Founders, Creators, & Communities 🤝 E159

24:43It could be an elevator you pitch me. It could be at an event and you pitch me. I might get excited about it, but I need to understand, does it pass accountant, lawyer, business, and advisor? So finding those type of characters in your life to have your own version of the four horsemen. What happens is oftentimes we just get excited because our friend pitches us something or we don't know how to say no. I'm going to give you one quick trick on how to say no. Ask them for their financials, investor documents, wiring instructions their basic information for the most part they don't have their business plan and so just by you saying hey send me your business plan your financials and your investor documents most of them disappear they just don't have it and the ones that do actually go have the paperwork you can actually start to consider investing into before you start the stages of getting someone else to look at the deal all right final chapter of the podcast charity side Why is it important for brands to get involved in some type of charity philanthropy for their customers, clients, employees, etc.

25:46to see them actively involved in charity? I think it really depends on, you know, the value that you get out of it depends on the kind of business that you have. obviously you know if you have something that's super mass market and you're appealing to you know millions of people having a charitable approach definitely can help those guys have a great perception of your company relate to your brand a little bit better especially if you're solving problems that they've seen in their own communities or helping with problems you know they've seen in their own communities you know if you have a business that's more focused on say you're only dealing with fortune 500 companies.

26:22Um, you know, having that one being involved in charity can get you in the right rooms in a lot of cases, just thinking about it from a business perspective and not, you know, purely from a giving back perspective. But, um, outside of that, uh, you know, it, it creates kind of this basis where you can relate to other people. And, uh, you know, if there's someone like there's conversations, my, my father, for example, when I was growing up on his birthday, every single year, he would go to the soup kitchen And that would be like his birthday, you know, experience, which like I was really annoyed about when I was younger because like, hey, we could be doing something fun.

26:54But, you know, looking back on it, like I remember one time I was with him at a I was at a box at the Yankees game in New York. And there was someone else that like owned one of the soup kitchens, you know, in in New Jersey that, you know, he would go and volunteer at. And you just ran into didn't know they didn't know each other at the time. And they ended up going, you know, co-investing on like three deals afterwards. And that was the basis of how they were able to form that initial relationship and essentially, you know, relate to each other with some sort of common ground. So, you know, it unlocks a lot of different kind of opportunities like that.

27:27And obviously, you know, it shows a whole other side of a person when it's not just about how can they benefit from every single relationship. You know, it tells you a lot when someone's looking for ways to kind of give back and make just the overall community stronger. Would you like to have children someday? Probably. So there's only one question I ask, the same question on every single episode, and I've never gotten the same answer. So you build FanBasis up to a multi-billion dollar company, get acquired for$3.1 billion. You start another company, sell that one for$1.2 billion, and you are a serial entrepreneur.

28:03And so let's say 100 years from now, a long, long time from now, unfortunately, time for Yash to pass away. What percentage of your net worth do you leave to your children? it depends on how my children turn out you know if they i would assume that i'm going to raise them right and um they're great in that case i would probably leave them yeah at least 90 percent of my net worth um if you know but the the way that i was raised was when it came to information and relationships i had access to everything um that i ever needed when it came to capital you know, and having to build businesses, like I had to go through kind of the, you know, the A to Z on that.

28:42There was nothing that was ever handed to me. So I'd probably want to replicate a similar environment because that brought out a lot of hunger. Um, I grew up with a lot of wealthy kids as well. That majority of them either working like some sort of like basic job right now, or they're like, you know, are doing essentially like fuck all because, um, they just had everything handed to them. It was super easy to begin with. So there's nothing that really created that inner sense of motivation and drive. Where, you know, I have other friends as well that, you know, maybe some of them had wealthy parents, some of them didn't.

29:13And they're some of the most successful people that I know, because of the fact that they were raised the right way, and they were nothing was ever handed to them. They were always, you know, hey, this is what's possible for you to achieve. You know, you, you have to go and claim that and figure out a way to get there and figure out your own path to get there. So I think, you know, that's probably the most important part, uh, is kind of, you know, giving them the resources that they need, not just not capital though, to, you know, achieve whatever their goals are. Um, but, uh, you know, realistically, I would hope that there's a scenario here where I can give the majority of my net worth.

29:48Where can people find you find fan bases? Tell them all about it for social media, websites, everything. Uh, you can find us on fan bases.com, uh, F a N B a S I S.com. Uh, and find me on Instagram at Yash Daphtary. All right, guys, when you listen to these podcasts, keep in mind, it's not just for you. It could be for your friends, family, or followers. And it might happen six months to 12 months from now, you're at a breakfast, you're at a lunch, et cetera. And someone's talking about something and then bam, you remember what Yash says. So it might be from someone from your past, present, or future.

30:17When you listen to the Money Mondays podcast, there might be characters that are on this show, like Yash, that might be useful for someone else that you could forward this episode to. The reason that we need your help is liking, commenting, subscribing and sharing it helps us stay in the top 50 of all podcasts in the world we are able to then provide a free platform for you guys to listen to this podcast in a nice 30 to 40 minute type setting i appreciate you guys make sure to check out fanbasis.com we'll see you guys next week here at themoneymondays.com ladies and gentlemen welcome to a special edition of the money mondays podcast where we cover three core topics how to make money how to invest money how to give it away to charity.

30:57Normally I have individual guests, but this company is too cool. So we're doing a double guest episode. As you guys know, this episode will be under 40 minutes for your listening pleasure because the average workout is 45 minutes. The average commute to work is 45 minutes. This episode will be between 34 and 38 minutes. So you can listen to this on your drive to work or while you're at the gym or running around town. Now, as you guys know, this is very important. I've been running this commercial free for years and years and years. So you actually listen to it. We have what's called a 93 % listen through rate, which is helping us on the charts.

31:26There's no commercials here. I do work with Fanbases and fanbases.com because I actually use them, but you don't hear me saying some fancy code for that. Just go check them out. I work with High Level. Go High Level is a company I've been using for many, many years. Same concept, no fancy codes. Just go look at High Level to help back end your coaches, courses, agencies, whatever's going on in your world. Outside of that, there is no commercials. I just want to talk very straightforward about money because we grew up thinking it's rude to talk about money. I think it's ridiculous. We have to talk about accounting, loans, finances, taxes.

31:54Should I lease? Should I buy? What happens if my friend borrows 400 bucks? How do I get it back? These are real life things that go on in your lives. So you have to be able to talk with your friends, your family and followers about money. Without further ado, Chris and Aaron, each of you give us a quick two minute bio. So we get straight to the money. Let's go. Thanks for having us. Yeah. Chris Mead, co-founder of the Founders Club, started a company called CrossNet, the world's first four-way volleyball game about 10 years ago. Grew up broke, speaking of money, on a farm in Connecticut and desperately wanted to change my life.

32:24Did not want to get to the end of my life and be working a nine to five and look my kids in the face and say, dad, didn't do it. Dad didn't try. And so I had a good idea one night. I just went for it. Worst comes to worst. I was going to go back to my full-time job. Here we are on the pod. Aaron Spivak also previously had an e-commerce D2C company called Hush. We brought the world's first adult-weighted blanket back in 2017. I was very young. I was only 21 years old. We scaled it up over four years. We went from zero to$50 million a year with about$4 ,000 of DJ money that I saved up over the weekends.

33:03I love it. And we've got a top 10 Kickstarter of all time. Exited in 2021. Took a couple years off to figure out what we wanted to do. And that's when Chris and I came together and had this incredible idea to build essentially a modern day YPO, which is the Founders Club. Very cool. Explain Founders Club. Founders Club. Essentially, as Aaron said, a modern day YPO, but an entrepreneurship club or community or fraternity or sorority for modern day founders. And there's a different value prop. The way you talk about it depends on the angle you take it. But for me, I think of it as an insurance policy.

33:40In the next 12 months, you're going to go through some shit. For sure. Whether it's personal, in business, want a divorce, you want to buy out a partner, you're scared about inventory, you need money. Instead of going to somebody and begging for help before the problem actually happens or before it's too late, you now have in the palm of your hand or in your community 1 ,200 plus founders who are equally stoked, equally yoked, bigger and better, and have those connections. So the goal is to have a resource for any type of problem under the sun. And we also take it a step further. It's not just a business community.

34:12It's a life community. And I'll say, Dan, I'm going to make you richer and happier. My goal is, Dan, I'm going to make you happier. Your life is going to get better because you unlock all these things. I'm not giving you a 10x ROI on your investment. Your life is going to be better because you're a member of the Founders Club. What's your version of it? Yeah, I mean, for us, it comes also from our own journeys, being young entrepreneurs, trying to figure it out. You know, for both of us, like our parents did not create multinational corporations. My dad wasn't able to give me the resources and the advice or his best friend couldn't connect me with anyone.

34:44We always had to figure it out on our own. And I thought that was just unique to us. And what we realized was that's actually unique to majority of entrepreneurs. You know, at the time, our exit was the third largest DTC transaction in Canadian history. Wow. The joke of it was that I found my lawyer on a Google search. I literally Googled MNA lawyer and like whatever ad popped up was what I clicked. And in hindsight, like that was the stupidest thing I could have done. What I should have been able to do was go to a group of people that I trust, that have been through it before, that have sold.

35:15There's been many companies that have sold for way more that said, hey, I'm going through this for the first time. You have a couple of people you think I should speak to. For sure. You know, I read an NDA for the first time. I said, you couldn't tell anyone. I literally didn't tell anyone. I didn't fully understand what an NDA meant, let alone an LOI, let alone what we sold to a publicly traded company, what that means, what fiduciary duties means. All these things I had to learn and make mistakes for the first time. And we saw that every modality in life has community. Religion, if you're into yoga or Pilates, whatever you're into, you can find your jam.

35:48There's people out there that you can go and be in that community with because we believe that environment is way stronger than willpower. So when it came to entrepreneurship, all the communities that were out there, we felt they were a little bit outdated, felt they were an old style of entrepreneurship. Most of them were just boys club. And we created a modern day version of that that brings curated connections to a whole new level where people never have to feel like we felt, which was lonely entrepreneurs. Who's the avatar? Like what size business are they? What age are they? What part of their career are they?

36:20Like, where are they? Yeah, so right now our average member is about 35 years old. We have about$14 million a year in business. Our demographic, 65 % to 35 % male to female. And month over month, it's just getting stronger and stronger. We had limited beliefs two years ago. We couldn't service brands past 10 million. And now every single week, we have billionaires joining the club, which is just fascinating. It is literally fascinating that people that you would think have their life figured out, it's so far true. There are problems. Even you have problems, right? You have a whole new set of problems with a new family, you children like you're going through something uh so at every stage of life people need connection need help and that's what's really happening right now which is really really cool there's also like the the side of things where we feel that you know one thing about our average founders think about like 14 to 20 million that's without the billion the billionaires they skew it yeah exactly we don't do that you know but and the reason why we we say that is to give people context but a big reason for that is because they're growing right and next year you know we're trending closer to be 25 to 50 million as an average and that's yes our bigger brands bigger founders joining yes but what's actually happening is our entrepreneurs our founders are growing right because our definition of success isn't just money for many it is and i totally understand that we go back and forth all the time on this but for us our three virtues are mind body and business right and no one's perfect We don't expect anybody to be perfect.

37:53But for us, if someone were to apply, they have a$100 million company, which is great, nine-figure operation, but they are lying and stealing from their friends. Nobody talks to them. They have a horrible relationship with their partners or their kids. They're not good community members. They only take. They never give. They have no charitable asset. They don't care about their health whatsoever, but they got a really good business. Those are not Founders Club members. founders club members are ones that want to maximize and live life to their fullest potential which is like if you ever look at maslow's hierarchy of needs it's self-actualization which is hard to achieve but it's way easier to achieve when you're surrounded by like-minded people so you know what i might be eating really unhealthy this week and i'm off and i got a lot of shit going on in my life but if we're hanging out and you're on your health kick the likelihood that i eat healthy because of you is way higher than if we weren't hanging out and vice versa if If you're struggling with a relationship or you're avoiding a tough conversation, I'm feeling good.

38:50I can be there for you and push you to go be the best version of yourself. So we always say that we're curating all day long these curated environments for people to step into and reach their highest self. So is it a couple events a year? Is it pods? Is it one big Q mega conference? It never ends, man. All of the above. All of the above. So the way we look at it now, we have six core chapters. Miami, New York, LA, Austin, Toronto, and Vancouver. And there's pods within them. So each of those chapters have about 100 people. That's how this podcast is out. Maybe it grows to 120. They have assigned, vetted mastermind groups.

39:27So it's a peer group of eight people that look the same, feel the same, but maybe they're in different stages. They meet monthly for peer development, whether it's business, life, coaching, whatever. Outside of that, we have activities on a monthly basis that are more revolved around the mind and the body. So last week, we just partnered with F1, a big F1 event. Next week, we're going out of our boat, right? So those type of community events, maybe we rent out of the box at the Heat Gamer and MSG. And then annually, we have what we're working on now, which we're speaking at, the Founders Forum.

40:00So the forum is our large Super Bowl event. I look at it, it's like my, it's my entrepreneurship bonner. It's my festival. I've always wanted to create a music festival This whole thing actually started where we were planning out The dinners based on concerts and snowboarding events that we wanted to go around So for two years we traveled the world We saw a concert, we hosted a dinner, we flew back With a cool memory and 20 new friends So the forum is our one large big event I trade in all of our favors, we have incredible speakers come out And it's a destination wedding for 500 plus members So 500 people start as strangers, leave as best friends and they're so amped for the next one.

40:41So that's our big event that we're working on right now. Yeah, I think one thing to note also is what we really strive for is curated connections. So when it comes to events, we do 150 events a year. We do them all over. 150 events a year? 150 events a year. 20 to 30 a month. Whoa. All over all the cities, core cities, non-core cities as well. So if you're anywhere in North America, basically, you can definitely join the club. A lot of our events also happen virtually as well. So we have weekly masterclasses that are being taught by experts. A lot of them are members. So members that raise their hand and say, hey, I've spent 12 years building out a way to save 30 grand a month using AI.

41:20Let me show you how I do it for free. There's never a catch. We don't allow people to sell. There's no soliciting. That's a big thing. If you get caught soliciting one time, you are kicked out for the community. Strong, not soliciting. No refund, nothing. It's just super important. But then we have obviously the masterminds that exist virtually. So for people who don't live in the core cities, Also, there's some people that fly in every single month to a core city just to sit with their group. And that group is super unique because it's almost like creating the perfect wedding seating. It's like, this person likes this person.

41:47Who's perfect to sit beside each other and have an amazing night? We do that for entrepreneurs. And some people think like, oh, I want to sit with eight people. This is what everyone says, right? They go, I want to sit with eight people who do exactly what I do but are just a couple steps ahead of me. And it's like, yeah, no. No, because I would they want to sit with you. But what we've realized, we call it the FC secret sauce. We spend a lot of time and we also leverage AI because we do about 150 minutes of interviews before we even offer you an application to join the club. We get about 3 ,500 applications a month.

42:20We accept less than 4.5%. Now, 3 ,500 are all qualified? No. About 65, 70 % of them are. And from that percentage... Out of 2 ,000 people, you're just picking 50 to 100 people? this month like 95 4 yeah wow super small real oh yeah we're disqualifying a lot we disqualify a lot and and uh we want to be aspirational you know like ypo you meet somebody ypo it's a badge of honor and we're in year three of founders club but this will become a badge of honor and you're like shit that person's in founders club they must be legit yeah and the moment we start letting in one to two or three of the wrong people yeah whole thing goes to hell takes a lot of time just background checks we verify revenue like a lot of people lie they show up at something they're not like we want you to know that if you're in and you come to one of our events you join one of our masterminds and you take three hours away from your family and the people you love that you can be doing you're running a business if you're in the club you're running a business you got a lot of things going on and we're going to put you in a room with no phone to sit at a table with eight other people with a guided discussion to go deep and be vulnerable and share some of your dark deepest darkest secrets you have to trust us that those seven other people at the table we did the work to make sure that they're not going to potentially hurt you or you're vulnerable or you'd be exposed.

43:32These people need to meet the criteria. So we take it super seriously. And you said there's no phone during those three hours? No, no. There's no phones allowed. I think also we didn't even touch on our, like the founders have secret sauce and all the other communities can steal it. It's like when you look at a YPO or EO, they're mostly segregated by the city. So it's like the New York chapter, the LA chapter. Us is global. So with all those events, Dan, if you're in LA or New York this weekend, you could pop into those events 100 % for free. Like this morning, we did a 5K run club with a bunch of the Miami members.

44:01We had an LA member fly in. Not for the event. He was just happy to be here for meetings. But he plugged in. He came in. He had an entire time. We did breakfast together. Now he left with four friends. Exactly. I love that part. The idea is to truly have a global network. If you go to Marbella in Spain and you're like, what's the best coffee shops? Or where should I take my family? Or what's a good beach to go to with a young kid? Don't use GBT because it'll tell you whatever someone programmed it to. The local that lives there, you can just write in the group. And not only that, they'll probably take you out because we encourage people that they must.

44:33One of our code of conducts is you must give before you take. I love that. We have some people that go in, they just only ask questions. They never answer. They only ask. And we keep tabs on all of that. We let people know. You've been asking a lot of questions. Like you can't answer anyone. It's like, oh, I only jump in when I need something. It's like there's tons of groups out there. There's so many groups out there for that. For us, it's a give first community. That way the bowl, the container is always overflowing. and that's why people when they leave an event or they leave a mastermind or they leave a paddle tournament that we do no matter what we do they leave with energy they leave full they don't leave like someone just sucked blood out of them and like oh my god I'm never coming back but dude since I've known you like you've embodied that right like you connected me to Chris from ClickUp we just had a great breakfast last week but you don't want anything from that the world just goes in a circle and it's like we're looking for people just like that that just want to make the world a better place and it all comes back full circle you know so it's interesting I've been throwing masterminds for years and I'll go get fancy celebrity or big performance or rent out a stadium or something crazy.

45:34The number one thing on the exit survey when the members leave is the breakout session. Yeah. Who'd you meet? The three hours you talked about. We only do 90 minutes to two hours because it's three days in a row. But the three hours you're talking about is the most important thing. Literally like, did you like Mark Wahlberg and Kris Jenner and Shaq? No, no. The breakout session. We don't really even announce like speakers well one is like ours are members only so we don't like necessarily use it but like our members sign up for it without even knowing who's speaking because they just want to meet other people I don't even let my staff know who's speaking exactly and we actually we had three so then coming up in March we had three stages we actually just removed an entire stage and made a curated connection stage so all day long you have an hour block you're assigned to that hour block and you're going to walk away with 10 new friends nice and you know what the feedback's probably going to be better all the paid speakers everybody that we have there they're gonna like that stage the best for sure for sure okay so let's talk about the entrepreneurial journey you sell the company you sell the company but you also didn't mention you have the pilates studios you have multiple location pilates studios how did that come to price yeah i met my wife here in 2018 and uh she she's amazing she's smart marketer really really great girl and we were just starting cross net i was living on unemployment i remember like sitting on my first date with her like she's on the left side of the uber i'm like when we get to 10 sales a day babe we're gonna be rich and uh she started like i'd always ask her for copywriting help and eventually covet happened yep and she lost her job and i was like yo come full time and help cross net so she became employee number one wow uh she worked with us ran our marketing department and i looked at her and i'm like one day she gave up her corporate america job for my dreams.

47:18And I respected that. And 2021, we were getting married and it was either get married or open the studio because you really wanted to open a studio. And we didn't have a lot of money back then. So we're like, all right, we're going to get married first. One day we'll live your dream. And I never wanted her. I grew up in a house where my dad would sit at the kitchen table and tell us all about the dreams he never lived. And I really, I started, I never wanted to be that father, but I never wanted her to be that mother. And to know that life happens quick and she had a kid, never got to live the dream.

47:51There's no perfect time but now is the perfect time when we don't have a family. So we opened up the studio last year, February 3rd. She's the operator. I'm just the supportive moral husband. I've made a very strong commitment to Erin that we're full in on Founders Club. I can't escape the Pilates talk. I'm so proud of her. But it's incredible. Yeah, she has two locations. We just signed two more. she's going to be opening up 12 locations in 2026. She's building a juggernaut, dude. I saw there's 297 spots today in class. There's only four available. It's a beast. I'm so proud of her. You sell a company one of the biggest transactions in Canada.

48:35Why go back into this? Why dive into something that takes a lot of work time and energy to step around the country and now internationally to do it? I think it's funny you ask that. I think one thing most entrepreneurs don't realize about selling a business, specifically when you started it. When you invest in a company, that's like a transaction. But when you start something with your nails, with the dirt on it, blood, sweat, and tears, it's very much like your baby. And it's a part of you. And little do we realize like how much our identity is trapped into it how much our joy our fun like we used to be on shopify like the number of dings on my phone was like dictating my my happiness for the day you know like that's how connected i was you know it's like i could be in the worst day ever like three nice dings and like it's crazy right they should do a study on that but my point is when you sell your business, you think that is the final ding.

49:40That's the ding that's going to last forever. Right. And that's not true. In fact, it's the opposite. You feel like you lose your identity. You feel like you lose your purpose. And sure, you got money. Great. You could buy some stuff. But we all know that doesn't last too long either. So I was very scared. I was very worried. I didn't know really what I wanted to do. But the one barometer that I really wanted to proceed with was the same barometer I had in the early days of building that business was I wanted to have a lot of fun. Right? It's like one thing that Chris and I, when we first started this, like you mentioned before, like concerts and snowboarding, like I've been to more concerts and I didn't know how to ski.

50:21I've never been to ski. But like I've skied, I've visited, I now like know like Raising Canes and the soda shops. Like I was from Toronto, right? I never traveled. Like we've traveled over 35 cities. I've had dinners with over 6 ,000 founders. like wow yeah we have so much fun yeah and it's still to today and like when we when we tell like our team and like when it gets intense and it does get intense of course we have a lot of shit there's 1200 souls you know like sure there's no joke like and it gets too intense we'll stop them and be like we're gonna remind you guys like if this stops being fun we're out right like this is fun only and uh fun first is really our mentality and they appreciate that we have fun with our team we have a lot of jokes we we mess around we make mistakes but that's it like there's i couldn't imagine not like doing this like i i would go as an entrepreneur as i i now after 11 years i consider myself a pure red entrepreneur like i don't know what else i would do yeah maybe some stupid shit probably also i think the magic dan is like we didn't sit at the kitchen table we're like yo let's start a business together this was this was like a complete accident and we're very much like happy to own that.

51:33Like we were hosting dinners. We would have sponsors that would fortunately sponsor my newsletter, Aaron doing a selfie on Instagram. We convinced them to pay a little bit money to come out and eventually it just fed our lifestyle. I want to go to this concert. Cool. This sponsor will pay for us to come out. And we connected people. But after two years of doing that, we'd come back to a place and it started as a place to just fulfill our travel needs. But the people we'd sit down would be like, yo, I don't think you remember this, but you sat me next to this person, we've now become roommates.

52:03We've now started the business. We're now dating. We're like, look at our baby. It's crazy. Members are dating now. They're buying each other's businesses. People are acquiring businesses. I came to your dinner and now I'm an exited founder. How? What? It's unbelievable. And so that just happened. And we did that for two years. And everyone was like, yo, what if we just launch this community? And for me, I was the exact opposite of Aaron. and I was never investing in courses, never in community, never had paid for that. So I was like, if we're going to do this, it has to be fun. It has to revolve around having as much fun as possible with really amazing people.

52:42And everything doesn't have to be about business, but if me and you hang out, we're naturally going to do business because we're good people and we have similar interests. So the community started like that. We got the first 50 people a couple years back, and, damn, it's grown like crazy. But we've never lost the fun element. When you close your eyes and you think about 2027, 2028, 2029, is there, this is a worldwide thing? Are you? Absolutely. Oh, certainly. We have demand, you know, our biggest fear is just not building the infrastructure to support like the demand. Sure. You know, one of our members like brought up a point not too long ago and he was like, hey, can I share something with you?

53:24I was like, yes. And he's like, I'm worried that at one point there's going to be too many members in the community, which really stuck with us. We're just like, oh my God, do we cap it? Do we cap it at 1 ,000, 2 ,000? Is there a number? And what I later realized, there's no, this community, as long as it remains vetted and every single person that comes in meets all the criteria, it's only more powerful with more people. I go into my phone and our Ask Questions channel, it's insane. Someone asked for a German lawyer that can help transfer money through like this, the most complicated question I've ever seen.

53:55I was like, there's no chance. three minutes someone's gonna have the perfect guy i'm like what it's like unbelievable so yeah if there's 3 000 people as long as i'll remain the same it's even more powerful so i think the number grows um we have so much demand in europe that we've yet to really build the infrastructure to support uh like 30 40 a week coming in from europe so we'd really love to do how are they coming in are you running ads are people talking is it social like what's happening mixture it's all the above a lot of organic what we're seeing now which is the best is we're getting member nominations.

54:28Like, Yash, right? The podcast for this. It's like, yo, I got two or three members for you. Those are perfect because once they have a good experience, they will also have members. So the spider web just continues to grow, but it all starts with leaving a great first impression and then them getting value out of it. Yeah, because my group's$100 ,000, so I don't run ads. I have to have referrals. Exactly. I need to create the best experience humanly possible because me running an ad, I call it whale hunting. It's definitely a product first engine and it's also three years, right? So it took us pretty much two years to get to like 150 members.

55:02And then we went from 150 to 1 ,200 like really, really fast, right? With turning down thousands of people. Yeah. Yeah. Being very selective. And this year we'll go to 3 ,000. Yeah, we've been raising the price every single month with the value. We're pretty capped on the price right now we're happy at. And it's a nice grandfathering people in because they've seen the maturity of the business, right? The value. I think you're at the perfect price point because it's easy for someone to. We just had the event at Grutman's house. We have the full, we're just stacking good stuff and members keep appreciating it.

55:33Yeah. But yeah, global network, 2027, we're still having fun and we're traveling the world still. Yeah. So there's something that I do at some of the events where we have companies present and we're raising capital for those companies. Are people ever pitching at your events? Is that something that you guys are against? We don't allow it, but there's definitely a group of people that would love. We set up some sort of like deal flow channel for them. That's the biggest thing they keep asking. I think we need to organize it in a great way. That's my retention. My retention is that. Sorry to cut you off.

56:08My biggest retention is my syndicate. So a lot of my management members, they don't care about the 100K because they get to invest into deals. And because they invest in deals, they know they're going to make more. Hopefully not no for sure. Of course. They'll make ROI on it. Yeah. And so they like to plug in. I have members that literally are paying for that because they're getting access to deal flow that they know that I'm vetting it and our circle is vetting it and we're co-investing to the deal together. So we do small rounds. We do three to six million per deal. And I do one every six to eight weeks.

56:38Okay. So it's 56 million the last three years, three to six million bucks at a time, 18 companies. And we just find products that are in our system, food and beverage, CPG, et cetera. I just think that you're going to have thousands of members as long as you're strict about vetting it I also have a minimum requirement they do 5 to 20 million because it reduces my risk what you don't want to do is take someone's life savings yes so everyone's a credit investor we don't do big rounds so I'm not raising 37 million dollars for one deal it's just 3 to 6 million bucks per deal most checks are small 25k, 50k, 100k some do 250 to 500 but a lot of 50k, 100k checks but the retention rate is a lot because of that and there's a communal part.

57:19Now, the concern is, what if the company fails? You get egg on your face if it does. You don't really have much backlash if it's a successful company, meaning you raise money for a$16 million food brand and it goes bankrupt. They're not mad at you for that. You raise money for a startup and the guy takes off with the money. Now you have egg on your face, right? And so it's just something to be thinking about. I'm talking live on camera, but it's something that I've, my elevator syndicate now has 1 ,100 investors in it outside of the mastermind. Wow. And so I can fund a company in 15 days. What's the infrastructure look like for you running it?

57:53So we utilize AngelList in our backend. So AngelList handles everything in the backend. Let's say it's a food brand, right? We're raising money for Skinny Pasta, which we raised 3 million for them twice. Everyone gets a text message and email, but first the founder does a presentation at a live event. So you throw your live event, say there's 500 people, for example. A founder can present, as long as obviously you vet the whole thing ahead of time, blah, blah, blah. Let's say this pasta company presents and it's for 30 minutes. They are presenting in a learning style fashion. So you're not just getting pitched.

58:26You're learning about it. And we do what's called a soft touch. Everyone's going to get a text message. Hey, Skinny Pasta is raising$6 million. Reply back if you'd like the paperwork. If you don't want anything, say nothing. So if they say nothing, they don't get another text. So they're not going to get bothered like 15 times, sales reps calling them. It does not happen. It's one message. If they respond, yes, pasta, they say the word pasta back, will now send them the deck, the financials, the wiring info, and everything in one shot, and the financials. And so they can make a decision and not have to ask any questions.

58:59Why does I do that? It removes the back and forth, and it makes it a seamless process. They then say, okay, 50K. It's all done through AngelList. They sign and wire. That's it. By doing this, I can't even explain. We did it for Candy Brand. We did$4 million at an$18 million valuation. They just raised$30 million at a$135 million. Number two in Target, like it's a great candy brand. We did it for Icon Meals. We did it for Everbull. We raised for them. There was 17 locations. Now there's 104. But during those years, all the members are part of it. They're all franchisees, buying franchises, investing more money.

59:37Things happen. You have the most perfect group in the world for it. So just keep in the back of your mind. Not now, but whatever in the future. the again as long as you are vetting the group which i know you guys will because you're vetting the members and you bring them offerings they want it bad especially for your exited founders yeah someone sells a company for 26 million they're like what do i do now yeah having people talk about money and investing there's a lot of things are going to happen in your founders lives your guys are going to go from 29 to 33 to 37 what happens there they're building a company they sell the company they get married and have kids you need to talk about that you need to teach them about family you need to teach them about things that are going on in their life you need to teach them how to protect themselves and their finances wealth managers it's like a combination of the NFL combine and like how do you protect your members who's going to cancel no one's leaving your group yeah exactly so we say we're building for every season of your life I love that that's reality that's reality you need different things at different times we already have father chats mother chats there's father getaways there's mother get toys like we're building for stuff that doesn't even relate to us right now yeah but it's there when we get to that season absolutely it's kind of cool because those founders wellness they they turn 42 and they have their second kid and like they want to hang out with your other members yeah and they want their wives and kids to do it too exactly right and like that is a big deal and you're again i don't see people canceling your group it's the right price point you've vetted it hard it's the right members and you're making it fun why would you leave they don't they don't at least not yet they don't yeah i i just i i know it and i yeah and because you guys are enjoying it and you guys are young it's unlikely you're going to want to exit because it's fun unless someone makes you a crazy offer if they make you a crazy offer you'll probably still stick around and do it of course right they'll give you golden handcuffs to keep running the thing right because there's a lot of groups that you know in the event space in the membership space the ones that stand out we can name, right?

1:01:39There's a company out of San Diego has 52 ,000 members at eight grand each, right? That's a lot of revenue, as you can imagine. And you obviously mentioned YPO, like there are groups that have tens of thousands of members at that 8K to 12K price point. Well, holy smokes, those are not small numbers. And the deal flow that happens with inside of that is wild. It's insanity. And what will happen is as you evolve, you're going to start to see what can we do to provide value for the members? Do we have like a dedicated partner that's like helping with merchant processing? We have a dedicated partner that's like Gary Brecca for health or something.

1:02:17Like do we do a deal with Gary Brecca to teach everybody about blood work? You know, like you start to think about what do these people care about? What do they spend money on? Is it accounting, taxes, life, travel? Can you get them a fancy credit card deal discount? Like things start to evolve because you've got the perfect members for it. Okay. Question on the charity side. Why is it important for brands or for people as individuals to have some type of charity component into their life?

1:02:50I thought you were going to say something. Something we haven't done yet. To be honest, we haven't done it yet. With the forum. The forum is charity. Yeah, for sure. I think to be honest, I want to get there. for me if we do something my problem with charity and maybe you could help me is I never actually get to see when we do donate or the money right and for me like I lost my dad to alcoholism when I was 18 that has nothing to do with Aaron's charitable cause but like for me if I give back to people that are struggling with alcoholism get them make their life better yes I don't know the right charity yet but it would be very interesting for me because made a very big impact on my life for sure and yeah if I could give back I know it has nothing to do with the founders club but it has something to do with me personally so um for me it's like it's it's just like standard for me uh i guess just because i'm a jewish guy so i've just always kind of donate 10 of everything i've made um yeah it's not complicated for me that's what i do um it's just i've been doing it for a really long time so i don't really like feel it i would say as like i used to i feel like a charity is kind of like a muscle you know it's like you got to like continue to to have that like natural tendency and uh certainly have been burned in the past like i know what chris is talking about certainly been burned many times yeah i don't know i think it's hard to question it either like you you're the air in or out with the 10 or of your earnings or whatever and me i grew up in connecticut on a farm nobody was giving me charity i didn't have charity like it's hard for me now to be on the other end being like i gotta find a place and that might be shitty to say out loud i need to find something I feel connected to.

1:04:26Absolutely. But it starts with the operator to know where that money actually is. Yeah, for sure. The reason I started my charity was that exact scenario. Yeah. I did a charity poker tournament in 2008 in my store in downtown San Diego. I had all these football players, business people, big charity poker tournament. We raised$165 ,000. We're sending the big check. We're super excited. Monday became Thursday. Thursday became next week. Wednesday became next month. I never heard from the charity again. Not that they did anything nefarious. I don't know if it was bad, good, what happened. But I couldn't report back to my friends that I'll just pay$1 ,000 each to be in my charity poker tournament.

1:05:02What happened? Yeah. They wanted to hear stories. So I made my Model Citizen Fund backpacks for the homeless with items inside. So I wanted to cause an effect. I knew that if I gave out backpacks to the homeless, there was 14 pounds of supplies in it. Start the toy drive. You can visually see when I do my toy drive, I'm going to fill up an arena or a stadium or a building, whatever, and give out toys to children. You're going to see children walk in, leave with toys. Like I want to make it very visual because of what you feel is that sometimes you just donate 10 grand or a thousand bucks, a hundred bucks, a million.

1:05:30You just don't know what happens with it. And so what I would say to you is to get over the hump is it has to be something that you care about or someone in your circle. Someone that you are close with, right? That they went through homelessness or they like wanted something with leukemia or breast cancer. Something has to be meaningful to them that makes you passionate about it until you find what matters to you. That's right. and it doesn't have to be money time and energy is also very useful like you might not want to cut a check to something with alcoholism but you might go to a sober house once a month and spend a couple hours with them and talk to them and teach them or something like you might get connected that way where you're not just donating a thousand bucks or 10 grand whatever to them sometimes it's just the time and energy like you get the founders club to go to the beach and clean up there's no money involved in that of course they're just cleaning up a beach and you can see the cause an effect of it but it creates experiences it creates memories and so i like obviously i'm a very big pusher of charity but i'm also i'm also trying to change the narrative what you feel inside of like i don't want to donate 10 grand because i don't know they're going to run off with the money at what level of wealth or time in your life did you start getting involved with it or you felt like it was the right time so 2008 is when i started throwing the charity events and i was throwing them with other people's charities at first i didn't have my own and And then I finally started my own and that's when it changed.

1:06:51And it wasn't that I was donating a ton of money to my own charity until I had a big amount of money. And then I started deploying a lot of capital through it. And then I was just self-funding most of it for many years. Like if you look at the toy drives, for the first like eight, nine years, I just paid for it all. Me and my partner did everything and I had some people volunteer and donate a little bit. But like I really just paid for it all because I didn't want people to feel like that. Now I'm mentally obsessed with getting more and more people to donate. because they can now see I'm the vehicle to give out toys effectively and efficiently.

1:07:24And so the money part, the number doesn't actually matter. Meaning it depends on the financial journey, whether you donate a hundred bucks, that's a huge deal for some people. Of course. Right? Family of four, a hundred dollars could be a humongous deal for them. A thousand bucks could be a big deal, 10 grand. The math doesn't actually matter. Them taking the time, money, and energy is what actually creates the emotional relationship. and you'll see if there's something that they can do, that your group can do to like, we're going to go build a school or we're going to go clean up a beach or we're going to go do this, this, and this.

1:07:56You have so much power building up. You have 1 ,200 members now. You're going to blink your eyes and have 3 ,000. 3 ,000 people doing$14 million averages, a gazillion dollars. And it's hundreds of thousands of employees. What happens in 2029 when they have 1.9 million employees amongst them? and you can do push a button and everyone knows about this breast cancer charity or this beach cleanup or let's all get together around the world and we're all going to do this thing for children or homelessness like you the power you guys are creating is staggering yeah staggering because the people that you're bringing in okay i know you mentioned you don't have children do you want to have children absolutely for sure yeah okay sure so there's only one question i ask on every single episode and i've never gotten the same answer before as you guys build this company founders club grows to 10 000 members and worth a bazillion dollars later on in life and you do all these other ventures you join advisory boards and you both become multi billionaires what percentage of your net worth do you leave to those future children i'd say the biggest challenge i have in my mind is like my relationship with money growing up was so sparse so how do you flip the coin on the children to have the same values around alcohol around money yeah i have a good friend who actually works with us in the founders club dad died early one of my best friends and he receives a monthly stipend until he's like 35 or 40 and the stipend is nothing crazy but it's enough for him to live a sustainable life and live a good life and not have fear but also not turn into an arrogant asshole and at 40 he unlocks that money and I think for me if that was the relationship I'd set up by 40 you kind of develop who you are as a person as a man or as a female so I think that's a good system whether it's 90 % or 100 % and two no's.

1:09:44But I love the way of drawing it out. Yeah. No one big, here's a$1.00 today. I think that would be more ironic. I mean, I don't have kids, so it's like I don't have the emotional cloud right now. So without having that cloud, and maybe this will change, but personally, I don't see myself leaving any money behind. I mean. really no i think i you know my my kids will enjoy all the resources and the connections and um i actually have the best example ever what my my financial advisor zach called me the other day and he goes can you get me uh kevin o 'leary and i was like for what he's like one of my clients is a billionaire and every six months or twice a year he does a family retreat with his three sons and he brings in a speaker to hang out like with them and to teach them on different aspects of wealth because his whole thing is like by the time i die i want them to be like at the highest level of like understanding and have the most amount of connections because that's how they're going to operate in life yeah so like i'll do things like that because i think that is so cool like put them in the right rooms give them the leverage never make them feel disconnected uh but i don't i I wouldn't want, at least without a kid right now, having that emotional, I wouldn't want to leave a whole bunch of money.

1:11:09My goal is to maximize this whole lifetime. Yeah, but you also never know when you're going to die, right? So if you haven't educated them on... That was his position. If I die in a plane crash, my kid's got a billion dollars. My daughter's at one. Exactly. Yeah, when my dad died, he was 18. Our family split$30 ,000. That was all he had. So I got$10 ,000. Greg got$10 ,000. and my mom got$10 ,000. My$10 ,000 went to a camera. I was in film school. So I used that camera to, I spent$7 ,000 on the camera and$3 ,000 for my credit card debt. And that camera got me through college and got me my first jobs after college.

1:11:46But like, in that situation, I love that my dad gave me that$10 ,000. Sure, sure. Because I'm glad it didn't get siphoned out. But it also depends on the level of wealth. But it is important to get a little cushion at first. A couple bucks. It's not all right. $10 million. I think it's crazy. All right. So tell them where your socials are personally and also for the company. Yeah. Chris Mead on Instagram, LinkedIn, Twitter, foundersclubofficial.com and foundersclub on all social. Just Spivak, S-P-I-V-A-K on Instagram. And yeah, LinkedIn, connect with us or yeah, foundersclub, foundersclubofficial.com.

1:12:25Yeah, you can pretty much hit us up anywhere. All right, cool. Yes, sir. All right, guys. As you're listening to this, keep in mind, it's not just for you. There might be a founder that you know that might be doing$14 million revenue as well that you want to introduce to Founders Club. Whether it's now, later in the future, this group and company will be going on for years and years and years. You might be sitting on a lunch or dinner like, wait a minute, this friend is doing $27 million in sales. He should join Founders Club. Oh, this girl is doing$13 million in sales. Maybe she should join Founders Club.

1:12:50Just keep this in mind for the future. You might want to forward this podcast to someone that's in their entrepreneurial journey. I appreciate you guys. We'll see you guys next Monday here at themoneymondays.com. you