Student Entrepreneur Dominyck Bullard l Sports Passion leads to launch of Athletiverse, a funded scalable Startup

Not many college students can claim that their startup won $100,000 at a pitch competition held at the San Diego Angel Conference and then also gained seed funding.  Student athlete Dominyck Bullard, now student entrepreneur, accomplished both soon after launching his digital media startup Athletiverse. His company manages the digital assets of colleges, universities, and collectives, supporting student-athletes and athletic departments. Dominyck shares how he navigated from the initial business concept through key milestones that landed him the support of outside investors---positioning his startup to scale.

Transcript

Jeanne Gray: I'm Jeanne Gray, publisher of American Entrepreneurship Today and host of the podcast series, Experienced Voices, where I talk with highly accomplished people who share the critical elements that led to their success.

Not many college students can claim their startup on 100, 000 at a pitch competition, which was held at the San Diego Angel Conference, and then later gained additional seed funding. 

Our guest today on Experienced Voices is Dominyck Bullard, a student athlete, now student entrepreneur, who accomplished both soon after launching his digital media startup, Athletiverse, in his sophomore year.

His company manages the digital assets of college, universities, and collectives. Supporting student athletes and athletic departments. Dominyck shares how he navigated from the initial business concept through key milestones that landed him the support of outside investors, positioning his startup to scale.

Welcome to Experience Voices, Dominyck.

Dominyck Bullard: Jeanne, it's good to be here. Thank you so much for having me.

Jeanne Gray: Well, let's start off by having you share your model. I was very intrigued that you began as an athlete and now you're turning into an entrepreneur. 

Dominyck Bullard: Absolutely and to keep it as simple as possible, my company, Athletiverse, our model is bridging the gap between fans and athletes through digital experiences.

And everything is really centered around helping different athletic departments and teams around professional sports. monetize their social audiences, right? How do we take, you know, these, these followers that are long-time fans, maybe on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, wherever they are, and turning them into obviously paying clients and customers.

Jeanne Gray: You use the term NIL in our discussion. Explain a little bit to listeners how important that is in digital marketing. 

Dominyck Bullard: It's huge. It's huge. You know, NIL stands for name, image, and likeness. The, the term was really coined back in the late eighties and early nineties. Back when, March madness days really brought it around when players, you know, started to, to try and get paid for, for all the TV buzz and media deals they were bringing in.
 
Everyone knows the infamous Reggie Bush story and losing a Heisman, obviously, to receiving compensation, and, all that changed in 2021 when the Supreme Court legalized, that college athletes could be compensated for their name, image, and likeness, and that opened up the market to us, at the college space and, and my being a college athlete at the time, it was kind of the marrying of two perfect opportunities, right?

I was, still very much in the college space and now athletes could get paid to be a part of it. And so it, it very quintessential to, to what we're doing at Athletiverse. It's been fun to see the impact it's had on so many lives so far. 

Jeanne Gray: are your initial clients athletic departments and does each athletic department oversee a number of different sports?

So if you get into an athletic department, you've created this great opportunity across a few different sports. Is that true? 

Dominyck Bullard: Absolutely. Our primary clients are athletic departments and collectives. Now, you brought up the term NIL, right? All these universities now have what's called NIL collectives.

These are groups of alumni and donors that are specifically brought together to help student athletes get paid. And so we work primarily, you know, with athletic departments and collectives. And the fun part about that it does range to all sorts of sports. , you know, every, every one of our customers so far, , you know, has had at least their hands on, you know, 10 to 12 different sports.

 it's fun to be a part of, you're not, you're not pigeonholed into just football or just basketball. And, , it's, it's been fun, especially to see the effect on, on all the female sports, , that we've been a part of. 

Jeanne Gray: Dominyck, explain to the listeners how you provide your services.

Dominyck Bullard: Absolutely. No, great question. It's, it's all about the client's goals, right? So if we go work with, you know, let's say, USC's collective, in this case, House of Victory, right?

If House of Victory is trying to do, let's say they're trying to sell more tickets, right? Then we'll initially look at,the current database of followers, emails, whatever types of data they have on folks. And then we can really get into, the service part where it's how do we convert them, what kind of digital tool in our toolbox can we use to get in front of these folks and get them to convert.

It, like I said, very specific to, to what the client's goals are. Some people want to just raise more money in donations. Some want to sell more tickets, some want to sell merchandise. So it, it really depends, you know, on, on who we're talking to at a given time. But, you know, for step one is always diagnosis, right.

And, got to ask what success looks like. I think that's extremely important. When working with clients to make sure we, we satisfy their needs. 

Jeanne Gray: Let's start a little bit back at the beginning. We had talked a little bit about your initial model, but when you went to take the current model out for a drive, so to say, you had to prove your concept to yourselves.

How did you do that? 

Dominyck Bullard: Initially Jeanne, we failed pretty hard in doing that. Really. I'd say the first year was a bit of a struggle because, you know, we, we came up with, with an idea originally built on specifically just working with student-athletes and, and not athletic, you know, athletic departments and collectives, and, and I didn't really test the idea out, I kind of wrote it on paper, created a business plan and said let's, let's go do this thing.

I think you know you learn by doing and fail forward. So we, we failed quickly and moved on, from there, you know, in terms of how we've perfected the model and pivoted to where we are today. You know, it was really, you know, narrowing down, I would say just the conversations, right?

You know, let's, let's pick a specific client. And that client only that we want to help address and talk to them, right? We, we had a lot of conversations, you know, before we even launched this side of the business, you know, I, I think I spoke with over at least over 25 different athletic department personnel at different schools, including my own, you know, at the university of San Diego.

Ask them, is this a need? Is this something that is a pain point? And second of all, what are schools willing to pay for it? So I think to simplify that whole thing down a little bit, it's really targeting a micro group to begin with.

What's our testing data. We have to have some sort of product market fit, you know, before we decide to go to market and blow the horn on what it is that we're doing. 

Jeanne Gray: So it sounds like being a student athlete has its benefits if you aren't going to be drafted immediately by one of the major league teams.

Dominyck Bullard: Absolutely. Absolutely. No, no, no doubt about that. 

Jeanne Gray: Okay. So your next step is, is the platform. Is, is, is creating something that, projects your model. So how did you go from you? You were testing the water. You did this additional survey to pivot into the athletic departments as your true targeted customer.

But now you had to make an investment into technology. Give me a sense of how long it took and maybe a couple of the challenges that your first exposure to, you know, Being an entrepreneur and. Getting your vision into, into a technology base. 

Dominyck Bullard: Oh, it, it feels, Jeanne, it feels endless. Honestly, the tech part was, was not fun. In total, it was eight to nine months of development before, you know, we, had reached our MVP, most viable product, which is pre-stage. It is as bare bones as tech gets, but essentially the process was pretty straightforward in that we mapped out on paper what it is we wanted the functionality to look like, and we then had the conversation, is this even possible?

Does the tech exist? And it did, which is fantastic. And we knew how to build it. And third is the testing you go through. It's, it's three to four months of, of breaking the thing over and over again. And not to mention the UI that goes into it, the unit interface, right? Is it, is it nice for people to use?

Is it compatible on mobile and in dark mode and light mode? There's, there's so many different nuances that go into that. And ultimately. Yeah, tech's extremely difficult to develop, and, and I think we, we learned that pretty quickly. 

Jeanne Gray: Did you find that you underestimated your budget or you want, you had some advice which you found out your budget was, was close to target?

Dominyck Bullard: Our budget ended up being close to target. You know, I think we had, we had originally allocated, you know, I think we were 120, 000 on development. And we spent just over 45, 000 as, as I recall, now that being said, we got to the MVP stage of the product and said to ourselves, this is no good for mass use truthfully, right?

We use it now proprietarily, right? And internally, you know, we, we use it ourselves. But we're, we're not licensing it out to folks and it's, it's not an open platform, right? And so when we made that decision to not burn any more capital, because I think if we were to have gone the full length of, of the true development and getting the platform to the, to the place that it's on every person's iPhone in America.

We would have probably spent a quarter of a million dollars, you know, if not more and would have had to raise, you know, probably some significant capital to keep that alive and to keep the development, you know, going with what I think people underestimate with technology is, you know, let's say you allocate a quarter of a million to developing an app.

Well, once that app is done, sure, you might have paid a quarter of a million and it's good to go, but now it's the customer service that's going into it. It's the bugs. It's the it's the debunking the whole thing. It's a charade because folks are going to get on the platform and it's a charade because folks are going to get on the platform and People are going to find ways to break things in manners that you never even thought possible.

And so you have to now probably have another quarter of a million on top of that, just to keep the development team going and fixing things as they're breaking. And next thing you know, you know, you're out half a million dollars and you don't know if the thing makes any money or not. So it can be quite 

The nerve wracking experience as, as you and I both know that money does not grow on trees. 

Jeanne Gray: That's a very big learning curve for someone to get through. So congrats for doing that. now that you are focusing on your target audience and you are bringing clients in. How have you thought about the development of your team to make it more than just about Dominyck?

Dominyck Bullard: Great question. You know, we, Jeanne, when we had made the decision to stop, I would say, burning capital on the tech side and get really specific into, You know, having a business model that's bootstrappable and that growth pays for itself, you know, we've gone about our team the in that manner, you know, it's, I will say it's especially in this day and age, you know, specifically being a West Coast based company.

I have no idea if that has anything to do with it. You know, maybe some biases in there, but it's very difficult to find folks that are not just passionate about what you're doing and want to see it succeed, but willing to put in the work it takes to get paid necessarily. Right? So a lot of A lot of growing the team has been, it's been a challenge to say the least over the past two years.

 But we have a solid team today and that's been because we have consistently hired and brought people in that are not just paying for our growth, right? The work that they're doing is generating revenue. But they've also been willing to say,  I'm willing to bet on myself here.

 A lot of the contracts that, you know, I think as founders, you should put together early on if they're not equity based or, certainly incentive goal based, right? Saying, you know, Hey, if we hit X amount of whatever, whether it's sales, new leads, closes, right? We're, we're paying for that and the growth's paying for that.

So, you know, the company's not necessarily burning any more money and you know, you're, you're growing at the. At the right pace, right? It's, it's not too much, too little. And so, you know, developing that team has been, very, very paramount and, and the cornerstone has been, you know, that, that incentive of, you know, Hey, can you, can you grow with us?

Right. We're, we don't want to spend, you know, Half a million dollars on a VP that, you know, gets us all of, I don't know, you know, 25, 000 back a year. Right. That just makes no sense. But you see a lot of that these days. 

Jeanne Gray: So I'm going to ask a harder question now is cause you, you kind of referenced it is, you know, when you're bringing someone on board, you have to be start thinking in terms of projections.

And, and this is probably projections are probably the biggest challenge or hurdle for first time entrepreneurs to get their arms around, because if you make a statement about what something is supposed to be, and then you missed your target or your milestone, it's not a good thing. How much, how important has projections?

 Emerged in order for you to, you know, define the model to an, you know, an outside party. They, they're curious to know, right? 

Dominyck Bullard: Absolutely, Jeanne, I have a rule that we like to play with in- house, called the 70 15 15 rule. So the, the 75, or the 70 part. Right. That's it. The theory goes back to data science.

It's, it's all built around, you know, training, data, testing it, and then validating it. And so whether it's a higher, whether it's making a market prediction, a client prediction, you know, saying, you know, me emailing our investors, Hey, you know, we're, we're, we're shooting for, you know, a quarter of a million in revenue this, you know, quarter, right.

Whatever it is, before I get to the point where I'm making any sort of prediction, I'm making sure that there is. It's a very, very large sum of testing that's been done, right? 70 percent is conducting, you know, market analysis, you know, customer reviews, peer reviews, talking to folks, Hey, you know, what, what is going on?

What can, what can we expect here before we even go and make not just another prediction, but validate it for heaven's sakes, right? So 70 percent of my time and energy is, is always trying to. To ask harder questions like you just did, right. And, and figure out from folks, what's really going on out there.

The other 15 percent is okay, let's go try something. And then that final 15 percent is, Hey, did we validate whether this works or not? And if we validated that it works, then I'll make the prediction. Then I'll, then I'll tell the whole world, Hey. This is what I'm, this is the hill I'm going to go die on right here.

Right. So I think, that's been my thought process to, to a lot of different things, whether it's, you know, market product projections, hiring a new salesperson, right. It's, it's really built around, you know, realistic expectations and, and realistic outcomes. You know, what, what have we seen that that's been done so far?

Right. Because. I think as, as entrepreneurs and, and as founders and startups, you know, you can get a little bit hooked on the, Oh, we're, we're going to go change the world and do something that's never been done before. And I think most of the time, you know, you don't really have to reinvent the wheel.

So. 

Jeanne Gray: It sounds like you're drawing on your data background a lot to do this. So we have a student athlete who's majoring in, what were you saying? I think you told me what's your major data analytics, data analytics. Well, it sounds like you've got a nice match going on there. So that's always a good sign for entrepreneurs if they're.

They're pulling something out of their background that can be immediately applied to the challenge. So let's talk a little bit about funding because, I know you've had some really nice success in this area. So, well, I guess the. The spend that you had to commit to, to build the platform, did that occur, first out of your own pocket or I know you also won a competition, where, where did that fall in, in getting the model forward?

Dominyck Bullard: Yeah, most, most of the original development of the tech was, was out of pocket. You know, I've, I've worked, been pretty fortunate. I've, I've been able to, to balance a couple of jobs in between playing, you know, all this baseball over the past, you know, probably six to seven years now. So. You know, I was, I was able to put up, let's just put it, put a figure out there, you know, five figures, right.

To, to get, you know, things off the ground. Very fortunate that, you know, my, my parents and family, you know, pitched in with that as well. So it was, that probably paid us for. You know, maybe 70 to 80 percent of the total development. And then the rest was, was obviously from, from money we had raised from, from more friends.

And then from obviously the San Diego angel conference, which I'm sure we'll, we'll talk more about here in a second. But that was, that was the split number wise, in terms of how much, you know, I personally put in versus what we raised to get that done. 

Jeanne Gray: In preparation for the San Diego Angel Conference, which ended up being a really good source of funds.

What was the checklist that you had to go through in addition to knowing you had some functioning platform that moved this from a big idea pitch to I really did build something pitch to I won those investors over? So tell me, tell me what your checklist was for an angel conference and why you were so successful.

Dominyck Bullard: Oh man, I like to laugh at this question because I'm, I'm now very, I've been close friends for a long time, but you know, I, the, the, the fund managers at the time, Mysty Rusk and Stacey Pena, who were running the angel conference, you know, we, We had bickered often back and forth about it in regards to, you know, how, why are you asking me so many darn questions?

Like it was, I mean, the due diligence process was, I mean, I I've been told that, you know, SDAC's due diligence process is like as bad as it can possibly get. You know, but, truthfully, and maybe kudos to them for this, but the amount of discretion and an insight that they, they go into with their teams, whether it's, you know, on the financial side, you know, you have multiple accountants breaking down, you know, what it is that you're, you're really bringing in or, or not, to be quite frank with you.

 On the other side, of course, there's, I ended up doing. demos with the tech before we even got funding, which was crazy before the final, the final pitch, you know, even occurred. And it's a lot of time in between all that, you know, I, I think it's, it's very important that, you know, you spend a lot of time and, you know, the founder myself.

Doing a lot of due diligence on who's going to fund you, right? Are they the right people, you know, or, you know, that, that money comes in, you know, everything's great. Sure. But, you know, six weeks later when they want status reports and updates and all sorts of things, you know, are those the folks that you want, you know, really.

Breathing down your neck a little bit. So, it was, it was a long process. I want to say in total, it probably took us four to five months of, you know, a lot of background and digging on, on both sides part, you know, and it, it ultimately concludes with you in a room with the, at this case, it was the San Diego angel conference board, but basically debating valuation.

Right. Which, yeah, that's good Lord. We could debate that till the cows come home. Yeah. I was going to 

Jeanne Gray: say more numbers, right? 

Dominyck Bullard: Yeah. And then, you know, somebody around the table is going to quote what the Fed's doing on a given day. And that's going to change depending on, you know, how they wake up out of bed.

Right. So I, it's, it's ridiculous to be quite honest with you. But you know, it's, it's part of, it's part of what you 

Jeanne Gray: do. So now you've, gotten some money in, which is. And there are people attached to this money. So you have to, evangelize, you know, we've already evangelized to get them in the, you know, in, in, in the door.

So how often do you talk to an angel after they've written the check? You know, what were. Some of the expectations that they had in the first, say, month or two after that check is, is used. 

Dominyck Bullard: Oh man, this is, this is where, you know, raising from angels is a fantastic thing because angel investors understand that, you know, maybe one out of the 25 checks that they write a year is going to ever do something.

And so I think with the San Diego angel conference, ultimately, where we landed on evaluation and how much, you know, we, we were able to get, from the group, you know, it ultimately amounted to an investment that, you know, look at. It's not going to necessarily, I would say break their bank per se.

 But in regards to expectations, you know, we have a pretty long runaway, you know, in terms of, you know, it's, it's really five to six years before, you know, they're coming back saying, you know, Hey, what, what really happened here sort of thing. You know, luckily, and I, I love to brag about this out of, out of all the three companies, you know, they've invested in, in my year.

You know, we, we're still doing the most in revenue, right? So, you know, I, I think it's, it's interesting, but not bad at all. You know, I, there's a quarterly report that, that I put together for, for our friends and family who have invested in the company and the same report goes over to them. You know, I, I always receive pretty good feedback in terms of, Hey, keep up the good work.

You know, what else are they going to tell you if you're making money to be quite honest with you? But at the same time, you know, they're fantastic. They'll, they'll reach out, you know, now and then, especially, like I said, Missy Rusk is a, is a close friend and she'll often check in and say, Hey, Dom, you know, how can, can we help?

Is there any connections you need kind of in the space? And so, yeah, it's, it's been, it's been good. It's been as good as it possibly can be. You know, I, at the end of the day, Jeanne, if I could do it all over again, I would have never raised money to even begin with, but, you know, you, you do what you do and, you know, luckily we have some really good circumstances around it.

Jeanne Gray: Did they, or did you, specify how the funds were going to be used, and was that important when they peppered you with questions, as to the amount and, and reason for the funding? 

Dominyck Bullard: Oh, absolutely. Absolutely. I think that, I think that at the end of the day, the reason that a student, a student founded and led company, Was the first one to win SDAC was because of how we handled those, those questions.

 You know, I was very, very, you know, straightforward through the entire process. More than 85 percent of the funds were going to go to, to sales, right? We, we were going to do everything we could to get a product in front of people and get money coming in the door. You know, whether, whether or not the product needed refinement or not, after that, you know, we, we would figure out, but we really had a straightforward path to revenue.

You know, we, we had done the research, we knew people needed it. And we knew how to have the right conversations at that point. It became, Hey. We want to use these funds so we can have as many conversations as we possibly can, because with, you know, a team that was as small as it was, you know, around two years ago.

Now, it would have been very difficult. So, yeah, by all means, though, I think if we had one in and said, Hey, you know, our, our platforms where it is today, and it it's. It's operational, right? But we want to do this and this and this and this and this to it. I think we would have received a lot of setback because at some point it goes, you know, Hey, does this, does this thing make money or not?

Right. You're, you're now 12, 15 months in development and you haven't moved a single transaction, right? But good question. You know, the, the, the sales part and, and our team's, relentlessness not to come off of, you know, putting the majority of the funds to sales. And I think ultimately, you know, allowed us to, to win and take home money from them.

Jeanne Gray: Did your connections as an athlete, and especially since you did a survey. were they later low hanging fruit for your first customers? 

Dominyck Bullard: Oh, absolutely. Absolutely. Sports is, I like to think every industry is this way. Like I said, it's a, it's a fanciful thought, so I'm not really sure, but I know sports for sure.

Connections is everything. Right. And, and I was, you know, I had an awesome career on the diamond playing baseball before, you know, I ended up getting hurt. And so a lot of those connections that they stay with you forever. You know, whether it was the guys I played with, the coaches I played under the, the programs that I helped win a lot of games for, you know, I, those people are always willing to take a phone call from you, and really do what, what it takes and ultimately, it got to the point with how we use social media to market ourselves and create.

Just such a, a monstrous, you know, honestly, audience for, for a startup. We got to the point where people were basically saying, Hey. When is this product coming out? Like when, when can we get involved? You know, it's, it's almost like, you know, I, I think we did a good job of, of getting people very excited about what we do to the point where it's, you know, my, my dad always, you know, says, you know, good marketing is getting in front of somebody and they get that feeling of, Hey, you know, Jeanne, you know, take my money from me.

Right. I just, I want this so bad, you know, take, take it from me. Right. So, and, you know, that's, that's still how we market and like to do things today, right. , there's just so much proof in the pudding that people are ready for it. But yeah, the, by all means, being an athlete, being in the sports space, especially being around NIL still to this day, you know, we're the youngest team in the NIL space.

Quote unquote. There's a lot of other folks out there that have played college sports, that, that are doing some incredible things with their companies. But we're still the closest to these kids right in age, you know, I'm on this phone call today. At least I'm, I'm 21 years old. Right. So there's, there's so much, you know, there's right.

There's, there's, there's, there's just that intangible that you just can't, you know, if, if I pitched to a university versus a 55 year old. You know, guy coming out of private equity or something, right? You know, maybe the bias there is that guy might know a little bit more than me. And by golly, he sure does, but where's the heart at, right?

And these schools care about that. They care about, you know, what, you know, what's the point at the end of the day? Is just another money making scheme. Is it, is it something that's really going to help athletes, et cetera. And so. You know, we've, we've been able to connect on a personal level with that. Because that's, that's just who we are.

So I 

Jeanne Gray: think you're mentioning that the athletic community may be different than in other industries and that there are some sort of camaraderie or speaking among yourselves within, you know, breathing the same air may be part of the formula, the intangible for your model. Would you think that's. That's what maybe is one of the elements of why you're, you're being so successful because it's your age and you're, like you said, your age as an athlete, you're, you've been planted right into the middle of the community in sort of like, in live time.

Dominyck Bullard: Yeah. Yeah. I think more of a, more of a philosophical thing I've learned through this whole process is that you cannot streamline authenticity, right? You just can't. Right. There's, there's no possible way. I tell people that there is nothing else on earth I could be doing better than what I'm doing right now, because it is just so, in line with.

Who I really am, like an age and mentality and what I've done, right? And so, but by all means that intangible is, is everything for us, right? You know, it allows us to, to have conversations, that otherwise folks cannot and, and to come at it from a level of empathy, right? That, that most people can't, right?

Because I think being, a 21 year old kid. There's college athletes that I'm helped getting paid that are still two, three, four years older than me, you know, especially the way college is working these days. There's, I can't tell you how many 24 year old quarterbacks I've seen in the past, you know, three or four years now.

 And so understanding why these college athletes want to get paid so badly, right? Because they're spending so many hours in the weight room, in the classroom, on the field. And yet, you know, they're still stuck, you know, grocery shopping twice a month, you know, at a dollar store, right? Like there's, there's so many, there's just nuances to it that you can't make up and you can't, you can't fake it.

You just can't. And so, yeah, by, by all means, I think, the authenticity has just come across, you know, very naturally and it's, it's by all means helped us. 

Jeanne Gray: You're truly have lived the experience that others, don't have the opportunity. So. Let's kind of wrap up with, a couple of thoughts you might have for, just simply aspiring student entrepreneurs.

You know, there's, I've had other discussions as to whether or not, what is the right age for. Someone to start a company. And it's more common today for someone in your age group to have the dream of being an entrepreneur in their twenties. So was there a couple of words of advice or thoughts about having done that?

Dominyck Bullard: Sure, sure. I, I think on, on the tangible side of things, you know, I think some things that you can quite literally, you know, get up out of bed and do tomorrow. Right. You know, we, we are, you know, I, I don't, I won't go into any details, but we clearly understand the current place of our, You know, fiscal and economic climate, and that if you have a business today that helps other people make money, it will be successful.

The thing is, I talked to so many young folks that are my age, even older, right? 30s, 40s that are trying to get startups off the ground and, consistently running into problems. And it's, it is really around this, this value premise and, and really maybe lack thereof value balance, right? It's, it's, hey, Buy my product, buy my service, do this, do that, you know, I'm, I'm going to extract all this value from you, but what's coming back to you is, is maybe a fourth of that or a fifth of that, right?

When, when we sit down with a client, whether it's a university, a collective, you know, now, whether it's a professional sports team, you know, in that conversation, it's, Hey, you're going to spend. X with us and get 3, 4, 5, 6, 10 X back, right? And we can map that for you. We can show you the proof is all right here.

And so, when I think about young entrepreneurs, the advice I give is, can you stress test that? And that's an uncomfortable question to ask because maybe the idea that you have. Maybe it's, maybe it does suck more value out of the market than it gives. And in that case, it's not a good product, right?

You can only trick people for so long. It's, it's very hard to separate people from, from their hard earned money as it should be. And so tangibly, that's the advice I would give if, there's so much more to that nuance, but I, I think that's a very good, you know, framework for it. The second part.

Maybe being more so on the intangible side of things is, I think people in my generation, there's almost too much information available. There's too many, there's too many clubs you can join. There's too many advisors on LinkedIn that want to talk to you and, you know, have you pay them a thousand bucks an hour for advice and there's just, there's almost too much.

And I would say. Do the best you possibly can to stick true to whatever it is your vision and values are, and don't, and do not be afraid to say no to things, right? Because I think when, when you get a startup and it's a decent idea, folks are going to come from the woodworks, man. It's, you're going to have folks coming out of nowhere saying, Hey, I'll Can I, can I invest in this?

Can I introduce you to this person, this person? And, man, don't get distracted. Don't get distracted. Distractions are everywhere. They're so easy. But you know, I, I would stick, you know, if you can find that niche thing that provides more value back to the market than you take from it, damn, you got a good business coming for you, or at least something good is going to come of it, I think.

 So that, that's really the advice I would give. To, to young folks that are, that are my age or in their twenties, thirties that are trying to start companies is, is really, you know, having that realistic conversation. And, and ultimately everything that I'm saying is all about putting, not just the customer first.

It's about putting others first, right? It's, it's beyond that, right? If, if you're a clothing company and you have suppliers, if you are a brick and motor coffee company, if you're a software developer in, in the, in sports space, right? You know, it's really putting other people forward. If you, if you do that and put those folks first, you know, you're going to make good decisions.

The product's going to be, you know, built off the back, the right backbone and good things are just going to happen. You know, I, I'm a, I'm a believer in that for sure. 

Jeanne Gray: Well, I think that's some really good advice that you've shared, Dominyck. And, I really appreciate you , coming on as a guest on experienced voices, and we'll look forward to hearing of your progress in the next few months, if years.

So thanks again, 

Dominyck Bullard: Jeanne. Thank you so much. It's been a pleasure. 

Jeanne Gray: You have been listening to the podcast series, Experienced Voices. To hear more and subscribe, visit americanentrepreneurship. com forward slash podcast, where you will also find a form for listener feedback.