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Techie Personal Finance Bootcamp
I help tech employees use their finances to create the life of their dreams by helping you take your financial confidence to the next level!Are you a tech employee who wants to learn how to better manage your finances?Working in tech you may experience extreme pay increases, which may allow you the ability to accomplish goals you've only dreamed of. However, if mismanaged, you can also find yourself stressed out and under pressure to increase your income in order to fit your lifestyle.The good news, is through education and a little bit of determination, you have the power to control your future and create your best life.Not only will we cover basic personal finance concepts, but we'll dive deep into tech specific benefits and issues that I regularly help my clients build strategies to maximize. (Examples: working for start ups, restricted stock units, stock options, and layoffs) Also, on a regular basis, I will have special guests that will highlight their stories with unique stories about their tech experiences.
Techie Personal Finance Bootcamp
Angel Investing with Paul Foley
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Paul Foley is the Colorado Capital Mobilization Director for RVC, Managing Director for Denver Angels, and the CEO of SmartCapital, a software that helps manage and run angel groups. He is also a member of the Colorado Blockchain Council focused on passing regulation to help innovative FinTech companies grow in Colorado. Prior to his current initiative, he co-founded and sold a tech startup Augur to BounceX.
We explore the following in this episode:
- Paul's roadmap to becoming an entrepreneur
- What is angel investing
- The value of mentorship
- Building teams
- Requirements to be an accredited investor.
- Colorado Capital Mobilization Project
- The role of education for accredited investors.
- Is angel investing a good fit for your startup?
- Networking with purpose
- Importance of just starting
https://www.rockiesventureclub.org/
https://www.linkedin.com/in/paulfoleylinkedin/
https://paulnfoley.com/meet
https://www.levelupfinancialplanning.com/techie-personal-finance-bootcamp-podcast/
Without that though, if I had just been walking around being like, I want to meet you, let me meet you. Yep, I don't actually think that's like a good idea. You're not going to get high quality people that kind of need to. I think when you have like I'm building this in fintech or I'm doing this in blockchain, or I'm trying to search answer um my website as a company, those start conversations and those kind of lead you in the right direction, yeah, as opposed to just saying, I want to build a network.
SPEAKER_00This is Techy Personal Finance Bootcamp where I help tech professionals in their 20s and 30s develop a great life today without sacrificing their future possibilities. I'm your host, Lucas Casares, certified financial planner and founder of Global Financial Planning, where I help educate, coach, and build strategies with my clients to help them take their financial confidence to the next level. Here's an important compliance disclosure. This podcast is for informational purposes only and they're not to be considered recommendations. It is recommended to consult your trusted financial professional before implementing any information obtained from the Techie Personal Finance Boot Camp. Welcome to Techie Personal Finance Boot Camp. I'm really excited. I have Paul Foley on the show today. And Paul is the Colorado Capital Mobilization Director for the RVC, and he's the managing director for Denver Angels and the CEO of Smart Capital, which is a software that helps manage and run angel groups. He's also a member of the Colorado Blockchain Council focused on passing regulation to help innovative fintech companies grow in Colorado. Prior to his current initiative, he co-founded and sold a tech startup, Agar, to Bounce X. Hey Paul, did I pronounce Agar correctly?
SPEAKER_01Uh it's Augur, but Augur.
SPEAKER_00That was a lot. Welcome to the show. Thanks for coming on. Yeah, thank you. Thank you for having me.
SPEAKER_01I'm uh psyched to be here.
SPEAKER_00Perfect. So I know it's really exciting news, and we just talked a little bit before we hit the record button, but you are enjoying your new position. And so your position is the Colorado Capital Mobilization Director for RBC, uh, which is relatively a new announcement. I think you just kind of posted some updated your LinkedIn a few weeks ago. Before we get to that though, I just want to get a quick question to you. Like, did you ever see, like, we just named off a bunch of things as far as your accomplishments? You don't look like an extremely old guy or an old guy at all. So how did you kind of envision your future when you were younger? Did you ever think that uh it would look like this and that you'd be doing the cool things you're doing now?
SPEAKER_01Hopefully, I don't look uh yeah too old. I appreciate that. So I'm I'm 30. But yes, I uh to answer your question, I I always wanted to start my own business, and that was always on the roadmap. It was actually so I went to school at University of Michigan, and the roadmap was two years of consulting, two years of MBA, and then two years of like more consulting to pay off the MBA. Then I was gonna start my own my own company, but that that's not how it went at all. Uh, I left the consulting firm I was with after seven months to join a startup. I I kind of realized that I wasn't really learning how to start a company, I was learning more from consulting how to run large corporations and help like the Fortune hundred. Oh, gotcha as opposed to as opposed to kind of building and getting those first customers. So um I actually joined the start, and then it kind of the bug hit me and I never looked back. So yes, I had always wanted to start my own company, and then I just kind of woke up well multiple days in a row and then was like, why am I not doing this?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, so was it just something that was it easy to make that pivot once you did decide, like, hey, this is time to do it?
SPEAKER_01No, not at all. I actually got uh multiple fortunate situations happened to me. The first of which was a friend of mine from Michigan had also joined a consulting company and had left to join a startup called Belly. And then he was the first employee there, and then he actually recruited me to join Belly. So that's actually how I left my consulting firm to join this early stage startup. And then I was at that startup for around six months and then broke off and started doing consulting for other kind of fast growth companies. Um I got super lucky where I got a contract with SolidFire in Boulder as one of my first uh clients. And then it kind of I started doing consulting, my own consulting firm for two and a half years, built that up, met my co-founders, and then for my our tech product Augur, and then did Augur for two years and then sold that, and then started doing angel investing. So it kind of built up with a bunch of just kind of happenstance that got me closer and closer to the goal until it finally happened.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, and then what so Angel Investing, just kind of tell people quickly what that means. I've I've only just seen it from the outside as far as Angel Invest and what it means, kind of what the value add is into kind of launching businesses.
SPEAKER_01Sure. So Angel Investing is is where so it's it's mainly for accredited investors who go and invest into an early stage company. So the company can have revenue, the company can be free revenue, the company could have a product, or the company could be an idea. I was really interested because we had raised $1.1 million for our startup Augur, and one of them, one of the uh backers was actually an angel group out of Toronto.
SPEAKER_03Okay.
SPEAKER_01I'd become familiar with kind of angels and then um also had met Angels through kind of the Boulder and Denver scene as well when we started our company. And I I we actually with Augur started sitting in the kind of the office of a company called Jump Cloud in Boulder.
SPEAKER_03Yep, yep.
SPEAKER_01And they were uh kind of our advisors. So as we were building our company, they for six months we sat in their office and we they basically gave us uh Raj and Will and uh Howard all gave us advice pretty much every single day on how to build the company and it was invaluable.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, that's crazy.
SPEAKER_01And it's kind of uh it was fast learning because you fail a lot as an entrepreneur, but if you have somebody there to kind of like when you fail, to go and say, What did we do wrong? And they're like, Oh, you did this wrong, and then you can quickly learn and go, as opposed to like banging your head against the wall for a month or two. Yep. Uh, it just makes your company and your own personal growth go faster. So not only kind of mentorship, but also I think angel investing helps a lot because when you get an angel, especially a strategic angel, they can help you a bunch. You can call them, you can say, How do you do this? And it's kind of helps you get to the point where your company is actually has customers, has a product, and it's kind of scaling. So it's like a very key, key critical component of an early stage company.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, and that makes sense too, that they take the time because they they invested usually a sizable amount of funds into your business. And so uh they want to you to succeed essentially, because then they succeed, they benefit from that. And so, yeah, that's awesome. That once once you kind of reach that point, you were able to lean on those experts, people that have seen it, and and just having that expert outside opinion too, and just getting all the thoughts in your head out to someone else to uh bounce it off them. That's that's definitely invaluable. Yep, completely.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, unbelievably. I don't think I don't think you can build a a scalable big company without it.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, and I think that's what a lot of people don't realize is that most most ultra successful people, ultra successful companies, it's not all on the shoulders of one person. They have like a a whole team of specialization, people that have special roles, and one that that founder or CEO or whoever it is doesn't really have the the insights or the interest in in all those things that are out of the scope of what they're best at. And so yeah, usually most successful companies and and people in general have a team around them and sometimes they're not necessarily as visible. Exactly. Cool, man. Well, I appreciate you sharing that. So what does RVC stand for actually?
SPEAKER_01Uh so RVC stands for Rocky Center Club, it's the longest running angel group in the country, as well as the most active and biggest in Colorado.
SPEAKER_00Oh, in the country too. Is it is it country right wide or do they focus specifically and only on Colorado companies?
SPEAKER_01Uh so the focus is on Colorado, but the membership is actually based. So most members are actually in the Denver Boulder area.
SPEAKER_03Okay.
SPEAKER_01But um we do allow anyone from the kind of neighboring states to join as well.
SPEAKER_03Oh, cool.
SPEAKER_01Um, and so it's the it will it's still just to be clear, it's the longest running angel group. So it started in 1987, and then it it's the largest in Colorado, but it's actually not the largest in the country. There's a few in New York and San Francisco that are larger.
SPEAKER_00Oh, gotcha, gotcha.
SPEAKER_01In terms of number of people, but there's right now 220 members, and we're trying to expand that to 320 over the next two years, as well as so the project, so it's called the Colorado Capital Mobilization Project, which is a very long name, but it's actually in partnership with uh the state of Colorado, so the Office of Economic Development. So anyone that's kind of around this, these early stage companies realizes how much angel funding as well as mentorship and guidance kind of really helps them, like we just discussed. And so, what we're actually doing is there's seven advanced industries that Colorado is targeting. Um, you can go actually to the advanced industry site that a Wedded, the Office of Economic Development, has, and we're actually focusing on creating specific kinds of uh groups within our group uh to focus on those industries. So one of them is aerospace, one of them is clean tech, one of them's technology just as a whole, one of them is electronics, manufacturing, infrastructure. Forget a life sciences is the seventh.
SPEAKER_00Sweet. Yeah, that's that's a whole bunch of different businesses too. And as you're naming it off, I can think of yeah, just a bunch of companies in Colorado where uh there's there's some big players in that area too.
SPEAKER_01Yep, exactly. And and so actually uh my main focus is going in and helping, there's around 60,000 accredited investors in Colorado that could partake and invest kind of in early stage companies.
SPEAKER_02Okay.
SPEAKER_01Um, for those that don't know, an accredited investor is someone that makes over $200,000 per year in salary or joint income between two earners of $300,000 or has a net worth of over a million dollars. And so the securities law basically make it so accredited investors are kind of the only ones that get a partake, whether that's right or wrong. Um, I'm actually a big fan of letting non-accredited participate as long as it's like a small portion of their portfolio. Sure.
SPEAKER_00So I think I imagine technology just in general should be able to help make that more possible because the the risk always was before is like it doesn't make sense for someone to do those types of investments unless they have those types of net worth or income levels because it's just too much exposure to a very risky, or not very risky, but just uh a more risky than traditional.
SPEAKER_01And there's a chance of the company going out of business, whereas if you invest in the public stocks, there's still obviously chances of loss, but going completely out of business is is not usually uh it's very rare.
SPEAKER_00Anyway, no, yeah, you're you're exactly right. And so that's why there's those things, but as far as to make it more proportional to their net worth, so let's say like they only had like $10,000 to invest. Well, a lot of paperwork has to get moved around in order for investments to even occur. And so that's why historically it's been such an issue as far as not being able to even allow people those kind of smaller investments because of all the just time and hassle. And then there's a liability standpoint too. These people sue someone over to them as a small investment, but then they're able to sue for a lot more. So I I see a lot of compliance that I have to protect my my business in a lot of ways from uh different compliance things. I have to make sure I mark all these boxes, I ask all the right questions and all these things. So yeah, those things are meant to protect people, but I can see um some people feeling left out though. But yeah, eventually, if you if you work hard enough, you most people should be able to build a savings and net worth to a million. It just is gonna take time and energy and and just long-term uh thinking about it.
SPEAKER_01I'm gonna focus on time, yeah, and work.
SPEAKER_00Yep. But yeah, technology though might be changing those things so it gets rid of a lot of those concerns uh for everyone involved.
SPEAKER_01Yep, exactly. And uh until then though, so the so the project is actually focused on helping the accredited investors right now in Colorado invest into these kind of emerging or advanced industries. And what we found was there's a lot of people that made money in Colorado off of real estate or agriculture or oil and gas or telco that aren't exactly they, while they're very smart people, they don't necessarily have the knowledge or experience to invest into early stage companies. So what RVC actually does is has a bunch of education as well as a club. So it's right. Oh, sweet. Is it's actually a club of people, right? So we go ahead and give education courses every month to Angels and how to go and invest. And actually, we're rolling out in 2020 an angel kind of certification program to basically walk angel through how to lead a deal as well as due diligence. And then the whole idea behind the club is you're actually gonna source and you're going to um be able to do better diligence with a group of people, and then you're also gonna be able to aggregate your check size to basically invest in the company instead of investing like a 20 or 25k check as an individual angel, you're gonna be able to aggregate with 10 other people, get to 250k or 300k check, and invest more meaningful amounts of money into the company.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, that's awesome.
SPEAKER_01Yep, and it also allows kind of the angel to put these smaller bets in because a lot of times our minimum at RVC is 10K. And a lot of times you you're gonna want to do multiple deals just because you never know, right? You want to it's usually you do around 20 to 25 angel investments. That's kind of the strategy or recommended approach.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, just as a way to kind of diversify too, right?
SPEAKER_01Yep, exactly. And you get to see the winners. So when you go and invest into a company, that's what most people don't realize with angel investing is when you invest into a company, a lot of times now you get to see them grow, and then they have future rounds of funding where you can kind of double down, get your retail rights in most cases. So, and there's potential participation room for more. RBS a lot of times falls on and does even more money into a future round of a company that's doing well. So, anyway, the so for an angel, the the benefits is kind of one, you get this kind of education, two, you get more people, and then three, you can do smaller checks that aggregate into bigger amounts for the company. And then also with a bigger check, you get to actually negotiate terms more. And so there's a bunch of advantages. So with the Colorado Capital Mobilization Project, we're going out and and basically trying to educate these angel investors on how to do this early stage investing, and then also kind of allow them to have a lot of them will have industry expertise in life sciences or aerospace or something. Yeah. Um, we're just providing kind of the knowledge of how to go and invest in the early stage companies.
SPEAKER_00That's awesome. Yeah, that I that's probably the biggest issue, right? From people that are accredited to being able to fully make that leap and invest in something that they've never maybe even heard of sometimes uh before. Yep. And yeah, education is just a huge piece of comfortability and building confidence. And so I don't know if you know, but like my show, the other episodes I do are kind of solo around educational uh topics on financial subjects. So I almost wonder um down the line, it would be beneficial to have you come back just because you're the expert on these things, like how this stuff would work. Uh, let's say there happens to be some accredited investors that are listening. Um super valuable, something that I would mess up because I that's not my area. And so yeah, it's just so important to give people the confidence to uh do these types of things and just make um informed decisions as far as well, now that I know this information, like how do I feel? Is this does this make sense for what I'm trying to do and what they're trying to achieve?
SPEAKER_01Absolutely. We actually have an angel, um, a mini angel 101 course. So we have angel 101, angel 201, and then kind of lead training, and then we have this mini angel 101 course that we kind of give away. But the angel 101, 201, and lead you have to be part of the group for, but we do kind of like a preliminary uh training to get people a little bit of a taste.
SPEAKER_00So yeah, cool. And so to be a part of the group, do you have to be an accredited investor too? Or is that we have two.
SPEAKER_01We have we have uh company memberships and then we have uh accredited memberships.
SPEAKER_03Okay.
SPEAKER_01Um so the the accredited membership is $1,500 per year. We throw over 100 plus events, we throw the two largest angel capital conferences in the or angel investing conferences in the uh state. And then also again, you we are able to actually see a lot of really good deal flow and get into deals that you normally wouldn't be able to do. So for that amount, uh and you also get to build out your own kind of network with other accredited investors that you can usually work with and do other projects with. So the the value for membership is actually we actually charge um usually it's $5,000 to enter an angel group.
SPEAKER_02Okay.
SPEAKER_01Host is sometimes $10,000 plus. So we're actually one of the um most valuable, I would say, uh in angel group memberships for that cost.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, yeah, especially with the the events and like you mentioned, just that that possibility of teaming up. I'm sure uh they get matched with other people as far as investors. Uh does your team kind of help with that match different individual investors up to pair them up to that kind of minimum investment needed?
SPEAKER_01So, what we actually do is so we this process is gonna change in 2020 because we're now focusing on the industries. Yep. But we're actually gonna be sourcing companies for those specific industries that I mentioned earlier.
SPEAKER_03Yep.
SPEAKER_01And then we'll pick uh there's usually one or two in those industries per quarter. So right now there's actually um we just had our clean tech form, and so two of the companies that just pitched both had investor interest from the clean tech angels that were there. And so when there's interest, then we'll show the deal uh to the rest of the group. And then coming up is the capital conference where actually eight companies are gonna be pitching. The companies will go ahead and present to this investor form, which is gonna be over 100 plus of the members there. We'll have a discussion afterwards, and then the companies that the investors are interested in will then write up a diligence report and then share with the rest of the group. And then you have an opportunity if you're part of the group, whether you're there or not, to invest alongside everyone else.
SPEAKER_00Oh, that's cool. So people that uh had something come up that day, they weren't they weren't able to make it or or they're working or whatever the the deal is, they're still able to get in on it. And uh I imagine there's some type of notes or some some reason that everyone else supports why they think that this investment would be a good idea.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, exactly. And we also write up uh pretty in-depth diligence reports too.
SPEAKER_00Oh, cool.
SPEAKER_01So yeah.
unknownAwesome.
SPEAKER_01So we have all the information.
SPEAKER_00So startups are definitely coursing through your veins. You've you had one, you sold one, you started another one, you're helping all these uh different people just in the the startup kind of universe with the the angel funding and forming the groups and all that. So what would you say to someone that's listening and like wondering wondering what it takes to successfully uh build a startup that receives angel investors interest?
SPEAKER_01Sure. I think one of the uh biggest misconceptions is one, do you need funding? Because I think there's only certain types of businesses and there are a small number that actually need some kind of funding. And I think we've kind of in the last five to ten years, it's become kind of sexy to raise VC funding or angel funding because that's kind of like that's like the start, but most people view it as like the finish. Um, so one, it's like really determining. So if you take someone's um investment, it's it's knowing that now you you have to give them back that money and you have to give them a return on it, right? So it's most entrepreneurs think of it as buying it, we call it buying a job. So they basically will take on investment because that way they get to pay themselves to do what they were trying to do, which isn't actually a good reason to take on investment. Um, the best reason to take on investment is because you have a big market or a market that you need to scale to quickly, and then you have an exit opportunity that is going to be large. And by taking on the funding now, you're gonna be able to scale faster to get to that large market, and then you're gonna have those exit opportunities to give back well, one obviously give a return to your investors, but also make yourself a bunch of money in the process. Yeah. Um, that you do lose a little bit of control as you keep raising money, and so like every round you raise, you you get less and less control of the company. So then the other thing, too, is you're really going after the outcome more so than you're going after the I would say kind of like there's a lot of people that, and there's nothing wrong with this because I had a consulting firm for two and a half years that was like this, a lifestyle business, yeah. Um, where you kind of can work three days a week or four days a week if you want and take some days off and kind of just make money when you want to. Yeah, um, you kind of lose a lot of that when you raise money from someone else. So it's kind of like what you what outcome you want. So I would I would really recommend to an entrepreneur is one, you you have to really understand what your TAM or total addressable market is, how big is it, and then how you're gonna get your return. And then if it's large, then I would go and say, Okay, well, how am I gonna get there fast? And then you make a plan and put it together to how how to how to get there. So yeah. And most people don't do that. They start with the product and they're like, I want to do this XYZ product thing to for a few people, yeah, and then they get stuck here, but they really need to be focusing on like the where's the exit and where's the how big is it gonna be?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, how do how do people even go through that method of understanding just because so many people are specialized in their area? Do they have to start relying on a team right away, or do you see like a lot of individuals or just kind of like two co-founders successfully uh pitch in their uh startup to investors?
SPEAKER_01So, with uh I'll just give you the example of Augur. So, our whole thesis was personalization of ads as well as attribution of ads. So, Facebook and Google are two of the five most valuable companies because they can personalize an ad as well as attribute it, but they actually get a small Percentage of the entire web traffic. So what we found was the rest of the web obviously wants to personalize ad as well as attribute ads to get more advertising revenue. So at the time, I think it was 85% of all online ad spend, which is around $200 billion, was getting sent to Facebook and Google because of how great their ad agents are.
SPEAKER_03Yeah.
SPEAKER_01So if you're if you're a publisher, if you're Ziff Davis or you're kind of like Match.com or any anything that's like these large New York Times, Washington Post, anything that has like a lot of eyeballs, you want to monetize that with advertising, but you don't necessarily have the back end to be able to do that. And so with Augur, we basically created this identity graph. And we anonymized the information. So we were trying to be the good guys, right? Not like Facebook or GIA. And so like we were also going to be a better solution to basically then allow these huge publishers to basically monetize their traffic without kind of like sacrificing the ethics. And so that's how it started. And that's why we got bought so quickly. Because within two years, we kind of built out the initial product, we got an initial distribution, we had large pilots with some pretty big names. And so as you can, as you know, Facebook and we were two of the five most valuable companies, again, with a little only a little bit of the ad track or the website traffic. And so we were like, well, if we can get the like all of it, it's it's a huge company, obviously. But even if we get like a small percentage, it's still a big company. So that's kind of how we were, and we knew we could build the initial product, and we knew we had initial distribution partners. So when we were raising, we raised from an ad our first Angel uh had built a DSP, which is one of our partners. Um the DSP he built was Site Scout, and then he brought it in the Angel Group in Toronto, as well as a VC out of New York and Montreal that focused on ab tech. And so that's kind of how that process started. So anyway, that was uh I that we were going after a big hairy problem, right? Yeah. That was gonna make a bunch of money if we solved it. Um, we we hadn't solved it yet. We were building out the initial product that would be able to solve it, but we knew that we would need capital to get to where we wanted to go, and that's why we were raising.
SPEAKER_00Um how how big was your team at that time?
SPEAKER_01Uh when we sold it, well, when we raised, it was three founders. Okay. Um and then when we sold it, it was only 10 people. So it's still yeah, relatively small.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, that's crazy. Like in again, that's just for me just being on the outside, not understanding like how some people, if you if you have a good idea and you have enough of the the talent and and you use networking a lot, right? To kind of uh meet the right people. Can you talk to you like how important networking is for for your career and just kind of how you've navigated everything?
SPEAKER_01I think it's more important to network for a purpose or have uh an intent behind it because I think networking, a lot of people say, Well, I'm gonna build up a network so that way when I have the idea or whatever, um, then I'll have this network that I can use. I actually think that's the wrong tactic. I think uh you start with a purpose. So you start with you have a company or you have a service like yourself, yeah. Um, and you're basically like I started building out my network um in the Colorado community only because I was trying to sell our consulting services. So we set up NetSuite and Salesforce, and that was what our consulting firm did, and then we started setting up HubSpot, and so we wanted to constantly go and meet kind of come like the companies that ended up hiring us were companies that had raised a large seed rounder, a series A. Yeah, and so we wanted to raise we wanted to basically meet them before they raise or right when they raise, so that way they would hire us, right? So that's how I actually started, and that's how I met my co-founders where they started throwing uh breakfasts um in Boulder actually. So I was living in Boulder at the time, yeah. And uh that's how it started. So I was basically throwing these breakfasts, I wanted to meet cool people, but I also had something to talk about in terms of shared passions of interests of building startups and tech, and so but it was a purpose behind it. So then and when I met my co-founders for Augur, then it was kind of like they had a really interesting idea, they had some initial technology, and then it was kind of like how do we scale this and make this grow? And that's how I ended up joining. So I think without that, though, if I had just been walking around being like, I want to meet you to meet you, yeah. I don't actually think that's like a good idea. You you're not gonna get high quality people to kind of meet you. I think when you have like, I'm building this in fintech, or I'm doing this in blockchain, or I'm trying to cure cancer with my life sciences company, those start conversations and those kind of lead you in the right direction, yeah, as opposed to just saying I want to build a network.
SPEAKER_00No, yeah, that's that's definitely important. And yeah, like similar to you, I didn't really have a need to build a network or do any of those things until I launched my business. And yeah, and then it definitely took a lot more intention because there was a lot of networking events I was just going to because I took I went to meetup, typed in network, and I was like, oh, I'm gonna meet people. And then it was like, well, technically I'm I'm more experienced in providing like value for people in the tech industry, and those those weren't the people I was meeting at like 90% of the the networking events. So I was like, all right, I have to rethink this. And then yeah, so now it's been like going to more tech specific events, and because I have that more purpose, because I have a niche and it really identifies like who I'm talking to, and I know how I'm able to help these people, it's it's helped me even just go to the events in general, like whether anything comes of it. I'm just constantly learning more about what I need to know and just get more exposure to it. Right.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, and and you're probably feeling this same way is like there's I I we were talking about this earlier, but I went to three events this week, and there was a plethora of of there was 10 other events I could have gone to. So the events I picked were were had an intent or purpose because that's the other thing, too, is I think people will just start networking or going to events that don't necessarily, like you said, are aren't the right events.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_01And so once you have like the purpose or intent, then you show up to the right events and you talk to the right people and you say what you're doing, and then they say, Oh, you need to talk to XYZ. And then it kind of builds it.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, yep. Yeah, it's definitely been a lot more fun, and I'm a lot more engaged with it with the the new ones, but that first few months I just had no clue. I was like, I like I I know I'm supposed to network, and I was just banging my head against the wall, kind of something that we talked about earlier too. Just uh it's not not good to just keep doing the same things if it doesn't feel like it's right, if it doesn't feel like you're it's moving you in the right direction. Totally. Any before we close out the episode, is there any specific guidance you would provide, like someone that is in the tech space and uh they're wanting to just general advice for navigating their career?
SPEAKER_01I'm not good at careers because I've I've never entrepreneur. How about entrepreneurs listening? Sure. And I I think the biggest thing is just starting or doing something to get the get the entrepreneurial gears going. Because I think you're gonna learn a like school doesn't teach us how to be entrepreneurs. I think it's kind of like you learn by doing. Yeah. Um what I people always ask, like, Augur, obviously, was a successful exit, and then we look at a lot of companies, and the the the repetitive theme that I've seen is really good entrepreneurs have tried a billion different things.
SPEAKER_03Oh, yeah.
SPEAKER_01Um, my my first company, we it wasn't a company, it was a I'll call it a project. We basically created a ninja game, app game back when Fruit Ninja and Ninja were all the rage, because that was like, oh, everyone loves ninja and app games. So we did like an RPG that did terrible, and then we tried to sell reusing. Sounds cool enough. Yeah, and but it was all these like projects that just not really took off. And every time we did one, we learned, and and it was kind of like why, and then it was also like, okay, well, pick something that you're actually really passionate about, and then industry that you're really excited about. You just as each experiment went, you kind of learn something. So I would say like keep your risk low so you you can have a normal job and be trying stuff on the side with friends, make it fun, and then also just really focus on the customer and who's gonna be paying you, and and then start building stuff with that and build stuff with cool people. So I would just say like get started, and and we were talking about this earlier with you. It sounds like you just started see from your work, you were actually hearing a problem repetitively, which then ended up being like, oh, like no one's addressing this, someone should solve this, and then you just went out and kind of started doing it. And I think that's that's like the the magic formula that doesn't sound magical. That's how entrepreneurship works. I can't tell you how many entrepreneurs I met that said, oh, well, I was doing this one thing, and then I found out there's this huge problem here with, and then people wanted a solution and would start paying me, and I wouldn't start doing it.
SPEAKER_00It's like well, and and it's cool too, that to be able to solve those issues, whatever it is, and and being like one of the first ones to the scene to do it. It's it's it's a cool feeling for sure. And I'm sure you felt that way with Augur as you were building that up. That like, oh, this is looking like it might end up working, and then yeah, obviously a successful exit there.
SPEAKER_01Yep, exactly. So it's uh it's just get started, just do stuff.
SPEAKER_00Yep, yeah, that's that is a recurring theme that from most business owners is yeah, they wish they would have started sooner, they wish they would have just done something, and yeah, just starting so that you can fail really quickly, like you said, you most people fail so many times, and it's just a matter of figuring it out, kind of what what from that disaster actually was a positive thing. Take out the the remaining pieces and then kind of build it up with some new pieces, and it's it it can be fun, and while you're in it though, I I I can tell from experience, and I'm sure you can too, like there's days where you're like, holy smokes, what is going on today?
SPEAKER_01Like, yeah, it's a roller coaster for sure.
SPEAKER_00Cool. Well, I really appreciate you uh taking the time today, and I know you're you're very busy with all those different roles that you all the different heads that you were, but if people wanted to kind of be on the radar or have you on the radar, I know that you're super connected, you probably have too many connections at this point on LinkedIn. And I know I've read somewhere that you're you're not really great at responding to messages just because you get so many. What would be the best way to someone just kind of get in the um have access and visibility to the RVC and what you're doing?
SPEAKER_01Sure. So actually, so I live in Denver and every other Friday, so twice a month, I'll have pitch practice for an hour. So from three to four at the Commons on Champa. Comments on Champa is a nonprofit sponsored by the city, it's right downtown. Anyone that wants to kind of pitch their business and get feedback from three to four on Friday, every other Friday, so the next one's November 8th, can come pitch their business. I'll give them some feedback, and then from four to five, we kind of have this mastermind meet and greet. So entrepreneurs will actually show up, it's great, it's usually five to ten people. Uh, we'll talk about everyone's business. You'll I'll get to meet you, and then also you'll get to meet a bunch of other cool people in Denver that are hustling and building things, and usually there's a lot of great connections that I mean the value a lot of times is actually in meeting the other people that show up. So for sure. That's how I kind of make myself available. I don't do kind of the one-on-one coffees anymore, they they take up too much time and they're actually not as valuable as the pitch practice or the meet and greets.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, yeah, and get more constructive, kind of get dive right into it.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, exactly. Exactly. You dive right into the company with pitch practice, and then you get to meet a lot of people and brainstorm with people, like when you brainstorm with five people in a room, someone's gonna have the answers. So um, because I don't have them all for sure. So the anyway, so three to five basically every other Friday, come on down the comments on chip. And then also, if you're just an entrepreneur in Colorado, there's Colorado Startups, so color startups.org. Yeah, um, it has an online community. There's like a Facebook group, LinkedIn group, and a bunch of other resources to kind of get you started. And then RVC, uh to not to plug RVC too much, but at RVC we have like a pitch academy, so like it's an entire four-hour working session with you and a few other entrepreneurs. We have a hyper accelerator, so it's like um seven weeks of just a bunch of mentors and people diving in your business. Oh, sweet. Uh for an entire week, it's just super deep dive. Uh, and then we also have these like ongoing educational sessions for entrepreneurs as well. So if you're interested, that that's kind of taking it to the next level. So if you're interested, uh we have a lot of things.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, it'd be really serious at that point.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, exactly. And and that's and then we find that the people that show up there are like, hey, we really want to solve this problem where we have this initial customer, we have this initial product, how do we take it to the next level? And that's usually who um does really well there.
SPEAKER_00So awesome. For for the meetings, the coffee meetings that you mentioned, is there like a link or anything to that, or is it just something that people in the know know to show up on those days?
SPEAKER_01There is. So if you go to my personal website is paulnfoley.com. And then if you hit the meet tab, it will show up, it will basically take you to this page. And then also if you just go directly to the commonsonchampa.org. So the commons on champa, again, is that co-company sponsored by the city of Denver, they also have the the kind of mentor hours there. So either of those, yeah.
SPEAKER_00Awesome. Yeah, I'll I'll put the links in there um in the show notes so that people can have access to that as easy as possible. And yeah, I I definitely, if you guys have something that you want to pitch, um, that sounds like a great opportunity. And obviously, Paul has listened probably to a thousand pitches at this point. So um him and then a bunch of other people, you'll you'll get some insight for sure.
SPEAKER_01I more than a thousand at this point.
SPEAKER_00Well, I really appreciate you coming on today, Paul.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, thank you, Lucas. I appreciate it, man.
SPEAKER_00Thanks. Thank you for listening to Tech E Personal Finance Bootcamp. Remember, if you like what you've been hearing, to subscribe, review, and share with your friends and colleagues. If you want to take your connection to the show to the next level, you can find me on LinkedIn or on Facebook. Next time on Tech EPersonal Finance Bootcamp.