Building the Latino LinkedIn ft. Frank López & Edder Barcenas | Coffeez with Joe Shalaby

0:00You can be an undocumented person but you can have a legal entity and you can run business you make tons of money so the entity is legal but you're illegal that spoke to me because i've grown up in this country most of my life without documents and we decided to invest in negozi first as a passion project welcome to another episode of coffees thank you joe thanks for having us brother thank you joe thanks thanks i know edder you flew down and that's very kind of you to come down for the show and uh frank it was a pleasure to meet you and get to kind of spend some time with you um at an event that we got to connect at now i like to start the show off the same way so with everybody which is what's your guys morning routine morning routine like this morning i was up at four o 'clock in the gym out by 5 30 uh took a shower did a little work and then drove over here had some breakfast with ed and his wife and now i'm here yeah same for me i get up at five in the morning first thing's my prayer you know good thanks to god for waking up another day but i'll say five 5 45 i'm at the gym get an hour hit the sauna for at least 10 minutes go home get ready be by the office by 8 30 love it love it all right guys well let's jump into it so negozi didn't start like as a business it started as a need uh what moment in your own careers made you guys realize that this platform really had to exist so for me i met tony at a racetrack at the bmw racetrack in Palm Springs.

1:32We're racing BMWs. And I met him and he was off the chain like crazy. I thought, okay, this guy's been drinking too much. But what he said was really impactful. He said, hey, in this country, you can be an undocumented person, but you can have a legal entity and you can run business. You make tons of money. So the entity is legal, but you're illegal. That spoke to me because I've grown up in this country most of my life without documents. So anyway, I tracked them for another few months and then I met him again in Oakland, California at a business event and I was with my co-founder at the time of one of my companies from Arkansas and we decided to invest in Ngozi first as a passion project because we thought oh man this thing's going to have a lot of impact but four years later it's been 3xing on its top line and its membership is at 40 ,000 users now and it's just it's just spreading like wildfire right because there's an immense need in a lot of areas right when it comes to running a business that's already a tall order but then if you don't speak the language if you don't know the system you're kind of stuck so we're there to facilitate that and help these businesses scale so give give the audience just an idea of what is negozi yeah yeah so so negozi is pretty much um we call it similar to the hispanic linkedin at the moment It's not as big as LinkedIn, but it will get there.

2:56So it's pretty much a platform for business owners in the Hispanic community to network together. And what I mean by that is that we're bringing in people that do taxes, attorneys, CPAs, real estate people, lenders. so it's pretty much like a circle for everyone to collab and pretty much help each other grow and win and build opportunities for others that are looking to come into the community. They're also promoting jobs. You know that? So through Ngozi, you could actually now go onto the website. And like for me, for example, I have my business. I could go onto Ngozi and put I'm looking to hire, you know, two people that could help me with the office work.

3:44You go on the platform they'll blast it to all the members which is about 40 ,000 members and you'll be surprised people do on there and say hey I'm looking for work so that's how we're working similar to LinkedIn where you could go into LinkedIn post a job and people send you messages so we're constantly building and that's what I would say the difference though it's a brick and click model because we also have eight events throughout the country big events with like 350 400, 500 people that attend, essentially in all the Latino hotspots like Miami, New York, Houston, Texas, California. So we're in California, which every city is a hot spot.

4:26Yeah, well, we're having an event next Thursday, July 24th in Long Beach. Then we're having a three-day conference in San Diego. We're paired up with Avance, which is formerly Latitude, right? founded by the Stefan family, Emilio Stefan and his wife. They rebranded, so we're having that event. That one's going to be, honestly, that one's probably going to be thousands of people there. It's a three-day event. Very similar to NAREP. You guys heard of NAREP? Very similar to NAREP, but a for-profit model, right? NAREP is non-profit. Yeah, and NAREP's going to be there as well. Yeah, NAREP is actually one of our partners for the conference.

5:03So you guys are collaborating with NAREP. I'm a member of NAREP. There we go. Then we're going to see you there. I'm not Hispanic, but. You don't have to be brother. The money's green. Well, that and that and the beauty of the negozi too is that, you know, it's very diverse. So, you know, so we're open to not just in the Hispanic community, but to bring other others that see the vision and the opportunity. Alliances. Yeah. I mean, I love the concept of, you know, a LinkedIn platform for the Hispanic community that's niched down because LinkedIn, as great as it is, it's very, very broad. And it doesn't offer, like, direct support, you know, direct support, whereas Ngozi has a tighter community, a lot more face-to-face interaction opportunities, and just a lot more collaboration within the platform.

5:55Yeah, one of the newest investors I was talking to, I think he dropped like 30K, he was saying, hey, this is a crazy platform because, like, your membership will actually want to rock the brand. It's not their, I mean, it's not their brand. They could buy shares into it, but they want to rock the brand, right? That speaks to the sense of community that people are finding there, right? The sense of value that they're finding there. Yeah, it's like NARIT. People rock the NARIT brand. Yeah. That's true. Yeah. So it's powerful. So what about Ngozi Life? You had Ngozi, then you started Ngozi Life as a vertical.

6:29Yeah. So sort of what we were talking about right before the show, right? Right. These folks already have extensive books of businesses. Right. In many cases or in some cases, they don't really need to grow their clientele. They just need to further optimize, further monetize the book of business they already have. And they're not really finding that avenue. I mean, there's the MLM, multi-level marketing for insurance. And then there's other agencies. But no one really speaks to the impact. No one really speaks to the cultural relevance. so it just came to me and i was like hey look why don't we start a vertical where we offer life insurance it's very niche it's not going to ruffle a lot of feathers and it's very much needed so we kind of started taking a pulse this was a this was like a year and a half ago yeah anyway long story short we launched the company in miami in may and then we've been touring we were in l.a new york we were in vegas now we're going to be in long beach so we're going to go on this tour we're just showcasing the brand, right?

7:33So the brand and the platform is essentially much like your model, Joe. It's technology, right? It's education and infrastructure, right? Needed resources, collateral that you could use, plug and play and start offering insurance. And a lot of these folks, they don't want to do extra work, right? They're like, I'm already busy. Cool will be your outsource partner. And we could represent your brand or if you're cool, we'll say, hey we're negozi life we partner with x company to provide you services and we'll give you a 50 commission for doing nothing as long as you have a license and we help them with the licensing process so you split the commission with them without would they just refer the deal yeah yeah our model we base they basically we just take a tiny percentage but they do all the work got it yeah they just use our our back office solution our ecosystem our tech branding okay you guys are straight doing this you you guys are they're just salespeople you guys are doing all the actual legwork yeah the underwriting yeah yeah in some cases maybe the the partner wants to actually become an expert yeah so we have an lms system a learning management system they can plug in we have ongoing trainings that we're going to start live um then they can make a bigger piece And then they can make a bigger piece of the pie, right?

8:55They can just take the whole 100 % of the deal. Nice, nice. Now, you guys have both built different careers in different real estate, insurance. But this time, you're building up for the long term. What did you guys have to unlearn or risk to step into something like this bold? Well, I mean, one of it is, there's quite a few things for sure. I mean, one of them was, you know, we have been in the real estate and insurance industry. We noticed that there was a big gap and lack of knowledge when it comes to like the insurance and life products. So me and Frank, like he mentioned earlier, we saw this opportunity where the Hispanic community unfortunately is not as educated when it comes to the life insurance and the investment products.

9:59So me and Frank were like, dude, I understand we're busy, we have these businesses, but this is a good opportunity, not just for us, but to bring value to the community. And what I mean by that is for us building Ngozi Life, partnering up with Ngozi, and being able to work with all the members that are part of Ngozi to bring the value to the community and make a spread like wildfire. And what I mean by that is that we're not going one by one per individual. We're actually working with, we're doing B2B. So which means that it's accelerating the, you know, the process of teaching the community that life insurance is important.

10:46I'm pretty sure you guys know this, is in the Hispanic community, there's what, like about 40 % people that understand how life insurance works. and the other 52 or 60 percent are not even insured with a life policy so they don't understand how life insurance works lowest level of coverage of any demographic so essentially we're paid all of us are paid commensurate to the problems that we solve so we saw huge problems right not only on the uninsured side but also on the capital side because insurance can be leveraged for cash value. I'm having a panel on the 24th where I got some gentlemen that are buying multifamily large deals, raising$50 million fund.

11:28And they were telling me the other day, you know, one of the secret weapons with some of these big acquirers of real estate is that they're pulling money out of insurance. I was like, neat, right? Why aren't we doing that? So the education piece, there's a huge... Whole life or... IUL, whole life, yeah. But it's like, it's apparently within the circle, it's a kept secret. Some people don't divulge that it's coming out of insurance, right? You don't want to share your cards maybe because it's a competitive market. Well, whole life has cash value and just not like a lot of cash value. Yeah. The IUL is probably the Ferrari, right, when it comes to cash value.

12:06Yeah. Yeah. I have a client who's picked up not multifamily, just single family, just using IULs. Yeah, actually, I'm going to bring her in to do an interview. but um yeah so we saw just a large problem and the funny thing is we've had a couple of our partners say why would you start something from scratch why wouldn't you just jump on like you know on something that's already pre-existing plug and play we're like well the problem's so large that we want to do two things right we want to structure in a way where we change the rules most of our commissions we want them to go into the into the field for folks because part of our mission is to reintroduce wealth creation into our community through education and also so they understand how commissions work how they understand how they become active participants in the insurance game and then number two we want to make sure that they also become users of these tools so that when they pass on they can create wealth that goes beyond their generation yeah to create wealth in the in the present but then in the long term so it's um you know and to some people it's like no you guys are crazy you guys you guys are gonna fail right this is part of business chewing glass and staring into the abyss yeah yeah that's true you know i just released a book but like as immigrants like especially in the hispanic community like they're not thinking generational wealth they're thinking like i gotta pay the bills yeah i gotta pay rent right now you know so they're not they're not like hey i gotta establish money for the future it's like i gotta put shoes on my kids so with that said like how are you guys like deconstructing that mindset for those immigrants yeah you know for the for that for the hispanic community because that's a tough hurdle you have to overcome yeah no and um you're right joe it is It's a tough hurdle to bypass when it comes to the Hispanic community.

14:06So one is we're working on the educational part, showing them that there is value in having a life insurance policy. And the other thing is we have resources when it comes to education. It's the school part. And we talk about how life insurance works a lot at these big negoci events. so a lot of these business owners we we let them know how life insurance works we give them information on the benefits of it and what they do a lot of a lot of these business owners they just a lot of them stay shocked because they're like man i didn't even know that a life insurance policy could pay like a like a mortgage insurance i didn't know that i could offer this to my client if they were to pass they got a life policy pay off the mortgage family could keep the home and continue building their you know their their legacy so it's all educational I mean unfortunately the Hispanic community he knows this is like people don't like to talk about life insurance they don't want to talk about that yeah they don't want to talk about that nobody wants to talk about that yeah never and then you know and yeah it's like you know growing up I'll give you an example like with my parents you know they they never talked to us about life you know my dad is since was gonna be 70 and never once growing up he was like hey edder when you turn you know when you turn 18 i need you to go get you a life policy or get you an iul we didn't know because he didn't know they don't even have one you know now my dad actually does have one now but that's the thing is that there was never training or or family wasn't educating us on how to use a life insurance policy yeah or the thing I'll add to that, that's on the consumption side of things, right?

15:54The other piece we're going after is, hey folks, you can be active participants in wealth creation. You don't have to be documented in California to get a life insurance license, right? Texas is the same way. Illinois, there's a bunch of states that don't require a social security. You can use an I-10. To get your license? Yes. Yeah. So that's a powerful tool, right? That they can actually become active participants in this industry and offer these solutions right because uh we've not taken as far as i know we've not taken a survey to see how many of our business owners in negozi don't have documents but anecdotally i've met several that don't have documents but they have legit organizations right businesses yeah that are paying taxes that are employing other people and then they've they themselves can never get a job legally so they could become active participants with just uh license.

16:48We're coming across that, Joe. A lot of people don't know that. A lot of people don't know that. So that's a powerful piece of knowledge. I wonder if the LLC allows them, if they're employed by their LLC, basically, does that help them with citizenship? Does that help them with the whole... No. No, it's tough. And I can speak to it because I'm under a dubious status. And I've been under a dubious status for a long time. And basically what I realized is I have to leverage these entities. I mean, that's the power of this country. This country is built on immigration and capital and markets. So, yeah, but it doesn't help you.

17:31You might be able to get to a point. Really, the easiest route is to get married to a U.S. citizen. Right? That's the route. Yeah. That's crazy. That's unfortunate. Yeah. So this whole situation that's happening with Trump right now, it's kind of scary times for a lot of friends and family. Yeah, yeah. I mean, if you go to any Latino communities, I was just at the Callejones, right, the fashion district. And I was talking to some of the shopkeepers that went to pick up a few things. They're like, we haven't seen this level of ghost townness in a long time. like it's this one of the guys said back in the 90s when pete wilson was in office he kind of came hard like a trump style deportation machine um and then it got scary then and people kind of scattered and were hiding but yeah i mean it's not good for the economy at all no yeah it's terrible what's the pulse like is it getting better now uh well there was an injunction right there was an injunction by a federal judge that said uh they need to halt the deportations because they're really just looking at people all right you're brown let's go check your papers or you're speaking spanish let's go check your papers right so that i mean this there's rule of law too right so um that i think has slowed things down this happened last week then junction so we'll see how how it plays out and it's one of the reasons why at our event in long beach we're making sure that everybody registers right so that we can control access and we can make sure that people feel safe Like, we're on a private property, so we can make sure that we enforce private property rights.

19:11And we don't, you know, if ICE were to come through, we could say, hey, you don't have access here because you don't have a right. I mean, they're going to restaurants. They're going to, you know, everywhere. They're going to many private property places. Yep. But I know they've stopped since the injunction. Yeah. I know it's been crazy. Crazy times in this, you know. crazy times but whenever there's crisis right yeah there's opportunity yeah you just got to keep your eyes open yeah what kind of opportunity have come as a result of this uh well you know what negozi i was just talking to tony about this negozi's taking a real hard stance right now and saying hey if you're undocumented if you're an immigrant we have your back we've started creating service centers, financial service centers throughout the country.

20:02So if you want to become a financial service under Ngozi, you have to become an investor. So right now, all these service centers are popping up. I think the last time I checked, it was like$250,$250. So if you, like Eder's office, right, in San Leandro, you're a socio now. So you're on a map, and it says, hey, this is an immigrant-friendly establishment. If you want to do business here, come here. It's a safe haven for business. yeah so that's one of the opportunities that we kind of cranked up right now and we're on this chat right with investors and we just see it pop up like new new socio new socio new partner right new partner that means they're dropping you know several thousand dollars so they can be on the map so that it's like a like an hrnr block right can google it oh these are all hrnr blocks oh these are all the negozi financial centers that are a haven to do business with immigrants and a safe spot for you to come in and do and work do some business you know let's say for example i'm in the bay you know he's uh frank's here in la he could go on the on the negozi and look hey where's the location he looks i'm in the bay area he could just drive straight to the bay area and he has an office space and and a safe place for him to work and do business at so that's pretty much what frank is saying and it is spreading like like wildfire right now they have so many people place in their locations for Ngozi members to return.

21:25Yeah, right now during crisis what happens is the people gotta unite. There you go. It's gonna draw the community tighter. Great opportunity obviously for Ngozi to capitalize on building those relationships for people. Not maybe monetarily but at least like community building which far exceeds any monetary benefit. Yeah, yeah. And you know what? That's forever. It's opened up the doors for alliances with other immigrant communities. Like at the event, I'm having a panel. I have been a long time friends with the Indian community. I have friends from college. And so we're having them come in. They're probably future investors.

22:03A couple of them are already invested in Ngozi. So kind of opening up those conversations, those opportunities, right, to learn from like the Indian community. And I have Jewish friends and they're very interested in what we're doing. so it's the alliances right the coalition building and business it's also I think an opportunity right now because they see what's happening they're like scary for all immigrants you know I'm an immigrant where are you from Joe? I'm from Egypt you're from Egypt brother? so you know I'm a naturalized citizen and when Trump's big beautiful bill came out saying he could deport naturalized citizens I'm like wow I think he did that specifically for Elon Yeah.

22:46Yeah, he did. Probably pissed him off too much. Yeah, Elon pissed him off too much. Now he's like, you know what, I'm just going to add this to the big, beautiful bill just in case. And now he's doing that with Rosie O'Donnell. Oh, yeah, he did. Ireland. Yeah, he did. Ireland. So he's like, I think I should ship her back to Ireland. Yeah, he did. He did say that. So he's basically added that clause to basically protect, you know, I mean, kind of override freedom of speech. Yeah. for naturalized citizens, which is like everybody. Yeah. Basically everybody who's a naturalized citizen who just pisses off the government.

23:24There you go. But hey, go Trump. I love Trump. I love what you're doing, buddy. But some of the stuff is a little scary for some immigrants. For sure. So you guys are creating a platform that really uplifts professionals and entrepreneurs and uh how is how is your own latino identity shaped how you build how you lead and how you connect yeah well a lot of it is with um the vision is with integrity transparency and a lot of it like me personally and frank knows this is I'm a vibes person. I feel like if we connect and I vibe with you, I feel like we could do business. Sky's the limit. And sky's the limit for sure.

24:16So definitely integrity, transparency, that's our biggest one. And that's the thing that we do bring to the community is like, hey, we're out here to do business together, but let's be transparent. Let's keep it real. And if our fire aligns, let's do business. You know, sky's the limit. there's opportunity for everybody you know we look at it more like if we could we want to collab because from that pie everybody get a little piece and everybody wins that's pretty much the way yeah we look at it and you know that's part of the reason why uh what nine months ago when i met edder i decided to do business with him you know because warren buffett says that you can't do business with bad people right people that don't have integrity people are there out to to screw you you can't do business with them you can't build enough like contract language to protect you and that's one thing i enjoyed about him his his values were integrity and transparency i was like that's cool right like it's hard to find people you can trust and especially with the latino community right we we're skeptical sort of group especially with the stuff that's happening now so we're always thinking someone's trying to get a one-up on us um so for me i mean that's that's key like those values have to be built in to the foundation of the company the other thing is i'm like i mentioned i've been undocumented most of my life right but i still trekked along because i believe that this still the land of opportunity no matter what happens right like i'm fucking undocumented and i've uh i went to ucla i studied economics uh i went into the private sector for a while did some contract work and then eventually i realized okay entrepreneurship is the equalizer in this country like that's how we equalize the playing field so how do we bring entrepreneurial opportunities to our community to equalize right we can't rely on government handouts right we have to kind of empower us and take us to the next level and for me that's that's big right and that's big for negozi and that's big for negozi life yeah great way to lead you know entrepreneurship is the great equalizer 100 brother yeah it is the great equalizer.

26:24And a lot more people are keen to the power of it now. A lot more people are keen to the power of it. Now, as co-founders, you guys clearly respect each other. But what's something surprising you've learned about one another during the grind of building on this? I would say it's the fire we have in our bellies. And what I mean by that is that we We push. We push hard. We push each other. We know that what we're building is not just for us, but it's for the community and bringing multiple opportunities. And we just grind. I've had people approach me and say, like, hey, Etter, we want to collab.

27:13We want to build this real estate or this mortgage with you guys. How can we collab? I'm like well one of it is like it's gonna take a lot of time you know do you have the time to build it you have you have it in you we could build it and the reason why I say that is because when me and Frank uh launched Ngozi Life we were literally on the phone what every day we were on the phone every day even my wife was like why don't you just marry Frank yeah that's true I remember my wife the one that was in here she's like man just marry Frank because you're on the phone with him all day every day and i was like oh wow i was like yeah that's how much that's how much grind we've put into this the negozi life yeah there's a lot of due diligence yeah that we had to do right we're starting from fresh from sort of scratch like we didn't decide on manny just because i like manny or i like omar it was a whole process of us interviewing different models yeah talking to a bunch of different people then talking to other experts that we trusted and we presented those models to them.

28:17We're like, hey, poke holes in this for us. So there was a lot of due diligence. There's also the contracting we had to do with Ngozi, right, to be able to get rights to use the brand because we knew the brand had traction already. Why not use the brand? Piggyback. Piggyback off of the brand, right? And we're both investors, so it makes sense. Like, we're going to grow this brand. We're going to go virtual cycle. Yeah, so there was just a lot. and I learned what I learned from this guy is a little joke inside joke right he's a lamb right when you sell you don't want to sell like a lion you want to be calm cool and just be inquisitive and curious and he's really good we call it lambing out just be a lamb right and that's how you're going to close people so I'm like I got to be more of a lamb because I get a little excited I don't even drink coffee my energy just goes through the roof sometimes you're a lion yeah i need to chill out right here i just lamb it i like that now let's talk about growth what mindset shift did you guys have did you guys each have to make not in business but in leadership to take this idea to become like an actual movement

29:33yeah i would say um i'll go back to the whole fire piece it's uh you gotta have fire in your belly and see that vision because not everybody not everybody see has has that vision where where they they don't see the opportunity me and frank saw the opportunity and the value we could bring to to negozi and the community and negozi life it was like hey frank this is um this is a game changer you know if we grind it out we figure things out we talk to so many different people advisors and we just know so many people that we were able to pick a lot of different people's brain to get to where we're at now with negozi life you know um we just had to do a lot of due diligence and just to get going.

30:21Yeah. I think for me it was just being quiet and listening. And that's kind of what I did as an angel investor in Ngozi. I remember I even took a trip when I, because I invested in three different rounds. My last round I went and sat with Tony, the CEO, and just shadowed him throughout the day. I was working, doing my work, shadowing him, right? We were going to meetings with other investors, sponsors, and then at the events I was just I was more of a wallflower to be honest now I'm like in the spotlight in Ngozi but before people would see me and they're like you know that's I think that guy his name is Frank right because I was just paying attention and listening so that's one of the things that's that I I know even as an individual I still need to work on you know my lady tells me that all the time like you need to listen more man you talk too much sometimes so the listening piece right just be quiet listen process yeah i mean that's it's that lion salesman telling you know trying to close all day right there you go yeah my me and my partner are very similar like he's more of like a lamb like just listens you know not a hard it's not he's not a big closer yeah he's very very similar more just analytical and then just takes things very methodical there's no there's no coincidence with that you just met him in the bathroom yeah that's true i did right and i was like he said bye to you and i'm like do you guys meet each other like because he's usually quiet yeah yeah he did it was it was funny because i literally just walked i was about to use it and then and then i heard him say hey who are you with and i'm along with uh you know we're in Ngozi life and we're meeting with you and he was like, oh, okay.

32:12What are you guys going to talk about? Oh, we're going to do the podcast thing. But he just caught me off guard, you know, because I don't know nobody in here. And then he started talking to me, which is kind of cool. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, that's cool. Now, what's something you guys have done with Ngozi that you wish existed when you were starting out? And how does that shape how you serve today? Let me take it. Yeah. You know what, Joe? I'm a big believer that timing is perfect, brother. So that's a really hard question for me, right? Especially if you're a person that kind of stays disciplined and stays prepared, the timing is perfect.

32:54I think meeting you, we were just talking when you walked out, was purposeful. I think there's an opportunity for us to do something together. And I just think that's just the way the world works. I met this guy nine months ago and we started a company and right now we're blowing through cash, building the tech. And I trust him, right? I trust him. He had full access to the bank account, blah, blah, blah, right? It just happened. That's just how God works, man. There you go. I always say God's plan. Yeah. I just follow God's plans. God's plan. Always. Everything happens for a reason. It was like, same thing happened to me yesterday.

33:31My girlfriend buys an Aston Martin on Monday. I'm like you can't park it in this place here like$300 ,000 car and then yesterday we get a you guys met her yesterday my tenant's like hey I'm going to move out of this place like you know I need a in this place she randomly I'm like my property's coming up for rent you can just take that and her lease is ending the same day that they're moving out like within a few days that they're moving out like perfect you need a garage car for your garage you know like get a bigger place it was like i'm like damn it's like god just lined it all up like the time is perfect it's true like god just lines it all but it's like it's not serendipitous it's just god's plan you know god's plan is always on time exact you know and uh as long as you have good intentions and you want to serve and do God's work, like that's just, he will line it up exactly in his accordance, you know.

34:38Now, five or ten years from now, what would it mean to you guys, what would it mean to you personally, not just professionally, if Ngozi became the go-to ecosystem for the entire global Latino community for entrepreneurs? Yeah, I would say it's God's plan, and that's what we're going to get to within the next few years. We did talk about this earlier today, right, Frank? It's like we're here for a reason. We're here to leave a legacy and build opportunities for others and share the knowledge that we know and we have within the community. and we definitely see it going global. And the reason why I say that is because there's just so much opportunity.

35:30I'll give you an example. We were in Miami. Remember we were in Miami? We met a lady from Spain. And it's just funny how it works because it's God's plan. The lady was getting into the elevator and she couldn't find her key. and I was already in a rush because we had to go to the event to launch Negozy Life. And the lady was like sweating, panicking and she was, oh my God, I don't know where my key's at. And I was, don't worry about it. I'll take care of it for you. I opened up the door for her. We both got in the elevator. They had already left. But it's funny how it worked because we were all together.

36:08They left and I said, wait, you guys, give me one minute. I'll catch up with you guys downstairs. I got off the elevator, went back, and got something from the little lunch break room. And I met this lady. Anyhow, she panicked. I let her into the elevator. And then she asked me, what do you do? And she just asked me, like, so what do you do? What do you do here? Like, are you from here? And I'm like, no, I'm not from here. I'm from the Bay Area. She was, oh, you're from the Bay Area. Okay. I'm like, how about yourself? She was, oh, she owns a big magazine company in Spain. so she was i was oh okay she was like yeah so um what do you do for a living and i was oh we're about to launch the gozi life here in miami feel free to join you know come to the event yada yada yada she was i'll do my best to join you all right cool uh she didn't show up which is okay but we kept in touch because we were staying in the same hotel so we kept in touch and me and she was all like hey let me get your number and at first I was kind of like why does this lady want my number I feel a little weird I'm not gonna lie to you I was like she trying to hit on me but anyway I was like sure I'll give you my number so I gave her my number and then she texts me uh hey I can't go to the event I said it's okay don't worry about it but then she did ask she was all like hey are you staying here in the hotel I'm like yes I'm staying there she was like are you open to meet with us and I was kind of thinking like why does she want to meet again i was like okay things happen for a reason i said sure i told frank hey frank what do you think should we meet with her frank was like ah dude i don't know man this kind of because we had a lot of meetings lined up that day she was one of them yeah she was i don't know man and then we were like you know what let's do it anyhow long story short we met with her we talked yeah she's a big time shot caller for for a big uh firm in in spain and she when we met with it gave us me and him the chills because a lot of the stuff that when we met with her and we were talking about she somewhat knew yeah like but and we don't just clear my we don't we don't yeah we don't know her at all so a lot of stuff that me and him had talked about we're working to build she was like that we she was like we should collab she was we should collab him and because i could see us doing this this this and that and me and just i got the goosebumps because i was like how does this lady i didn't say nothing and then she just saw the offer on the table with that yeah it's for us to go to spain yeah and she's already connected with like the prince and the king and business people she's like let's have a on my magazine negozi life lands in spain right so and that's that's essentially the future of negozi to go international i mean we have employees in colombia we have the licensing requirements are so different uh well nego so negozi yeah and but in terms of life insurance yeah the licensing requirements is what you're referring to that would be a whole different ballpark yeah for sure a couple last questions guys um it's about goals three-prong question what's a personal goal that you have for yourself a family goal that you have for your family and then a business goal yeah so for me it's um definitely spend more time with my with my kids and what i mean by that is that uh just be more present you know i know we get i get carried away sometimes with work and and stuff like that because i want to continue building and leave a legacy behind but i know the children do need the the time and i actually give you a lot of props for for bringing your son yeah he has a firm handshake man yeah he shook my hand i was like oh i was like you got a strong handshake yeah and then i like how he asked a lot of questions that's pretty cool man yeah you know try your best with them you know like and i always you always feel like you're feeling but yeah all i could do for me personally like i just realized i just got to be into everything they're into so they're super into fishing right now and sport car trading and i'm just like I'm like a pro fisherman and sport card trader now.

40:12There you go. Nice. I just get down on their level all day long. There you go. And try to connect. There you go. Yeah, same with me. That's what I've been doing with my boy. Spending more time with him. He loves boxing, so go to more boxing events, watch more boxing fights. He's only 14. He likes to drive around. So I just tell him this. I tell my wife, hey, this is me and our boy time. where I get to talk to him and, you know, connect with him and kind of share knowledge with him, telling him what's good and what's wrong, you know, guide him through and stuff like that. Well, my daughter's already 18 years old.

40:50She's going to college, and she's studying astrophysics. Wow, smart one. Yeah, so she wants to be – when she was little, she always wanted to work for NASA. So she's been working hard. And I tell her, you know, and I do go into her room, and I see her sometimes stressing out. I'm like, hey, baby, don't worry. Just this is going to pay off one day. just remember that and then she's all like all right dad okay sounds good and you know just give her a pat in the back and a hug and i'm like you know i'm proud of you it's gonna pay off watch just keep going because you know a lot of kids her age are out and about partying going out i'm like just stick to it and it's gonna you're gonna see the benefit yeah in her room not a fun friday night no and she's and actually she's a tutor as well she she trains other kids at school she was hired yeah that's amazing yeah so that and then for the business and more time with my wife of course and then for the don't leave that out bro no i can't leave that out she's she's gonna watch yeah and then the um for the business is uh just leave a legacy and hopefully we could collab with you as well love that man yeah so personal for me i want to be like the mexican warm buffet and not that i want to have billions and billions of dollars because i think it's never enough.

42:02I want to make other people wealthy. I want to specifically make my community wealthy. For the family, I pride myself that I retired my two parents. I have three children from different moms, but I'm a responsible and present father and keep that. My son's 20 years old. He's at UCLA. That's a good school, right? Legacy with me as well, right there, both Bruins. with the business the goal is to either take negozi the mother company to nasdaq to the public markets or to liquidate it or sell it off to a meta a microsoft that's the vision for negozi obviously negozi life is a revenue stream into negozi so we could spin this off and change the capital structure bring more revenue to the shareholders right so there's that option too but essentially I think encompassing everything financial legacy across the board my family other people's family love it last question for both of you when you're in front of the throne of God what do you think God's going to tell you?

43:10I was ah you're imperfect my son you're imperfect but you tried you tried you tried and you never gave up to be a good man there you go love it yeah I would say for me I mean I pray to God every day that's the first thing I do when I wake up a lot of people don't believe me but it's okay they don't have to believe me but I believe in God and I would say God I'm proud of you I'm proud of you keep going keep doing what you're doing this is your time this is your opportunity not just for you but for others so I would say that he'll say he's proud of me love that alright guys if people want to connect with you how do they find you for me it's frank funds assets on instagram and for me it's uh edder underscore the east bay realtor all right thanks guys all right