Wealthy AF Podcast
Welcome to Wealthy AF, the ultimate podcast for ambitious individuals ready to transform their lives. Hosted by Martin Perdomo, The Elite Strategist, this show dives deep into the powerful pillars of personal growth, entrepreneurship, and building wealth.
Each week, we bring you actionable insights, inspiring interviews with industry leaders, and proven strategies to help you break free from the 9-to-5 grind, unleash your entrepreneurial potential, and create lasting financial freedom. Whether you’re scaling your business, investing for wealth, or leveling up your mindset, this podcast equips you with the tools to design the life you deserve.
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Wealthy AF Podcast
Unlocking Startup Investment (w/ Darren Marble)
Ever wondered how you can invest in startups just like a seasoned venture capitalist? Join us for an engaging conversation with Darren Marble, the executive producer of the revolutionary series "Going Public." Darren shares his innovative approach to democratizing investment opportunities, allowing viewers to invest in companies in real-time, much like an interactive Shark Tank experience. We kick things off by discussing the crucial importance of investing literacy and personal finance management for beginners, emphasizing why understanding these basics is key before diving into the world of investments.
What sets the wealthy apart from the rest? We dive into the mindset and relentless habits that distinguish wealthy individuals using insights from billionaire investor Chris Birch. Darren shares how successful people are perpetually focused on wealth creation, income generation, and investment opportunities. We delve into the concept of having a definiteness of purpose and the relentless pursuit of financial success. This chapter serves as an invaluable blueprint for anyone aspiring to build substantial wealth, emphasizing the power of passion and focus in achieving financial goals.
We also explore the importance of investment diversification and the role financial regulation plays in safeguarding investor interests. Darren offers expert advice on spreading investments to mitigate risk and underscores the value of third-party evaluations for due diligence. We discuss the current economic conditions and hope for improved interest rates while also touching on the role of government oversight in the cryptocurrency space. Finally, Darren shares practical strategies for startups looking to raise capital, including leveraging the Jobs Act's RegCF tool and the power of engaged email lists. Don't miss out on learning how to connect with Darren and dive deeper into the exciting world of "Going Public.
CONNECT WITH DARREN
https://www.instagram.com/darrenmarble/
https://goingpublic.com
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All right guys, welcome back to another episode of Wealthy AF, your ultimate guide to understand what it truly means to be Wealthy AF, and today's guest is Darren Marble. Darren is an executive producer of Going Public, a new interactive streaming series that follows founders on their capital raising journeys. Darren has a long professional history of seeking new ways to bring access to private market investing assets Wall Street gatekeepers. In addition to producing Going Public, darren is a CEO of Fintech Company that provides the leading investment platform for online capital raising. Darren, sir, thank you so much for coming on the podcast. My pleasure to have you and I'm excited to have this conversation with you Martin, it's mutual.
Speaker 2:Thank you so much for having me on today. So today's- topic.
Speaker 1:We're going to be talking about investing literacy, should it be taught in school. So for complete beginners, darren, what are the top three things they should understand before even thinking about?
Speaker 2:investing. It's a really good question, you know. I think the first thing that needs to be taught is you know personal finance and how individuals, retail investors, should be managing money, and this is definitely something that I don't think is really taught in schools much at all. Before you make investments whether that's in stocks or alternatives and we're very active in the world of alternatives, private markets investing there's now new laws in the United States that allow everyday Americans to invest in startups in the United States that allow everyday Americans to invest in startups. Before people invest in startups, they should have a concept of just general personal finance. So someone that has $5,000 or $10,000 of credit card debt and a monthly payment of $200 or $300 or $400 a month paying down that debt probably should not be investing in startups. I think personal finance and just the broad strokes of managing your money is something that's absolutely important.
Speaker 1:So what are some of the common investing mistakes? So you touched on it a little bit Before I go there. Before you answer that, let's go to the foundation, let's go to the root cause so people can understand. So if someone's listening, let us understand. What exactly is it that you do, Darren? So you're the producer of Going Public Interactive Training System, but what is it that you do as it pertains to money and raising capital? Why don't you give people the broad overview so that we can all understand?
Speaker 2:So, martin, I produce a show called Going Public, and Going Public is a show like Shark Tank, where viewers can invest in featured companies while they watch, and this is an idea whose time has come. I think all of us have watched many episodes of Shark Tank. I think the show is honestly so mainstream and has become such a cultural zeitgeist that you and I may know people who have been in the show. That's how popular it is. And yet, as a viewer, all you can do is watch. You can watch our Cuban banter bicker with Laurie or Damon John or Kevin O'Leary, and that's it. And everybody at some point has said to themselves I would invest in this business, great ideas, they would invest. I would invest in this business Great ideas, they would invest, but of course you can't. So we have changed that. We have made real-time investment possible through the Going Public series. The episodes can be watched. We just released season two yesterday on goingpubliccom and on MarketWatch we have a distribution deal with Dow Jones, which was the Wall Street, and on MarketWatch we have a distribution deal with Dow Jones, which I was the Wall Street Journal, marketwatch, et cetera.
Speaker 2:And it's not Shark Tank, right, it's a totally new format where we follow the founders building their businesses, raising capital, and we run them through challenges. We call it apprentice style challenges, where we take the founders out of the office, out of their comfort zone. For instance, we took our founders of season two to Las Vegas and we literally threw them in a boxing ring with Floyd Mayweather Jr, which was unbeknownst to them until the moment. They were in the ring and the lights go on and then they were pitching their business to Floyd while they're sparring with him. And that's reality TV. That's original content. That's pretty's reality TV. That's original content. That's pretty cool, man. That's really cool. That's not something you're ever going to see in Shark Tank, right? I think we all know what the Shark Tank format is.
Speaker 2:This is different, and so that's one of five episodes, so the viewers get to follow these founders across multiple episodes. And these are real businesses. They're doing $10 to $50 million in revenue. Those are also businesses you would really never see go on Shark Tank. They're too big, they're too successful. And as you learn about the companies through the show, as you learn about the founders and, of course, you get an inside view into the grit, the resilience, the character of the founders At any point during any episode, a viewer can click to invest and buy shares in a featured company.
Speaker 2:So that's what the show is, and so we're big believers in the idea that customers deserve an opportunity to become owners. Brands like Uber, lyft, peloton, doordash built on the backs of millions of customers, millions of users like you, like me, who would never have had the opportunity to invest in the company until it's public. So the Going Public series is a leveling of the playing field. It's a way to make startup investing fun, accessible, exciting, informative, and we've been doing this for six, seven years. It's been a very difficult business to launch and we couldn't be more excited to have the show out now.
Speaker 1:What an amazing concept, darren. What an amazing cool thing Was this, your idea?
Speaker 2:You know the funny thing? Martin is my business partner, Todd Goldberg. It was his idea and he pitched me this idea at a steakhouse in New York in 2017. And I have a background in online capital raising, helping startups raise capital from their customers, fans and followers. And Todd said to me Darren, I've got this vision for a show like Shark Tank, where viewers can invest while they watch. And I literally cut him down and cut him off in five seconds. And I said, Todd, I've heard this idea a hundred times. It's a commonly pitched idea on Wall Street. I've heard investment bankers with the same idea. I know guys in Hollywood that have production companies. They're tied to celebrities, they have money, They've had this idea. And I said it's a common idea.
Speaker 2:And he says, okay, well, where's the show? It must exist and, of course, it didn't exist at the time. And what I realized is that it is a very simple idea and, while it was also a very common idea that was easily communicated or pitched, the reason it didn't exist is because it was incredibly complicated to execute and there were about 10 different components or puzzle pieces that were needed to bring this show to life. And Todd said, Darren, that's why I'm coming to you. You are the expert in the online capital raising space. You understand rules and regulations as to how these deals work. I have relationships with production companies, distributors back in LA. We should partner. So it in fact, was not my idea, it was my business partners. I'm glad he exposed it to me and together we've kind of built this thing from the ground up and it's been a journey.
Speaker 1:Sounds like a really cool thing. I'm going to make sure I check it out myself this weekend here, but it sounds like a really, really cool show. I want to talk about this investing literacy topic we're talking about. So you, as a money guy capital raising guy you're dealing with a lot of people with money. In your career, you've probably met a lot of people with a lot of mean, and I want you to talk to the average person, the working class person that might be listening to us. What have you found in your conversations with wealthy people and people that not have so much means? That is the one thing that differentiates the two. How does one get from one another spectrum zero financial literacy to having option to invest in this or that or even be at the table with you right, because to even get to the table with you, you got to have some sort of money to invest.
Speaker 2:Yeah, no, it's a great question. So I mean, let me start with an anecdote. One of my investors in our show is a billionaire named Chris Birch. Chris Birch is the co-founder of Tory Birch, the fashion brand. That's his ex-wife and Chris has been wealthy and rich for a very long time. He got a clothing company in the 80s that he started with his brother, sold it for a couple hundred million, then became a co-founder years later with Tori.
Speaker 2:And one of the things I've noticed about Chris, because I've spent a lot of time with him, is he's constantly thinking about business. He's constantly thinking and talking about business opportunities, investment opportunities, exploring models of income generation, wealth generation in his mind, and not just in his mind, but he's talking about it all the time. And I've noticed this, Martin with the most successful people in my network that have means, that have a lot of wealth. They're constantly thinking about wealth creation and wealth generation. So I think, at the very basic level, if you are an individual that wants to make money, you want to have more means than you do in the future, you want to be self-sufficient. You have to constantly think about it and talk about it and learn about it. It has to be a part of your being, learn about it. It has to be a part of your being.
Speaker 2:These things don't happen magically, and I think the other analogy would be as a founder. The way founders become successful is, one, they don't quit. They've got incredible grit and resilience. And two, they're obsessive. They're obsessive about solving a problem in a new, creative way and they don't quit. So if you pair these things up, you're obsessive about wealth creation, you're obsessive about self-improvement and you don't quit and you keep going and you're consistent and there's longevity to that obsession. That's actually the first thing and, I think, the foundation for success. So, outside of all the education that's needed investment opportunities, learning about personal finance I think it's critical that people really start to embrace the idea that they have to be desiring of that wealth and think about it and talk about it very often, uh, for it to actually happen.
Speaker 1:You know you, if you're saying that you've probably read the book, I don't know. Think and Grow Rich, napoleon Hill's book.
Speaker 2:Yes.
Speaker 1:Amazing book. I'm rereading it. I read it at least once a year, and one of the principles that you just touched on is the principle of the definiteness of purpose, and I think that's what your client, your investor, your friend, your billionaire friend, is constantly talking about. He said investment opportunities in his mind. He's constantly talking about looking for innovative ways to make new money or get more cashflow increases as well, and that's in the definiteness of purpose. When you have a definiteness of purpose of what it is that you want, you get permeates in everything that you do, and that's kind of what I gathered. Like you said, you're talking about it. Your wealthy clients are talking about it all the time, looking for ways, and I know for some people, that may not be what you're after. You may not be, but the name of this podcast is Wealthy AF, so part of being wealthy is money.
Speaker 2:Listen, you're right, it has to be an obsession and you have to be shameless about it. If you feel, well, you go the other direction, which is you're scared of capitalism. You don't like Elon Musk I'm not picking on Elon because I'm a big Elon fan, whatever but the you could go to the other side, which is you're a socialist and you believe wealth should be distributed to you equally with everyone else and you don't have to work for it. And all this. You want a government handout. That's the other extreme.
Speaker 2:The people on the other end, martin. They're obsessed about building wealth. They're obsessed about income generation. Multiple revenue streams, passive income, active income, selling businesses, building businesses, investing in companies, liquidity, exits, ipos, acquisitions, yield, royalty dividends, carry. Those are the things that these people talk about all day long. They're obsessed with it. And if you want to be in the top 1% of income, of wealth generation, you want to have houses, cars, an island, whatever it is. Maybe you're like Warren Buffett. You can be a multi-billionaire and still have one house, whatever it is.
Speaker 2:If you want to accumulate wealth, you have to have the mindset of thinking about it and building and growing and learning, and it's a constant process to learn. So I just think we could talk all day about tactics and here's an investment opportunity. Here's an investment on how do you diligence deals and, by the way, these are things that everyday Americans do need to learn too evaluate public companies, private companies, totally different criteria and evaluation process and materials that are available, disclosures. We could talk about the tactical things all day, but when I go and meet Chris Birch in the Hamptons or one of his five homes in Miami, or he's in New York at his penthouse overlooking Central Park, I walk in and he's talking about business. And it's not by accident and as a result of constantly thinking and doing and networking and talking about deals and investing, he's built an incredible life for himself and his family and his children.
Speaker 2:So I do think people have to be consciously interested in wealth creation and consistently curious. You said before we started this podcast you have a curious mind. I think that's really important. You have to be curious about ways in which people generate wealth, create income, and if you really want it, you'll go for it. Talk about it, think about it and then you go into. Okay, I have X amount of dollars today. Maybe you don't have $10,000. You got $1,000. So then what's the strategy Paying off your debt, getting a little extra income, some savings. What do you do with the savings? But I just think it's important to state this, because the most successful people I know when I talk to them, they're always thinking about income generation, wealth creation business building.
Speaker 1:That's an obsessive mindset about what you want and that's for anything. Any athlete, any athlete playing, any actor playing at the peak of their career. They're obsessive about what they're doing. An athlete, a business person, is that level of commitment. It's that level of commitment. What are some of the investing mistakes that you see and how can some listeners avoid them? Some that you may see, even at a high level, with the guys that have a lot of money and then maybe with just the regular, you know, 95%, 98, 98, 99% of the rest of the community.
Speaker 2:You know I'll put it in the context of private markets investing. There are now new laws that have been in effect Maybe they're not new anymore Since 2015, 2016, that allow everyday Americans, retail investors, to buy into startups. You can buy into privately owned companies, not just trading on your Robinhood app, and so what I see a lot in private markets is there's often deals that investors hype up to each other. You may have a relationship with someone that introduces you to a deal. They talk very excitedly about the opportunity, probably because they have some incentive an economic incentive to sell that deal to you or their network. And I think it is easy for the average retail investor to get excited about a company without performing their due diligence. And in our industry, where companies can now raise up to $5 million for retail investors under a securities exemption called REG CF stands for regulation crowdfunding Companies that raise capital that way, martin, have to provide disclosure to the market.
Speaker 2:In order to do it, they have to provide reviewed or audited financials. They complete a legal document called a Form C, which has business information, business overview, management, discussion and analysis. It includes the reviewed or audited financials, forecasts, executive compensation. These are precisely the materials that need to be reviewed by every individual investor. Materials that need to be reviewed by every individual investor. You need to be able to look at a P&L statement, a profit and loss statement, a balance sheet, a cash flow forecast, and you don't have to be a finance guru or an expert or a wizard to very quickly learn how these documents are set up and formulated and what they mean.
Speaker 2:You need to know how much capital does this company, how much cash does this company have in the bank? What's their runway Meaning if they didn't raise any more capital, do they have enough money to pay their team for one month or two years? Because there's a big difference there, and so I just think it's easy for investors to skip the due diligence in favor of taking a friend or an advisor's recommendation on a deal. But we operate in private markets where there is, in fact, now more disclosure than there's ever been before for these opportunities, and those disclosures are accessible on the company's website.
Speaker 2:If they're raising capital under Reg CF, there's links to the financials, to the Form C, just the idea that investors should do their homework, and I don't care if you're investing $500 or 5,000 or 50,000. You have an obligation to yourself to not just be excited about an opportunity, but to review these materials and understand the financial health of a business. Is there revenue generation? Is there growth? Are the revenues decreasing or increasing? How much cash does the company have at the bank? How much runway do they have? There's probably 10 basic questions you would want answers to from a finance perspective that are not terribly complicated that I think need to be evaluated before making an investment decision in a private company Beyond stocks and bonds.
Speaker 1:What are some of the alternative investment options for diversifying a portfolio?
Speaker 2:Well, exactly the industry we're in, which is private markets. So a lot of the companies that we work with that we put in the Goin Public series or issuance clients. They are startups. They are consumer product startups, automotive startups, food and beverage startups, and this is kind of one sector of private markets. There's a lot of real estate deals. We're not as active in that space at the moment and, of course, startup investments and real estate investments have a completely different risk reward profile.
Speaker 2:So if I were to look at my own portfolio, I've got 10 to 15% of my wealth in alternative investments and these are private companies. They're startups that I have sourced or have been recommended to me or I found online through my own research. And in a typical startup investment, you might put in a dollar and your hope is to get five or $10 back in two, three, four years. So there's a high risk. Because investing in startups is hard. There's a high risk. You lose some or all of your money in any private company. So we can start with that acknowledgement. But in success for a company that exits or maybe an investor in the next round buys you out, you have the potential to turn that dollar into five or 10. So there's a high reward. When you invest in startups private companies where there is no liquidity, your $5,000 is going to be locked up in that business for years, typically before you have the potential of seeing an exit. So for my own portfolio it's 15%, for someone else it might be 5%, for another person it might be 20%.
Speaker 2:I think private markets are the most exciting part of capital markets and they represent some of the most interesting and unique investment opportunities right now in our lifetime and they're now just very recently accessible to everyday Americans. So I'll give you an example of where people get excited about this space. We had a woman in season two of Going Public who's a venture capitalist named Cyan Bannister. She's a famous venture capitalist. Most notably, cyan and her husband Scott invested $50,000 into the Uber seed round and at IPO many years later, their $50,000 stake was worth $245 million. Wow, about a 5,000x plus return.
Speaker 2:And that's as good as it gets right and it's also nearly impossible to achieve. But that is the allure of startup investing and I think what's tricky investing in privates is that people do know that story. I can tell that story here to you and your listeners and people say my God, $50,000 into $245 million, but it's a long shot, and so what you have to do ultimately, if you are an investor in private markets, is you do have to diversify. You should not put everything you've got into one company, because the odds of that company being successful are almost zero, just law of averages. So if you've got $10,000, you could put $500 into 20 companies. Right, that's one way to do it. That would be a better approach. Or if you have $50,000 to invest, you could put $2,000 into 20 companies, 25 companies. So you do have to diversify as an angel investor or retail investor in startups, because it's so hard.
Speaker 1:So with all of the hype online, with all the financial hype online. There's so much going on online. How can one discern what's good and what's not?
Speaker 2:unbiased third-party reviews of private markets deals. So it's one thing to do your own due diligence, which you should do, but you should also seek out third-party diligence, third-party evaluation, analysis and assessment. There is an emerging market for platforms like King's Crowd that provide analysis insight. They have their own team of financial experts that can diligence a deal and provide some kind of output or report on that deal. A lot of the content or reports are free and then for more detailed analysis or research you have to pay for it, which mirrors what happens in public markets. There's a lot of analysis. You can get an article on Seeking Alpha from a contributor for free. Do you want more thorough analysis or diligence? You're going to have to pay for it. So I think that's one thing. In addition to your own analysis, you can go to third-party sites like King's Crowd that have free and paid research to help assess opportunities.
Speaker 1:I can also go out. Should the government? I want to talk about government with you and their reach in the financial world. Should the government have a say on how the stock market works, or should they stay out of it?
Speaker 2:You know. Look, I think there's value in regulation and regulated capital markets. The United States has the most robust capital markets ecosystem and infrastructure in the entire world, and it's a regulated market right. The SEC exists for a reason. Finra exists for a reason. These are regulatory bodies that are there to provide order to markets. They manage exchanges, they regulate broker-dealers, etc. And I think that there is value there.
Speaker 2:And yet when governments try to regulate too much, I think there is definitely overreach. An interesting area would be cryptocurrency. Look, in terms of my politics, I lean a little bit right of center. I don't technically think of myself as a Republican, but I do think of myself as right of center in this environment and yet I do believe that government needs to regulate cryptocurrency. I think it's been a free-for-all.
Speaker 2:I think there are a lot of scams, there are a lot of grifters in that space, and the typical Republican or right of center person would say less regulation, they shouldn't be regulating this market. Let people invest in anything they want. I don't believe that to be entirely true. I think there does need to be a baseline level of regulation designed to protect everyday American investors from putting their money into junk. And unfortunately, and I'm going to pick on the cryptocurrency industry. There's a lot of junk there. There's a lot of pump and dumps and meme coins and crap, and it's an opaque market.
Speaker 2:So I don't necessarily think my views are unique or anything like that, but I do think that there has to be some baseline level of regulation to protect investors, and what that generally means is there needs to be some kind of disclosure from the cryptocurrency company or coin or Dow, whatever it is, and I don't necessarily believe in all that stuff, but that's how public markets work. If you wanted to take your company public to the NASDAQ or New York Stock Exchange, you file an S1. You provide tremendous amounts of disclosure to the market. So there's a rigorous process. That is here for a reason, and there's really no parallel in cryptocurrency. You can launch a coin and you're trading tomorrow on some exchange, whatever. I think it's a little ridiculous. So I do think that that industry in particular does need regulation.
Speaker 1:So I don't know if you, I saw a news article this morning for part of my business newsletter I get, and it was these two brothers that graduated from MIT. Not Bitcoin, it was Ethereum. I'm sure you've probably heard of that coin. These guys figured out a way I think they stole really smart guys stole $25 million, something in the transaction it was some weird, something like weird Between 12 seconds from the time they were transacting from one thing to another, these guys figured out a way to get in and then and they got caught. So, to your point, there's a lot of craziness in that, in that space.
Speaker 1:And, uh, I have nothing against crypto. I just for me, I just personally, I don't really understand it. I'm a real estate guy, I'm a hard asset guy type of thing, type of investor. I like hard assets, I like businesses, I like private equities, I like stuff I can touch and see. Right, crypto it's not. I don't understand it. I like to invest in things I understand. So, on that note, I'd like to ask you I want to switch over a little bit into the economy, because you're a money guy what do you see happening in the economy? Do you think we're in a recession? Do you think we're headed into one, and where do you see interest rates going here in the next few years?
Speaker 2:It's a good question. I'm not the economic expert, but I don't think we're headed into a recession. I do hope interest rates are reduced and continue to go down, which would be the right direction for them. And look, dow just hit an all-time high today, hit 40,000. 40,000, yeah, so it doesn't seem like we're in a recession, doesn't Not to say the stock market can't go the other direction in the next few months, but I think the broad indicators are positive at this moment.
Speaker 2:What I would really like to see is more institutional dollars flowing into startups and the startup ecosystem. For founders, for companies that have businesses like myself and many others, it has been very, very challenging to raise capital in this environment. Environment. The spigot has been off for a good, hard year, and so my hope is that, with the Dow hitting 40,000 for the first time ever, interest rates looking to go lower, that that will open up the billions of dollars of capital that I think has been on the sideline for the past 12 or 14 months and we will see more of those dollars start flowing into innovative startups that want to build exciting technology, whether it's fintech or artificial intelligence, or media content like our show. That's what I'm hoping happens in the next, you know, six to 12 months.
Speaker 1:You mentioned something in your statement here that this bigot's been off. It sure has, and we talked a little bit off air about, you know, the deal I had and how difficult and challenging it's been to raise capital in this environment. What strategies would you tell or would you give someone to raise capital in this environment? How are you guys managing? How are the bigger guys right? Or those billionaires, because we all use other people's money and I'm not friends with billionaires yet, but I would imagine that they also use other OPM, other people's money, whether it's bankers' money or they leverage real estate or they leverage their stocks and get money from investors and lenders against that. But what's the strategy? What do you guys deploy? What are those guys deploying? How are they raising capital? How can we, the smaller companies, model what the bigger guys and maybe our big brothers are doing?
Speaker 2:Well, this is the purpose of the Jobs Act. In fact, was to solve for this very problem, and the Jobs Act was a piece of legislation that was signed by Obama in 2012,. Went into effect in 2012, 2015, 16. There were different capital raising tools designed to make it easier for small and emerging businesses to raise capital. I think the one that's worth talking about for a moment is again RegCF. So RegCF allows a private US company to raise up to $5 million from anyone over the age of 18. Globally. It's a really good fit and margin for companies or brands that have some semblance of a customer base. If you've got 1,000 customers, 10,000 customers, 200,000 emails, you're a decent candidate, or a great candidate, to raise capital from your community. So these campaigns are often referred to as community rounds. This is an alternative way of raising capital versus the traditional way of going to pitch venture capitalists, high net worth investors, family offices, guys like Chris Birch, who, for the average person, he's impossible to meet or reach or contact without being in that circle, and my own journey to Chris was like a year-long zigzag, windy road.
Speaker 2:I'll save you the drama, but RegCF is a great example of a new tool that has been available for companies now for several years. That allows startup founders to market their investment to their customers, fans, followers. You can send an email. You can post it on LinkedIn, tiktok, instagram X or Twitter. If you have a brand, if you have a following, if you have an email list, if you have a friends and family network which most founders do some network at least.
Speaker 2:This is something to consider and it's not going to be a fit for every founder, but I wanted to talk about it because this is my area of expertise. This is what we know and understand very well, and the average founder does not know about this capital raising tool. They're used to going out and trying to find investors the hard way and for some founders, they may be a great fit for a venture capitalist 99 out of 100 are not, so for those other 99, you may want to look into RegCF and see how this capital raising tool or securities exemption works, and, especially if you have a business that has any semblance of a customer based fan base, followers or an email list, you may be a great candidate to raise capital this way.
Speaker 1:Can you define that for us? What is fan base Someone that's got a large following on media email. Can you give us a little bit more context? Or the listener base someone that's got a large following on media email? That's best for you. Can you give us a little?
Speaker 2:bit more context or the listener. So anyone who's an influencer. If you're a business influencer, you've got fans and followers on Instagram and again it's a little bit of a gray area. But if you've got 10,000 followers on some social media platform, that's something. That means if you were to raise capital under Reg CF, you could market your investment opportunity in your company to those 10,000 followers on Instagram through a post, through a story. So the bigger the following, the better the opportunity for you to raise capital, the better the opportunity for you to raise capital.
Speaker 2:The real value and I would say the real gold nugget here is if you have a highly engaged email list. That is the bullseye. So the bulk of the capital that has been raised under RegCF there's been about $2 billion raised to date using this tool it's generated through email marketing. So I'm a founder, I have a consumer products company, I have 10,000 paying customers, which means this is not a pre-seed business. I've got a business that has gone from zero to one. I have a product in market, I'm selling, maybe I have a Shopify site, but being able to email 10,000 people is how the capital is raised. So one thing if you have fans, followers on social platforms. That's good, but the great, perfect opportunity is if you have an email list. Maybe you're a Substack writer.
Speaker 1:Maybe you're a sub stack writer, you've got Beehive, something else, or use Mailchimp, whatever. If you can email people directly and you get 20, 30, 40% open rate, you're a good learning from you here, my friend. So here's what I'm taking away from that is, if I'm a, if I'm listening to you and I'm I'm just starting a business, looking to start my business from the reg SCF, I would just the way my brain is kind of wired, I'm focused on. I'm focused on building that email list, um, right from the beginning, building that customer base with that email list and making sure that it's a highly engaged email list, so that, because I'm constantly thinking of the future, I'm constantly thinking of the next goal. What can I do now for boom, it's going to pay me off next year, it's going to get me more cash flow next year or in two years or something. That's kind of the way I'm kind of gathering here my strategy, based on what you're saying.
Speaker 1:What would you tell a new entrepreneur that's like, yeah, that sounds enticing, but they don't have that. What strategy would you tell them to deploy? This is my thinking process. What would you say to someone listening that's like, hey, yeah, this Reg CF thing sounds great. I want to build this hat business or this, whatever business, or mug business, whatever business they want to open. How would you?
Speaker 2:Exactly what you said, which is, excuse me, build an email list. How do you build an email list? Build a brand. Everyone's a brand, whether you know it or like it. You are your own brand. Create content, start a podcast, launch a TikTok, think about creative ways to engage an audience. Read a Gary Vee book Jab Jab Right Hook, give, give, ask. That's a great book.
Speaker 1:Both great books.
Speaker 2:There's more free tools now than ever before to build a brand and drive people to a landing page and collect their emails. Be known for one thing in the market. I'm known as the capital raising guy in my industry when I'm on Twitter. If you look at my Twitter handle at Darren Marble, it's all entrepreneurship, capital raising, content, guidance, quips, anecdotes all of it. Be known for one thing and build a brand. Spend time building that brand on Instagram or TikTok or LinkedIn or X wherever your platform may be or should be and then drive people to a lander and collect their emails. You don't even have to have a product. You can just have a brand and people are interested in you and the things you're saying. And then maybe you come up with the product after and you've got 5,000 people in the email list.
Speaker 1:So I think, uh, owning the idea that you are a elite strategy right that you would give to our listeners that about financial literacy, or investing and creating wealth that we haven't shared, that you haven't shared yet that you should have shared. What would that one thing be?
Speaker 2:So I'm going to give you an answer that I love to give, that you've probably never heard before, which will sound counterintuitive or ridiculous, which is quit drinking. And for anybody listening who says I don't get it, I didn't get it either. I believe that sobriety for some people maybe a lot of people can be the unlock they've been looking for in their life. For me, I've been sober for 10 years. I quit drinking 10 years ago. Two years into my sobriety, my businesses started working really for the first time ever, and I credit a lot of my entrepreneurial success as a serial founder to my sobriety, because I'm able to put 100% of my time, attention, energy and focus into the two companies that I own and operate the Goin Public Series and Issuance. So if you're an investor, something's not working. Maybe you need to transform yourself first. Maybe you should take a look in the mirror and say what are the habits that I have that are not productive, that are not helping me create wealth, generate income, find new, exciting investment opportunities, build relationships with high value people? And the way I describe it, martin, is my efficiency, my effectiveness improved maybe just 2% over those two years. It wasn't like I was a drunk waking up in a jail cell type of thing. Nothing like that. I was functional. I had a career in sales. I was a high income earner in software sales, but my dream was to be a founder.
Speaker 2:Two years into my sobriety, my startup started working for the first time. So everyone is always looking for this quick buck, quick fix, some investment opportunity they've never heard of. Maybe I can tell them about it, you can tell them about it, but that's not how it works. If you want entrepreneurial success, if you want investing success, you should consider changing yourself and your being and the way you show up in the world every single day as step zero, before you go out and try to look for ways to make money.
Speaker 2:And for me, it was the last thing I thought would change me in a positive way, and yet it was the breakthrough I had always been looking for. So that's my uncommon advice at the conclusion of this awesome interview and I truly appreciate the opportunity to be here is for your listeners that are thinking about ways they can generate wealth, find new investment opportunities, find the people that have the ability to transform them. They need to transform themselves first. And for those who might've been thinking about this, I'm here to say this is your sign, your signal Quit drinking, go for 90 days, see how you feel, see if you feel good in 90 days and if you do, keep going.
Speaker 1:What amazing advice, man. Thank you, Darren, Thank you for that brother. Really good, solid, solid advice. If people wanted to connect with you, Darren. People wanted to check out your show, people wanted to check you out. Follow you on X, on IG or wherever. They just want to maybe potentially talk to you about, hey, how do you do what you do, or how can I invest, or just want to connect with you. How do they find you, sir?
Speaker 2:sir, twitter or X is at Darren Marble and you can watch our show at goingpubliccom and a little bit on LinkedIn too, but mostly X, or check out our show on Going Public.
Speaker 1:Beautiful. Thank you so much, darren. It was my pleasure, my honor to have you on the show. A lot of gold nuggets you shared here with us today. Thank you, my friend Really appreciate it.
Speaker 2:Thank you, Martin Great being all with you.
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