#22 Still Broke? This Is What You're Doing Wrong (Why Most Entrepreneurs Fail)

Most people say they want to win — but they're making the same mistakes that keep them stuck. Jeff Osuji didn't come from money, didn't have a technical background, and still built three million dollar businesses. In this episode, he gets brutally honest about what separates the entrepreneurs who make it from the ones who don't — from building before talking to your customer, to hiring the wrong people, to expecting your network to carry you. If you've been grinding with nothing to show for it, this conversation will tell you exactly why.

We get into AI's takeover of the workforce, the experience economy, Nigerian immigrant hustle, raising kids in a screen-obsessed world, and why human connection is still the one edge that can't be automated. 

Disclaimer:
The views expressed by me and all guests are personal opinions and do not constitute Financial, Medical, or Legal advice.

#Entrepreneurship #WhyEntrepreneursFail #StillBroke #BlackEntrepreneurs #NigerianAmerican #StartupLife #AIandBusiness #EventIndustry #ExperienceEconomy #Voir #Brotherhood #Masculinity #SelfImprovement #BusinessMindset #LeadershipDevelopment #WorkEthic #ImmigrantMindset #ChicagoBusiness #ScalingABusiness #MindsetMatters #AItools #FutureOfWork #SmallBusiness #Fatherhood #BlackExcellence #EventOrganizers #MentalToughness #LegacyBuilding

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:04

I gotta go out and get it if I'm gonna win, right? And by any means necessary. Um, and when you take that mentality somewhere else where there's more resources, you're gonna be able to thrive. Like it's mandatory right now that your bit my business is using AI, you're any business you're in. I scaled three different businesses to you know seven figures in revenue. And one of them I scale with just two full-time employees, right? I brother 10 lions and 100 sheep. And that mentality is now where you have to be if you're running an organization because less is more, and nobody owes you anything either. Like, don't you can't have a sense of a title, but nobody owes you their dollar, nobody owes you their business, right? You have to earn that.

SPEAKER_00 0:37

In a world where algorithms tell us what to think, entrepreneurship forces independent thought again. It restores judgment, decision making, and ownership. Some entrepreneurs build businesses, a few build ecosystems, but only the rare ones redefine the playing field. Jeff Astuji is one of these rare people. A founder who didn't wait for permission, didn't follow a blueprint, and refused the limits handed to him. He took a simple idea and built something bigger, driven by clarity, creation, and agency. Welcome to the Alpha Renaissance with Jeff Astuji. Jeff, how are you? Doing great, brother. How are you today? Excellent. Is that uh a good explanation? Uh yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:21

Yeah, we're we're a we're an event discovery and entertainment platform. Uh, you know, we're going beyond ticketing, but that's definitely a good start uh to what we do. So appreciate you.

SPEAKER_00 1:30

It's not just ticketing.

SPEAKER_01 1:30

Oh yeah, yeah. Now, ticketing, um, you know, marketing, event discovery, um, activations uh for brands. So we're we're taking a step beyond, but definitely um a core foundation of what we started off is a ticketing platform.

SPEAKER_00 1:43

So is that kind of like where where things are going, where people they want an all-inclusive experience, right? They don't just want to show up to, you know, to a performance or to a party or whatever. Like they want kind of to be involved in a community.

SPEAKER_01 1:59

Definitely. I mean, for us, it was all about building community from the beginning. Uh, people are demanding more of consumer products, they're demanding more from experiences. Um, the experience economy is booming. Uh people are wanting to be able to connect with their friends, they're wanting to be able to event organize or want to get more support, right? They're looking for more than just event platforms or event partners. And as the experience economy continues to grow, uh there's more and more opportunities to really uh add value and extract value from that ecosystem. So we're looking at how we can connect folks from point A to point B uh and introduce more and more uh value add opportunities for event organizers, experienced lovers, and then anybody looking to connect to them as well.

SPEAKER_00 2:39

So yeah, that's that's quite a bit. That's quite a vision that you guys have. How did you get there? Were you always a business guy? Like did business always give you some type of meaning?

SPEAKER_01 2:52

I like to think that I was. Um I was always somebody that uh valued people first. And um I also was somebody that understood the value of time. So I remember being a kid at like five, six years old, and uh probably right seven, eight years old, and paying my younger brother uh to do the dishes in the house. And I was like, man, I really hate doing dishes. I'll clean up, but if I could outsource this piece, you know, I can spend more time doing what I want to do.

SPEAKER_00 3:16

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 3:16

Um so I always have been somebody that's uh understood business, value business, always been ambitious, always wanted more out of life. Uh, you know, growing up, you know, with not too many means, uh, you know, we weren't necessarily poor, but we definitely didn't have everything we wanted. And for me, being able to grow up uh with wants, you know, just really pushed me to uh understand business at an early age and understand uh the need uh to build something that you can uh own, something that you can uh leverage to add value and do the life that you want so you can provide.

SPEAKER_00 3:49

Yeah. Where it's it's something about either being extremely poor, right? Or being like okay, but still with a lot of yearnings and desires for more. Typically it's more things, but oftentimes it's not just that, right? It's more experiences, it's what have you. W what do you think it is about being at that that that that space? Because oftentimes if you, I mean, many of our friends that are, let's say, well off, sometimes, not all the time, sometimes there's something missing there.

SPEAKER_01 4:22

Yeah, yeah. Uh, you gotta have that bite, man. I think that she don't get it if you've give if you're getting given everything that you want in life. I think there's um a lot of other cultures and a lot of people in general, you know, are getting it right now in terms of even if they have something to make sure that they control how much they're giving to their kids. My parents are really good at saying no. If we wanted shoes, if we wanted uh the newest clothes, um, you know, they they gave us what we needed. Never skipped the meal. We all we all pretty pretty heavy set folks. We never skipped the meal.

SPEAKER_02 4:52

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 4:52

But we got the necessities, right? Yeah. I didn't get my first pair of mics until a second pair of mics, until I brought my own as an adult. My first pair got stolen at Chunky Cheese, and we went straight to Payless. Straight to Payless. I'm walking around Payless Parking lot and socks, uh, and I'm in some you know, generics for the rest of the year. Was it Shaq on it? It might have been some shacks or some streetlights. I think it was the streetlights with the sh with the with the fake streetlights. But you know, for me, not having what I wanted as a kid, especially when you get to high school and it's all about a fashion show, right? And if you're in public school, especially if you're in Chicago, if you're not looking right, you're gonna get heated. Uh, and for me, it was really about like understanding that, okay, well, we don't have money for food, but we don't have money for the extra stuff. Yeah. And so if you want the extra stuff, you gotta get out, go out and work for it. Yeah. So as a kid, I'm sure in the snow. Uh, I'm working at uh the Bringley Field, uh helping park cars. Um, I had two, three jobs at all times. And so I learned that the hard I worked, it wouldn't have kept me out of trouble, but also allowed me to buy things that I wanted. Yeah. So for me, it's always I've always been a businessman. I've always loved engaging with people. And for me, it was nothing better than having a day where you work super hard, you'd be able to fill your pockets, you know?

SPEAKER_00 5:57

Yeah, yeah. It's it's weird. I had another guest on earlier and I said the same thing. I didn't, you know, we didn't have a lot of money, right? We ate every day, but we didn't have a lot of money. And one of the best, I remember one of the best victories I ever had was when I was able to buy my own pair of Air Force Ones. Man, that'll do it. That was great. And that was small things. I think I was, oh my god, I had to be like 17.

SPEAKER_01 6:20

Small things, man. Yeah, small things.

SPEAKER_00 6:22

And it was from a, I had this one, one of these whack jobs at like a restaurant. Yeah, and that was the first thing, the first thing I bought was those Air Force Ones, the high tops with the silver swoosh and like the strap hanging. You know what I'm talking about?

SPEAKER_01 6:38

Man, I remember making$5.15. I know exactly what you're talking about, too. I make a$5.15 at Novelty Golf in uh Skokie. I'd take a slow bus trip at the work. Uh my brother Larry, shout out to him, man. We were sweeping the sweeping the floors and uh we were, oh my gosh,$5.15, man. We made it work. Made it count. Yeah, I remember$5.15.

SPEAKER_00 6:58

Yeah, we could afford that minimum.

SPEAKER_01 7:00

We could buy academic sweatsuits for the house parties. And uh eventually I got a job at a high school, I'm sorry, at a at the at the mall, and then live, and that changed my life because we were just buying clothes. It's all we wanted as kids. But again, working those hours, and my parents made it clear if you want, we're gonna give you everything you need, but if you want something extra, you're gonna have to go out and earn it. You have to get it yourself. So, and that bought me my independence. When I was able to pay for what I wanted, um, you know, I was able to stay out a little bit later. You know, I was able to, I got my independence. And so, you know, I've always been somebody that really enjoyed value exchange, business, and then the fruits of your labor, right? Enjoying that. You know, you know, if you work hard, a lot of friends doing other things that weren't necessarily um something you could be proud of. And for me, I felt proud going to work and uh being able to pay for most.

SPEAKER_00 7:46

Yeah. I think you when you grow up in a city, right, you have you're you interact with all types of kids coming from different backgrounds. The schools are mixed often, right? Different socioeconomic backgrounds, different ethnic backgrounds, and you get exposed to just quite a different, uh, let's say, alternative ways of living. Oh yeah, oh yeah. You know? So that was uh, I'm sure for you, especially you, you had you came from a different background. Your parents did it, right? Your parents are from Nigeria.

SPEAKER_01 8:14

Yeah, both parents from Nigeria. I'm Shigerian, uh born and raised in Shigeria, in Chicago. Uh parents came here from Nigeria, and you know, the Nigerian culture was always been big on hard work ethic.

SPEAKER_00 8:24

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 8:25

Always instilled that to me early, being excellent. Um also pride, you know. I it was it was certain times, you know, you had, you know, free lunch or or discount lunch, and you looked at your friends who had the good juice boxes and the and the good gushers and snacks, and you're going to eat the dry cardboard peach, and you're like, man, but we always had our head up. You know, we always are proud of who we were. Um and for me, seeing that from other from those folks who might have been doing a little bit better than us, right? They didn't have five kids like we did, it it made me want, right? It made me desire to compete and to go out there, get good grades, and put myself in a position where um I could just do what I wanted, you know? And so uh I had a great childhood. Great, and again, growing up with that diverse experience allowed me to see so many different things. Yeah. See how they treated certain kids different, see how whose parents were involved in uh in the actual school and whether it was chaperoning and how they were to leverage politics to make sure their kids were in a good position and you know who would get in trouble. So, you know, I really thank my parents. You know, whenever I would get in trouble, which is a lot, uh my pops would come out to the school. Yeah, my pops would come up to the school. I was always one or two uh black males in class, and you know, somehow I was always considered the problem child, um, but also a leader. I remember fifth grade, my teacher sat me down and said, Look, I need you and another girl named Ashley, I need you to talk to the kids. They only listen to you guys, tell them to be hate, you know. So I established leadership early. And um my pops and my parents are always really supportive of me.

SPEAKER_00 9:51

So yeah. What do you we we see so much of uh uh a renaissance of Nigerian culture? Wherever Nigeria is going, Nigerians are making things happen. I mean, it could be it could be South Africa, it could be London, it could be here in the States. Nigeria is having a moment. And I always think that a lot of times when you when you see someone having a group having a renaissance, it's always reflected in arts as well. Like arts are like the last thing that but it comes, right? So you can have the scientists, you can have the engineers, but when it starts to come into the arts, you you start to really feel like, okay, these people are having a moment, right? You see that right now uh with just the music scene in Nigeria. Like it's just it's just it's just insane. What is it about Nigerian culture or Nigerian culture right now where it is having that moment?

SPEAKER_01 10:46

Or do you think it's even having a moment? You know what it's definitely having a moment. I think I think we're having a moment for a while. And I think that it's really comes down to a few things about Nigerian people. Uh, we've learned to do uh a lot with less. I think that when you're in any situation or in a country where um you've been able to come out of that country, right? Just to being able to get out of a place that you might love and call home, but to go and set your foot out, and it's it's the whole immigration, you know, immigrant story is that when you leave to another country, you see the opportunities that you might not have had back home. Totally. And you work hard to take full advantage of those, right? You see those opportunities and you you identify them and you do your best to accomplish. Now, the world is now paying attention to us through Afrobeats. Uh that take pain to pay attention to our swag, uh, our social media has allowed us to, the the whole world to see the greatness, whether it's beyond dancing, right, uh to see the story of Africa that has not been told in a mainstream way for years, right? And so people are seeing the beauty of Africa, the culture, um, the arts, the intellect. I think we've seen the intellect for years. Yeah. Um, but there's just this appreciation because of the fact I believe that the whole story is now being told, right? Um, the youngest uh community in the world, right? The youngest population is in Africa. Yes. And Nigeria in particular, being the most populous uh country in Africa, um, everybody's been touched, you know, in America or any other, well, you my cousins in Ireland, right? I got cousins in Ireland, I got cousins in the UK, Scotland, right? Any country you go, you're gonna see Nigerians. Yeah. Because we're gonna pick up and go and go get, right? And so the world is now seeing that um we're an amazing, brilliant people, the most educated people uh in the world. But also, we've always been great at embracing any place we're at. Yeah. And so I think our impact's being seen in more ways than one, whether you look at medicine, whether you look at Afrobeats and what Purno Boy and Davido are doing, whether you look at fashion, what people like Ugomosey are doing. And so we just have this mindset that you have to be better than the next per person next to you. It's competition in schools, you have to have the best grades. Um, I think that that served us well.

SPEAKER_00 12:52

I think a lot of immigrants, wherever they come from, when they come to this country, it's it's if it's if it's like if you love candy, it's an unlimited supply here in America. And I know however people may feel about you know the US and the country and where it's going or where it's at, but the truth is it's nothing that can even compete with what America has to offer. And so when you come from a place where it's uh you know Nigeria is highly competitive. Yeah. Oh yeah. The largest population in Africa, I believe, right?

SPEAKER_01 13:26

Yep, largest population in Africa, artist country, um, and it's the size of Texas, uh, but has well over a hundred million folks. Yeah, a hundred million folks. Um, well over a hundred million, and so maybe even maybe close to 170. I think it's more than that.

SPEAKER_00 13:39

Because I know like Egypt has like a hundred million. Yeah, yeah, over the second.

SPEAKER_01 13:43

Close to 170 or so, I'll double check, but definitely the size of Texas, right?

SPEAKER_00 13:47

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 13:47

But when you think about it, and if you're there, and I felt the same thing when I was in Mumbai, India, um, when you have so many people and you have resources that have been extracted from a country, there's only limited resources, right? You have more and more people battling for those resources. Uh, and so you have no choice but to but to get it. And you feel the energy when you land in Lagos. You feel the pressure, the intensity. Where it's like, look, I gotta go out and get it if I'm gonna win, right? And by any means necessary. Um, and when you take that mentality, somewhere else where there's more resources, you're gonna be able to thrive. And to your point, um, with everything that America has going on, there's still a place where if you work hard, um, despite the hardships, despite the obstacles, you can't attain that American dream. I believe is still achievable, right? Yeah. Despite more and more pressures pushing down on that and pushing against that, it's still a place where you can win if you're, depending on what winning looks like to you. But you can build a nice life for your family if you work hard.

SPEAKER_00 14:38

Yeah, it's it's it's very resilient country. And the excitement, the enthusiasm here is unlike in any other places because people actually believe they have a chance.

SPEAKER_01 14:49

I think one of my mentors says, I mean, outworking the person next to you is I think easier than it's ever been before. I think that uh technology has done a great job of helping us be more efficient, but it's also made a lot of people lazy. Um, and I think that if work, hard work ethic has been instilled in you, uh, now more than ever, it's easier to set yourself apart from people. I think, you know, America's uh a country where if you work hard, we really value that. No. I was in Europe uh, you know, last year, and you know, we work really hard, especially compared to other countries.

SPEAKER_00 15:19

Oh man, Europeans? Yeah, they don't know what work is. It's like the laziest group of people on earth, man. I look my wife is European, so I talk trash about them, okay?

SPEAKER_01 15:30

NLCS's here, you know? NLCS. No CS's. Right. We're working nonstop, and um, you know, it's it's part of our culture. Yeah. Um, and I think that if you have, and if you go across the different borders, you know, you got different type of work folks on their feet all day.

SPEAKER_00 15:44

Yeah. And by the way, my wife is not lazy.

SPEAKER_01 15:47

The correction, brother. Yeah, a little correction.

SPEAKER_00 15:49

But yeah, work culture, when you go to these other places, I'm like, how do these people have any purpose or meaning? Because in America, so much of who we are, especially as a man, is tied up in our work.

SPEAKER_01 16:00

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 16:01

And so, like, when you go to a place where it's function, you know, civilization is functioning. Like, they have they have, you know, they have all the things that, you know, a developed country have, but like that, that hustle isn't there. It's a little it's a little actually quaint when you're there because you're like, okay, what are you guys doing? That's how Europe feels with up there.

SPEAKER_01 16:21

Yeah, a good place. I think um, depending on where you are, but especially when we're, you know, we're on vacation, usually when we're there, but you know, it's definitely a different type of work, man. Yeah. And I think it's uh value. Um, as you get older, you realize that work is important. Working smartest is even more important than working hard. And especially as you build a family, um, you want to try to figure out some type of balance. Um, but I think that, yeah, they I actually like the way they look at at work to a certain extent. Because you gotta you gotta take a break.

SPEAKER_00 16:50

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 16:50

You gotta be able to take a break. And it's important that you rest aggressively. That's one thing I learned in the past year. Yeah, yeah. It's just a person that you work hard as that you rest aggressively. And so I'm not sure that's something, you know, women are still getting three to six months off. Um, if that, you know, for you know, for when they have children. And you know, you got some folks getting a whole year off in some places.

SPEAKER_00 17:09

So it's different, right? It's different concerns. Yeah, it's pros and cons. Yeah, it's pros and cons. Like I do, there is we're hyper materialistic in the states, right? I mean, everything, you know, you get it, you get it quick, you get it how you want, you get as much as you want. Like that, that's what we do, right? But you go to the other, the old, I call it the old world. You cross the Atlantic, whether you're in Africa or Europe or Asia, is the old world, even though lots is very modern. But the philosophy is old world philosophy, right?

SPEAKER_01 17:39

Yeah, no, I think having that mixture of both and exposure both does put people uh ahead of your people who've just been in one place their whole life. I think that's why you see a lot of Nigerian immigrants thriving. Um and a lot of you know light on Africa right now. So when Ghana's not still in our light, you know, because they did it, they do a really good job with the return of uh the return and then the all the marketing that they're doing the tourism. I mean great marketing, amazing, amazing place as well, West Africa. And um, you know, I I'm glad that the world's seeing um that you have to be international nowadays.

SPEAKER_00 18:12

Yeah, yeah, yeah. And that these places are no's on the international universal silk road. It doesn't necessarily lead to China, just it's just nonstop, it's just expand stuff and it's it's a circle, it's going around the world.

SPEAKER_01 18:24

The days of just, you know, thinking America's center of the world and that's it, I think, are are are over.

SPEAKER_00 18:29

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 18:29

I think that you know if you're looking to thrive, you have to be able to touch other land, you have to be able to have exposure. You're seeing uh economies shifting, you're seeing currencies shifting, alliances shifting. Um it's important to get out there and have exposure to how the people.

SPEAKER_00 18:44

Yeah, there there are some there are some growing pains to that as well, right? Where Americans were used to going to places and we just deal whatever we want. You know, the doors, the the the carpet was rolled out.

SPEAKER_01 18:55

Now you got folks getting locked up. Yeah. Now you got folks getting locked up for years with a little bit of bud. So yeah, I mean, you got to watch how you roll when you're in some of these places. I'm yeah, I want to hear these stories about folks getting locked up for doing stupid stuff. You gotta remember everybody doesn't does roll how we roll. Yeah, they don't.

SPEAKER_00 19:12

It's a it's a different and it the tolerance that other countries have. Respect the soil, where you have exactly. They just we have a different, we have a higher tolerance for many things. You know, 100%. We value personal freedom, and that's not always the same everywhere.

SPEAKER_01 19:28

Yeah, we're starting to see that here too. So we start to see that here too, man. Um, so yeah, it's it's 100% a lot of liberties that we do enjoy here that you don't have elsewhere. And certain things that people just aren't gonna rock with, and they you know, we can't bring that mindset to other places.

SPEAKER_00 19:43

Well, going back, how old were you when you realized you wanted to be an entrepreneur?

SPEAKER_01 19:48

I want to say it was about uh 18 years old. 18. Yeah. Um around 18, by then I had been working uh a few few different jobs, um, and I was just really, really inspired by um the folks who are friends of mine whose parents ran businesses. Um they seemed to be doing pretty well, but I was always someone that got in trouble because I didn't like taking direction. And I knew that eventually I one had to get grades to get out of my parents' house. And when I went went to college at 18, I saw my friends who were doing whose parents dropped them off in Benzes and Lexus's and Beamers, and I would ask what their parents did. And a lot of times, whether it was lawyers, judges, uh, but a lot of you know, flyest whips for folks whose parents were entrepreneurs. Yeah. Um, I also saw Air Force Ones my freshman year with my college roommate Dre. Uh, and we were like, we were like, man, we can't just work in a cafeteria all day. We gotta do something aside. Yeah, yeah. And I just realized that I just really valued only my time.

SPEAKER_00 20:48

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 20:49

Um, and so I knew by 18 and by 19 I started a business on campus, hosting events and experiences, bringing people together. And um I knew that at that point that uh especially once I shadowed a doctor and saw blood, I'm like, okay, I'm I'm gonna finish this chemistry degree because I'm not a quitter. Um, and I enjoy, you know, really exercising my critical thinking skills, but I know that I have to go into business and I gotta work for myself.

SPEAKER_00 21:13

Yeah. Did you so did you go into business because you you wanted to work for yourself because you couldn't work for anybody else? That was a part of it.

SPEAKER_01 21:21

That was a part of it. I f I I did research and I realized that the two highest paid people were CEOs and salespeople, right? And I uh research study kind of stuck in my head. And I really enjoyed the freedom of hosting my own events. I I got fired from the um campus uh lunchroom, you know what I'm saying, the cafeteria. I got fired because I had uh finals, and I think you couldn't miss two shifts if you during finals a week, otherwise you got fired. So I was already, you know, pissed I'm over here going to school and I gotta work and and and I'm working at cafeteria. I'm saying I didn't like the uniform. And when they fired me for uh missing two shifts during finals, I'm like, man, this is me. I gotta figure something else out.

SPEAKER_00 21:56

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 21:57

And I started throwing my only Experiences and events through a company called Pyramid. And I go from the chemistry lab to parties that I host with like 800 people. This place called the Canopy Club. And there was no better feeling to me than being on that canopy stage down at the U of I University of Illinois, the 800 folks. You put together experience, 800 people show up, and you walk away with a profit. And so I was taking trips to Jamaica during college, the spring break, and trips from doing something I love, which is bringing people together. Yeah. And so knowing that you could do something you love and make money off of it was a game changer for me. Then working in my chemistry lab under a PhD award-winning researcher, Dr. Neil Kellehair. He's currently a Northwestern. I worked in his genomics lab, didn't understand anything about genomics, didn't understand anything about proteomics and proteins, but I learned a little bit. And but I but what was most fascinating to me was the fact that his whole staff and research lab, million-dollar research lab, was funded by grants.

SPEAKER_00 22:54

Yes.

SPEAKER_01 22:55

He was not a doctor, but he was working in uh clinical and research and getting million-dollar grants to be able to support his research. And that's that business of uh of science and healthcare and just how that intersected was really fascinating to me.

SPEAKER_00 23:09

So yeah, it's something you hear people that go into, like I went, you know, to health fields, right? Like uh people go into teaching or social work, and a lot of times their reason is they want to help people, right? But then you kind of start to figure out like when you go into those fields, the people that are funding it are capitalists.

SPEAKER_01 23:27

100%.

SPEAKER_00 23:28

100%. They're entrepreneurs, they're people with cash.

SPEAKER_01 23:31

People forget that it takes resources oftentimes and finances to be able to help people, right? You have in order. I know when you start, you can't just start a business. Oftentimes you'll need a line of credit. Uh you're gonna need you could try to bootstrap, but you go further if you have more resources. So, yeah, I mean, unfortunately, it takes money to make money a lot of times. And um, a lot of times that money uh may come from the government, may come from investors, but you have to understand by understanding the business behind that, it allows you to succeed.

SPEAKER_00 23:57

So Yeah, yeah. That's a well, that's an interesting journey. So you you didn't find meaning in in the lab in as a chemist.

SPEAKER_01 24:07

Well, I found meaning, but I didn't enjoy it as much. Right. Um, I got my chemistry degree just to because it challenged me. And I was like, I'm not gonna quit, I'm gonna get this degree. Right. I'm already not doing pre-med, if you're not a jury and you're supposed to be a doctor or a lawyer, like I can't go home with failure. Let me at least get this chemistry degree and finish it out. So I finished the degree um and immediately uh decided to apply for an MBA as opposed to applying for medical school. Yeah. The reason being is I already knew I want to run my own business. Like I said, I've never been great at taking direction. It was a reason I used to get straight A's or on a row, but then I get check marks for it, pays attention, listens. Something about somebody telling me, um, giving me direction and telling me what to do when I didn't want to do it really irked me to this day. Yeah. I tell my wife, look, if you want me to wash the dishes, just, you know, suggest it. Don't I, don't, don't, don't give me a command. I just never responded well to it. So I know I wasn't the most, you know, fall in line type of guy. And I just am more motivated when I'm doing things that I enjoy, and two, when I'm bringing my dreams to life. I think one of the most powerful things that God has given us is the ability to manifest our dreams and ideas and go from ideation to execution. And so that's always fascinating to me, the fact that you can have an idea, and then next thing you know, you're you're it's come to life. And for me, experiences in hosting events was that. I had ideas, and me and my partner would have these different themes from events. Um, and then three months later, it will come to life. We bring people together. Everybody loved it. We walked away with some money, and I'm like, wow, I could do this for forever. And so I learned marketing. I learned the importance of leveraging data and activating data. And so for me, I just yeah, I knew that after that, I was like, let me just get this MBA. It's 08. My chemistry major friends are making$30,000 a year, yeah, working in a wet lab. It's not the future I want to I want to get into. Yeah. So I applied, I got an MBA two years and learned more about business management marketing. Uh took an internship in LA as opposed to a full-time job because the market was rough, but also just to learn to see did I want to go into science or did I want to go into business uh and lifestyle space with the events I was doing. Um and I realized that while I found a lot of meaning in what I was doing that summer, made a lot of great connections. I still wanted to make sure that I was living my purpose, which is improving the quality of life in my community through health, wealth, and leisure. Um and so I went to work actually for a health startup because I felt like I wanted to make sure that I could one work under a CEO, uh, and then two also have um, you know, a real positive impact on my community uh while learning how to be a good businessman.

SPEAKER_00 26:40

Yeah, interesting. Did you feel like the MBA actually helped you?

SPEAKER_01 26:46

100%. Um when you don't know.

SPEAKER_00 26:47

So many people will feel I mean Elon Musk, I mean, he thinks that uh MBA is crap, right? So many people will say that they're like, you don't need an MBA. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 26:56

You don't you know I think today you don't need one. I think there's much more access to information and people are more accessible. Um I think LinkedIn had just started popping back then. And for me, I just simply was not mature enough to go out into the workforce yet. And I knew that. Um I was enjoying myself in college, I was running a business, uh, I did five years, and I knew at the time the job I wanted was going to be there. And so for me, it's like, okay, either go learn some more, right? And get, I had never taken business classes, mind you. And so I knew I needed to get a stronger business background if this is what I wanted to do. Um, so for me at the time, the NBA was a necessity. I was the youngest person in my NBA class, uh, me and my guy, Eric. And for me, it was an opportunity for me to learn business, get a core foundation of business, two, learn how to really connect and network the right way. Um, and three, also give me two more years to mature so that I could actually really apply the principle I learned to my exist the entertainment business, um, and then look for opportunities while I did that. So yeah, that's I think NBA is amazing if you don't have a business background.

SPEAKER_00 27:58

Yeah. I mean, that took a lot of self-awareness for you to actually realize, like, uh, actually, I need a little more time.

SPEAKER_01 28:05

Hey, spreadsheets, man, if you don't understand numbers, yeah, you're trying to run a business. Like I feel for other dentists and doctors to start their own practice. My wife started her practice. And so the deep wife has her own medical dental practice, right? And so for her, having never worked with spreadsheets and done accounting, right, you're speaking a whole other language. And most people that run their own businesses find out how what a PL is after they run a business, right? So it's very important to understand your numbers. And for me, I got that background from NBA.

SPEAKER_00 28:34

Yeah, I've, you know, I had another, I had a dentist on who's excellent. He started quite a few businesses. And his main thing is you have to educate yourself as a doctor in order to be successful. You have to educate yourself on those like rudimentary business concepts, spreadsheets, numbers, just marketing, the marketing. I mean, huge. These are things that typically clinicians are just clueless about.

SPEAKER_01 29:01

And my wife went to another one of school in Michigan. I'm gonna brag on my baby real quick. But what she said is that I didn't know dentistry was about sales. Yeah. Right. She got to be. You gotta be able to touch people the right way, right? You gotta be able to, you know, rub people the right way and build relationships with your patients in order to keep them. You know?

SPEAKER_00 29:20

Yeah, sales. You were also very, very early on, you were able to recognize that you need to do something with longevity, right? You needed to find a way to monetize and actually commoditize yourself. You enjoy bringing people together. Yeah. When did you notice that there was a specific niche that you could feel, a gap in bringing people together that in the market that you identified?

SPEAKER_01 29:47

Great question. For me, when I looked at um where I was at, um, there was a situation that happened at my college, my university, they canceled the hip-hop night because there were, you know, athletes were getting into it with the the locals uh on campus. And so this is something that happens a lot at college campuses, right? You clash with um, you might clash with folks who aren't necessarily at the school but are coming to the school. Yeah. Right. But at Moscow, what's unique about the University of Illinois is that, you know, historically it has a strong tie to the community. Um but we know when you had kids, you know, 18, 19, folks in clash are fighting, right? And so they canceled hip hop night, which is a huge blow to the community because a lot of black students want to go out and listen to hip hop, and we had nowhere to go. And for us, I was able to fill a void and start hosting events uh specifically that catered to hip hop music. And and everybody loved hip hop music, so I have other folks come too. Um but I realized that I became that go-to person even after college where folks would go to DC, New York, Atlanta, and they ask me, man, where can I go to listen to this is good music, have a good time. And I'm like, well, folks are still asking me this five to ten years after college.

SPEAKER_02 30:50

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 30:51

Um, you know, clearly the general market platforms that are out there aren't doing a good job of helping people uh find their, you know, preferred experiences, right? And so I ended up focusing on, you know, black culture-centric experiences first, um, and start eventually simply to connect folks to those types of experiences. Again, uh, where folks can be in spaces and places where where they're celebrated, not just tolerated. That's how we started off. And then we found quickly after expanding over 52 markets over the last few years, um, that there's other preferences people have as well, right? Some people, not everybody wants to go to the club now, right? Some people looking to go out and find people they can do yoga with, right? And and people that they can, a lot of people aren't even drinking. And so for us, it's about uh learning more and more about our consumers and getting suggestions to them uh for places where they can go, because sometimes going out is therapy. When out with your friends is therapy, sitting talking with your people and connecting can get you the job, the wife you want. So for me, I understood that if this community is being neglected, let me figure out how to service them better than the other platforms are doing.

SPEAKER_00 31:51

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 31:52

And when, especially with uh the African-American consumer that's oftentimes neglected or feels taken advantage of by brands and folks that are just being transactional, right? When a brand says, Hey, I see you, I I I I love you, I'm saying I'm looking to serve you, um, you know, you're gonna get a good, good, good response. So we were able to benefit from uh a lot of early support for folks who said, oh man, they see me. And I think for us it's about better events, right, for folks who are looking for diverse cultural experiences.

SPEAKER_00 32:24

Man, you mentioned like something that, you know, happens a lot, right? In terms of, you know, you have events where people come and they act a fool, right? They clown, they get into fights. And a lot of times for, especially in the entertainment scene, it's difficult. And not just entertainment, I mean, we could talk about consumer issues, consumer, you know, stores. It's difficult to get those services to the black community because of those concerns, right? It's difficult to have events, you know, and and and shows to come to certain areas because of those concerns. And you seem to have found a way to work around that. What's your secret?

SPEAKER_01 33:02

Well, for me, um, you know, I own a bar with some of my best friends called Hugh Chicago in in the South Loop, and I also have hosted events for 20 years. Um, and so I've always looked to cater to that crowd that's looking to have a good time and not, you know, at the fools. So we are very, always very, very specific about dress codes early on, specific about who we're marketing to, because you might not be the problem. Your cousin might be the problem. And you know your cousin's not the person that you need to bring out.

SPEAKER_00 33:28

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 33:28

Um so I've always been big on invest and having to, I've had to invest in heavy security. I've had to invest in, you know, uh making sure that there's folks enforcing the dress code. I've also had vested in marketing and build an audience that understands that, hey, when you go to this event, you go to just event, act right. You know, I I have folks that I talk to that are my friends and say, hey, look, if you have an issue, bring it to me. I think it's responsible for every event host that be responsible for your people as much as you can. And so I've I've done a couple of things because the reason I, another reason I started event in War was because that once people found out that I was uh black, um, they would actually uh increase the bar minimum, which is understandable for folks who have had issues, right? But if you're just seeing, oh man, I'm catering doctors and lawyers. And I'm sorry, I'm being treated like this. So for me, I've always done a couple things. I've vested more in security, right? I've in implemented a dress code, which a lot of you don't like dress codes. I love them. I feel like if you when you look good and you feel good, you're gonna have a good time. And so I've always implemented dress codes. On top of that, I've always been very cognizant about who's coming out. Yeah, I'm staying in touch with people. Hey, look, this is the this is the the code, these are the rules for the day, right? This is how you I think when you treat people with respect, they also give respect.

SPEAKER_00 34:43

I think dress code is a big if you my rule is if you have to ask about the dress code, probably don't belong there.

SPEAKER_01 34:51

That's how I feel.

SPEAKER_00 34:52

I mean, I'm okay because it might not be a place where you'll feel comfortable.

SPEAKER_01 34:56

Yeah, and post-pandemic, I know people are dressing down. I don't put on a suit as much as I used to, right? I I I I was at a conference just a couple weeks ago, and I had my gym shoes on, you know, my sneakers on with my my suit, which is my style now. But look, you feel damn good when you get dressed up. I was at a GZ concert just a couple weeks ago, and at TM101's 20th anniversary, and seeing everybody dressed in black tie, uh, and you could tell it was old school trappers and hustlers, and and but everybody looked damn good, you know, glowed up. And so it was just, you just feel good when you dress up. And so for me, I'm a big advocate of dress codes and implementing them across the board. Now just be fair and make sure that you treat everybody the same way, and everybody has to enforce a dress code. But that's helped, it's helped me a lot.

SPEAKER_00 35:38

Yeah, yeah, I know that's like just such a critical like pressure point when it comes to your business, especially, you know, uh the crowd that is sometimes perceived that you cater to, right? Because people may perceive, right, like uh these things can happen in in spaces, let's be honest, where like black people come and hang out and have a good time. You know, you get some like bad apples that come there that shouldn't be there, don't know how to behave, don't know anything about dressing. They don't, they wouldn't know how to, they wouldn't own a suit, they wouldn't own a jacket, they wouldn't own even a collar shirt. I mean, a lot of times, right? Somehow those individuals get into the spaces and it has a domino effect for everyone.

SPEAKER_01 36:18

It could be one person making a bad decision that can ruin somebody's business for for years, right? Um we have bad apples in every culture, but you know, we have seen um that in our community that there it is an issue. I can't, I don't want to shy away from it. Like folks don't want to act like it's real. There's a real issue right now with the music, um, the the life imitating art, right? Um and in some cases, art imitating life, but there's a real issue with violence right now, all right? And it's it's been going on, but it's it's a real issue that can ruin businesses. And I've seen businesses close. I've seen a story of, okay, mainstream bar, business is down. Let me care to um this hip hop audience. Okay, great. They're having some party, they spend money. Ooh, I could even increase the prices because they used to spend them more and popping bottles. The bar's going well. Oh man. Everybody knows about it now in that community. Yeah, man, okay. Everybody's coming. Oh man, we can't control this. Bam. Somebody that shouldn't be here gets up in here, gets around here, has a problem with somebody. And unfortunately, violence is a real issue in America. And an incident happens, and now that place is shut down. They lose up, they lose their license. And so it's a real, it's a real thing, man. It's it's, you know, we have to be in a position where we can teach our young men emotional intelligence, yeah, um, vulnerability, um, to love each other. Um, our our sisters too, right? And so we know there's a number of uh factors that played a role in why we are where we are, but I would I would love to bring that community and culture back as much as possible. And so I'm doing more experiences around, you know, we just hosted a health and wellness seminar. But emotional intelligence, the ability for us to be able to say, look, oh, that man stuck on my shoes, uh, this man is my brother, let me not do anything wrong to him, is uh is something that we had to work on. That's a whole nother story. But yeah, in events, one person, one bad apple can ruin a business and somebody's reputation in the event industry for years. So yeah, that's in security.

SPEAKER_00 38:18

I had a I had a guest on the show, uh psychologists who had a crazy experience with suicide, right? Basically 12 of her friends within her like friends' group, I should say, committed suicide. Together or different times? Different times, different, like different spaces, they committed suicide. And it kind of blew my mind because I was thinking, like, would that have happened 15 years, 20 years, you know, 20 years ago before you have social media? Right. Only reason I bring it up is because one of her explanations for this why this happened was the amplification with technology. Oh, yeah, right? The amplification of seeing your friends go through this, being able to commensurate together and form like these online communities about basically anything about suicide. Right. And it might not be an official online community, but everyone is kind of learning and going through shock together, and then Cobain, then also mimicking this behavior, which then leads them to commit the same acts, right? And you see this amplification too in your world, right, where someone observes the behavior in one of these spaces where we're celebrating culture, but someone has absorbed some negative behavior somewhere and they then act on it, and then they ruin it for everyone else. And you see, and a lot of times it's it's the young man, right, trying to improve themselves. And it's it's something for me that I've always had a lot of questions about because if you're spending your time right being aggressive in the space, uh ruining the space for everybody else, right? That could be some time that you're using to do whatever. But the fact that you don't lets me know that your role models, where you're where you're where you're taking your examples from how to behave, they're not there. And it's not and it's another thing, it's not just like this, it's not just like particularly like this community or like black community. It's kind of across the board now. Where, I mean, even if you look at this uh this shooter, um uh this this the shooter for Charlie Kirk, right? It's a young man. It's like what are they where where are young men picking up these cues for this really aggressive antisocial behavior?

SPEAKER_01 40:44

Man, well, but what we know is more guns than ever now in America. It's more good, more guns. I think it's more guns that we need in America, uh, whether it's the good guys or the bad guys. You know, you don't see this type of shootings in other countries, just don't have as many guns. But when we talk about social media, you talk about the amplification of messaging, whether it's negative or positive, but you're getting hit with it every single day. Yeah. Right? I know, I don't know why some of the stuff comes up in my algorithm that I see, but it's it's a lot of defamation, a lot of degradation, a lot of violence, right? And you're seeing this nonstop. And so it's training your mind. You're becoming desensitized to violence. You're becoming desensitized to somebody slap somebody. Um, and so it's about what you're feeding your mind. It's so important. I think that social media is made so that you can literally be on your phone all day and feed your mind garbage and feed your mind aggression. Um, not to mention, of course, everybody needing a positive robot in their life. Again, for me, a big reason why we started with my company was that I wanted to step away from just hosting my own experiences, more supporting event organizers on how to scale, on how to move right to make sure they can have longevity. There was a year where we had a really successful year hosting events and experiences and traveled across the country. I'm like, this is the right way to do it. A lot of event organizers are doing this the wrong way. They're not making the money they should be making, they're not negotiating right deals. They're having one incident ruin their whole reputation. And so for me, you know, I took a step back from hosting these experiences because a lot of stress they had to deal with. It was a fake less job. And I wanted to build a scalable platform to help support folks like me who felt helpless at times. And so, but the violence piece of that social media is is real. You gotta filter out what you feed in your mind. And my my kids, I know, they're not gonna be able to be on their phone all day. Uh they gotta have filters because you now can literally watch death, destruction, violence 24-7. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 42:37

Your phone without being turned off. Yeah, and that's the weird thing too, right? Like it's not the screens are only getting worse. I mean, you I mean, the AI sunglasses, right? I mean, we are only becoming the more wearables, we're only becoming more engrossed into the screens. Oh, yeah. And it's it's really tricky, like as a parent, to, okay, how are we gonna limit negative interactions with the screen? Also, like the kids' world is gonna be on the screen. Like, that that's that's their world. So, like, how do you, you know, we're trying to figure out how do we just like limit the time, but also give them quality time that's gonna be constructive for their future, which is a tough one.

SPEAKER_01 43:19

One I want to shout out to my pops. One of the best days he ever did with us is we couldn't watch TV Monday through Thursday, right? So when we got schoolwork to do, it's no TV, right? No screen time. Now I sneak out sometimes, I play football, I get in trouble, couldn't go out though, usually, couldn't watch football. I mean, couldn't watch TV. Cutting out that screen time is so necessary. It allows you to train your mind and learn how to interact with people. Because another problem that you're seeing is that with as people are uh on their phones all day, they forget how to interact with people. Yeah. Nowadays you can't have an honest conversation with folks like you could because folks don't know how to talk with each other. Yeah. Right? You can't call somebody up and have a direct conversation because so much of your conversations are happening through DM and through through social media where there's no consequences for crazy comments. And saying anything you want to people. People forgot that there's real consequences in the world when you and and also forgot how to communicate. Um, so one thing I wanna make, I'm gonna make sure I'm still with my kids is that we gotta cut that screen time off. Even now, me and my wife agree, look, Fridays be cutting out the phones, we spend the time together, right? There's numerous studies that show the how screen time causes dysregulation in children. Totally. Right. You call you see them call uh temperature. I've seen in my son, if he's we don't let them watch TV anymore. Like we're gonna watch TV right now.

SPEAKER_02 44:29

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 44:29

Because you'll see that treat a big one. Yep. Like you'll see them become dysregulated when they when you turn off their phone. So it's definitely, you know, I love the cocoa melons, I love the baby sharks, and but you know, if you're watching that stuff all day, right, and it's it's they know what they're doing with the Well, it's ads. It's ads, they know what they're doing, they know how to draw those kids in, but the kids will just be, you know, zombies. And so being able to interact with people is the best thing in business. If you're starting a business, if you're people pay millions of dollars to manage people because they know how to deal with people.

SPEAKER_00 45:04

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 45:04

And what you're finding is people who don't know how to communicate. And I see this in the Java Force, I see this where life is a series of pressure situations. And you see in these people who can't communicate in pressure situations. And one thing I'm I'm really, really pride myself on is the ability and comfortability to have an uncomfortable conversation at any given time.

SPEAKER_02 45:23

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 45:24

And when you want to be a leader and you want to manage people, you have to be comfortable and have an uncomfortable conversation, which means you gotta learn how to interact with people. And if you're building a business or yourselves, you understand, you know, nonverbal communications. And you can't do that when you're on screen all day, when you're interacting with people.

SPEAKER_00 45:38

Yeah, that's the fear that I see for a lot of people that are so the generation that just goes straight to artificial intelligence, right? Like they can hash Chat GPT any question and gives them an answer. They don't know how to code, it can code, it can, it can create a launch site, a landing page for them, whatever they want, right? But it's something about getting the lesson from the skills that actually get you to that point of expertise. That that's where you really learn, right?

SPEAKER_01 46:08

It's something about human emotion and human interaction that can't be replicated. And AI is here to stay, it's transforming the world in front of us. People that know how to use are gonna win. But there's still no replacement for human interaction. Sitting another man, sit in front of another man, look at a man in his eye, and let him know, hey, I mean business.

SPEAKER_00 46:27

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 46:28

Being able to tell this guy is bullshit and you are not, right? Those are the things that you can't AI can't be used to replicate. Authenticity, right? Um, being able to hug somebody that you love, right? Being able to really just interact with somebody, those are things that AI can't replicate. Well, it's gonna replicate a lot of things. You see, the jobs, the jobs are are are falling. People are being more and more efficient. But what I what I want to say is that that interact, a human interaction, that has to survive. Yeah. Like being an entrepreneur and even having to raise capital, right? Yeah. You're raising capital people that you don't know. Yeah. I've had situations where I could tell that the Zoom interaction wasn't gonna do it. The Zoom interaction was cool, he's still filling me out. Yeah. I've had to pull up to cities and say, look, hey, let's have lunch. I met with somebody for 10 minutes, right? Just let them know I'm very serious, right? But also, I need you to look in my eyes and tell how serious I am about my business and about making sure that I'm a I'm taking care of your money.

SPEAKER_00 47:27

And you're interviewing them as well. It works both ways.

SPEAKER_01 47:30

100%. So AI is just transforming every industry, right? Now's the time to get rich off of it. If you can't build a solution that's gonna save people time, make people more money. Um, but yeah, there's gonna be certain things that cannot be replicated no matter what.

SPEAKER_00 47:43

Yeah. Are you seeing it in your in your work, in your endeavors?

SPEAKER_01 47:47

100%. I've gotten to the point where I've had to um, you know, put money to the side, reallocate, cut people so I could just have a strong investment in AI and my technology. Yeah. I sat down for two and a half hours with my technology advisor, talking about the product roadmap for what we're building now, because there's no way that I can't leverage AI and what I'm doing to provide a better user experience. And it's no longer an option. It's like it's mandatory right now that your bit my business is using AI. You're any business you're in. Yeah. So for me, I'm seeing it transform um just with regards to providing better recommendations, right? Yeah. If you look at Netflix, you look at Amazon, a lot of their um revenue and a lot of their um, you know, user experience is based upon you know personalized recommendations. People want, they don't want to see an ad for uh tampon if I'm a man, right? Yeah. I shouldn't have to watch an ad about football if I hate football. And people are now demanding personalization and personalized experiences and to be catered to. It's happening in the experience economy where people want to uh be treated better, right? They want to make sure there's what everything they're seeing is something they they they care about and it's gonna be based upon their data. And it's also, you know, for me, UX, the user experience is cutting down the number of steps to check out, right? That's important. By connecting people to experiences that they want based upon what you know about them is a huge part of what we're focusing on now. And in any industry that you're in, making sure that you're uh saving time, you're getting rid of waste by leveraging predictive analytics, leveraging the data that you've collected to better understand your consumers, it's no longer uh an option because there's somebody else working in leverage AI that makes sure they're providing a better experience for your customer. And customers don't always choose the best product, they generally choose the best experience. That's something I'm seeing. Yeah. I've seen that you can't even pay people to go through a bad experience with your product, right? Interesting. Um, what do you mean by that? I've so especially in the experience you kind of, right? You I've there's a lot of businesses out here and and you know, most platforms actually will charge you, right? One thing that's unique about Event War is that we came out the gate saying, look, we're gonna pay you these our service. We provide incentives and commissions to event organizers that are making thousands of dollars, right? But you always get to a certain point with the customer where they're saying, look, this is what I wanted, it's non-negotiable, right? And that one thing is a user experience that's um one of the products easier to use, the checkout is is is faster, uh, and they understand that this, these are the types of events that I want to see. And so you can reach a point as a founder where you know you're looking to reach product market fit where you can get customers, but unless you're providing the best experience out there, you're gonna lose to whoever's providing the best experience most of the time. And so, like I said, you can't, and I've I've I've seen situations where folks will get offered uh um you know sponsorship or get offered incentives, and people just be like, hey, look, you know what? I'm really rocking with this experience right now, and I'm good because they're switching costs with any solution, right? Yeah. Um, and so I I've seen I've seen that, and it and that's where technology and investing your product is the most important thing.

SPEAKER_00 50:43

Yeah. Well, and then that's how that's how the transformation happens, right? The technology is out there, right? This is how you get the new industrial revolution. The technology is invented. People see the technology. These people are consumers, they want the technology in their experience. Also, one of the side effects of this technology is that, hey, you may not need all of the same positions that you have in your company. Slowly slashed away because that's what the market is saying they want. They want the integration of the chat in their iPhone and in their experience when they're talking to uh support, you know, for uh event noir or what have you. Like that becomes just kind of ingrained into what the expectations are.

SPEAKER_01 51:28

Yeah. Reduce the friction, right? Um, people want as much friction removed from the consumer experience as possible. Um, and we're unfortunately and fortunately in a space where AI can automate a lot of tasks that people are doing that that um were probably getting you know paid less than they should have anyway. Um but it's definitely taking jobs because there's certain experiences and and and workers whose whole purpose was to remove friction.

SPEAKER_00 51:55

Yes.

SPEAKER_01 51:56

And with automation, um, predictive analytics with chatbots, uh agents, they can do a lot of work with these folks. You can do a lot of work of 10 people. Yeah. Right. And so yeah, you get you're you're seeing jobs being slashed, you're seeing um workforce reductions, you're seeing salaries being cut, and you're also seeing more and more people being leveraged that are offshore as well. Yeah. And so it means that if you are in the job market or you're you're here working for a company, you have to leverage AI to make sure that you're adding more value.

SPEAKER_00 52:24

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 52:24

That's just what it is.

SPEAKER_00 52:25

Well, imagine you are the younger Jeff Suji, future entrepreneur, and you're you're entering in the market. It's 2026, you're entering into the market where things are rapidly changing, right? The chatbot just took your job, or you see you on the horizon, you see your job as being a casualty, right? What would you say to that young man that's that's losing, is gonna lose something that pretty much defines his identity, right? That that job. What would you say to him?

SPEAKER_01 52:57

I actually did a post about this the other day talking about you know the need to be willing to be an apprentice, right? Work under that, be always be a sponge. I'd be learning how to leverage AI because at the end of the day, there's still a whole generation of boomers and folks that are not going to be willing to learn all this stuff, right? And so the easiest thing right now is to learn it. Learn what's changing the world, right? You can't, it can't be 1995, you're not learning the internet, right? Do you have to learn the skills that are needed, right? You can code now without knowing how to code, but learn how to code the best practices with AI, the best prompts. Um, understand how you can own the entire task leveraging AI, right? Also, um now's the best time to start a business. Because you can literally start a business just teaching people AI. You can literally start a business just teaching businesses how to uh learn AI or just how to implement it within these corporations. Because these corporations move slow. Yeah. Right? And so a lot of them are trying to figure this thing out and you're gonna move quicker. I tell young people that you're the smartest, youngest, best version of humanity, right? Because you are know more about things that the older generation just doesn't know about. Intuitively. I own a bar for one reason, so I could be around young people and soak in culture, right? At the end of the day, I want to learn how to. That might not sound right with the other thing going on right now, but yeah, to be around, to literally be around young people and be able to learn. What is how does music have right now? What are the kids listening to? What are they dancing to? How do they interact? What are they drinking? Yeah, right? What are they sipping on? What is a good experience like for them? When I'm in a club now, nobody's dancing with each other. When I was back at the club, we were getting, we were, you know, we were joking on each other as we call it in Chicago. And now it's like touchy feel. Everybody was dancing and dancing with each other and touching. I'm in the club with a button up on and some hard toes, and I'm over here dressing my best cologne to try to impress this. Yeah. Nowadays, folks just want to vibe to get music in their own little alcoholic, yeah. Not drinking as much. They'll pop some bottles too. This, this, but not as much as they used to. But they want a vibe and they want to be able to create social content within the club. They want to be able to kick with their friends and get some TikToks going. They want to be able to interact with the DJ, hear their favorite song, and play a song from TikTok, you know? You know what I'm saying? It's going viral, and it's just different. Like it's no longer a fashion show like it used to be. People are dressing down the club. And so it's just for me, it's like, okay, this is what people want. I'm learning about consumer behavior. That's the reason why I own a bar. Plus, I own my best friends, but it allows me to take that back and then put that into my business, which is focused on experiences to provide a better experience.

SPEAKER_00 55:33

Yeah. Yeah. The great Naval Ravi Khan said, you know who's not worried about AI taking over? Entrepreneurs.

SPEAKER_01 55:42

100%. No, we love it. We're embracing it. All right. You got to embrace it, you gotta break the change. And the fact is, when you hire people, you hire, you want eight players. Yeah. The B and C players are gonna be worried. The people who aren't willing to adapt are gonna be worried, right? I mean, I'm standing up late at night, try to understand, you know, how to code on Replit. I'm saying how to leverage mid-journey. I'm saying, I'm not the most, I'm not a technical person at all, but I have to figure out how to use these resources because it's gonna save me money and it's gonna allow me to be to get to move faster.

SPEAKER_00 56:10

Yeah. That's a great point that you brought up too, is that it's yeah, AI is coming, but guess what everybody's doing? Most people are working. Like no one has time. Yeah, AI is here. No one has time to really look up how to utilize any of these AI systems to their full potential. That's what the opportunity is.

SPEAKER_01 56:30

Huge opportunity, especially for anybody that's um, you know, uh a little bit older, seasoned, and still has some type of uh leverage within the organization. Right. You could be that expert for your peers, right? You could be the one to introduce these things and you know and keep the job because those folks who are are losing them. And you find you find those folks who are, you know, uh seasoned and used to having a lot of people work working under them. Right now, it's it's it's all about maximum productivity. Your job's no longer trying to hit it, hey, I need I need this, this, and this to get done. That AI chat bottle, that AI product will do everything that you just said to do. We're not hiring an agency. You do it. You know? Yeah. And so there's high responsibility, it's higher productivity expected from every person. Totally. And then you got your your your offshore uh folks, right, that can that are gonna outwork you too.

SPEAKER_00 57:15

So it's a lot of a lot of pressure. Even when you talk about manufacturing and production, right? You know, you hear, oh, this industry is coming back to the U.S., you know, manufacturing is coming back to the US. Yeah, but it'll be machines doing that work. It's not this is not the 1950s and 60s, you know, you know, uh Detroit boom, where like, yeah, you can go and have a high school diploma, go work at four, go work at this the steel mill and have a life where you have five kids. Yeah, no, we ain't trying to work at the steel mill.

SPEAKER_01 57:48

We're not boomers. I mean, most of us are not trying to work at the steel mill. I forgot what comedian was laughing about. Uh, you know, folks ain't trying to put together Nike, no? They ain't trying to put Nike together and that's not what we're trying to do. A lot of folks are not trying to do that.

SPEAKER_00 58:00

So I'm trying to put that's interesting you say that too, right? Because even if those jobs were available, like where we and they pay well, do you think a lot of people would do them in the States? Man, I don't think so. Okay, when I say pay well, a little bit more than what they pay in Vietnam.

SPEAKER_01 58:16

I think I think a lot of jobs that'll do it, they they get rid of folks that are working them jobs. So, I mean, it's it's interesting right now because there's this shift in the workplace where, okay, we want the people that are doing the jobs that nobody really wants. Yeah. There are a lot of them are getting trying to get out of here, but these aren't the jobs that that we want, man. And and we're probably not gonna do them as efficiently or as well as other folks who will rely on this for their their well-being every day are doing it. And so I'm a I'm a I'm of a mixed opinion, the fact that I do agree in bringing more jobs and employing people within our community, but certain jobs that that stay there.

SPEAKER_00 58:50

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 58:51

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 58:51

Yeah. How how has your risk tolerance changed in the face of artificial intelligence?

SPEAKER_01 58:57

Man. Well, when you know that there's a way to learn a system or learn a software that can literally do the work of 10 people, each hire in your organization is critical to your success and can make or break it. So I'm much more now, especially after running a business for a few years, I'm much more critical about who I bring into the organization. And my goal now is at least how to talk to two to three people that have worked with them before. Because if that person's not willing to be innovative, if they're not curious, if they're not willing to embrace the technologies happening right now to do their job better, they're not gonna work out. And this in this time where you have to be productive as possible, in this time where people are that they're not spending as much, you have to be curious, you have to be innovative, you have to be creative, you have to be able to uh be versatile. And so it almost takes somebody that's a dynamic A player to have a job nowadays. I'm saying we know millions of jobs are being lost. You know what I'm saying? Like it's and so for me, I I've changed in the sense that I'm just very particular. I would rather hire another AI product than hire a person that may or may not be, I learned for six months that they're lazy. You know what I'm saying? Yeah. Or they're just not willing to adapt. So, you know, every investment now from a human capital perspective, um, I take with just more uh more careful about.

SPEAKER_00 1:00:22

Well, is so you we typically we would have we would have a department, say in a company you have certain departments, each department's responsible for X thing, marketing, what have you, right? And then that department was obviously made of multiple people. Whereas this shift that we're seeing, artificial intelligence services have taken away all of those people in that department. So you have one person in that department that's managing all those different roles with the help of AI, right? So if that person isn't curious or, you know, even somewhat tech savvy, it's not gonna work out. Or hardly. Because they're because the amount, actually, the cost is gonna be higher because the amount of work still needs to get done, but they're not utilizing the tool to do the work of what that that department was capable of.

SPEAKER_01 1:01:14

And they're not getting it done, so you gotta hire somebody else to do it. Yeah. And so I've scaled three different businesses to you know, seven figures in revenue, and one of them I scale with just two full-time employees, right? And that actually is the most profitable business, right? And so I realized that it's not about how many people you have, it's about the quality of the people that you have. And it's also about the systems that you have and the ability to focus. Um, and so I think that, you know, I I brother 10 lions and 100 sheep. And that mentality is now where you have to be if you're running an organization because less is more and all this overhead is not necessary if you're uh leveraging AI and leveraging the resources that are out there.

SPEAKER_00 1:01:53

Yeah, the great Alexander, he once said, I would rather, he's like, I'm more afraid of he said, I'm more afraid of a hundred lions, so a hundred sheep led by a lion than I am a hundred lions led by a sheep.

SPEAKER_01 1:02:14

That's real. That's real. Yeah, leadership is important.

SPEAKER_00 1:02:18

Leadership is just so important. If you're a leader, you can push the button.

SPEAKER_01 1:02:21

Yeah, and and as a leader, I've had a higher executive coach. I've realized that as a leader, I had to get stronger every single day and work on myself. Uh, and one of the things that we talk about is just that look, simply managing expectations with people is is is a whole job. Yeah, you can't do 10 people's jobs, so you gotta make sure the expectations are as clear as possible what their role is. Um, and then for A players, you got their way out of the thing. For B players, you're gonna have to understand some coaching. Um and C players, you know, there's not too much you can do, right?

SPEAKER_00 1:02:53

C players, I mean, what are they doing? What are they doing? What is the C player? Getting let go in order. In-between jobs. Because we find out they're a C player. How?

SPEAKER_01 1:03:01

C players not making it. The in-between jobs, and you know, it's unfortunate. My goal is that, you know, some people got C's in class, you know, those are some of the best entrepreneurs. But if you're a C player, it's probably because you're not willing to put forth the effort. And those are the folks that are in-between jobs right now. And um, I'm hoping that they figure out what they want to do when they start something so they can, you know, that that they can scale. But um A players, and I forgot who said this, but A players will push out the B's and C players when you're in the right organization. Oh yeah. And I've seen that. I've seen that when you have, you know, high performing individuals that are embraced uh and are versatile, you know, they don't want to work with people that are that are they can't get to it. Oh, they hate them. Yeah, and so they hate them. You know, Iron Sharp is iron, and I'm a big fan of that. And so my thing is now it's less is more, and um, if somebody's not intellectually curious, um then you know Chat GPT is probably gonna work harder than them for me, you know, unfortunately, unfortunately. And everybody wants to go. I tell my team, I want to be challenged. I want people around me to challenge me. Like, and so that's a I think the job of every CO is to, you know, do what they can to get that high-level talent, you know, without paying the luxury tax. But the luxury tax is worth it as you see with sports teams, you know, you gotta pay, you gotta pay people more.

SPEAKER_00 1:04:12

Um you try to find the right people. I've become so much more conscious of that, of like my team. And you know, bootstrapping this podcast has been quite the adventure because it's it's it's different, right? It's technology involved, you know, it's editing involved, so many components to a production, right? And if you don't have a background in videography, photography, these are all like foreign, strange concepts. The thing is, it's fun, right? But one thing I've learned, I mean, God, it you need people on the same page about your vision.

SPEAKER_01 1:04:48

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:04:48

And just don't settle for people that aren't.

SPEAKER_01 1:04:51

Man, I got I I talked about this other day on my Instagram. I was like, man, there's people, of course, that are there for a paycheck, and there's people there for a purpose. You gotta identify those people quickly. Right. And, you know, sometimes you'll have somebody there for a paycheck temporarily. There's a lot of people that may not make it to the mountaintop with you, but they were there for the part of the journey and they're there for a season. Like I said, some people are there for a reason, some people there for a season. So I've learned as a leader to embrace those people who are there for a season and wish them the best and then roll move forward with people there for a reason. Um and, you know, nowadays you it's no, it's it's not hard to match. You can tell who's here for a check and who's here for a purpose. And it's okay to want the check, right? As long as you're willing to add enough value to make it make sense, right? Um, as long as you're doing what you need to do. Some people got another two or three side hustles. Yeah. Um, I've been the place where I've ran two or three companies at a time because I've had to. Um, but one thing that I try to do is just make sure that if I sign up for something, I show up and I I achieve as I'm expected to. And that's what I think C players don't necessarily do. Um, that that unfortunately gets them let go.

SPEAKER_00 1:05:54

Yeah. I don't know what's gonna happen to them in the future. Like, are they gonna be on the street? Yeah, hopefully they're gonna find a rich oh. Or sugar daddy or sugar mama or something like that.

SPEAKER_01 1:06:02

You know, figure it out.

SPEAKER_00 1:06:04

Only fans, you know. It's not for everybody.

SPEAKER_01 1:06:06

Hey, some I mean, become a creator, man. People make a lot of money on Instagram. Like again, people might be a C player in a certain industry and they switch out, and bam, you might be in sales. Fine calling.

SPEAKER_02 1:06:17

You might be in sales button.

SPEAKER_01 1:06:19

You should be in creative marketing, or you might be the best uh graphic designer. Yeah. So I think some people just everybody's a C player at something that they're not passionate about. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:06:28

Again, that's another great thing about America. C player in another country, you're on streets. Yeah, yeah. 100%. C player in Nigeria. 100%. Good luck, my friend.

SPEAKER_01 1:06:38

I got cousins, it's electrical engineers at home that want to get here and they willing to work hard. So it's a lot of people willing to work hard. It's a lot of people that are willing to replace you. Yeah, we'll have to replace such a yeah. Yeah, they don't have the opportunity. So, you know, I think um, yeah, the the C Pleasant take care of the C Players.

SPEAKER_00 1:06:54

Totally. You have so much going on, right? You also have a family. How do you balance it off? How do you how do you keep your purpose in this in this world as dynamic? You're interacting as a boss, as a leader, and fields that are highly affected by AI, right? Highly affected by technology. But you still need to spend time with your family. Like, how do you balance all of this?

SPEAKER_01 1:07:20

Man, it's the most difficult thing I think that you can ever try to do is try to figure out balance. The reality is there is no balance for me. But I figured out a formula, I'm still figuring out for how to um, you know, rest aggressively when I need to. Because the reality is nothing prepares you for fatherhood, um, being a husband, being a leader, fundraising, managing people, uh, trying to scale and double revenue every year for multiple years as a company. Nothing prepares you for the pressure and the toll that takes on your body and your mental. Um, and so for me, I do things to be able to rest aggressively and reset regularly. Um, some of those things that I've implemented, of course, church on Sundays when I can, as much as I can. Spiritual aspect. Yeah, yeah, definitely spiritual. You know what I'm saying? So for me, making sure that whatever spiritual religion that you follow, you tap into them, like your soul, you know what I'm saying, and and check yourself, right? Because um hopefully also keep a good group of friends. You know what I'm saying? A good group of men or women that will check you, will will check up on you, right? That you can check in on. For me, um, I'm looking for a therapist, but for me, I haven't been to therapy just yet. But talking to my close friends is like therapy for me. When we get together with the guys, you know, we've gotten together, you know, grabbed brunch, just chopped it up with the fellas, and we catch up, it's it's therapy for me. So for me, that allows me to go back and pour back into my family. So do what you need to do to get what you need to be able to get your family your best. For me, that looks like hiring the best people that I can, um, learning how to delegate. Um also being okay with not accomplishing everything I need to accomplish in a month. Uh last year, literally, I had my body broke down for like two weeks because I was going so pushing so hard and neglected my health. And it's like, you know, at the end of the day, while balance is very hard to achieve, you still got to prioritize what things are going on in your life. And the health has to come first. So definitely prioritizing the health. Um eating, you know, stop beating, not eating junk as much as you can, right? Eating whole foods and not a lot of processed foods, you know, that can take you down and detoxing. For me, it's saunas, ionic foot baths, you know what I'm saying? That type of stuff literally has helped me de-stress a lot from a lot of toxins in the body. Um, but also, yeah, definitely having a strong partner too, you know? Yeah, absolutely. Reminding your partner that you guys are um aligned, even if you're not always in agreement. Yeah. You know what I'm saying? So I don't believe there's any balance. For me, it's really about learning to talk to my friends about how they I have a lot of groups, a group of older men, Fry Brothers, mentors. I always ask the man, so how do you, what's up, man? How do you balance this thing? Yeah. When I get around older men, I'm talking, how y'all dealing with this? And you gotta have those rooms where you can go in and say, like, look, this is how we deal with taking better care of our women. This is how we deal with better taking care of our family. This is how you deal with raising your kids. You know what I'm saying? Any new challenges. This is how you deal with managing people, right? And there's so much game that you soak up by just talking to people. And that's why human interactivity and action and interaction is just so important.

SPEAKER_00 1:10:27

I did hear you mention executive coaching. Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:10:31

I think it's super important.

SPEAKER_00 1:10:32

How did you get into that? Because it's it's difficult to figure out like what coach. I mean, it's a low barrier to entry.

SPEAKER_01 1:10:39

For me, thankfully, man, I've I've had a number of advisors uh for a while, and one of my investors, advisory board members, um, actually uh became my Isaiah coach and kind of offered. He said, okay, look, you started making a little bit money in your business now. You ain't like you was a couple years ago where you're, you know, you're not making anything. So let me know what you think about this. I'm helping a couple of CEOs do this, and it worked out. And so I got two main advisors that really support me. And um, you know, one is um uh Jason Weingartner and Gary Cooper, uh, two amazing CEOs uh uh in Chicago who've raised tens of millions of dollars, um, you know, ran businesses, and and for me, you know, the sessions I have with them are are just amazing. Um and because at the end of the day, I had to go from learning how to hustle to build a business, right, and and scale to businesses to to seven figures to learning what I'm learning now is how do you put in systems and delegate and help people who might necessarily understand or know your vision perform to your liking. Right. Yeah. How do you go from this is my baby, take it, I take it seriously, this is life or death for me. You know, my best friends and my brothers have invested to this is a job to you, but I want you to see the vision and perform as best as you can, right? And being able to be okay with knowing that people aren't gonna do things the way you do or like them done, yeah, but you still have to make progress.

SPEAKER_00 1:12:08

That articulation is like thread in the needle when you're trying to share your vision. Relax some of that cradling of the baby.

SPEAKER_01 1:12:19

Yeah. Of your baby. Everyday challenge, man.

SPEAKER_00 1:12:21

And just, you know, you're trying to, you're just trying to, okay, I can, I can, I can okay, I'm trying to pass this to you. It takes a lot, it takes a lot, it takes a lot to get there.

SPEAKER_01 1:12:28

Family syndrome is real. When you start a business, it's like, and you, it's almost like people calling your baby ugly, right? You gotta be okay with that. They take a lot of things personal, don't you? When you're raising capital fences, or when you're talking to customers, they call your baby ugly. You gotta be okay with that. You gotta be willing to put some makeup on your baby. You know what I'm saying? Make sure your baby's in the facials, right? And and so I learned how to not take it personally when people didn't do a really, really good job working with me and not like have a high standard. Uh I understood now. I still, people, if you're working for me, I'm gonna ask you to have a high standard, but I learned that, okay, they're not gonna perform to the high standard that I would, right? They're not gonna take it as seriously I would. And I learned to be okay with that, but manage expectations and still hold people accountable. Because you can get upset if somebody turns into some trash and you pay them, and and you're like, man, I I mean, I know this is just a check to you, but this is a livelihood. I took out a loan for this business. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Every cent count. I'm not spending time with my son because I'm running this business. So when they see it as a quick come up, you almost look at it like, man, are you are you soliciting me and trying to take advantage of me? Right. And so as a founder, you can get all types of right. Then you get notes from investors. You can literally um, you know, go through trauma associated with building a business, right? And so the more reps you get, the more people you talk to, you realize everybody's going through the same thing. We all trying to figure it out. We're all trying to leverage resources and figure out how to raise capital, how to figure out who not to fire, you know, firing some people that you love, right? You know what I'm saying? And that you bond with because it's like, man, the runway is the runway. Yeah. Right? You're not the best person for this role. Yeah. This role is not what we need right now in our business. And having to do that and still maintain, you know, your homeostasis is difficult, but it's it's the it's the thing about entrepreneurship that makes the people great that are able to sustain and survive.

SPEAKER_00 1:14:16

Just thinking about what we were just discussing, right? You're on this road to entrepreneurship. You're on this road to greatness. How should one expect their friend group relationship and even family relationships to change?

SPEAKER_01 1:14:35

Yeah, I mean, that's one of the toughest things about entrepreneurship is that it can be a really lonely journey. And so that you have to lock into focus. And what I try to do with my friends, I try to, and a lot of us are going through the same thing because we're also balancing families, is let them know, look, I'm at a point in my life where I'm just really focused on the business and the journey and growth and personal development, you know, family, parents getting older, right? You had to figure out a time where you prioritize your family and your and your legacy. And you almost have to remind your friends of that. And, you know, the good friends will understand that. The real good friends are the solid will understand that. Some people take offense. I got in and but for me, it's about that transparency. I had to tell somebody, mind you, I'm a uh SMS King since 2009, 2006, I've been sending text messages out to people through my community for experiences, other things, right? But I had to tell somebody last week, hey, please take me off this text list, right? It's not necessarily adding value to my life right now, and I'm just really locked in to focus, right? And I had to send a long message because his his response was not one in which I felt like was warranted because we didn't have that relationship. But I my whole thing is now clear to look, hey, I'm at a point in my life where I needed focus. I know for me, focus has been an issue, right? Um, but that's my that's gonna get me where I need to be. And so I let him know, look, it's nothing against you. This is me, personally choosing me and my peace. And my friends respect that. And if you don't respect that, we can't be friends, right? And so I look at my friendships and value them a lot more because I cannot talk to my friends for a whole year and we sit down and have a conversation like we've been together for the, you know, every day. Right? Those are the races I value it. For me, it's friends that hold you accountable and still hit you out the blue. Like, hey, what's up? You working out? You can take care of yourself? Cool. All right, bet. Talk to you in three months. Because I'm not gonna be able to sit down with you every day. Because I got I gotta choose whether I'm gonna go see my son and tuck him in, or I'm gonna go have a drink with you. Right? I'm saying, and so, and then there's a time where, hey, I gotta get a family, I gotta have a drink.

unknown 1:16:39

Right?

SPEAKER_01 1:16:39

Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Uh shout out to Pronghorn if you're sipping. I'm saying, grab one, drink one spirits. But, you know, for me, it's there's there's an opportunity to have therapy with my friends. Might be a quick phone call, might be a quick text exchange, right? There's also an opportunity to um lose yourself in your business and your legacy in your in your journey. And lose yourself and your family and shut the phone off. And oftentimes you can't control when those times are because you have to respond to the needs of the people that you love and what your business needs. So the best friends understand that they appreciate it, and they'll check in with you, and they know you'll come back when you're ready to talk.

SPEAKER_00 1:17:18

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Boundaries, growth. I love it. What's the one myth about entrepreneurship that you wish would die?

SPEAKER_01 1:17:28

Ooh, we that is a get rich quick scheme. Like that you can have, you know, quick results. Start a business one year, next year you do it a million dollars. You know, if you got some funding and you got a really good idea, it's having it right with some startups are going crazy like that. But nine times out of ten, most small businesses are one person, shops, right? It's the hardest thing in the world to do to build a business, have an idea and then monetize it. It's hard to have an idea and turn it into something. Let alone turn into something that people will pay for, then turn to something that's profitable. So just the understanding that you do not have to dive all in and you can just like throw something at the at the wall and hope it sticks. Entrepreneurship really requires you diving all in. It requires you having a unique competitive advantage in a lot of cases, right? Or being a first mover in the market. It really requires you thinking about what the hell you're gonna do. Yeah, I know what happens sometimes that most people are not switching over to a new industry and just winning because they try to start something, right? I've had to work for somebody for eight years and and and watch him run a business in order for me to come in and start a business and have it be monetizable. So just the fact that it is such an undertaking, and you may not make money. You may not be profitable, but it can literally drain you. Yeah. Right? And so, unless you are delusional about your success and able to pivot quickly, you're setting yourself up for a lifestyle that isn't ideal. You know what I'm saying? You can go get a cussy job and make a lot of money and get earn your way to millions and reinvest your 401k, IRAs. You know what I'm saying? But if you want to change the world or build a solution that's gonna impact the world and you feel like that's your purpose, I think that's when you start a business. All right. So I think that you know, I think that's that's something it's it's not a get-rich quick get rich quick scheme. And it's gonna require way more than you expect and take way more than you expect. And you gotta be a little crazy.

SPEAKER_00 1:19:40

You gotta be a little nuts.

SPEAKER_01 1:19:42

Because you're fighting every day.

SPEAKER_00 1:19:43

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, you spiritual warfare.

SPEAKER_01 1:19:48

100%.

SPEAKER_00 1:19:49

Spiritual warfare, you gotta be, you gotta be all in because nobody's gonna push you. Nobody's gonna make sure. Nobody's gonna call you and ask you why you didn't show up. Nope. It's all your job now. Nope. Nobody's gonna pay your bills. Nobody's gonna pay your bills. Nobody's gonna come with payroll.

SPEAKER_01 1:20:07

Man, payroll. Nobody's gonna come with payroll. Nobody's gonna tell your ass, get up and and make a hundred calls today. You know?

SPEAKER_00 1:20:13

Yeah. Yeah, that was that was always for me the payroll was what made a business real to me. Oh, 100%. Because it's one thing when you run a shop and you're like, oh, I ain't getting reimbursed just yet. This coming, it's late. Okay, I'll get that checked in. It's another thing where you have to pay your people. 100%. That's another thing. Yep. That's when you feel the gravity of what you're doing, and that somebody else's, not just them as an individual, but their whole family is dependent upon you. Yep. It's a wow. No pressure. No pressure. Don't mess this up. 100%. What's the boldest risk that you took that actually worked?

SPEAKER_01 1:20:53

Ooh, good question. Good question. The boldest risk that took. Man, you know, for me, I would say was betting on myself with just an idea, right? A Ventoir was just an idea. We didn't think it was going to turn into a real business. We were just like, hey, let's start on taking the platform. We tired of these guys, you know, raping us and taking all of our money. Right? We're tired of these guys, um, part of my language, but these guys just really just not giving a damn about us, who we are, our community, our culture, and just collecting all these service fees, making six figures of us every year, never even calling and say thank you, right? Let's start on. And for us, it turned into something bigger than we could have ever imagined. Um, and so for me leaving my job, I had just got married, uh, uh and just kind of leaving my job, took out a loan. You know what I'm saying? I was like, hey, let me take this loan out, and if, you know, in a year or two, you know, if it's not working out, go get go ahead and jump back. But it was, you know, nearly six figures to just kind of get my head started and just take that leap. I had a job making good money, um, but I felt like it was that time. And so for me, it was that the biggest boldest move was to start a company that was simply just an idea that I didn't expect to take, make it to a full-time role, um, where I had zero technical expertise, zero experience actually building a startup, um, and just jumping all in. You know what I'm saying? And and right before the pandemic happened when events went to zero.

SPEAKER_00 1:22:22

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. You either were worse off after the pandemic, or you fared very well. It wasn't that much in between.

SPEAKER_01 1:22:31

No, a lot in between. Or you went or you went to jail. A lot of people did well. I went to jail, yeah, too. P P P. No, I'm saying, so you know, it's it's tough, man. And I hate to see that, but it's a reality of that. Yeah, you a lot of people did well, a lot of people didn't. Um, a lot of people lost their lives. And you know, unfortunately, um not here. Went to jail. Yeah. But you battle tested. We battle tested. It was definitely a battle test in time.

SPEAKER_00 1:22:51

Yeah, it is battle-tested. And you you often you need that that testing in order to prove your iron, but it makes you better. Bad things happen to good people. And when they happen to you as a founder, as an entrepreneur, it's part of it. It'll make you stronger. It'll make you better.

SPEAKER_02 1:23:06

100%.

SPEAKER_00 1:23:07

You know, we also kind of like taught like to shy away from the pain, but the pain is what makes you makes you good. Yeah, you gotta embrace the pain, man. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:23:15

You gotta brace it, build up your tolerance, you know?

SPEAKER_00 1:23:18

Build up your tolerance for it. You're gonna have a lot more risk tolerance the more you go through.

SPEAKER_01 1:23:22

Get comfortable being uncomfortable. The pain of waking up every day and understanding that you're not realizing your full potential. Or just because you have limited resources, you can't do everything you need to do. Um, pain of water, you know, having to let somebody go that you really could care for, but having let them go simply because the the capital's not there to support them, right? Um so not being able to take your baby in because you grind, right? So, you know, that's a part of the game of entrepreneurship, people don't really talk a lot about, you know. Um trying not to go off and explode on people, right? When that you expect to support you, right? That you call your friends or that you call, you know, family and saying, oh, they're not gonna support me. Like, and and figuring out how you can still manage that relationship.

SPEAKER_00 1:24:06

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:24:06

Right. That's probably the fact that you're pouring your heart and soul into something.

SPEAKER_00 1:24:10

Or sometimes it makes people fold as well. They don't feel like they're getting the support.

SPEAKER_01 1:24:15

100%.

SPEAKER_00 1:24:15

When in actuality, it's probably people that you don't know. It's the strangers, right, that are are are gonna make you. Yeah, that like the people that you know, like they can only buy so much of your service or product.

SPEAKER_01 1:24:26

It's the people that you don't know. People you know don't know are gonna be your best customers. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:24:31

But we put a lot into that's another thing, too. Oftentimes it's easy just to put a lot into other people and putting the weight of your success on their shoulders. When in reality, that's just uh that's that's an emotional attachment that you need to work out. Nobody owes you. Because in reality, they can't really help you as much as you think they can anyway. You can only really help yourself.

SPEAKER_01 1:24:51

Yeah, nobody owes you anything either. Like, don't you can't have a sense of a title, but nobody owes you their dollar, nobody owes you their business, right? You have to earn that, right? And if you earn it, you have to you can earn you have to earn it to keep it. Yeah, that's your responsibility every single day by providing a good experience and a good product. You know what I'm saying? And and so you're gonna win some, you're gonna lose some, but you know, once you realize this how you know it's two, three billion people in the world, and there's there's opportunities for you to be able to win by talking talking to your core, yeah, which is probably not people that you know, you know, you you you can start winning.

SPEAKER_00 1:25:21

Yeah. What's a daily non-negotiable habit for you as a founder?

SPEAKER_01 1:25:27

Uh for me to leave the day um empty, knowing I've I've performed and you know, left all my left it on the court, right? I've done my best to um achieve my greatest usefulness for the day. If I go to sleep knowing that I didn't do everything I could, right, and didn't exert myself to the fullest, um, even if that's resting aggressively. You know what I'm saying? Like, you know what I'm saying? That's a problem for me. Did I do everything I could to have a positive impact on the world today? Um, was I slacking? You know, I know that if I'm watching TV, it's because I'm having two hours to reset and rest. Like, but I'm working most of the time. And so for me, it's just give 100%, try your best. You know what I'm saying? Did I do everything I could with the energy that I had, um, and then I check on my loved ones. You know, for me, I gotta make sure that I sleep at night knowing that I don't steal, I have integrity, I don't lie, I don't cheat. When it comes to business, I focus on adding value and trying to do so without getting my emotions involved. The only emotions I have in business are the ones that allow me to progress on my journey and move the ball forward. And so for me, it's like as long as I can be in my bag in terms of being focused and not be in my feelings about petty stuff and and try to do good while making money, I'm doing, I'm living my purpose.

SPEAKER_00 1:26:48

Yeah. Absolutely. If you had to rebuild everything that you've worked for from zero today, what would be your first move?

SPEAKER_01 1:26:59

First move would be getting a good partner. You go further with the right people. So I just get a good partner, man. I think I could build, you could build anything if you could build with a team you build faster. So if I lost everything, I just get a good partner, man. Probably a good person that really understands technology well.

SPEAKER_00 1:27:15

Good team. Get a good team around you.

SPEAKER_01 1:27:17

You know what I'm saying? Like the team gonna lift you up when you're down, team gonna build with you, team a lot, move faster. So I find some really dope people to build some dope shit with.

SPEAKER_00 1:27:24

That's the talent, right? This it's things really come down to talent, right? Like getting the best talent that you possibly can put your hands on to then work for to move towards something with them. 100%. Yeah, that's dope. Uh what's the biggest lesson Fatherhood has taught you about leadership?

SPEAKER_01 1:27:43

Fatherhood has taught me that um when you're dealing with people, patience is one of the most important things you can have. I've been somebody that's you know, I talk fast, I I move fast, I'm very impatient. Um, but the best experience in life require you to take a moment as well. Down. And so the joy of holding my son at the end of the day. The joy of taking him to a a play gym or a museum and experiencing that first experience like that with him. Those are priceless moments. And I've had to learn to be patient, turn the phone off, step away from from business. Um because those moments are things that can't be replaced and that's what life is about. So for me it's really patience. And again, understand that when you have a partner, you're not always gonna be in agreement, but it's important that y'all remember that you guys are make sure you guys are alignment, right? You guys are playing for the same team. So same thing with the organization, right? You're not gonna agree with your coworkers. I tell my people to challenge me, let's argue. My best partners, we argue all day. Yeah. But the product ends up being a result of us hashing things out and making sure we're providing the best, best move and best product for our people. So for me, yeah, definitely making sure you're in in alignment. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:29:02

What's the mistake that you've made that ended up turning or becoming your greatest teacher?

SPEAKER_01 1:29:10

Building a product before talking to the consumer on a really deep level, right? Um we call it uh jobs to be done. You understand what product your job is doing for your consumer. The amount we really underestimate the amount of research that's needed before you launch a product or service or business. Uh and it's so important that you sit down and talk to the people that you're looking to serve and understand the psychographics, the demographics of what they really need. Because you might build a solution for a product that doesn't exist. You might build a solution for a problem that they don't really care about. Right. And so when you're looking at how you win, nine out of ten, if you build a better the best product, you know, it's gonna market itself from for us. Right? So for me, it's really been about ensuring that any move I make in the future, I consult with my consumer.

SPEAKER_00 1:30:01

Well, is it uh we're gonna wrap it up? Is it anything else that you want to get off your chest or anything you want to share with with uh people as they're redefining who they are in the face of technology?

SPEAKER_01 1:30:15

Yeah, 100%, man. If you're out there, um definitely make sure that you pick up five different AI products that you can learn and master if you're here still working, trying to win, whether you're a CEO, whether you're an employee, bring that back to your organization. Um shout out to my brother Obi. Um he recently became CEO of a company that we started uh together in the healthcare space. I'm just super proud of him. It's about to be a year anniversary. Wow. Um he's really taken over and taken pressure off of me and done an amazing job with the team is growing. And so um shout out to Indy Newsline. Uh and then just announcing with Event War, um, we're getting ready to launch an amazing product called uh uh you know Noir IQ and also um the InCrowd, you know, our membership platform, which will have Event War Academy. So we're helping a lot of event organizers scale their business. And so that's something we're gonna be announcing in the next couple weeks. And by the time this comes out, it should be out. Excellent. Um but we're helping folks all over the country um learn how to get sponsorships, learn how to sell out more tickets, learn how to scale, right? And then we build this ecosystem of over 10,000 plus event organizers, and it's a thankless job. And we see you uh with true community builders, creators that are building communities and I want to monetize it. We're here to help you do that. And we're able to help you do that through Event War. So we're excited. Um outside of that, man, it's live a life, baby. Try to take things to the next level. Loving, loving, living, doing what I love. Oh, where can we find you at? Man, why? Follow me on Instagram, uh Jeff Roe Suji. Um, also EventWar IQ for Event War. Um, man, and just catch me outside, man. I'll be popping out sometimes. Catch me outside. Thanks for coming on, bro. Thanks for having me, bro. Absolutely.