The Foureva Podcast
Welcome to The Foureva Podcast, where we break barriers and redefine success!
Join host Jamar Jones, a dynamic entrepreneur, national speaker, and author of "Change Your Circle, Change Your Life," as he takes you on an extraordinary journey of inspiration and motivation.
In each episode, we bring you an impressive lineup of star-studded guests, each with a unique voice and a wealth of insights to share. From industry leaders to renowned experts, we uncover their secrets to success in personal, business, and marketing domains. Prepare to be captivated by their stories, strategies, and experiences that will empower you to reach new heights.
Whether you're an aspiring entrepreneur, a marketing professional, or simply seeking fresh perspectives on life and business, The Foureva Podcast is your ultimate destination. Discover the transformative power of changing your circle and unlocking your full potential. With each episode, we delve into the minds of the most influential voices in the industry, providing you with the tools and inspiration you need to overcome obstacles and achieve greatness.
Don't miss out on this dynamic podcast that will fuel your ambition, challenge your limits, and propel you toward success. Tune in to The Foureva Podcast and join a community of driven individuals who are ready to make an impact. Get ready to be inspired, motivated, and 'foureva' transformed!
The Foureva Podcast
The Truths of Life as a Founder with Jeff Saling
What does it really take to build, fund, and scale a startup? In this episode, Jeff Saling — entrepreneur, investor, and co-founder of StartUpNV — shares powerful lessons from his journey building companies, raising capital, and guiding founders through the highs and lows of entrepreneurship. From avoiding common startup missteps to understanding how investors think, Jeff pulls back the curtain on what it means to turn ideas into thriving businesses. He also reveals how his work in Nevada reshaped legislation to open doors for more investors and founders, creating lasting impact in the startup ecosystem.
✅ How to avoid the most common mistakes new founders make
✅ The real process of raising capital (beyond the “3 Fs”)
✅ What investors actually look for in pitch decks & stories
✅ The truth about exits, acquisitions, and scaling a company
✅ How legislation in Nevada changed startup investing forever
✅ Why passion and execution matter more than a “perfect” plan
If you’re a founder, aspiring entrepreneur, or early-stage investor, this conversation is packed with insights on funding, exits, market validation, and the mindset needed to succeed.
New founders that have never raised capital or have never had an exit are the ones that usually will struggle with this, more so than founders that have raised capital and had an exit because they've been through the process. Just like anything else in life, the more experience you have, the more it's going to be For folks who haven't done it before. The things that most investors are looking for is you know, we talked about a large market already. We want the founder to have some unique perspective in their market that usually will come from their own experience in that market.
Speaker 1:What is going on, jeff? Welcome to the Forever Podcast. What's going on with you? Well?
Speaker 2:thanks for having me. It's a great day here in Vegas and a great day in the startup ecosystem.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, what's the weather like? Just give us a snapshot. What's the weather like in October?
Speaker 2:Sunny and like high 80s, low 90s. So it's still beautiful. It's still gorgeous. This is the best. I think this is the best month of the year in Vegas is October.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, for sure A little bit warm, but not too crazy hot. Yeah, I'm in Richmond, virginia, and it's still like 80 degrees. Nice breeze, I mean, just absolutely gorgeous. I used to live in Milwaukee, wisconsin, so you know around this time. Luckily, though, it's actually not bad right now in Milwaukee, which is crazy. It's like 75, 70 degrees, something like that in October, when normally I've seen snow, like right now, so something else is going on.
Speaker 2:I know what you mean. I spent some time up in the northern part of our state, in the Reno area, and it's been a little chilly there. There's been a little snow up in the mountains up there. Yeah, yeah for sure, definitely warmer.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, I love the warm weather, especially with the nice little breeze. It's nice, well cool. I want to jump right in and first let everybody know a little bit about who you are and what you do.
Speaker 2:Right, well, my name is Jeff Saling. I run kind of a two-sided organization. The thing that's sort of at the middle of all of it is a nonprofit called StartupNV or StartupNVorg, if you want to check it out, and it mainly focuses on economic development and education for both entrepreneurs founders, if you prefer and investors angel investors who want to learn how to invest in these early stage companies. Other side, we have a few different investment funds that actually invest in the entrepreneurs and the founders that come through the nonprofit programs trying to create a company that can attract investment and hopefully change the world in some fantastic way.
Speaker 1:That's awesome man, and we have a mutual friend in CJ Watson.
Speaker 2:Can you just share how you know CJ CJ is. You know we have about a group of about 300 people that invest in our funds and that ultimately invest in these startups in Vegas and throughout the state of Nevada, and CJ is one of those and met CJ a few years back and he's been a great member of the group, really appreciate his his and and then he's got a non-profit foundation that he has here in Vegas that helps, you know, kids that need to learn, you know, outside of the traditional school system, and so we try to give back to each other through our nonprofits and hopefully make some more money on the investing activity.
Speaker 2:So we have more to give back.
Speaker 1:Yeah, 100%, 100%. And so shout out CJ. We had him also on the podcast, so if you guys are tuning in on this and listening, please go back and watch that episode with CJ Watson. So let's just jump straight into it. So, founders, what is one of the most amazing thing about being a founder, and what's also one of the things that you've seen in your lifetime? That is a misstep that a lot of founders make.
Speaker 2:Well, I think the most amazing thing about being a founder or as an entrepreneur is, short of having kids, it's really one of the most awesome things that you can do. You can think about something, create it out of nothing except for what comes out of your mind, put that out into the world and hopefully have a big impact in a positive way. Not impact in a positive way, not only in a positive way about you know, whatever service or product it is that you're putting out there, but also, hopefully, it's something that's good for society at large, or at least your local area in some way. And I don't know of any other thing that you can do in your life that can have that kind of an impact on you know, for yourself, for your family, for the folks that are around you, plus have that kind of a great impact on you know, the community around you. So I think it's one of the best, most creative things that you can do.
Speaker 2:A lot of people think, oh, it's just boring business stuff and it's like you know artists get to create. You know, like a great looking. I don't know Artists get to create a great-looking painting or sculpture or piece of music or piece of writing that they've created wholly out of nothing, and that's the same as an entrepreneur, except that it continues to give over time, if you do it correctly. So, like I said, other than having pride in your own kids and your own family, I don't know what else could possibly be better. So that's my speech on why people ought to live their lives as an entrepreneur and that young folks ought to think hey, this is not just some boring business thing that a bunch of old gray-haired guys do, it's for the creative and the people who are in love with life.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's. It's. It's for the creative and the people who are in love with life. Yeah, for sure. And what? What's the? What's the biggest misstep that founders make in your time that you've been?
Speaker 2:Yeah, we do. I do work with a lot of founders and I think probably that you know, for the founders who haven't done it before, the thing I see them struggle with the most is they'll have this idea they want to create something from nothing, from some idea that they have, and if they don't go out and research it and make sure that there's an actual market for whatever it is that you have the idea about, you can end up spending a lot of your own time. Spending a lot of your own time and, if you want, you know, if you're raising people, money from other people, you're going to end up spending a lot of their money, and possibly your own money, on something that you probably could have found out earlier isn't really a fit. Um doesn't mean that you shouldn't do something because you love it and maybe it's a hobby, but it might not be a business. Um, because you know what do we call? A business that doesn't make any money? A hobby, a hobby, yeah, what do we call?
Speaker 1:a business that doesn't make any money. A hobby?
Speaker 2:A hobby, yeah, which is fine. People have hobbies, that's great. But if you want to raise money for it and spend your life on it, you absolutely want to go out and do a bit of research on it before you do that kind of stuff.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, 100%, 100%. You got to know that you actually have something like a real solution to a problem. I think that's like the easiest way to say it. Is it just a cool idea or is there actually a marketplace for it and does it actually solve a problem? I mean, it sounds so simple, but I'm sure you've seen it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's cool, but there's probably like three people that are that are gonna like enjoy this yeah, it's gotta be a a problem with a big enough market that it can make a difference, or that you're happy with working in a smaller market.
Speaker 2:If it's a small, if it's a local business or something, that's great. You don't need, you know, thousands or millions of customers to be successful. But if you going to go out and ask other people to invest in it so that the business will scale and eventually those investors will make money on it, then it should be something that's got a very large market and that has enough pain that it's people. Once you've built something that's credible, that is probably at least 10 times better than what exists and costs about one third of whatever exists, if you have those dynamics going for you, you stand a much, much better chance of having a success in your entrepreneurial journey, at least a financial success. It doesn't mean that you can't have personal success, a success for your family, for your employees. Those are all great things. But if you want that giant outcome and you have to have a few of those other attributes that we just talked about going on for you as well.
Speaker 1:Yeah, for sure, for sure. And so let's talk about getting to the bag, getting to the money. So this is what every founder, every entrepreneur gets into this how do we actually get access to capital?
Speaker 2:into this? How do we actually get access to capital and also, how long does it take? Okay, so the how. I mean there's a couple of different phases that you go through. Right, there's all of these different funding rounds. You've heard of series A, series B, series C, seed, pre-seed, angel, friends and family, those kinds of things. So generally you'll start with your friends and family, or three F's as some of us call them friends, family, those kinds of things. So generally you'll start with your friends and family, or three f's as some of us call them friends, family and fools.
Speaker 2:Um, and people will invest in you, not because they've done like 250 hours of due diligence, like our funds do on a founder and their business, but because they trust you and they at least like you and probably love you, which is why they're investing, which is why it's oftentimes the. That's where you get your first money, other than the money you put in as yourself, as an entrepreneur. That's usually where the first money comes from. Is the three apps. Next step is generally an angel group or an accelerator, um, sometimes a pre-seed fund, those, a lot of those things overlap a bit.
Speaker 2:Um, there are thousands of angel groups around the country. Um, you can find a lot of those. Things overlap a bit. There are thousands of angel groups around the country. You can find a lot of them on the Angel Capital Association website and they're all local right, so they tend to like to support their own local founders.
Speaker 2:I run an angel group out here in Nevada called Sierra Angels, and while we don't exclusively invest in Nevada-based companies, we'd like to. If we can find a company that meets our criteria and a founder that seems to be a good fit, we will, and I know that a lot of the other angel groups, because we collaborate with a lot of them, act the same way. It's more like I think it's 80% of all initial capital for all startups comes from within 37 miles of wherever that founder is. So you know these local angel groups and your friends and family and the other F who are nearby are the ones that are most likely to be your first source of capital Once you've created whatever it is you're going to create and it's out there in the world and you've got a little bit of sales. I mean you don't have to have sold a billion dollars worth of anything, but yeah you've got some.
Speaker 2:I'll say I call it proof of life right that there's actually something here that you've built that some people are buying and wanting. Then you can graduate into the for the more professional funds, the pre-seed funds and the seed funds, um and again, these are. These are things that you can find online. If you come to our website at startupnvorg, if you submit a request to find funds, we'll send you a list of the funds that we know are available and investing. Right now we have our own if you fit our thesis.
Speaker 2:If you're in Nevada, you fit the thesis that we like thesis. If you're in Nevada, you fit the thesis that we like. But each of these funds, whether they're a pre-seed fund, a seed fund or an A-round fund, they have a notion, a thesis about what kinds of companies, what kinds of markets they invest in Some companies, some founders or some funds invest in, and only seed funds that have at least a half a million dollars in sales and only seed funds that have at least a half a million dollars in sales and they're in B2B, saas or another group likes.
Speaker 1:AI groups.
Speaker 2:Another one likes consumer-facing products, another group likes medical technology, another group likes fintech financial technical solutions. So you really have to do a little bit of homework and figure out who are these, what funds are there, what's their thesis, do you fit it? And then figure out what their process is for being considered by them. I can talk in our processes. Whether you're applying to the Sierra Angels or to any of our funds, whether it's Fund NV or 1864 or our Angel NV fund. Each of those funds have their own website, but they each have an application process.
Speaker 2:So you submit your pitch deck. You fill out some information about you, what your background is, what your company is going to do, how big the market is, that kind of stuff. You submit it and, from our perspective, we'll actually give you feedback like, hey, your pitch deck is missing these pieces of information, or this is a good pitch deck to send out, but it's not really the pitch deck you want to use to present because it's got too many words. You don't want people reading your slides when you're presenting. You want it to be more visually oriented.
Speaker 2:When you're sending out a deck and you don't present, then you want it to have a bunch of words on it so they can actually read it.
Speaker 2:So present, then you want it to have a bunch of words on it so they can actually read it. So all of these, we're certainly not the only ones that provide access to the funds that we know are investing out there not only ours but others, Because generally venture capital and angels it's a pretty cooperative bunch. None of us want to be out there on a limb on our own investing in a company. We like to have other people in the boat with us from an investment perspective them on our own investing in a company. We like to have other people in the boat with us from an investment perspective. Okay, so if you, if you get in with one usually it'll be you'll be referred or included when that lead investor takes you out to market. Yeah, they make, they might put in I don't know half the money that you're asking for or a third of the money that you're asking for, but the rest of it's going to come from other investors that you're connected to or they're connected to.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's a long answer.
Speaker 1:Yeah, no, it's great, it's great. I think it gives a lot of context to what the process is. Now I want to go one layer deeper, real quick, for everybody listening and watching. Layer deeper, real quick, for everybody listening and watching what are the things that are really going to stand out and really get ahead of the pack? So, like when you talk about the pitch deck, is there little things in a pitch deck that you're like, oh man, every time that this is in a pitch deck, it just gets our attention?
Speaker 1:Um, or even in the application process, when you're talking about someone's story, uh, what, what little indicators are you looking for from a story, maybe from the proof of concept piece of it? What little things? Is it a certain threshold of customers? Is it having a certain process outlined, how you're going to grow in the next three, five, ten years, and the roadmap is crafted a certain way? We want people to know, like, what are the little things that you're like? Ah, I'm looking for this and if I see it, you already get a point. You already get a point with this.
Speaker 2:All right. Well, there's a few things that we look for, and it's going to be a little bit different depending on what stage you're at. So the earliest stages are where new founders that have never raised capital or have never had an exit are the ones that usually will struggle with this, more so than founders that have raised capital and had an exit because they've been through the process before. Just like anything else in life, the more experience you have, the easier it's going to be. So, for folks who haven't done it before, the things that most investors are looking for is, you know, we talked about a large market already. We want the founder to have some unique perspective in their market that usually will come from their own experience in that market and they just seem to know something that other people don't, based on what it is that they're doing. And if you've got a big market with a founder who seems to have a take on something that maybe others don't, that can disrupt a market, a large market, then generally investors are going to lean in and say I want to find out more Now.
Speaker 2:There's some missteps you can make with putting your pitch deck in and say I want to find out more Now there's some missteps you can make with. You know putting your pitch deck in and you know the written application piece. Like. One of the common missteps that we see is the founder didn't do research, they don't have a lot of information about the market that they're going into, or they say there's no competition. There's always competition and you want competition. No, may not be somebody exactly like you, but whatever problem you're solving, it's being solved somehow. So there is a status quo competition of some type in whatever it is that you're doing?
Speaker 2:So it just tells us that. Well, okay, so maybe the founder is a bit naive, which isn't always a problem, especially if the founder's coachable. It's like, well, you've never done this before, I understand. But then when you have that combination of sort of stubbornness and naivete, then it starts to become a little off-putting from an investor's perspective. Yeah, so that's some goods and some things that are not so good that most people could avoid by just doing a little bit of research.
Speaker 2:And I know there's a lot of education out there, like StartupMD. We have our own YouTube channel, right, youtube slash, startupmd and we have like 200 or hundred videos on various topics, everything from you know pitch decks 101 to you know pam sam som, which are how big, how big the markets are. Yeah, it is that you're doing to, uh, any one of these educational programs that we run, we record it all and as soon as it's over, you know, for the people who are, we have it there for the people who are in it live, and maybe they missed the session so they can go back and re-watch it. But then, after it's over, then we make that public for the world to come and see and consume if they want to, yeah so. So there's a lot that we have our own set of education which is pretty consistent with the other stuff you'll see out there from Y Combinator or 500 Startups or any one of the other larger organizations.
Speaker 1:Yeah, no, that's cool. So everybody make sure you go check out the YouTube channel. So there's no excuse. There's no excuse for you not to come prepared, like you have all the information out there. You have so many resources that people can tap into.
Speaker 1:So if somebody's submitting something and you don't have some of just the foundational stuff looked at, I mean it's kind of like you're not doing any due diligence and you're so hyped up on your idea that you just want to get it out there and look, people want to give you. You're asking people for money and a lot of times it's a lot of money to pour into your business, into your idea. Do your due diligence? People like this is we have a lot of great conversations with people with other founder organizations, people that help founders like raising capital, and it's kind of like across the board, everybody's like do your research before you reach out to us like we want to actually give you money, but we can't do that. We're not just going to do it blindly unless you, unless you're that last f, which is the fool they're all people that are just winging it.
Speaker 2:That sounds like a great idea. I'll throw money into it, right? That's like this it's. Those guys are really hard to find and they usually don't do it for long before they figure out. Ok, I was that third F, yeah.
Speaker 1:I was that third F.
Speaker 2:Right. Or the poker adage when you're looking around the poker table playing poker and you're trying to figure out who is the worst player at the table, the one that everybody's going to win all the money from it's probably you. If you can't figure out who it is, Don't be that person, don't be that person.
Speaker 1:So I want to dive into something that we had talked about before, which I think is just a super interesting story as far as how your movement that you've been doing with founders, how your movement that you've been doing with founders, with startups, and actually getting legislation passed to benefit the startup community in Nevada. So I just want you just to let everybody know, first of all, why you even wanted to take it that far, and also because for us and for our audience it's about. I love when ideas start and it sparks something, it sparks a movement and then something happens that you never thought could be possible, because that now shows a roadmap for people to see what is possible if you just get started in the thing that you're doing. And I think that when you told me that, I was like, wow, I mean talk about powerful.
Speaker 2:Well, we are lucky in Nevada, that I mean. Even though we're a big state geographically, we're a relatively small state from a population perspective, and the interesting part about how our state legislature works is we meet every two years for 100 days. So a lot of stuff has to get done in that 100 days and all of our legislators are part-time. They have day jobs. These are not full-time, you know government people, they're all. They have other professions in life.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:So they and you know, I know that the red team and the blue team can get crosswise over a bunch of different issues that they have big disagreements on. When you talk about economic development in Nevada, then everybody is almost all on the same side. They're looking for people to come up with ideas that make sense, that they can get behind and that will help spread wealth and spread. Come up with ideas that make sense, that they can get behind and that will help, um, do you know, spread wealth and spread, you know, opportunities to all people in the state. So in 2021, I worked with our lieutenant governor, um, and you know I brought her, brought an idea to her about our blue sky laws, which are really geeky securities laws that every state has, and said you know, nevadas are kind of different from most other states and I think it's stopping investors and entrepreneurs, at least coming from out of state, to want to do business here. And you know, we looked at what should happen to make our blue sky laws more consistent with most of the other states.
Speaker 2:Um, so we wrote some legislation, uh, took it to the legislature. Um, so, and you know, the lieutenant governor at that time, kate marshall, had three. We call them bdrs bill draft requests that she could use to introduce something convinced, talked to a bunch of legislators, um, most of whom thought it was a pretty good idea. Um, so we introduced it. We, you know, I ended up testifying in front of a bunch of different committees and meeting a bunch of legislators who had questions, um, and ultimately, you know, over the course of 100, 100 days, we passed it and it became a law, and that was in 2021. And I had asked for them to include this other thing in the bill about making investment in private companies more widely available to investors in the state of Nevada than it currently was at that time in 2021.
Speaker 2:And the idea was we were going to add it to the initial bill for the Blue Sky Law change and we just ran out of time. I mean, 100 days seems like a long time, but the legislature is considering somewhere between 600 and 1,000 bills. There just wasn't enough time to get it done. So our assembly leader, speaker Steve Yeager, remembered it in 2023. And his chief of staff called me back and said hey, that thing we didn't get to last time. Do you think it's still important? Has anything changed? And I said oh, yeah, it's still important. So he said well, let's work on it.
Speaker 2:So we put together this thing we call at that point, the first bill I talked about was SB9, senate Bill 9 in 2021. And this other one's called Assembly Bill AB75. The name is the Nevada Certified Investor, and many people who are familiar with investing in companies will know about the accredited investor standard on a federal level, which says, in order to invest in these startups, you have to have a million dollars of net worth outside of your principal residence or earn $200,000 a year on a W-2.
Speaker 2:Or if it's a couple, then you have to earn more than $300,000 as a company, which, if you boil it down, that's about 9% of the US population, and most of those people are on the coasts, they're in California, they're in New York, they're in Boston. So most of the folks in the middle of the country don't qualify to be investors. So those big hits that you hear oh, I got to be early into Uber or whatever If you're not an accredited investor, you don't get a shot at this.
Speaker 1:You don't even get an opportunity.
Speaker 2:Right. So in Nevada roughly 4% of our little under 4% actually of our population meets that accredited investor standard. So that's bad on both sides, right?
Speaker 2:People who have money and want to invest can't invest it in these early stage companies to get a big return, can't invest it in these early stage companies to get a big return and the founders who are trying to raise money they just don't have as big a population to raise from. So we introduced the credit of this Nevada certified investor, which for intrastate deals meaning you have to be a Nevadan to invest you have to have a Nevada company that's taking the investment but all lives within the state of Nevada. Then, instead of accredited investor standard, we have Nevada certified investor, which is you have to be above the median wage in Nevada or $100,000 a year, whichever is more, so right now it's $100,000 a year. It probably still will be for a couple more years anyway. Or if you own a business you're not a W2 person that grosses not nets but grosses $200,000 a year or more, you can be an investor as long as you don't invest more than 10% of your net worth.
Speaker 1:So now you've opened it up. Yeah, you've opened up to so many people, right, we think?
Speaker 2:probably about 30% of Nevadans can now invest. They can be angel investors. They can invest in my fund that concentrates on Nevada companies. And when we were doing, when we were presenting this bill, I walked into the room the committee where we were testifying on the bill to tell the people on the committee what this was about. Let them ask questions. And I walked into the room and I expected it to be just Speaker Yeager and me presenting to this committee. There was, I think, eight or nine of them and, yeah, probably nobody else. Maybe the person who was going to present after us was way behind.
Speaker 2:The room was filled with like 30 or 40 people and it was like wait, what? This is really geeky stuff. Why are these people here? Apparently, there was a bunch of people there from other states who thought we'd like to do this too. So we want to see how this goes. So it'll be interesting to see whether that seed of an idea actually populates and spreads Across the nation. So probably more the middle of the country. Um, the non-coastal parts of the us have this same. Hey, you know, so many fewer of our of our population meet this accredited investor standard as long as you're working within your own state.
Speaker 2:It works fine yeah you can't take investors from outside your state because now you're getting crosswise with the SEC and you don't want that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's just such an amazing story. And also the story is not over. Who knows where it's going to end up next? And if it could sprinkle across the country, especially the middle, where the people weren't even part of the conversation. And now you actually can build.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you have more people, as if you look at it from the founder's perspective, there's more people that you can go to to raise capital and you're not breaking the rules, you're not getting them in trouble, you're not getting yourself in trouble. And, just as important from an investor perspective, you know, if you've got a couple that you know, maybe maybe one of them's in law enforcement, the other is maybe a nurse or some other blue collar thing, and individually or even as a family, they would never qualify for being accredited investor. But they, you know they've got their, but they invest in public stocks. They understand what it is that they're doing. They understand that these early stage companies are much riskier than any of the public investments that you might do, but the upside is huge.
Speaker 2:So if you can get smart about it, there's no reason you should be prohibited from making some of those investments that are going to be. They could pay for your kid's college all in one swoop. You're probably not going to be corporate jet rich off of just one little investment. Why not, jeff? Why not Jeff? Why not? If you're investing $5,000, $10,000, $20,000, $25,000, probably not enough to get to the kind of money that you need for that, but if you do it well, it can make an impact in your life. My view is that it should be part of your portfolio. It should be yeah, put most of your money into the safer kind of stuff, especially if you're younger, you can take a chance on yeah, on some of those you can take some risks when you're younger because the fall isn't as as hard as hard.
Speaker 2:Uh, you gotta understand this money is more than likely gonna go away, yeah, but if you're okay with that, with the idea that it could make a lot, um, you know, and you're educated about it. You know why keep people out if they've right educated themselves and they want to be 100.
Speaker 1:Well, I, I, I love that you're, you're in this space, and not only just in the space, but that you're, you took it on your back to to, to really do this thing, um, and also just in the, even the in the state of nevada, to like to actually grow this ecosystem of startups, founders and also investors too, like everybody coming in together and and you're growing it. You know, I mean, you guys just keep growing, year after year, more and more things. I know that. Um, I wanted to make sure I mentioned on this podcast that you guys are always looking for speakers and trainers um to to help with um, a lot of different programming and resources and things that you guys all provide. So if anybody's listening and watching that that has some kind of connection or has something of value to offer.
Speaker 1:Um, uh, jeff and his organization, um, definitely reach out. Reach out, you know, see how you can get a, you know, become a part of it. Um, are there any particular types of speakers and trainers that you're looking for, jeff? Just so that way people know of, like, hey, that might be me and I, I want to reach out and just, you know, see how I can get involved and help.
Speaker 2:Um, we do like folks that that sort of understand a bit about, like the venture capital ecosystem. So folks that can, that can join us to help with due diligence and explain um to new investors and to entrepreneurs. There are these different aspects that companies are going to look into and get them ready for that. So whether you're a CPA that could tell people how to do their books or you're a marketing person who knows how to market, either you know consumer, you know directly to consumers um, or perhaps you know more focused on you know business to business type of marketing. Those, those sorts of specialists, are often helpful to the, to the founders who are coming in Um, and also helpful to the investors that we work with, so that when they're doing due diligence.
Speaker 2:They understand what it is to look for. So if you've got any of those skills and you're willing to be a mentor, fantastic If you also. If you want to be an event, if you think, oh, I would like to get involved in some of that investing stuff, then we also want to hear from you as well.
Speaker 1:Yeah, a hundred percent. Well, you heard it everybody, you guys got to get involved. You got to get involved. So I'm going to just throw a quick random question to you because I think it'd be interesting for people to learn about this. So obviously in Nevada, like Vegas is, is like the main draw Right Is business good in Vegas? Is business good in Vegas? Are there other areas that we should be looking at as entrepreneurs or even investors? That are other areas, cities, parts of town that we should actually be looking into? And also, is Vegas good for business?
Speaker 2:Is it a great place to grow a business in. So a couple couple questions there. So first, um, vegas and nevada as a whole is one of the best states in the country you can grow business. Our taxes and regulations are very low. Um, it's interesting. We'll see people come from out of state and say well, what kind of incentives, tax breaks and stuff can you offer us to locate our business here? And it's like well, we hardly charge any taxes at all, so there's not a lot that we have that we can give.
Speaker 2:Other than say it's a great place to do business, which is true, so there are some, some deferrals and some other things that are that our governor's office of economic development can offer not as many as other states, but because our base is so low and once people start to understand that, it's like wow, and you know like I was talking about passing the laws, these. Our community is small, so you can get to know everybody in the community and it's. You know, I spent most of my career before moving here in Silicon Valley.
Speaker 2:You know it's, you're a fish in a giant ocean thousands of other people and it's you know, here you can actually have an impact with your business. It's easy to know all the right folks and grow. You know the reason we started, you know, our organization here in Nevada was because every time the economy slows down, you know, one of the first places to take a hit is Nevada, because most of our economy is gaming and tourism. Well, so as when people stop, people stop coming to Vegas. When the economy gets a little tight, we suffer far more than most areas in the country. So by diversifying the economy, including the startup ecosystem. It's not that we're against gaming and hospitality, we love it, but we think we can walk and chew gum at the same time. We're not going to take away anything, yeah you can do other things too.
Speaker 1:We want to add to it. But we think we can walk and chew gum at the same time. We're not going to take away anything. Yeah, you can do other things too. We want to add to it.
Speaker 2:So we've got these little pockets of all kinds of different industries and over the course of the last couple of years, there's been a lot of people that have left other parts of the country and moved here for the opportunities and it's been amazing. They'll come looking for you know, we get a lot of folks from Silicon Valley and some down from Seattle and they're used to having more mature startup because they come look and say well, you know where's your version of what we are used to? It's like well, it's, it's small, which is can be frustrating, but at the same time, it's also, you know, you can have a huge impact, um in it because, um, it is small and if you know what you're doing, you're you're going to stand out in this ecosystem much, much, much more so than you would in a much bigger environment and in terms of you know where else do you look?
Speaker 2:I mean Vegas. It represents two thirds to three quarters of the population, the activity in the state of Nevada, the next biggest pocket is in Reno, which is probably a little bit more. It's right there next to Lake Tahoe, Beautiful, beautiful place to be and live A little closer to the Bay Area. So it's got a little bit more of an overflow from the Silicon Valley vibe than Vegas has. And then we also work in the rural part of our state, which is rural, it's very spread out, and so we have programs that focus on the rural areas and the tribes that are looking to have that entrepreneurial edge as well.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, no, that's great, that's fantastic. Well, I'm trying to also open up people's minds to. I mean, obviously we think about Las Vegas and that's, that's like the main attraction point, which is awesome in its own way.
Speaker 1:You know that you have a beacon of attraction to be like hey, come over here, hang out with us, cause a lot of cities don't have that or they're building towards that and for tourism and bringing people in, but a lot of people are in and out right In that city. There are a lot of in and out when you have a, like a great ecosystem.
Speaker 2:Already we have two and a half million people that live here and there are about 50 to 60 million visitors a year. We've built one of the greatest brands on the planet in Los Angeles and it's it's great. You, los Angeles, seriously it's great. You should come and visit. It is fantastic, yeah, but if you're an entrepreneur and you're thinking I want to get out of town, wherever that town is, and I want to go someplace else to grow my business and my life, don't be like the people outside the country who decide, hey, I know, I've seen New York, I've seen Silicon Valley, I've seen Los Angeles, so I'm going there. Right, think about, think about Vegas, think about Reno, think about Nevada. It's, it's a great place to grow your business, um, and there are good resources here, um, to help you, you know we're.
Speaker 1:We're one of many that are here.
Speaker 2:We want you to come. We want you to come here and succeed. Um, it's in our dna, yeah, and that's so. Try us out. I think you'll be pleasantly surprised. Yeah, one of the most common phrase that I hear both in reno and vegas. After somebody's moved here, they've been here for usually like week four to week eight. These words come out of their mouth. I had no idea, and that applies to wow. So there's this whole community outside of that three mile Las Vegas Boulevard area in.
Speaker 2:Las Vegas, that this whole welcoming huge, wonderful community that exists, that people have no idea. Yeah, and the same is true in reno. You know people have watched that goofball reno 911 show. Um, that did the community no favors, wasn't even filmed. We didn't even get any. We didn't even get any filming revenue out of it. Right, it was. Oh man, it's like I thought i's like, no, that's not what we are. It's like this is a gorgeous mountain town. I didn't know Lake Tahoe was right there. There's skiing areas like 20 minutes away from downtown. Yeah, so it's like it's a beautiful place to live and grow your family, grow your business. And Vegas is like Vegas. It's like people could move to Summerlin and they go Red Rock's right here. This is one of the greatest places in the country to live. How come? I didn't know this? I had no idea. The surprises are on the upside rather than on the downside.
Speaker 1:More than Reno. That's hilarious. I totally forgot about this show, but I remember watching that show growing up. It's hilarious. I totally forgot about this show, but I remember watching that show growing up. It's terrible, it's terrible. I got a question for you because I know there are definitely some listeners and definitely our audience. So you personally built up companies before.
Speaker 2:Yes, that's my background before um which yes, yes.
Speaker 1:so how? How were you able to get an exit for your company? Um, you know, because I know you guys got a acquired, actually a couple times by doing it and like how does that happen? Just for so, we, we have a lot of entrepreneurs and business owners on this and we're all doing our thing right, we're hustling, we're growing our owners on this, and we're all doing our thing right, we're hustling, we're we're growing our companies. Um, some, sometimes, we're we're growing at a great speed. How does that happen, where you start to get the eyeballs of maybe some large organizations that want to, um, figure out, hey, if there's ways to partner, if there's ways, uh, for them to acquire or sell, you know, or buy sorry, buy what you've been building, how does that happen?
Speaker 2:So my path was pretty traditional VC related path. We created a couple of software companies that primarily focused on selling to enterprises Really geeky back office stuff, focused on selling to enterprises really geeky back-office stuff. One one business was focused on call center technology that help call centers be more efficient. Another business paid the we calculated and paid commissions for really really large companies like all the insurance companies, all the pharmaceutical companies, all the insurance companies you know we, we serve those cut those types of companies with our commission product. And another was a product that was focused on giant being kind of really worldwide organizations and turning their IT business into a business that served the other parts of their companies and trying to help them make decisions about what things they should do themselves, what things they should outsource. So those were pretty geeky things that you have to be a little bit understanding of how the enterprise world works to think about them and create them and then build a product that would buy. So we took those three businesses public, that route I was talking about at the top of the podcast here, where you find your first set of angel investors and then you go out to an A round, then a B round, then a C round. Eventually you do an IPO, and all three of those companies were eventually bought by much larger companies after they had gone public. And it was part of another company that we built. Know, we built it and it just got acquired. It didn't go through the public scenario.
Speaker 2:So when you, when you want to build a company that's going to be acquired, you go through a very similar process as you do, you know, when you're going public, right, you're, you're. You have to grow it big enough so that whoever's going to acquire you it's a meaningful thing for them, right, so that when they add you to that whatever, however big they are, it it's meaningful. Right, if you're a, you've got a hundred thousand dollars a year in gross income and the company is a $20 million company, yeah, unless your technology is just amazing, they're just, it doesn't make sense. Yeah, if they're a $200 million a year company and you've got a 25 million dollar a year company, you can add 10 percent. Yeah, that holds in nicely with what they do. Well, now you're talking, right now there's, there's folks that will acquire you and one of the first one up first.
Speaker 2:But one of the questions we will ask a founder who's growing one of these businesses that wants to be acquired. Or, you know, going public is a lot harder in 2024 than when I did it 15 years ago. And 20 years ago, um, it's a different um, a different time. Um, so, um, the uh, so the idea, if you're going to much more likely to be acquired.
Speaker 2:But, you know, looking on crunchbase, looking on pitchbook, looking doing the research as part of what you're building to say, is this a business that could be acquired? What other companies? If I'm successful at this and I grow up big enough, who are other companies in the world that might be interested in what I do? Am I complimentary to somebody? And if there is a company that's been acquisitive and in whatever industry you're in, like what are some of the multiples you know, in some businesses, you know you, you will get acquired for eight or ten times your top line, right?
Speaker 2:Other businesses that might only be one or two times your top line in professional services, businesses like agencies and consultancies, those tend to be acquired for whatever your gross revenue is for the year. Yeah, because they're really hiring people, not more so than acquiring the business. Now, if you get a technology business, like some of the ones that I talked about. Um, you know those things will go for five to ten times their, their top line revenue when they get acquired. Wow so, so you know, picking the right kind of business if you want to go for an acquisition, you know, just doesn't mean you shouldn't build a consulting business or an agency or one of those businesses, but just understand what it is that you're building and what its value is going to be to somebody else versus, you know, a piece of technology, like the software businesses that I've got Now a lot of people.
Speaker 2:They want to do consumer goods right. They want to create some new gizmo that's going to be the most wonderful thing and then sell it through. Amazon or sell it directly to consumers. I don't personally know a lot about those businesses. I've tried to invest in a few and realized I'm not that good at it. I don't have that.
Speaker 1:I don't have that eye for the things that what consumers individually I see on Shark Tank all the time, when they kind of look at certain things and certain things, I'm like, oh, that's kind of interesting.
Speaker 2:But some of them are like it's cool, but I don't think it's the right fit, it's not for them, and you'll see that even among the sharks it's like some of them really like those consumer facing things and others are a little bit more towards where I'm at the facing things and others are a little bit more towards where I'm at.
Speaker 2:The geeky back office kind of stuff that, yeah, nobody even thinks about how it gets done, right, you know, yeah, they don't think about how those solutions get done, right? It's like, oh, you're paying commissions, don't they just do that on a spreadsheet. It's like, yeah, again, if you got to be, you got to be passionate about whatever it is that you're going to build and do for your startup, otherwise you won't put, you won't eat glass and put in the hours to make it successful. Um, so you have to be passionate. So, you know, don't say, oh, oh, we got to pick one of these geeky back office things. You have no interest in it, right, yes, you, you can make it work.
Speaker 2:But you know you got to be curious about it. It's got to be something that you can get, be willing to pour your life and time and energy into.
Speaker 1:Yeah, for sure you gotta love it so, yeah, you gotta, you gotta love, you gotta have a passion, some kind of, some not attachment, but you gotta have some real general like interest in it. Because, especially if you're investing in something, you know that might be something you want to talk about and it's got to be something that you're you, you get a little excitement you know to talk about. And if you know nothing about it and you're just throwing them a flyer, well it's sometimes that's hard, that's tricky, that's tricky to do.
Speaker 2:You can be intellectual about it and say this is a really wise place to build a startup and hopefully you can learn to love it Because you're curious about it. Chances are you're going to want to move forward with it because you're curious about it.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:But make sure that you do have the passion for it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, Otherwise you'll get burned out. Yeah, for sure, For sure. Well, no, this has been really good, Jeff, I got one really quick, just like hot seat question for you Do business plans work and be honest, Do business plans work and be honest, Do business plans actually work? Because I know some of us, you know we're waiting for the perfect moment to strike Because we have this business plan and maybe we've worked on it for you know, months to maybe years. I've heard Some people are working on a business plan for years. Do they really work? In your experience, especially with you growing companies investing, you've, you know, exits been acquired? I mean, you've kind of run the gamut and you have so much experience in this space. Is it real? Is it real? Do we need to do a business plan?
Speaker 2:There's a lot of analogies for this. Some of them come from sports, Some of them come from the military, Some of them come from religion. The religious one that I've heard that I like best is man plans. God laughs. But that doesn't mean you should just wing it right. Right, the exercise of planning and this is the military analogies the exercise of going through planning, will prepare you for the eventuality that's going to smack you in the face. Where things don't go according to plan. You're going to have to pivot. You know you will. You just don't know when and how. So going through the exercise of making a plan is very valuable. Will your business follow that plan? 99% chance it's going to be something different than what you think it's going to be.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, it's. Uh, I was very curious on your answer and, honestly, you, you gave a very, uh, thoughtful answer. Uh, cause, cause, I, I, uh, I think the plans they're great. Like I said, I do agree you shouldn't wing it 100%, but you should plan as much as possible. But give yourself like, hey, I'm going to only plan for this X amount of time and then I need to start actually executing, because there are things that you're just going to learn about your business.
Speaker 1:You may think that your business, like your product or service, solves that problem, but then, as you're doing it and you're getting real-time feedback from people, customers, clients then you start to really dig down and say, okay, but what? Maybe unique identifier do I have? And also, maybe this doesn't solve a problem, maybe it's actually a little bit more lasered in, it's actually a little bit more like, actually I'm solving this problem. And it's slightly over here when I thought I was over here, and that's what the execution gives you by actually doing it. I mean we can think ideas are free, ideas are cheap. You know there's tons of ideas. Time doesn't.
Speaker 2:Execution is everything.
Speaker 1:Yeah, execution is it. So I definitely appreciate your answer on that and I appreciate your time too on the podcast. Man, this has been absolutely fantastic to have you on. I know a lot of people learned a lot about just being a founder having a startup, maybe investing, and also the state of Nevada as well. So how can people get connected to you? How can they get plugged in?
Speaker 2:So a couple of ways LinkedIn you can find me on LinkedIn and just connect with me there. You can connect with StartupNV on LinkedIn and YouTube. Those are our two biggest places where we are, and then you can also just send me an email, jeff at startupnvorg. You find us also at 1864.fund and fundnvcom. Those are also places that you can get hold of us and our funds and find us out there in the worldwide internet web.
Speaker 1:Awesome, awesome and use his resources. Use the resources you got. No excuse people, well. Thank you so much.
Speaker 1:If you're listening, watching, please like, comment, share this podcast. Please pass it off to somebody. Don't be stingy. Let somebody else know about this, um, and especially if they need to hear it or they're in a stage of, hey, I'm, I'm brainstorming my business, I want to get this off the ground. Maybe I started. I have this idea, I'm starting it, I have my pitch deck, I'm ready to see what investors I can get. Or maybe I'm running this business and maybe I want to potentially get acquired one day and figure out what does that look like? What does the exit look like? Or I'm an investor, and I'm an early stage investor and I want to learn. I want to see what's going on and what can I get involved in. This is the podcast for them to listen to. So please pass it off to them and don't forget everybody.
Speaker 1:If you can change your circle, you can change your life. Thank you so much, jeff, for being on the podcast. This is such a joy and we may have to have a part two sometime, because I know we could have went so many other directions, but this is absolutely incredible. So thank you so much and we'll catch everybody on the next episode, peace. Don't forget to like, comment and subscribe. And don't forget to hit that notification bell for more amazing content that we're going to be putting out. And don't forget you can change your circle to change your life. Outro Music.
