Steve Hoffman: Venture Capital: The Ins and Outs of VC Funding

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Today’s guest has had more careers than cats have lives from Hollywood TV, exact end game designer to manga rewriter voice actor, animator, electrical engineer, studio, head and video game designer. Today. He’s the CEO of founder space. One of the world’s leading startup accelerators that was ranked the number one incubator for overseas startups by Forbes and entrepreneur magazines here to teach you the ins and outs of venture capital funds, please welcome Steve.

You’re ready to grow your business. And I love helping entrepreneurs find success. So let’s do this. I’m Damon Burton, Forbes contributor, author of the search engine optimization book, outrank and president of SEO national. I’ve been featured on Forbes, entrepreneur and hundreds of websites and podcasts for helping big businesses grow bigger and make more money by showing up higher on search engines, including shark tank, featured businesses, NBA teams, and Inc 5,000 company.

I’m bringing my successful network to you here@learningfromothers.com. Whether success to you means financial freedom, freedom of time or freedom of the soul. We’re in this together. Welcome to the learning from others podcast.

Ready to show up higher on search engines for words that you can monetize, but without paying for ads, download your free copy of my SEO book outrank. If you visit www.freeseobook.com today. Steve Hoffman, everybody AKA captain hot. Thanks for jumping on learning from others. How you doing? I’m happy to be here.

Good. Well, um, I’m interested in jumping into your story. You got the entrepreneurial, um, fan, um, entrepreneur myself. So I’m excited to see some of these stories. You talk about bootstrap versus venture funded kind of projects, but not until we ask the usual two questions. Question number one, Steve is what are you good at?

And what are we gonna learn from you today? So what I’m good at is helping startups overcome obstacles. So I work with hundreds of startups all over the world. We run these founder space. That’s the name of our startup accelerator. So we have founder space partners in 22 countries, and I really enjoy going deep with startups, deep on their business plan, deep on their launch strategy, deep on their fundraising, helping them raise capital, all those things.

Okay. Okay. Cool. All right. We’re going to dig into that, but not until you ask the question number two, which is what are you saying? What do I suck at? Well, I suck at a lot of things. So one thing I suck at is basketball. I’m just too clumsy for basketball. Another thing I suck at is I tried to write a screen.

And it just didn’t work. So in the past, I suck at screenplay writing, but I am good at writing books on startups and funding, startups and innovation. That’s my, that’s what I Excel at. And I suck at sleeping. I have a hard time sleeping at night sometimes. And, and so I’d love to get better at that, but I don’t know.

So for me, my problem is, is not falling asleep, but staying asleep or are you just a giant mess across the whole sleeping spectrum? Fall asleep, but I wake up all the time. Yeah, me too. Yeah. Now on the screen writing thing that it just sucks so bad that you only tried once. I tried that many times, so I jumped the problem is I don’t suck so bad.

I’m terrible. And that was the problem because I’m actually. I want a scholarship on my screen writing. I D you know, I actually got paid to write screenplays, but I wasn’t great. And so my role is if you’re not great, you suck. So do, honestly, because you can’t break into something, especially as competitive as screenwriting, unless you are the best, unless you are really, really good.

And it’s true for almost anything in life. If you really want to Excel, go at what you’re asking. Yeah. Well, so I’m, I’m interested in talking about VCs because I’ve been in a couple of VC discussion discussions and I found those negotiations. Interesting. Um, and I also want to dig deeper on how you help startups overcome obstacles.

I’m going to make this giant blanket assumption and the huge chunk of the obstacles that you help entrepreneurs overcome is simple mindset issues. Is that true? There are a lot of mindset issues. Uh, but there also a lot of things startup founders don’t know. So in terms of mindset, a lot of founders, founders get obsessed with their idea in the beginning, just totally obsessed.

And they think it’s brilliant and they also attach their identity to the idea. So they feel like if the idea isn’t working, therefore. Um, and that’s just not true. If your idea isn’t working, your idea, isn’t working, you aren’t necessarily failing. In fact, if you are open and you are learning stuff and you’re getting feedback, then you’re making progress.

You just need to know that this idea isn’t working and that you need to try something else. So I will tell you more often than not startups fail. Not because they switch ideas too often, but because they stick with one idea to. Um, and they keep trying and trying and trying, you know, everything they can think of to make it work when it doesn’t because finding an idea, especially for a venture funded start the types we’re talking, you know, types.

I work with the ones that want to become unicorns, these billion dollar companies, the ones that are raising venture capital. It’s an all or none. Either your idea is going to resonate with a certain set of customers and there’s going to be a huge market there and it’s going to explode or it doesn’t. So if you are middling along, even if you’re, you know, feels like, you know, things are happening, you know, if you don’t see that, that massive pent up customer demand out there, then you have to move on.

You have to kill that idea and move on. That’s the hardest thing for entrepreneurs. Is that, is that kind of, uh, uh, more or less a universal statement for VC funded projects? Is that it it’s it’s all or nothing? Or is there an opportunity or some VC? Um, Entities that kind of go for that middle of the road now.

So if they’re smart, it, this is the problem. You can come to a VC with a great idea for a smaller medium-sized business that can be highly profitable, that you can bring in millions of dollars and they’ll look at it. And they’ll say I pass if they’re smart. And the reason is because the companies that kind of grow linear.

When there are a lot of businesses that grow linearly and they can produce a for the founder, a great income, a great lifestyle. They can even gradually become very large companies, but if they don’t grow exponentially, the chance of that investor, getting their money back in the time that they need for a fund.

So a fund has. And so venture funds have a life of anywhere from six to 12 years on average. And these, they, that means they have to return their money to their investors within that time. And they’re judged on that. So if, if your thing is growing, you know, along nicely, but it’s, there’s no clear exit in sight within a six to 12 year timeframe.

It doesn’t make any sense. That’s why they want exponential growth. So they’re always looking for ideas with exponential growth. And what I help entrepreneurs do is look at their idea and say, look, is this going to produce the type of growth venture funds need? If not, you need you. Don’t don’t go out fundraising, like just bootstrap this business, do it on your own.

Yeah. So it’s not, it might not be a bad business idea. It’s just not the best opportunity to get VC funding. Exactly. Okay. And what’s interesting is, is when you explain it, it is literally a fund, right? So it’s, is it a, is it a pool of investments from a variety of investors? And then there’s the, the VC company is like the fund manager.

And then just like you said, that’s why there’s such a time sensitivity to it to get a return out of it. Yes. If you’re a venture capitalist, basically how you raise your fund. There are angel investors and they invest their own money so they could do whatever they want. And they’re angels all over the map that will invest in all types of business.

But if you’re a venture capitalist, that means you’ve gone and raised money from what are called LPs or limited partners. These can be individuals, rich individuals, family offices. Institutions like pension funds, all sorts of things. They put their money in you in you, and you’re telling them I’m going to invest in this type of startup in this region.

And in this timeframe, I will return what I hope to return is this much money. So they’re putting their money into you with that expectation. So when you go out to the market, you are automatically filtering by that. And the rule of funds is that they bet on a portfolio. That means they don’t expect every one of their startups to be these breakout unicorns.

You know, that we read about these billion dollar companies that have huge returns, but they expect every one of the startups. They invest in to have the opportunity to be that company, the chance of being that breakout company, because how funds typically. As some of the startups fail. Some, you know, do moderately well, but one or two in a fund of like 10 or 20 companies, one or two becomes that amazing breakout hit blockbuster company.

And the valuation of that company usually dwarfs all the other companies. They call that a fund maker. So every venture capitalist is they know that all they need is one or two fund makers and they are set. If they don’t get a fund maker, their fund, isn’t going to look that good. So they, when they’re placing their bets, they’re really betting every bet there, every, you know, arrow in their quiver, they’re aiming at a target of a potential fund maker.

That’s why they screen out all these other bits. Yeah, it reminds me of, um, how I can only assume the music industry is what, when they signed talent. It’s not that everyone is going to be super successful, but, but that one talent pays for the investments and all the others. Exactly. And same with Hollywood blockbusters, same model.

Yeah. Um, now when, when the fund is created, is, are the investors, is everything. Defined. And then that is a singular fund with C you know, um, defined investors at the beginning until the end. And then no other investors can come in mid. It depends how the fund is structured. So a typical fund we’ll get a commitment from investors upfront and their goal.

Let’s say it’s a 10 year fund, which is very typical in the U S their goal is to invest, make all their investments in the first few years, the first three years, let’s say because they need time for those companies to mature. So they have to place the money early. The, in that fund, you have the venture partners, the people who are going to be managing the fund, you know, there’s a managing director and other partners involved.

They are kind of the core people running the fund, and then they set the expectations for the investors. Now the, for their investors. And you ask the question is all the money raised upfront? Well, it’s never that. It venture funds would love it, get all the money up front, but a lot of times they have to do it in stages.

So they might get some money up front. They might make a few investments that, you know, and then they’re raising more money. It gets a little tricky because the earlier investors, you know, they came in earlier, they took more risk late the way later the investors come in, they start to see how the fund is developing.

Do they have any fun make potential fund makers in there? You know, are their investments going up? So. That, that dynamic, they usually have to compensate. They have to build some compensation in for the early investors who took more risks to the later investors. But at a certain point, they cut off, uh, bringing in capital.

So, you know, at a certain point, once they placed all their bets, you know, it’s done. Yeah. So how did you get into the. So I got into this world as an entrepreneur. I did three venture funded startups. I was in the trenches. I, you know, when I work with entrepreneurs, I’m speaking from my own personal experience.

And then after my third venture funded startup, I launched founder space. Um, basically as a way to help my friends who were raising capital and I had done it before and they hadn’t, and it just kept growing. So, so VC funded projects are interesting to me, um, because I, the what’s what’s interesting to me is, is the B because of the unicorns.

I think a lot of people get distracted by the concept of instant gratification. It’s not instant gratifications and gratification, but in comparison to like bootstrap projects. Right. And so there’s nothing wrong with either or bootstrap versus VC funding, but it’s interesting to me that, um, So so many in the entrepreneur space get distracted by that.

And they, and they don’t, they don’t put in the proof of concept first or do their due diligence. And so do you have, um, do you see that a lot that some, some entrepreneurs come to you prematurely just because they’ve, they’ve seen the shiny objects and don’t really understand that the proof of concept exactly.

Right. So there are entrepreneur, a lot of entrepreneurs out there who think the end goal is getting funded by a venture. Well, let me tell you, that’s not the end goal. That’s, you know, that’s just one step along the journey and being funded by VC doesn’t mean you’ll succeed just as I said, with the portfolio strategy, not all the companies that get funded succeed, so totally fail others just produce mediocre results.

So when a lot of. Entrepreneurs approach me, you know, they’re very funding focused. They’re like, get the money, get the money and get the money I’m like, hold on. Let’s look at your business. Is this an even fundable business? Is this the pipe where you would benefit from raising venture capital or are you just going to spin your wheels and waste your time?

So I always say. Entrepreneurs at the beginning, don’t focus on funding. First of all, it’s hard to get. It seems easy. We read about all these funding events all the time. It’s actually, it’s actually really, really hard until it’s not. So, you know, then it’s easy, but, but until you get the money, it’s really hard.

Yeah. You know, it seems like you’ll never get funded. So I tell entrepreneurs, pick a business, especially if it’s your first time and you don’t have all these relationships that you can draw upon, pick a business that you can, you can build it through sweat equity. Like it can be a potential unicorn, but you have to at least get started through your bootstrapping and sweat equity because those artists.

Those are the businesses. You will have the best chance of succeeding at because venture capital isn’t dumb, right? They are called venture capital. But what they really want is to take as little risk as possible and get the maximum reward. I mean, who wouldn’t. Right. So, so they’re looking at you and they’re saying where’s the proof, like a lot of people have crazy ideas.

A lot of people have amazing sounding ideas, but most of these ideas don’t work out. Where’s what are we, what do you actually have? Right. Actually show me that would get me to invest. Yeah. Now are most of the projects, like we keep talking about the word unicorns and, and most people, at least myself would assume we’re relating unicorns to tech and SAS businesses.

Is that generally where you focus is. I do. I focus a lot on tech, a lot, you know, SAS as a segment software, as a service is part of technology, but I focus on AI focused on, you know, robotics, all these different areas. The idea I’m looking for though is not exclusive to. So I can tell you the criteria I look for, you know, look at Lulu lemon, no tech involved there maybe came a Luna unicorn there’s, uh, you know, donut companies that have become unicorns.

They’re just, it’s, you know, there’s all these food companies that have just exploded. You know, they’ve done start, they’ve done a new brand and they’ve positioned it just right. And they’d grown really, really fast. So it doesn’t have to be technology. Does have to be something new and by new, I mean, there are two ways to break out as a startup that, that I see one is that you, you look out at the competitive landscape, what every, all the people are offering right now, and you figure out a way through technology or another way, business process, design innovation, some other way, you figure out a way to do something exponential.

Not incrementally better. Like if you just make a pro add features to a product that’s already out there, most people aren’t going to switch. Like if I asked you and you’re using Gmail and I said, here’s another email application. They have a few cool features. Are you going to switch? Not a chance, not a chance.

Right? Not a chance. You know, it has to be so much better that you’re like, oh my God, I can’t yet. Why would it come? The pain of switching? Yeah. Yeah. Why would I use the, you know, uh, this, this Gmail, when this software. You know, three, two or three times better. If you can’t do that, and it’s a high bar, then you have to do something different, something new and by different.

I mean, you offer a core value to customers that they aren’t getting elsewhere. That nowhere else in the competitive landscape, they’re really getting it. You can come in there and say, wow, we spike on this one thing that you really, really need when you do that, then people just, okay, I’ll use Gmail and then I’ll use this other communication software because it allows me to communicate in a totally different way for totally different.

So, uh, we’ve seen that happen in the real world with different things, you know, Instagram and others, you know, people are using it to communicate now because it was different, allowed them to communicate different than email. So we have multiple communication channels. It’s true in every product category and every service category.

So I’m looking for entrepreneurs that have had these insights. That w that can really, when they come into the market, they can come in because they’re small because at the beginning they don’t have a lot of money, but they can come in with a big advantage that draws in customers. How much I want to ask you about, um, two things, and I’m curious how much they, they come into your considerations.

When you’re looking at a potential projects, how much do you consider. Exclusivity or scarcity as a value proposition and the product. So like Facebook started by being limited to certain colleges and then slowly scaling out. And then that exclusivity created a lot of attention to it. Is that part of any of the considerations that like in your repetitive pro, like, is that part of your, your processes of a consideration or is it just kind of here and there?

Exclusivity can be a great way, a great marketing device for launching. So we looked and clubhouse, right? They got their start that the audio social network got their start by doing these invite onlys. And they started with a very select group of people, these influencers in the tech community, and it made it, a lot of people were like, wow, I want to be in on that.

You know, now it’s not so special to be on clubhouse, but at the beginning to propel their brand to propel awareness, Exclusivity worked really well. Facebook starting exclusivity, um, you know, at Harvard and other places within their network. That was a good idea, not just for marketing, but also for being very focused, figuring out your product, figuring out your customer and what they need.

If you’re too. A lot of times, uh, it it’s, it’s very hard to perfect the product at the beginning. So narrowing your focus and then gradually spreading it out has multiple, you know, multiple advantages, one, it makes you seem exclusive for people, but also it gives you that time to iterate on your product before.

Spread it, you, you knew you don’t want to please everybody with and everything. They want to start a great company. You want certain people to just nail it for them. Like this is perfect for you. And then you can start to figure out how to bring in a broader set of customers. And the second thing I wanted to ask about is what’s your take on crowdfunding?

It seems like in the last couple of years that’s been. Kind of a shiny object where it’s like, Hey, you don’t have to go through VC. Here’s this other way. That’s, you know, easier. And I, I imagine there’s just so much part of that. That’s an untold story or the other side of the story. And so do you have any, any take on crowdfunding, many different types of crowdfunding?

So let’s start with Indiegogo. You come up with an idea, it can be a cool gadget or, you know, whatever you want a game that you’re going to revive and you go directly out to people who. Potential customers. I think that’s a great idea. It’s a great way, but it’s very hard. Like we could see that Kickstarter and Indiegogo they’re flooded with people posting ideas, you know, which ones breakthrough and you also.

It, it re it requires you to really know what you’re doing. You can’t just go onto these crowdfunding sites and expect it to work. Like it pays to have a consultant who has run these crowdfunding campaigns before come on board. And especially somebody who’s done it for similar products who has relationships with all the bloggers and influencers in the space.

Because honestly, if you don’t like, if it’s a product, let’s say that has a built-in. Like a game that’s been popular in the past and the fans are still, you know, hungry for more. Then you can go directly to them. You might not need, you know, a marketing expert in crowdfunding, but if it’s a product, a new product that people haven’t heard of that doesn’t have an install base.

That’s when it takes a lot of work to reach out to just the right people, to get them involved in actually aware of what you’re doing. So they can start to buy the product in advance. Let’s let’s go to a second. So there’s the jobs act out there, which basically says, uh, you, you know, the jobs act made it possible for startups to raise money directly from retail investors.

That means not accredited investors, not investors who have a high net income or high net worth. You know, these, these are typical investors, uh, like anybody on the street, but it’s all in there. A bunch of sites out there. That do this, that allow you to do this, but they are, they limit how much an investor can invest.

They can only invest a certain dollar amount or a certain percentage of their income, depending on what they have. It also is quite cumbersome because there are a lot of rules and regulations that you have to follow because of. People fraud and they don’t want people, you know, ripping people off. So they have all these constraints that you have that can be very difficult for a startup to manage at an early stage.

I mean, it’s hard enough to run your business, let alone take investors from well, having lots and lots of investors, you demand a thousand people to manage, you know, and they may have questions and concerns, and then you have the legal stuff, very hard to manage. There’s also, ICO’s in the crypto world, you know, that’s been another way to fund companies.

Uh, And there’s a whole, you know, a lot of the crypto is vaporware, honestly. So these crypto ICO’s are vapor. Whereas a number are scams, some are, are, are, are really valuable, will turn into really valuable companies. Uh, but it’s, it’s, uh, it requires a whole nother set of expertise. So crowdfunding isn’t the magic bullet.

And then there’s, there’s crowdfunding sites like angel list, but it’s only for accredited in that. You know, so if you’re an accredited investor, you can go out there and fund these sites again, you can get lost on angel list. Like unless you have like a connection at a high level, what they call syndicate leads who have big followings of investors who can really promote you across angel list.

The chances are you, nobody will know you’re there. Post your startup. Nobody cares. So crowdfunding isn’t the, the, the, the silver bullet that will. Problems. Each focus of crowdfunding requires its own unique strategy. And, and, and it has its own advantages and disadvantages. Yeah. You know, you bring up a good point about crowdfunding marketing experts.

I have a friend that, um, that’s exactly what he does because he’s worked in retail and doing, he’s done his own launches and things like that. And so just like you said, he has experience with it and it’s really fascinating from the outside world. Cause I don’t get into a lot of retail. Mine’s more on the service.

The type of business. So S so looking at that from an outside perspective, it’s fascinating to see him come in and go, no, no, no, you need this type of videographer for this product. And then you need to launch it this time of year or this time of day. And there’s all these little granular things that Kickstarter’s just so attractive that you don’t think about the, that it is a marketing strategy.

You have to come at it with a very specific plan. If you want to increase your chances of success. Absolutely. And that consultant probably knows which blogs and which influencers to go to and what to give them, to motivate them. And has those relationships, all of that comes into play. Yeah. Um, you know, you talking about ICO’s is interesting.

I don’t want to talk about this too much because I’m not educated enough to have a good conversation on it, but one thing that’s fascinating to me, um, with ICO’s and then probably even more so on NFTs is. Just the amount of speculation right now. I feel like, do you remember, do you remember, have you heard that?

I’m sure you’ve heard the story of, you know, centuries ago. Uh, um, the, the tulip bulb inflation, you know, that’s like, I feel like we’re doing that right now. And with NFTs. Uh, to a large part, to a large extent, I would agree with you. Like there is a massive amount of speculation in this. So a lot of people have made a ton of money off crypto, which is very speculative and by its nature, and now they’re pumping it into NFTs.

What’s interesting. So what is the value of these meme? Emma NFTs like this? You know, they have ones about this cool ape who, you know, ape, 3d video, short video. Yeah. Or the Lama, whatever it is, you know, they have these funny videos that go round and then people are paying small fortunes or even large fortunes to own it as an NFT.

And you’re like, are they insane? Like this is the videos available everywhere. Anybody can watch it. What do you get by owning it? Well, all you get is to say you own it. So that’s a status symbol within a certain community of people and potentially to sell it for. Or less depending on what the market demands.

So, and the thing is if they don’t really have a utility, right. These NFTs right now, they don’t have a utility. I mean, they’re in the future. They may like, it could evolve into something where, you know, the, you know, you could get royalties off and tracking, you know, and copyright controls and all these things, but you know, they’re in their infancy right now.

What, what it really is, is a lot of these are targeted at. You know, people. Who are in a certain group and they’re all feeding off each other. So they did a study of these, you know, they have crypto punks where you buy these little pixelated pictures of punk rockers that looked like some 1980s video game.

And you know, what are these worth will they’re worth something within the community of people buying. But these communities actually aren’t large, like, uh, for the active buyers. A lot of times they said it’s average is around a thousand. So it’s not the whole world in there, bidding each other up.

They’re buying and selling and bidding. They’re creating this marketplace. So as long as those people believe that they can get a return on this and they love the, you know, the attention from their peers in this community, then there’s something there. As soon as they move on to something else, the next shiny object, well, that thing will die.

And then, you know, the value will be very low. I personally think it’s extremely risky. Uh, if you don’t want, if you have discretionary income, your audience out there and they want to just, you know, like going to Vegas, if they want to go to Vegas and bet on these NFTs, by all means they can do that. Um, if they are betting their life savings on it, I would think.

Yeah, well, as we get kind of closer to wrapping up, um, let’s Steve, let’s say I have a, I have the best idea in the world, Steve, and I’m gonna bring it to you and, and you love it. Do I have to sell my soul to succeed? Well, it depends what you mean by selling your soul. You would definitely would have to sell a piece of your company, uh, for, you know, to venture, to I’m an investor or to other investors.

I know you definitely have to sell a piece of your company and you would give up control. So you would be, uh, giving. You know, ownership, and if you get investors on, they, uh, at a certain point, especially when you go to institutional investors like venture capitalists, they’re going to want a seat on the board, which means they could remove you from the company.

So whatever vision you have, whatever, uh, ideals, you have really important for you to pick investors who are aligned with. I you with your ideals and your vision, because if they aren’t at a certain point, uh, you can keep control of a company for pretty long. I mean, mark Zuckerberg, you know, they, they have ways of doing this, but for a lot of entrepreneurs, they don’t have that luxury to dictate how all the terms of the agreement.

And if you don’t have that luxury at a certain point, you’re going to give up control and then the company could head off in a direction that. Sold your soul, right. That wasn’t true to why you created that company. So this is true with any business and you, I believe, uh, if let’s say you want to make the world a better place, let’s say you want to do like sustainable fishing or sustainable agriculture, things like that.

Green energy, you know, really positive health education, um, getting venture capital. Is one of the best ways to achieve those goals because honestly, creating a nonprofit business is always, always at the mercy of getting more donations, right. Very hard to scale and grow, right? So your impact is limited, but a business that is self-sustaining that grows because it has a business model because people need it.

Those businesses are great for investors and they are great for making an impact. Bettering people’s lives, but at the same time, you need to bake into the company culture. You need to pick the investors very, very carefully, that really want to achieve what you want to achieve. And if you don’t then your end up sabotaging yourself and that’s when you sell your soul.

When you take shortcuts, when you say, oh, I need the money so badly, I’m going to compromise on this investor, this, you know, this belief I have. That’s what. Uh, maybe one last comment, you know, you mentioning mark Zuckerberg is still maintaining control on Facebook. It’s interesting. Cause I, I, you may, I don’t know the answer you might.

I imagine that he no longer owns the majority of the shares, but he still is the face of the company and driving it to a large extent. Why is that with him? Is it because he continues to drive return for the investor? So they keep them there? Or do you think he w he was, um, you know, really specific in how he negotiated the terms of, uh, how, what shares went, where, and what control went, where both.

So, you know, he has performed, like, he’s not a dumb guy. He might not be the most moral guy we ever met. He does a lot of things that I would, I questioned, but he’s smart. And he knows. How to run that company understands that company. So that’s that’s number one, number two, he does. And a lot of entrepreneurs in it today when they can command the terms, when they’re in the driver’s seat, they set up rules so that they don’t may not own the majority of stock, but they control the votes from certain sections, certain types of stock.

So there, they actually control much more voting. Then they have in terms of equity and that’s what mark Zuckerberg and many others have done to help them maintain. Hmm. Interesting. All right. See you. I appreciate your time. Thanks for jumping on learning from others. I want to give you the last few moments to share with our audience, how they can learn more about you and not boundary space.

Sure. So if you want to get ahold of me, just go to founderspace.com and you can contact me. I’m there. We have tons of videos. We have podcasts. We have all sorts of materials for you. Startup kits, you can apply, send us your business plans. I also have a book for all the entrepreneurs out there. People want to start companies.

Surviving a startup and it’s really goes really deep on some of what we talked about today and a lot more. And you can get that on Amazon or just go to survivingstartup.com. You know what? I’m going to ask you one, not one other question. I take that back. You know, you talking about books, have you read the book by, um, Rand Fishkin, Lawson.

I have not, but I’ve heard of it. Yeah. It’s a super great book because it talks about, um, both sides he talks about. Um, so he started a company called Moz and scaled that, and he talks about how amazing it was to take on funding to grow it. But then he also talks about some of the other pain points and things like, you know, we just talked about like, do you make sure you align your, your, um, you know, your dream for, for the company, with the right investors that can support that too.

So. Great. So there are two books for your audience. There you go. Yeah. Steve Hoffman and thanks for jumping on learning from others. Appreciate your time. Thank you. I loved it. Daymond Burton here. And thank you so much for listening to the learning from others podcast. I sincerely hope that today’s guest helped you learn something since 2007, I’ve generated millions of dollars for businesses like yours.

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