the amount of things that he has . Not everybody has taken things to the heights that he has . He's brought a company from an idea to public , started even new things partnered with race companies and is about to roll something out across the world . Ladies and gentlemen , mr Grant , Johnson .

Grant 0:44

Hey , that's quite an intro . I love that . Thank you , glad to be here .

Javon 0:48

Hey , I'm happy to be here as well . Thank you so much for taking the time to share your story with us , share your story with the audience , and I can't wait for them to hear it . I know I got a little bit of a glimpse , but I can't wait to tell them and I can't wait to dive . We could start at the beginning , like who is grant ? Maybe you could share some of the things that happen in your life , like early stages , that kind of make you you , you know , maybe let's start with , like childhood and growing up sure , uh well , growing up I was born in edmonton , alberta , okay , and uh , funny story .

Grant 1:18

People talk about cold weather , this and that and I say I remember when we used to get cold days off school . That's going to drop 40 below zero because you would die if you're outside 40 below zero . So you know , I can remember those days moved around quite a bit . Uh went from new york , I went from , uh , edmonton to new york . I actually saw the ed sullivan show live , if you know what that was . I saw when the muppets were introduced live , wow , it was in the audience . So that was pretty cool . That's when also the movie when we Realize came out , went out and taken to Pelham . I lived in New York at that time , pelham , new York , wow . Then we moved back to Oakville in 1969 . And my mother sent me to school in a suit my first day back to school . So I got in a fight first day back , coming back to school in a London fog raincoat , and I grew up mostly in Oakville , which is where we are now . I of course went to university in London , ontario University of Western Ontario .

Grant 2:24

And in high school I was MVP of the track team , Played football . I was not particularly a good football player , but I was very quick . I had very aggressive tendencies .

Javon 2:36

How are you speed-wise these days ?

Grant 2:38

A little slower . I've got arthritis in one knee , so that slows me down a little bit , but I am 64 , so I'm not superhuman , but uh , working on it .

Javon 2:47

Yeah well , if you want to race , let me know .

Grant 2:48

I think you'd beat me yes , I'll put a 50 pound backpack on you and then I'll give it a go all right deal uh so , yeah , then I went , uh , went to western .

Grant 2:59

I was still very much into athleticism , athletic pursuits . I was too small to play football at the university level , unless I wanted to go on the needle , so to speak . And I was introduced to rowing and that I embraced it . I loved rowing . It's a bit like being in the military , frankly . You're on the water 5.15 in the morning and you're with the same people every day and you can't drink , you can't smoke I never smoked , anyhow , but it's very regimented and you had to , you know . Come back from rowing , get to school . So there was just no time for anything else and I loved that . But I learned a lot about that .

Grant 3:45

I remember the first time , late for rowing practice , 100 jump squats . I can remember my first rowing race . It came off the water . We didn't win my coach , we really tried our best . He looked at me . He said did you throw up ? No . Did you pass out ? No . Well then you had more . You didn't give me everything , wow . So that's you know that really than you had more . You didn't give me everything . So that's , you know that really . It stays with me to today that there's always something more , always got more . Never stop . You never give Because you don't know what the other guy , the other person you're competing with , they're also suffering . You don't know who's going to break first . So you never stop and I've embraced that .

Grant 4:24

That was profound in my father , who became the president of Prudential Life Insurance . He was a huge man . He passed away a couple of years ago . I can notice this . He made it to 92 . Nice , and he had some hard living years . He was , you know , back in the 50s it was cool to smoke , so he smoked and that , uh , definitely played a part . But uh , you know , he was inspirational , my rowing coach since . So all those bits and pieces you grab these things from your life as you grow up , mistakes you make . I mean I've got 280 stitches in this body so I've made a lot of poor decisions . 280 stitches , dude , from what bad decisions mostly .

Javon 5:06

Yeah , I bet every one of those stitches , or at least almost every one of them , taught you something , though oh well , I could just give you an insight .

Grant 5:14

When I was about 13 and this isn't the worst one , but this one also stuck with me we were playing a game to see who could jump furthest across this pool , and this guy had a cabana over his pool . And so we're jumping . And then I look up and I see that there's a garage just across the causeway . So I go to the top of the garage , I run down full speed , come off the cabana and I recognize in midair that I'm going to clear the pool . So I hit the pavement on the far side of the pool , broke a toe and a finger and a couple , a couple other things .

Grant 5:45

So I mean , there is a I did win yeah I mean that's , that's probably I was committed . Yeah , everybody's like yeah , yeah , but that was that kind of maybe explains some of my personality I mean I will sacrifice a lot for the victory for the w man , um , but yeah that's why , like this finger , I had these reattached when .

Javon 6:06

I was Let me see , oh my goodness , reattached from that jump or a different jump .

Grant 6:10

No , that was something else , that was a different jump , that was a worse decision , Okay , so after university I got into insurance financial products , buy-sell agreements , employee benefits , etc . I enjoyed that , but at the end of the day I wanted to try doing something on my own . I got into manufacturing fitness equipment .

Javon 6:36

You were manufacturing the fitness equipment yeah , rowing machines .

Grant 6:39

You start okay ?

Javon 6:39

so hold on . Let's start there or continue there . I want to dive in for a second . What are you talking about ? You started manufacturing rowing machines after doing insurance .

Grant 6:48

Yeah , well , I stayed in rowing . I was trying to get on the Olympic team and so I went to all the trials I'm still transferred to . When I lived in Toronto I was trained under the Argonaut Rowing Club and competed at the Henley Regatta in England a couple times , went to the Speed Order Trust . I was still very much involved in rowing . The rowing community Started to become clear I wasn't going to make the Olympic team but I rode with a lot . I know a lot of Olympians . I rode with a lot of them and still I'm friends with a number of them . Actually Brian Saunderson , who is an MP up in Collingwood , he's one of my crew who is an MP up in Collingwood , he's one of my crew Interesting . So I wanted to do something in that area .

Javon 7:31

Yeah , so I started making rowing machines . Now , what year is this , by the way ?

Grant 7:34

This would have been 1988 , I guess , so it's 1988 .

Javon 7:39

Now I know me in 2024 . The first thing that I'm looking to do when I want to find out anything is I go to the internet . So at this time , yeah like what are you doing ?

Speaker 3 7:48

Yellow ?

Javon 7:49

pages . So you're in yellow pages , like , how do I manufacture ? Like how do you even start that search at the time ?

Grant 7:54

Well , I mean , I had been training on Roy Machines Concept 2 was the Roy Machine of the time and I was on them literally every day , sometimes for an hour a day . So I thought there's an opportunity here and I knew some people who owned some health clubs so made them , and I just didn't have enough capital to keep it going . Yeah , but you give it a try .

Grant 8:26

My partner at the time , a good friend of mine , Don Hall , he lives in Halifax now , or Enfield , actually near the airport , his rowing machine still worked until about two years ago . So he had that rowing machine from 1988 until 2022 .

Javon 8:42

Sucks . You can't call to get the warranty .

Grant 8:45

Yeah , we didn't have a warranty program , so there was no danger of that . Yeah , that's cool . Then after that , I got into a company called Service World . It was a commercial cleaning franchising . The guys from Janet King approached me and said hey , we'd like to make a go of this thing . So we won this big contract . But my partner had forgotten , did not put in the bond , and it was a million dollar contract . What does that mean ?

Grant 9:16

when you say a million , dollar contract , if you're going to go for any government contracts , keeping in mind . This is like now , 1989 or something like that . You had to have a bond to take on a government contract . It was the Ministry of Transportation building . We had the best bid , but there was no bond in the envelope , so we lost the bid . I don't understand what a bond is . What is that ? It's just a financial .

Javon 9:46

Oh , like an bond .

Grant 9:47

Well , it's kind of a we'll call it insurance that if you do something wrong in this building , you damage the equipment , you're bonded Okay and you're covered Okay . Anyhow it wasn't in there and I just called them up and said I'm out . We took two years to get that contract . You're going to have to get the contract . You didn't do all of your end For my end . I'm taking all the office equipment , Goodbye . So it was the end of that company .

Javon 10:15

So pick your partners wisely . What did you do with all the office equipment ? I sold it .

Speaker 3 10:21

I kept my desk .

Grant 10:22

I sold everything else , I think I still have some of the pictures hanging on the wall .

Javon 10:25

I can't wait to see them . I'm sure I do . That said so , at this point you're in your 30s .

Grant 10:33

That would be . I was 29 at the time .

Javon 10:35

Okay , so you're 29 . You tried your hand at manufacturing rolling equipment . Didn't really pan out the way you wanted to . You probably learned a ton . Yes , do you remember some of those key lessons from that time , or some of the ones that stuck with ?

Grant 10:47

you . Well , that was mostly being property capitalized and , of course , supply . Okay , we were working with a metal shop , but everything we needed would be a secondary concept , so there was no . We couldn't guarantee delivery on certain things because we were a small client of the shop . We'd be making two of these a week , three of these a week , and he had big contracts with automotive companies so we could be backed up a month , two months before we get a product . So you just couldn't make enough machines to make it viable .

Speaker 3 11:24

We made .

Grant 11:24

I think , and sold maybe 50 , 60 units and I thought this is not going to be , I'm not going to become wealthy from doing this and did you want to become wealthy ? I absolutely did .

Javon 11:34

How come ? Where did that hunger come from Was ?

Grant 11:37

it just because it's a game and you want to win . That's part of it . Okay , for sure , I'm very stubborn and very competitive .

Speaker 3 11:47

yeah always happen I cannot accept failure .

Grant 11:49

I have had some major setbacks , yeah , so I don't want to give you the impression I lost more races than I won , but I won all the ones that mattered dude , listen when in baseball like people strike out more times than they had a home run , but it's the home runs that count right that was a great stat , you know , at the greatest home run hitter of the time , but also had more strikeouts than anybody else either struck out or got a home run .

Javon 12:10

Exactly , it's one of the others , yeah , so it really only matters how many times you flip the coin like people only remember the , the victories , right , yeah , okay so that was some supply from the first one . Yeah , pick your partners wisely , partners wisely . And how would you if you were to now ?

Grant 12:26

Well , I was young and they were like 55-year-old businessmen . They would come in , they would approach me and say you're 29 years old and partnering with a 55-year-old man .

Javon 12:33

Yeah , how did you ?

Grant 12:40

even meet him . He called me Out of the blue . He said you know what it was ? Because of the rowing machine .

Javon 12:43

So you only got this partner because of that rowing machine . So isn't that crazy how that worked out .

Grant 12:48

Yeah , a little bit of that happened here in this latest venture . I guess we'll get there . So I had a friend of mine , patrick Chan , still a friend of mine . We were buddies from university , frat brothers from university , and he'd heard of an opportunity that had come up with a company called TECOM Electronics , the satellite company . Interesting and that would be , I'm going to say , 1990 . Yeah , I'm 30 , 31 years old . And he said these guys are hiring . You should talk to this Doug Bristow fellow . So he'd given Doug my number , we talked and he goes . I definitely I want you to be a district manager .

Grant 13:26

Okay , great , so I come in there , and this again is going to show some personality . So I'm in there . I'm getting trained by this fellow who used to run a food court at a shopping mall . Okay , this is a sales organization . Yeah , I'm listening to him . He's going and telling me . I said well , listen , no offense , but I've been trained in this for several years and , frankly , if you weren't buddies with the president , you'd be working for me . So just let me go , let me do what has to be done and I'll take care of it . Yeah , there was nine district managers and my district represented 40% of the volume of the company . So I won every award , all the trips , satellites , everything

Rise and Fall of a Business

Grant 14:06

. But I learned that I had pissed off . Of course . Day one , day one , yeah . And so he spent two years building a portfolio on all the things I'd done wrong . Wow , and I ended up getting dismissed after just winning the latest event . I ended up getting dismissed after just winning the latest event . So when you piss off a spiteful individual , they're still mad .

Javon 14:32

He's still mad .

Grant 14:32

He may still be , I don't know , maybe he's back at a food court . I have no idea what he's doing . I won't use his name , but when the day came down and I got dismissed , I started packing some things up and he goes you can't take those . Those are , those are , that's our information . I said well , I am taking them because these are , these are my successes . I did this and I said if you want them , you're gonna have to take them from me , and that's why we're in the box this is long before this .

Javon 15:00

This is long before this okay , and he said okay , well for this , for those respect .

Grant 15:05

He puts his hand and I go I don't think we're there , I don't think we're going to have that kind of a finish here , wow so . I took my package and I went and I had met a number of people in the satellite business and one of the guys said listen , I'm going talking about TV satellite . Yeah , okay , this is before this is before um , all the , the small dish , the dish network , this is just . You know . We had they called Alpha Star we were working on never , never got off the ground .

Grant 15:31

They were based in Milton , ontario , that's a defunct company and he said I'm going down to Vegas , I want you to meet some guys , so I go down to Vegas and these guys are going to be launching a . This is just when the internet started yeah , very , very early days , and they were launching a gambling company Okay , starnet and met them and they started talking about doing simulcasting , using , you know , the internet , simulcasting racetracks and taking bets online . Okay , full disclosure . It was primarily a porn company initially , but porn and gambling built the internet .

Speaker 3 16:11

They go hand in hand .

Grant 16:11

Well , they built the internet I mean people who deny it don't really understand how it all got started . Interesting . So I said , yeah , I'm very interested , and the guy pulled me aside , he goes . Well , everybody else is on the porn side and we need people who clean up well . Let's just put it that way . They can talk to the corporate world . And I said I'm super interested . And so you were the guy , I was the guy .

Javon 16:35

It was me and this other fellow .

Grant 16:37

And we were the talking heads so to speak , and this company ended up going public and from concept to at the end , it peaked at a billion dollar market cap . Wow , and that's where , when you asked . That's the company I made my first $100,000 a year . That's also the company I made my first $100,000 a day stock options . Okay , and that would have been 1998 , I guess by the time , Okay , I was five .

Speaker 3 17:07

That's why I had my first $100,000 day . That was pretty exciting , I was involved in gaming and gambling .

Grant 17:15

This is the early days and you're in Vegas . I was in Vegas . They sent me to Vegas so frequently I said I'm not going to go unless you start paying for my wife to come down Because she's sitting there . Yeah , of course , vegas so frequently .

Javon 17:25

I said I'm not going to go unless you start paying for my wife to come down .

Speaker 3 17:26

Ah .

Grant 17:26

Because , yeah , she's sitting there , yeah , of course . So my wife ended up coming to Vegas maybe 20 , 30 times in those years .

Javon 17:32

Not bad , not a bad gig .

Grant 17:36

I was such a regular at some of the places that they just knew me .

Javon 17:46

I'd just walk in . Hey , maybe a rum and Coke at the bar or , if they don't have my table set .

Grant 17:48

It was pretty , it was a lot of fun . And is that your drinking choice the rum and coke at the time ? It was okay . I don't drink liquor anymore , just beer and wine okay um , I don't know why .

Javon 17:56

Really , I just I think I had my fill so um okay , so that was the first . That was the first big that that was Vegas that was Starlink . This was right during the dot com .

Grant 18:07

That was StarNet , StarNet it was during the dot com era and I left and started a company called HealthNet and this was a company where we built an enterprise software platform where we could connect distributors and retailers . So , because a retailer could only have maybe five , 600 SKUs on their shelf , okay , but the distributors would have 20,000 SKUs . So we'd build this website where you could go and the you know , we we coined the phrase click , call or come in bricks and clicks . That was all us .

Javon 18:42

Okay .

Grant 18:43

We dealt with Sears , gnc , mother nature . We had all these big , big customers and , back in the day , solomon smith barney used to be an investment bank . Back in the day they did . I keep this just to remind myself yeah , they did a uh an analyst report , okay , and .

Grant 19:00

And they were using Amazon , jeff Bezos and Mother Nature which is a pure play and us , which is an I can share with you , if you want to see it , that our system was the most logical and was bound to be the most successful . The key factor here was capitalization . I was able to raise about $5 million . Jeff Bezos was able to raise $3 billion because he knew the capital markets .

Javon 19:45

I was relatively new to the capital markets and the first exposure to capital markets was your first exposure when I was at StarNet .

Grant 19:55

I went on all the meetings the capital raise . I probably raised about $2-3 million for StarNet through relationships , but I was not the head guy . I was VP of sales and marketing , understood . So this was the first time being CEO of a public company . Yeah , it was a bullet board company , so these were the first time having discussions . $5 million felt like a lot of money yeah . It was 1999 . It seemed like a bucket , but- .

Javon 20:24

It's not enough to get the rolling machines that you need . It would have been enough for the rolling machines .

Grant 20:29

It was not enough to run an internet company .

Javon 20:31

Yeah , yeah .

Grant 20:32

And we were expanding quickly , we were adding and right when the crash came , we were not cash flow positive . We were doing about $50,000 , $60,000 a month and we had about $150,000 a month in bills .

Speaker 3 20:46

So we were just on that ramp up .

Grant 20:49

Now , this is where there's an old saying if you owe a bank a million dollars , you're screwed . If you owe a bank a billion dollars , the bank is screwed , the bank's screwed . Yeah , and obviously Mr Bezos , who's now the richest man in the world as of yesterday , okay , asked elon musk again . He was able , skillfully , to get the banks to give him three billion dollars . Okay , first time in history , a company was able to lose money for 20 years wow , never happened again .

Grant 21:18

Yeah , but they had . They were too deep in , but they had to keep supporting it and of course , we all know what happened in the end . It just just became . It's a phenomenon .

Javon 21:27

I mean , I think we don't . I don't even think we know what happens in the end yet , yeah , like it's still unfolding , that's right .

Speaker 3 21:32

Now he's doing satellites and space exploration .

Grant 21:36

Let's see who knows where he is Right now he's competing with somebody who can buy his yacht these to

Lessons From a Business Rollercoaster

Grant 21:41

buy hookah by the biggest yacht . These are problems of billionaires , I guess .

Javon 21:44

It's a tough problem to have man . I hope to have it one day .

Grant 21:49

Those are not the problems I have , so it didn't matter that we had the best plan . We didn't have the best bank account . So it's a combination of things who you know , who you're partnering , can you become ? Are you property capitalizers ?

Javon 22:07

All these are all factors .

Grant 22:09

Yeah , and that's another lesson you pick your partners wisely , your supply chain wisely , make sure you've got enough money . Okay , these are all .

Javon 22:18

Yeah , and how do you know how much money you're going to need for something ?

Grant 22:23

Well , when it's new and it's the internet , which was new . I'm sure a lot of people watch this . Can't even conceive of a time before the internet .

Javon 22:30

Yeah .

Grant 22:31

Trust me , the CC all mistake does not happen very frequently now but it happened a lot back then .

Javon 22:38

It was like ooh , you got that yeah .

Grant 22:41

I shouldn't have shared that .

Speaker 3 22:43

Is that what the CC button does ? I ?

Javon 22:43

shouldn't have shared that . Is that what the CC button does ? Oops yeah .

Grant 22:46

Yeah , there was a lot of oops moments back in the in the mid 90s . Well , they imagine . But you know that company , we just about got there . And then the dot , as they call it , the dot bomb , the crash came the crash yeah .

Grant 23:03

And every company that wasn't cash flow positive . We even had a , a , a proposal in front of mother nature . And uh , and dr coop , who was run by bear stearns . I had been taking over bear stearns . I said listen , I will give you a vitamin store , I will put it on everything . You've got 7 million people in your database . They're all health centric because it's Dr Coop .

Javon 23:30

Ask Dr Coop .

Grant 23:33

We'll put up the store , we'll share in the revenues . No , we've got a strategy . We're doing banner ads . Banner ads don't work . They didn't work then .

Speaker 3 23:41

They don't work now .

Grant 23:43

They don't work now . No , we've got our strategy . This is Bear Stearns . Okay , that no longer exists as an investment bank . So that was just a missed opportunity . And the reason they didn't do it is I didn't have enough street cred at the time . I'd never dealt on the big leagues right . I hadn't dealt with the tier one banks , Okay .

Javon 24:04

So I'm just kind of a startupcom New guy .

Grant 24:06

Nobody . I was 39 . I did have a baby face back then .

Javon 24:11

You still got it there's some skin marks on this one . The pool wasn't as friendly as it had to be More hair .

Grant 24:21

Actually I'll show you a picture . I've got it by fall . I'll show you after the .

Javon 24:26

And I had more hair . Actually , I'll show you a picture I used to have hair . I've got it by phone . I'll show you after the interview . I had a big , healthy fro . I can't wait to see that man . Oh my gosh .

Grant 24:34

Anyhow , I digress there . It's okay , so we didn't make it .

Javon 24:42

You jump out for that rope and you missed it and you missed and just like that you're over a pool broken toe . I went bankrupt personally . This was the first bankruptcy .

Grant 24:53

Yeah , it's the only bankruptcy , but I leveraged my house to finance the company . Wow , so the people could make payroll . They had their cars and their houses . I have some regrets about that , of course . The government explained to me that they're going to bankrupt me to teach me a lesson , because I should have used that money to pay all my taxes . I said , well , I was supporting 50 families . They said that's our job , not yours .

Javon 25:20

It sounds like the food court guy started working and the government came back . I know all the names of the guys in the government .

Grant 25:26

I'm hopeful because they were much older than me . I'm hopeful they've all passed by now . But there's two groups that should scare you organized crime and getting on the wrong side of the CRA .

Javon 25:35

Yeah , wait , they're not the same thing . I'm joking . I'm joking . Okay , cut that part there . Whatever you do , you guys still have to deal with them I know .

Grant 25:45

I know so you know that after that I kind of pulled in my horns quite a bit , as you can imagine . Yeah , at that stage I , you know , had four kids . Yeah , all of them under four . Wow , so it was a lot of stress , you know . We lost our house and so what happened that's ?

Speaker 3 26:05

probably a tough chapter .

Javon 26:07

It was a very tough chapter .

Grant 26:09

It was a couple of years . We moved to one . We were in BC at the time . All four kids were born in Vancouver , Moved back to Oakville and actually I was in BC . I was approached by a group , Swiss Medica , and they were selling a health product . It was a packaged product .

Grant 26:31

And they probably knew you from the last project , they knew me from the last project and they reached out and said hey , we saw what you did , bummer , but you understand distribution and manufacturing . We've got a product . It was called 024 . It was a topical analgesic .

Javon 26:48

All natural . I don't have a clue what a topical analgesic is I ?

Grant 26:51

think it's 8535 , rub things like that . That's probably a name you'd be , or Lakota . I understand this was an all natural one . And I still deal with the scientists , in fact . But I said , yeah , let me try it . I liked it , it worked . I thought it worked really well and we started the company Swissmedica . I was the president , so I answered to the CEO .

Javon 27:15

He was a capital markets guy , a chartered accountant . So now you're ready to go back to the investment and just capitalize now .

Grant 27:22

Yeah , we raised quite a bit of money . We got launched . We were the number one selling analgesic in shoppers at the time . I think we won that award . We were the number one new product for the Arthritis Association in Florida and California . We won an award for that . We won an award with the . We won an award with the fibromyalgia group . So we won lots of awards . But again , I was on the phone with , I had the head of the Arthritis Association in Florida and the buyer for CVS , which Walgreens and CVS two biggest chain drug stores in the United States Yep , and we wanted to do a campaign in the state of Florida .

Javon 28:11

Okay .

Grant 28:11

There's 4 million members of the Authorized Association in Florida and the CVS person said well , that's great . What about the other 13 distribution centers ? Well , we're just up with Florida . He goes call me back when you got the rest of the , when you got a national campaign , and I hung up the phone and I had the president of the authorization .

Grant 28:30

I said hello . I said yeah , we're still here and she goes . What happened ? I said I think they hung up on us . Wow , so they , you know dealing with big corporations . Yeah , if you're not on scale , they just don't know how to think locally . It's got to be national campaign . Yeah , so we had started doing sampling . It was very successful . It was a product that was instantly effective .

Javon 28:56

Okay , so we had hot melted . This is the same number one topical , or is this a new thing ?

Grant 29:00

Yeah , this is the 024 . And so we started putting it on a postcard and we had an ad campaign . You hot melted it on and sent it out . Well , the problem with and this was I think it was a Walgreens campaign was that we didn't have enough of the US packets . All the product was made in Texas . 100% of it was packaged , made in Texas , but the Canadians had French on the label .

Javon 29:24

Okay .

Grant 29:26

And so we said okay , we'll just hot melt .

Speaker 3 29:34

We get enough .

Grant 29:35

Canadian samples . Put those on the postcards , get them out there and lo and behold .

Grant 29:41

I get a phone call from the FDA enforcement department and we'd like to talk to you about these illegal samples . What illegal samples ? She goes you've got samples with French on it going to American citizens . I said , well , they're all made in Texas . We just didn't ship them from Texas to Canada , we just had them put on the blank .

Grant 29:57

She goes you're endangering American lives . I said how am I endangering American lives ? It's made by Americans , packaged in America , mailed to americans . She says well , there's confusion on this label and you might endanger somebody's life . I said have you ever heard of noxema ? It's got menthol in it .

Grant 30:15

She said , buddy , I can have all your product pulled off the shelf today . Wow , so you better stop this campaign . Wow , I have to go hire a political lobbyist at fifty thousand dollars . Wow , to get this person off my back . And I said why is this ? He goes well , they ever heard of the same that they can come to your house and shoot you and charge you for the bullet ? That's the government , because you just can't get offside with the government . You got to play by their rules . Interesting . So again , another , another lesson learned . Yeah , an expensive one , I can imagine , but in the end it stopped our campaign and so the company stalled and we couldn't get the distribution out . And , uh , you know you've got to do all this listing fees and pay on scan it's . We don't want to get into it , but you learn a whole lot . Above it and packaged goods , there's a lot of logistics . So I learned all about the logistics of packaged goods . I already knew the online issues . After that , products are still sold today online .

Grant 31:16

And it supports two families . They just run the online store . They just kept the loyal customers . Anyhow , I still use the product Cool , and several of the boxers here still use the product , so I bring it in for the guys Cool . Anyways , so that company , just it didn't go bankrupt , it just ceased operations . Yeah , couldn't pay its bills , I couldn't get my paycheck , so moved out to Halifax because that's where my wife's family's from . Okay , and we moved there , for it actually turned out it was going to just be a short , short piece , but it was seven years , wow it . If you want to make retirement feel like extend your life , that's a good place to go , because everything moves slow .

Speaker 3 32:08

It's beautiful in the summertime .

Grant 32:09

We go every summer , yeah , but it's not the center for me making deals . It's certainly not a capital marketplace .

Javon 32:20

Of course that said you want to get in the ring . You're ready to rumble , yeah .

Grant 32:24

That said , I had a fellow reach out to me . He was doing a project with the natives in Western Canada . Okay , the Fyla Hill Coppell tribe just outside of Regina this is back in oh outside of Regina . Now we're flashing forward . We're at about 2008 now , because Swiss Medica ran 2005 to 2008 .

Speaker 3 32:45

Okay .

Grant 32:46

So I'm in Nova Scotia in that time just doing some general sales consulting with the 024 guys still doing some work there , and he reached out to me I guess it would have been about 2013 . And I was getting pretty hungry to get going .

Javon 33:04

Get back . I was clearly not going to be staying in Halifax . I was in Windsor for the last three years and it feels like it's moving in slow motion and I'm like , okay , one of my best friends from Windsor and he doesn't go back to where .

Speaker 3 33:18

I am just to see his mother .

Grant 33:21

Unless you're in the salt business , I guess .

Javon 33:23

I don't know Something . Whatever it is , it's not the business for me . Yeah , I know that .

Grant 33:30

Well , is this not the business for me ? Yeah , well , that's how I mean . You want lobster ?

Javon 33:31

you want a beautiful place in summertime .

Grant 33:33

That's the place to go . Yeah , you want to go there in the wintertime , just don't go . Just don't yeah , um , so this , this tribal thing that what they want to do was set up , and I learned this back in the day when we started stardet okay , you know the gattawagi in montreal the mohawks start at . Okay , you know the gattawaggie in montreal the mohawks had started up , uh , their own jurisdiction . Okay , on tribal land where they sold licenses and they hosted you on tribal land licenses gambling , online gambling licenses got it .

Grant 34:02

Government still doesn't like the tribes doing this yeah , um , so that's a constant thing of conflict . However , the file Hill Capel wanted to do the same thing . And we went out there and we were talking to them and they showed us where they'd like to put up the server area and how much money would they need to raise . And we were going through this process . I said , well , let me go and see what's hot and new . I haven't been in the gambling business for a few years , yeah .

Javon 34:25

And that's where I came across Been in Halifax eating lobster . Yeah , well , yeah .

Grant 34:31

And a little crow . I think so we . That's . When I found eSports , I started looking online and eSports , you know , maybe eSports gambling , it's just this whole in 2013 , 2014, .

Javon 34:49

it was very much a subculture . You're only finding it on Reddit and I reached out to a guy named Ken Silva .

Grant 34:52

He was the president of eSports Canada , or founder of eSports Canada .

Javon 34:55

I said hey .

Grant 34:56

I'd like to learn some more about this . What can you ?

Javon 34:58

tell me so what you just called this guy up ? You just Googled .

Emerging Trends in Online Gambling

Javon 35:02

At this time Google's here now , no more pages .

Grant 35:04

I don't think there are yellow pages anymore anymore .

Javon 35:10

I don't think so . If there are , I don't know how you get them . Yeah , you have to google it . So yeah , I went up to .

Grant 35:13

He said well , I could tell you about it , but I think you got to see it to really understand it . Okay , I said , fair enough , all right . He says come on down to the international center . Up at the airport we've got a starcraft championship .

Javon 35:23

I go with , starcraft goes check it out , come see it so I saw okay , it's a big video game um , and what's your relationship with games at this point in your life ? At ?

Grant 35:32

this time . I mean , I had it in television when I was a kid , so I'd done astral smash and things like that and , you know , occasionally I'd play risk online things like that just games I was familiar with yeah , I wasn't doing and what you got kids so they're probably playing games and stuff like that too .

Javon 35:48

Yeah , we , yeah we ?

Grant 35:49

well , we did get an Intel .

Javon 35:51

We okay so .

Grant 35:52

I played those games . Yeah then we got an Xbox . Okay my daughter's had a party . Somebody stole it . You know we had Not a lot of exposure .

Javon 36:08

Yeah , not a lot . No exposure to esports , yeah . But he says come check out the Starlink thing and or sorry , StarCraft , StarCraft . And then pop down , it was a world championship . Come check out the tournament . So I come in and it's all narrated .

Speaker 3 36:20

Yeah .

Grant 36:21

Color commentator . It's all on the screens . I still couldn't follow it really because it's a very complicated game . It's huge in Korea , but not so much here , and what I did notice was there's 5,000 20-something-year-olds . It's like going to a rock concert . Somebody's playing a video game and people are going crazy . Yeah , there's video , there's lasers , there's music , there's smoke . I thought this is going to be huge . Yeah , yeah .

Speaker 3 36:48

So I go back to the tribes .

Grant 36:49

I said we've got to look at doing video game gambling . And they're like . I don't think so , Because the tribes are very conservative and still are Tribal . Casinos are very conservative casinos . They're rarely the innovators , but they do make more money because they're very conservative .

Speaker 3 37:09

Conservative yeah .

Grant 37:11

In the way they approach the gambling business . And um , I said , well , I think I've got to give this a go yeah you know , this is something I think is going to be big yeah , I couldn't stop thinking about it I couldn't and I started playing world of tanks .

Javon 37:25

How , how long after meeting um ? What was the nation that you said that you met ?

Grant 37:30

with Vile .

Javon 37:30

Hill Capel , vile Hill Capel , so after About a year About a year Formed a company .

Grant 37:35

Yeah , went and got a gambling license in Kahnawake .

Javon 37:39

Which that's not easy , is it ? You've ?

Grant 37:41

got to qualify , You've got to fill out the application . You can't be , you know . You've got to have a good reputation . You got to have a good reputation , you can't have criminal record , of course , and I got a Curacaoian license and a Kahnawake license . Started , opened an office in Antigua , was going for an Antiguan license . That was a jurisdiction that we'd helped set up back at StarNet . They put 23 operators down in Antigua and it used to be what was called a white label jurisdiction .

Speaker 3 38:11

Yeah .

Grant 38:12

And by now , by 2014 , 2015 , it had more or less fallen out of favor .

Javon 38:20

The .

Grant 38:21

UK , the big jurisdictions had started embracing online gambling because taxes , it was a big revenue , it is a big revenue . That's why Ontario just embraced it . Yeah , big revenue generator . Okay , you can't watch TV anymore without seeing a gambling ad . Yeah , taxes , okay , it was a big revenue , it is a big . That's why ontario just embraced it .

Grant 38:30

Yeah , big revenue generator . Okay , you can't watch tv anymore without seeing a gambling ad . Yeah , certainly not sports anyways , yep , and you know . So we , um , we had . I went , got the licenses , went , got a , a pink sheet company cleaned it up , turned it into an otTCQB company , a reporting company .

Javon 38:50

So I went and bought a pink sheet company and cleaned it up . So you bought something that was like a distressed asset Basically non-report .

Grant 38:57

yeah , it's a non-reporting listed entity .

Javon 38:59

How do you find those ?

Grant 39:01

There's lawyers that specialize in it .

Javon 39:02

Okay , and what type of lawyers are those called Corporate lawyers ? I'm guessing Securities lawyers , securities lawyers . I think I securities lawyers securities lawyers .

Grant 39:09

Okay , yeah , so the Canada and the us is literally hundreds of them yeah that you could . They would be able to direct these shells for reverse mergers .

Javon 39:16

So I had an entity . We have an M&A guy coming up on the show in a couple , okay , yeah , good , good .

Grant 39:20

So I had an international business corp in Antigua . Okay , and I rolled that , I reversed that into this company . That company issued me a bunch of shares in exchange for bringing in the Kahnawake license , bringing in the Curacao license .

Javon 39:37

Okay , so you had the licenses before you had the business . Yeah , so because I , well , I was going in this direction . I was committed to this direction .

Grant 39:44

Yeah , so rolled those in , got the stock cleaned it up from being paid to being , which has been non-reporting , to reporting . Okay , so we had to get it audited .

Javon 39:55

Yeah , and it was public . The company was public already .

Grant 39:57

Yeah , oh cool . So it had been . It had originally been set up in 2009 and had I think it was called virtual closet . Then it was going to be DK Saito Pharma was going to have a chinese firm vented into it , and that's when chinese companies listing on the us exchanges was a huge thing and 2009 kind of fell out of favor , so it just sort of stopped and stopped reporting .

Grant 40:21

It went from being reporting to non-reporting . So we backed my company into it and then cleaned it up , got it reporting okay , uh , so did all the financials . Then it went up onto the qb . Then I had to go raise a bunch of money friends and family so I raised probably about about a million dollars that way . Okay , kept it moving forward , got some software developed . Uh , early stage I really had believed a bet exchange was the way to go A bet exchange . You said yeah , like Betfair .

Javon 40:52

OK .

Grant 40:53

Where it's just like a stock market . You're buying and selling as opposed to betting a line . A lot of the sportsbooks use Betfair to lay off their exposure . Anyways , I don't want to get into too much of the Gatling aspects of it .

Grant 41:13

But we didn't have , again , enough money . It was going to be a very expensive event Us Betfair at least $10 million to launch their platform . So we just sort of were looking around the best way to do this .

Nasdaq IPO Journey and Challenges

Grant 41:25

And right at that time I was at a conference , the LD Micro Conference in California , presenting because we had signed . And right at that time I was at a conference the LD Micro Conference in California .

Grant 41:31

presenting Because we had signed up a bunch of tier three teams that wanted to market our site . Okay , and that's when the PASPA moment took place is when they legalized online gambling in the United States .

Javon 41:43

Okay , so let's go back for a second . So tier three teams to help promote . So talk to me about that .

Grant 41:49

Tier one would be FaZe Clan Cloud9 , liquid .

Javon 41:54

The teams that you're familiar with . And this is still esports . This is still esports .

Grant 41:58

So we had tier three teams , my Revenge and mostly . European teams .

Javon 42:05

Which again .

Grant 42:06

I was still learning a lot about esports on the fly , of course .

Speaker 3 42:09

I just knew the audience was ballooning yeah and uh .

Grant 42:13

So tier three team really they have their audiences mostly friends , family enthusiasts locally , yeah , um so we had 60 of these teams sign up that they wanted to work with us .

Grant 42:26

So that was we're starting to get some momentum . And then , then , as I said , I was at the LD Micro Show and I got a call from the guy working with us with our IR program said hey , I don't know if you've seen the news , the past . You know the US has approved online gambling the initial stages and I said , yeah , he goes . I got some guys in New York who want to talk to you . Okay , so get on a plane , you're going to go talk to these investment bankers .

Javon 42:54

Yeah , they didn't bring your wife All of a sudden . They didn't cover your wife's flight .

Grant 42:57

No , she wasn't on this trip . She , thank God . I have a very special wife 28 years . That's awesome , special wife , 28 years . So I was still the other and so I went and I had meetings literally back to back for two days with a bunch of investment banks and I had been contemplating , because I was really stalled with the QB . I was going to do a non-offering prospectus in Toronto and list on the TSE .

Speaker 3 43:26

TSX .

Grant 43:27

excuse me , and we were working with a Toronto securities attorney who I went to school with and we were trying to put this whole thing together Relationships and , yeah , always relationships . Right , yeah , and Steve Stein was the gentleman at Jay Gunner and I remember the conversation . He goes no way . This deal goes to Canada . This is going to be a NASDAQ deal Because it was the first esports and the first gambling deal his firm had Okay , and the NASDAQ is just bigger than the TSX or something .

Javon 44:01

Yeah .

Grant 44:02

QB is bigger than the TSX NASDAQ one day of . Nasdaq is like a year on the TSE Understood .

Speaker 3 44:09

That's not why the TSE ?

Grant 44:09

Understood , that's not the TSE . I'll take exception to that comment .

Speaker 3 44:14

That's not an actual fact , but it's pretty close .

Grant 44:19

Most of the American brokers if they're dealing on TSEs usually a mining deal .

Javon 44:22

Okay .

Grant 44:23

Right . So just the thought of being able to be on Nasdaq that was a whole new challenge .

Javon 44:30

You know , unexplored territory .

Grant 44:31

It's the big leagues .

Javon 44:32

Yeah , and you're like and since day one you've been ready to go to the big leagues . What do I ?

Grant 44:36

need to do here . Well , you just be ready . Yeah , let's go Get your , you know , get your shit together . Excuse my language . Whatever the presentation , tighter you got to get more stats , more details , as it were . The first , so it's hard to get a lot of details .

Speaker 3 44:52

Yeah .

Javon 44:52

On this one . You don't have any .

Grant 44:53

Here's the way we could just show projections based on the growth . Now this is pre-COVID . So we get a $3 million pipe , financial pipe , but all your costs go up . Yeah , because you've got bigger law firms . The take percentages of course higher , um , bigger , yeah , but you that's , I mean the sticker shock is I water and expenses to go into the big leagues , so to speak . Um , so we raised that three million and the focus was on getting an .

Grant 45:27

IPO done , okay , so an initial public offering , and that took from when I met them to when we eventually did . The IPO was about 18 months . However , it was not just a straight path . There was lots of setbacks , lots of headaches in the process . Lots of setbacks , lots of headaches in the process . We had some investors became disgruntled and they were pulling out or they were converting and money things , delaying the listing and finally we got all ready to go . We are out on the road show . So this would have been oh gosh , okay .

Javon 46:11

March 2020 , 2020 . Okay , you're getting ready to go public , so we're on the right right , yeah , right , as everything's about to get shut down all over California , we're Illinois , we're in Florida okay .

Grant 46:24

I think we did uh eight cities over 10 days eight cities , 10 days , 10 days .

Javon 46:30

That's insane , okay .

Grant 46:31

And I'd be going in between meetings on meetings , in the car . So the bank sets up the roadshow and it's exciting as hell because you're in this limo , you're pitching a deal and you're going to the next day .

Javon 46:44

It's exciting . It's fast-paced man .

Grant 46:46

And we had the whole deal subscribed . Yeah , we were raising $12 million , okay , and why 12 ? That was basically what the banks felt they could raise .

Javon 46:57

Understood .

Grant 46:58

With a warrant , okay , which all ended up getting exercised . It was going to be mostly institutional , okay . The price was going to be $6 .

Javon 47:09

$6? . $1 , $2 , $3, . The price was going to be $6 . Six , one , two , three , four , five , six .

Grant 47:11

Okay , got it Now we were using this money to buy an existing licensed sports book in the UK . So we had a specific target for the initial cash . That was a $4 million transaction , okay , so , as you can tell , the numbers are far bigger than previous numbers .

Grant 47:31

And so we're out on the road . I'm sitting in LAX with Paul Cooney , who is the banker , on the road with me , and we're watching people run by us in the airport in hazmat suits . What is happening here ? Everybody's starting to freak out and they shut down the NBA . Wow . And I said buddy , I think I'm going to call an audible here . I'm going to go back to Toronto , I'm not going to come with you to New York , so I get back to Toronto . And they shut the border that Monday . Yeah , so I got over the border , but all the institutional investors pulled out , so everybody pulled out of the deal .

Javon 48:13

Everybody got scared . Everybody got scared Because nobody knew what was going on . We all thought this was the Black .

Grant 48:16

Plague right . It's the end of all things , and it turned out to be a bit of a tempest in a teapot . But nobody really knew what the hell was going on . They still don't , yeah that's true , and the people who do aren't telling yeah , and so we had to . I had to rebuild with Paul the entire book via Zoom call from my home office . We made two , three hundred phone calls . Wow , zoom meetings over a month .

Javon 48:49

And what is this for ? This is to raise funds , to raise money .

Grant 48:54

So we had to replace all those institutional . We only ended up with maybe $1.5 million institutionally .

Javon 48:58

Okay .

Grant 48:58

I ended up raising . Of the $12 million raised , I raised four of it .

Javon 49:02

Okay .

Grant 49:03

Paul Cooney and Gunner raised about $6.5 million . And we had two other bankers , one literally Six and a half . And we had two other bankers , one literally on his . He was dying . A good friend of mine was dying and he passed away but he raised half a million dollars Literally from the hospital . Condolences , super guy . Arthur Whitcomb Shout out to Arthur .

Grant 49:22

Yeah , he's just an amazing gentleman . And then the other bank , which was Maxim Bank , they raised , which is the biggest bank , actually raised the least amount of money Anyhow . The cumulative amount was we got it done , but he had to raise it four and a quarter Again , had to compromise to get the deal done . Yeah , so we got the deal done April 14th 2020 , and I did the first virtual bell ringing for a NASDAQ company . There's nobody there to see it because it's up on Times Square and there's maybe a couple of homeless people or something . I don't know who saw it . Hey , somebody saw you .

Javon 49:55

Somebody saw it . I have the video , so I know it happened .

Grant 49:59

And so it was up on the big boards and we're all clapping . But we all had to film and submit our videos from home . All my staff had to submit videos from home to the bank . So it was really a strange , surreal event , but it was the first of its kind . So we were the first eSports gambling company to list . We were the first company to do a virtual listing , and then I went on to get the first eSports gambling license in North America . I was first one in the state of New Jersey .

Grant 50:31

There's a lot of great things that go along with being first because people remember who was first , but you also get all the beatings . You're in the , as they call it , the bleeding edge . You're learning all the expensive lessons Everybody goes . Let's not do it that way 00,00,00 .

Javon 50:45

Yeah , you're paying the cost to pave the road behind you for everybody else .

Grant 50:46

00,00,00 yeah , so a lot of people learned a lot of things and we started off quite successfully and had a lot of early success . The company at one point in time , there was rumors out there that we were merging with GameStop , and that's when GameStop was doing what GameStop did over the pandemic .

Javon 51:05

It was the movie Dumb Money . They were $400 a share and I'm on an interview with somebody All of a movie .

Grant 51:08

Dumb .

Speaker 3 51:09

Money .

Grant 51:09

They were $400 a share . I'm on an interview with somebody . All of a sudden somebody calls me . Are you looking at the stock ? I'm like what ?

Javon 51:16

the $25 ?

Grant 51:18

We didn't even make an announcement , so I took advantage of that . We raised it in overnight close for $30 million . We took the $30 million , bought a $30 million gambling company . Wow , I think we peaked out at about $88 million in revenues Wow .

Javon 51:32

And what were these revenues were from Gambling . Gambling revenues , strictly gambling revenues , esports only , no , no .

Grant 51:38

It became clear to me that esports , even with people starting to really understand esports , has gone mainstream . Because COVID made esports mainstream , because traditional sports shut down , esports gambling wasn't there yet . Okay , so I started aggregating gambling companies to create the revenue , to give the long-term support to the esports .

Speaker 3 52:01

In that journey .

Grant 52:02

I did a deal with what became a toxic note holder .

Javon 52:07

And these were funds that you raised in order to acquire more gambling companies . More companies , yeah , okay .

Grant 52:12

And gambling . One thing about gambling the regulatory environment is always changing . Yeah , Jurisdictions impose more tax more restrictions and so it's always changing and I was surging , I was being very aggressive at the acquisitions and I did a deal with an aggressive group and then when one of the transactions hit a bit of a brick wall because there's a regulatory change , all of a sudden revenue started dropping . This very hostile lender immediately started converting and coming after the company .

Javon 52:45

Interesting . So can I ? Can I oh go ahead ?

Grant 52:47

I was going to say so that started a bit of a downward spiral .

Javon 52:52

So in real estate , a lender is going to put a lien on your property . What are these investment bankers do to your company ? This was an investment banker .

Grant 52:59

This was a . This was a lender . He had a very aggressive conversion rights . Okay it was ? It was an Aaron judgment on my part and the our , our banker had talked me into it . I thought this is a great guy . You'll love this guy . Okay , think we should get him on the show or what . I'm pretty sure he wouldn't agree to come on the show .

Javon 53:20

He and I let's just say we're not cordial Understood .

Grant 53:26

Understood . So you know that was sort of the end of that particular um story . He , he got a hold of my board . My board was afraid of him , yeah , and so they agreed that they'd help him get me out of the company . Damn , if he didn't do anything mean to them effectively . And they did and they got me out and they probably saw the notice . I ended up getting a settlement wrongful dismissal but they just wanted me to go away .

Grant 53:53

They're not admitting anything that they did it was a lot of money so if they did anything wrong , I don't know why it still exists as a company , but today it does like 12 million in revenues and it's on the pink sheets it's not what it was the good thing that came out of that was a lot of relationships a lot of bad things happened , yeah , of course , but a lot of relationships and my current opportunity . Yeah , I got a call from a guy , simon dawson . Okay , race team dawson racing .

Grant 54:26

All right , because I've been following you on linked for a couple years . I got an I want to run by you , okay and he's been trying to take at a digital element to traditional racing . I had been taking gaming and trying to tie it with traditional sports , okay .

Javon 54:42

There's overlaps here . So he says I've been following , you have you guys ever had a conversation to this point ? No , no , okay , did you even know he was following you ?

Speaker 3 54:50

It's crazy , I got like 12,000 people on LinkedIn right .

Grant 54:52

So , I didn't know , and so it is a very useful tool for sure Networking is important and his dad . It's a legendary firm . Amaril Andretti drove for them . They've got 16 cars in museums . They've won all the titles . 16 cars in museums , they won all the titles . Simon drove for ferrari . Ian helped introduce , worked with enzo ferrari to bring ferrari to north america wow .

Grant 55:15

So these , these guys are deep , yeah and uh want to do tournaments and saw the sims that they're making , so why don't we

Revolutionizing Esports and STEM Education

Grant 55:23

make ? The only reason , in my opinion , sim racing hasn't been the dominant esportport is access to equipment . A sim racer $25,000 to $50,000 . It's not like a computer . You can get an excellent computer for $2,000 .

Speaker 3 55:36

Yeah .

Grant 55:37

A gaming rig . So that's why we see eSports has got billions of players .

Speaker 3 55:43

Yeah .

Grant 55:44

Sim racing . It's now into the hundreds of millions and most that's still console racing . Okay , not on the hundreds of millions and most of that's still console racing . Gran Turismo really drove the story home right Now .

Grant 55:54

That did happen . It didn't happen exactly like in the movie , but it did happen , and I think that fellow still races professionally . So I said why don't we do broad disbursement of the sims , give access to everybody and build the network up that way , tie those in with the pro teams and simon's like that's 100 what he wanted to do . Yeah , they make the sims . So talk about a , you know , rationalize your whole supply chain . Don't have a lot of my supplier anymore because my supplier is his father .

Javon 56:24

Yeah , you know it's no more supply chain headache like my answer who I'm introducing .

Grant 56:30

Yeah to them . They're investing in the technology of the race companies , rolling out a one-made series new energy source in partnership with an OEM financing them . They , in turn , are my investor , so my investment headaches , gone your supply chain headaches .

Speaker 3 56:45

My partner is the best partner .

Grant 56:47

I've ever had . My supply chain is my partner's father and my investor same person . So , the lessons , the painful lessons , learned along this journey are being addressed . We believe we have a formula that's going to rock the world . It's not Formula One , is it ? It is Formula One , but they are a . Formula One company , but we're STEM accredited and our whole thing is to gamify the education process . Yeah , because we need to get that young audience .

Javon 57:17

Yeah .

Grant 57:17

To let them know about these new emerging technologies , because there's a lot of groups that are not interested in non-lithium batteries , they're not interested in non-combustion engines . Well , this is not a combustion engine . The car's made out of industrial hemp . It's recyclable , it's sustainable and we need to get that information to a younger audience . Okay , so that's the whole plan . Yeah , and that's Race to Real . Just opened our office in Peekskill , new York .

Javon 57:42

Okay , thank you , and we're I'm gonna have to come for a visit .

Grant 57:47

We have a contract in place with Simon Properties , the largest mall operators in North America . So we do want to build centers in those properties . So once this financing is complete , we'll be deploying we'll probably put one here frankly , at the boxing club which I joined five years ago , it's very therapeutic .

Grant 58:04

I think I mentioned that earlier . There's bad days still Not every day is a wonderful day coming here and I have names for each of the bags depending on who I'm talking to that day . And yeah , that's sort of the culmination of all those missteps and lessons learned are all being applied here and Simon has had similar experiences on his side . I bring the digital and hopefully the right banking relationships and he brings the technology and you can't be better connected yeah , in the automotive business .

Javon 58:40

I mean it just goes to speak of the power of relationships 100 you know , and it's so funny when you think about it like so many of these relationships wouldn't have happened if you didn't jump and try and reach for that rope and not get you yeah so I think it's it's very important to thank you for sharing the nuances , thank you for sharing the details in the chapters . You know , and I'm sure , like this , only skimmed the surface it would probably probably filled six of these films .

Grant 59:03

Yeah , yeah , I tried to move through it fairly quickly yeah there's a lot of details man heartache along the way now .

Javon 59:12

So you said the partner that you have now is the best partner you ever had .

Grant 59:15

It is Outside of my wife . Yeah , 28 years right , yeah .

Javon 59:18

There you go . Now , what do you think makes the best partner the best partner Like ? What's so great about them ?

Grant 59:25

Well , for starters , you've got to have similar core beliefs . Okay , right , you have to be a good person . They have to bring something to the table that you don't bring to the table . You don't want to duplicate yourself . They've got to bring something else to the equation and have to be high energy . For me , committed Can't have a passive partner . Because then you're just carrying somebody around . So he's all those things . He actually was an Olympic athlete .

Javon 59:57

Okay , I got a lot of respect . You guys are around the same age . No , no , no , he's 20 years younger than I am . Oh , okay , okay .

Grant 1:00:04

So I've explained to him . I said , tell you what ? When I told him this , I said you're a younger me . Okay , right , so , okay Right . So I said , well , I'm going to do what I want to do here . Let's get this thing put together . Pull in all my contacts , all your contacts . Let's get this thing up onto the big board .

Javon 1:00:21

Big board being the exchange . Yeah , okay .

Grant 1:00:24

And then I'll hand the baton . I'm the CEO currently . Yeah , and that's probably just because I've got more scars .

Grant 1:00:31

Okay , literally Emotional scars okay emotional and we'll get up there and then you decide if you want to be the ceo of a public company or if we're going to go on a search and I'll sit on the board because and I , you know , everybody who's listened to me knows I've said this is only two reasons to be public you're looking to raise capital and you're looking for an exit strategy . If you get a third reason , you're a crazy person , because it is a misery .

Javon 1:00:58

Yeah , it's like being a politician , I was gonna , I was gonna ask , I was wondering , like what's the attraction with going public ? Because ever since that , just those two things , that health , yeah , like that health , um , uh , what'd you call it ? It wasn't healthy planet health net , health , health net , right . So ever since health net and that experience where you were kind of like undercapitalized , it kind of seemed like you had this affinity towards these public markets . But I was a little curious as to why .

Grant 1:01:21

Well , a lot of that has to do with my stubborn personality .

Javon 1:01:23

I didn't get it right .

Grant 1:01:24

I know I can get it right .

Entrepreneurial Lessons and Race to Real

Grant 1:01:27

The banks I deal with are bigger banks .

Javon 1:01:29

They've dealt with before .

Grant 1:01:30

The first banks were like tier four investment banks . The first banks were tier four .

Javon 1:01:34

investment banks Tier three investor banks .

Grant 1:01:36

Now these are large tier two . I've got a couple tier one relationships , but you have to be a certain size before the tier one banks . You've got to be looking for $100 million plus . We're not looking for $100 million Understood , so it just all builds .

Speaker 3 1:01:50

It's like boxing .

Grant 1:01:51

You're not going to jump in the ring with a pro .

Javon 1:01:53

I did and I lost , I lost , I was pissed .

Grant 1:01:56

I was pissed . I said screw this .

Javon 1:01:58

Well , it wasn't a pro it wasn't a pro . You went too far , too fast , Too fast man .

Grant 1:02:08

And I tried to block , I got hit . I punched myself in the face .

Speaker 3 1:02:10

I said they didn't show you that you're supposed to hit the other guy's face .

Javon 1:02:14

You should take some lessons here . They're better . Yeah , okay , deal , deal , I'll be back , for sure .

Grant 1:02:28

But yeah , it's so . That's the partner has to bring all those components that you know , that compliment what you already . You know what your skillset is . Yeah , you know what your shortcomings are .

Javon 1:02:36

Find the person that fills those holes , understood , that's the right partner . Yeah , that's cool , and I guess you'll just find them . Well , maybe they'll find you , who knows , but it's always trying something , trying to reach for the rope , and then something's going to catch you .

Grant 1:02:47

I heard a statement once . You know you did this by accident , did this ?

Grant 1:02:50

by accident , I said well then , you got to be out there where the accidents are happening . You got to be out there , you got to expose yourself . I have four kids and they live their life online , which I find frustrating at times because they get too influenced by it , but you do have to be part of it . That's the way the world works today . People don't know who you are . They're not going to call you up at home . Yeah , you've got to be where they can see you . Yeah , and that's where the accidents will happen .

Javon 1:03:17

you gotta get the exposure that's a , that's a fire lesson . I really appreciate that . Now , um , if you were to go back right there's , there's a couple different grants that I find interesting throughout . You know , this novel that you've kind of written today but there will be enough .

Grant 1:03:33

I don don't know . I might skip the pool jumping thing . But no dude , you gotta include that .

Javon 1:03:37

Because I think that could be like the prelude . So there was one this is me Ah psh . So let me give you a highlight of . I wanna paint a picture for a second just so that you can get a glimpse of who I am . Okay , and I think that would be the perfect story to follow that . But if you were to go back and talk to the one that was trying to manufacture the rowing machines , these weren't rowing machines with the 40-year warranty right , no warranty , they just lasted Like a Russian tank .

Grant 1:04:07

It just lasted , it just lasted .

Javon 1:04:09

Now , if you were to have a conversation with that grant right . What do you think that conversation would go like ? No-transcript . What do you think that conversation ? How do you think that conversation would go Like ? What do you think this grant would teach him ?

Grant 1:04:15

Yeah , I would say yeah , don't do that . Yeah , why don't you go work with a manufacturer first ?

Javon 1:04:21

Understand manufacturing before you start out . But do you think that grant would have even listened to that .

Grant 1:04:27

It depends who was delivering the message . Okay One , and this is a .

Javon 1:04:33

I'm almost unemployable at this stage , and not because of my age , but it's because I there's so few people I respect wow you know there anybody who's made an Olympic team ?

Speaker 3 1:04:45

I respect that because I know the sacrifice that takes anybody who's an entrepreneur makes a successful company .

Grant 1:04:50

I respect that person because I know what it takes . You know it's , there's people out there and we know these people . I'm not going to use any names here that are billionaires just by accident . I can't respect that person .

Javon 1:05:09

You want the trench story .

Grant 1:05:10

Yeah , you've got to have some battle scars on you . You've got to earn it . People who've earned it .

Javon 1:05:15

I respect those people , so I would take advice me today .

Grant 1:05:21

If me talking to me , then I would respect that person . Fair enough man .

Javon 1:05:27

Well , I'm excited to see what happens with Race to Real . I think it's a really interesting opportunity that you have at your fingertips right here and I think , with the mix of experience , the mix of supply chain , the mix of capitalization and all the factors that are at play right now make this a very interesting moment where there's all these good things kind of combining and colliding and like let's see what happens . I mean the best is yet to come right , absolutely so where can we find out a little bit more about you ? Where can we find a little bit more about Race to Real ? Where can we find a little bit more about some of the things that are happening in your ecosystem ? Maybe you could share .

Grant 1:05:59

Well , actually we've just launched a new it's a web three platform , it's racetorealcom , and you can , you'll get the updates there . You'll see , we're opening new centers . We have an app that will be launching in about four weeks , oh nice , and through the app you'll be able to see where the locations are . You'll be able to book Awesome .

Speaker 3 1:06:21

I can reserve a race Okay .

Grant 1:06:23

And you'll be able to see the leaderboards . Who's ? Because really , we're going to be able to tie the virtual and the real , the race to real We'll be able to give them they'll be winning prizes like a drive-along in a race car at a track or going to a racing event , or winning autographed Ferrari gloves Wow , things that are real , real Tactile elements , but it starts digitally and for the real companies , their race season is eight months .

Javon 1:06:52

Okay .

Grant 1:06:52

They want to extend that connection with their fan base or they want to build that fan base on a younger fan base yeah they've got to get digital yeah so for them , they're going from real to digital . The digital they want . They want to have that connection to the real world . They start digitally . They can . We can even make grand turismo happen because the dawson's own a race team .

Grant 1:07:13

Wow , so you start with us . With us , we can take you to that process . We can , we can do that . We can do that for any race . Yeah .

Javon 1:07:18

It's literally , you've got the whole pipeline Exactly Like the first touch and first exposure , all the way up to the final lap .

Grant 1:07:25

Yeah , and we , and like I said , we make the Sims yeah , not all the Sims that go with the cars and so this is unique . I see the app as a way that we can start bringing to those people from home . They own their own SIMs , they want to connect . They can either book through the app , pay us , they can subscribe , and then they can compete to win from their own home rig . Not a lot of people own $25,000 rigs , but there's tens of thousands that do yeah .

Grant 1:07:56

And they can compete to win that drive along , or they can win a ticket to Le Mans or win a ticket to Montreal Cool . So you know gamers and you know this . You guys are all young , they like the experience . Yeah , they want something unique that somebody else didn't have . They want to brag about that experience . They want to have that on their story . Getting to drive along in a Spyder at a racetrack .

Javon 1:08:20

Different . For sure it's not something that you're forgetting Hanging out with the CEO of Ferrari at Le Mans ?

Grant 1:08:24

Yeah , absolutely Of course . How ?

Javon 1:08:27

else do you get that ? Why not ? You got to win a race in the east , and that's the only way .

Grant 1:08:41

Cool , well , grant thank you so much , man .

Javon 1:08:43

It's been an honor uh to hear your story , but I I actually am curious about one thing which battle scar is your favorite and why ?

Grant 1:08:46

oh , oh it was a long , yeah , no I'm gonna go with the the fingers being reattached okay , because it's a . It's a constant reminder of what not to do . Maybe giving things a second thought before you like that thing ?

Javon 1:08:57

Where did you try to stick your finger ?

Grant 1:08:59

No , no , I made something that was supposed to be a flare that turned out to be a little more explosive than a flare . Wow , chemistry .

Javon 1:09:08

Chemistry .

Speaker 3 1:09:09

All right , well , we'll save that for another story .

Grant 1:09:13

So thank you so much Grant .

Javon 1:09:14

It's been such a pleasure Once again .

100 Ways to Make 100K

Javon 1:09:16

This is another episode of 100 Ways to Make 100K , where we learned how Grant Johnson made his first 100K in a year and 100K in a day . But if you really want to know , you're going to have to tune in to the full episode on YouTube and , honestly , just click the link below or click the link in the bio , you'll be able to tune in . Thank you , click the link in the bio , you'll be able to tune in . Thank you so much . Once again , I'm your host . This is grant johnson for 100 ways to make 100k . We'll see you on the next episode , peace .