BIZ/DEV
David Baxter has over fifteen years of experience in designing, building, and advising startups and businesses, drawing crucial insights from interactions with leaders across the greater Raleigh area. His deep passion, knowledge, and uncompromising honesty have been instrumental in launching numerous companies. In the podcast BIZ/DEV, David, along with Gary Voigt, an award-winning Creative Director, explore current tech trends and their influence on startups, entrepreneurship, software development, and culture, integrating perspectives gained from local business leaders to enrich their discussions.
BIZ/DEV
Stubbornness is the Ultimate Fringe Benefit - w/ Jordan Peace | Ep. 112
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In this podcast episode, David and Gary speak with Jordan Peace, the CEO and Co Founder at Fringe- an employee benefits platform that completely disrupts the status quo in traditional benefits structures. Let the employees choose their own benefits? ABSOLUTELY!
Links:
https://www.linkedin.com/in/jordan-peace-fringe/
https://www.linkedin.com/company/fringeus/
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David Baxter has been designing, building, and advising startups and businesses for over ten years. His passion, knowledge, and brutal honesty have helped dozens of companies get their start.
In Biz/Dev, David and award-winning Creative Director Gary Voigt talk about current events and how they affect the world of startups, entrepreneurship, software development, and culture.
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Hi, everyone, welcome to the biz dev podcast podcast about developing your business. I'm David Baxter, your host, and I'm joined per usual by Gary Voight. Today, Gary, for those who are listening or watching the video. It's glowy head time. We're recording this in the morning. So I look like I'm stepped down from heaven because it's just
Gary:so like Thanos at the end of endgame right before the snap thing,
David:man, you must be talking smack about my chin. That's what you're saying. I have a lumpy chin.
Gary:I know. It's the lady. You got a hard landing on one side and then you get like a very strong defined jaw area that looks like I'm
David:inevitable. That's what you're saying. That's that's all marketable. Oh, no, no, no, that was so bad. That should be edited out. That was so bad. Get dough. Wow, you
Gary:get that David caliber joke. That was pretty bad. Yeah, cuz Oh,
David:man. That was like my stepdad caliber joke. Dude, that was that's where that went. Anyway, more importantly, we are joined by Jordan peace, who is the CEO and co founder at Fringe, which is I have no idea. So I'm excited to ask it's, it's a great name for a company. I know has some to do with human resources outside of that. But I want I want you to tell me, first off Hello, welcome. Thank you. Yeah, hi, guys.
Jordan:I'm loving listen to you guys making fun of each other already. This is good. I've been the voice laughing in the background in case the listeners are wondering
Gary:if it doesn't all get edited out. But yeah,
David:it won't. We're gonna keep that nasty joke. So I can make fun of you for about that joke for years because that was so bad. It was inedible was anyway. Jordan, tell me about French so that I can be enlightened?
Jordan:Yeah, absolutely. So thank you, I appreciate the compliment on the name The name is very intentional fringe as in fringe benefits. Fringe benefits go back a long time and traditionally have been for the you know, for the executives of the company. It's the jet, it's the car. It's those sorts of things that are like the fringe benefits. Well, we took that concept and said, what if we were to democratize fringe benefits and give them to all employees, right? And so we started to think about what would what would make an impact in employees lives right now, because as you guys probably know, running a business, traditional benefits are all about delayed gratification, right? If I get sick, I've got a benefit for that. If I get disabled, I've got a benefit. If I die, there's life insurance, if I turn 65, I can cash out the 401k. Yay, everything's for later, and bad stuff has to happen. So we actually, we actually built a marketplace full of services that meet needs now in everyday life, right? Like whether it's listening to Spotify, your company can buy your Spotify, your company can buy your Hulu, your company can buy your massage membership, or your gym membership, or your childcare or whatever the case may be. And so we offer those what we call lifestyle benefits on our fringe marketplace so that companies can connect to their employees in a unique way and give them services that meet needs right now.
Gary:That actually sounds really cool,
David:man. Yeah, no, I'm already I'm already looking at you. Because you're speaking to me on a very deep level, because we try to give we have weird benefits for this kind of same exact reason. So one of the benefits we offer is free maid service. Yeah. And I stole that from some startup that it was an article I read. So they didn't tell me the startup was. But the executive said I wanted a benefit that benefited the family, not just the employee, because as you were saying that most of them are just the employee. And so it's funny, and I'm one of our employees. So this is inside baseball. When we interviewed a guy for a development position a year or so ago, great candidate went all the way to the end. Right at the last step. He got swept up by another guy, a friend of his offered him a job. He's like, Dude, I gotta take this. I love you guys, but I'm out. Okay, bummer. We hired moved on. year later, he gets laid off from that company. We long story short, needed another hire because something else different guy didn't work out. And his wife says to him, hey, what about that company that offered maid service? Wow. Yep. And that is why he he reached out to me. I didn't reach back out to him because I didn't know he was on the market. And he reached out to me goes, Hey, do you guys have position I was like, as a matter of fact, a guy just quit. That's, that's the whole they didn't quit. We hired a guy. This drives me nuts. This has nothing to do with anything we're talking about. But now I'm mad. Because I'm thinking about this guy. This guy will let it out. Let it out there. This guy comes on board. We hired him did the whole thing. We have a ridiculous vetting process. And he got through all the layers. We hire an offer letter. He works two weeks says hey man, I have to leave. Guy who I applied to a month before I met, you just offered me a big pile of money, and I'm going to take it. And mag make matters worse, my wife does our HR. And as a remote company, we have every time I hire someone, they're in a different state, because they're all US based the paperwork. And the paperwork is insane. So this guy was our first dude in Nevada. So my wife did all this work to get him set up in Nevada, we paid him one paycheck. And we are still dealing with Nevada, as of now, because we're ending that first year. So anyway, there you go. Um, so back to what you're talking about. So I love this. So we do all sorts of silly things. And I'm wondering if we should just use you guys instead? No, this isn't a plug. I didn't know. This was clearly I didn't know what you did before.
Jordan:You said you admitted that upfront,
Gary:I have no idea. And David just said that he's gonna start paying for my Spotify. So
Jordan:I did I heard did
David:not say what?
Jordan:I think it's on the record. Yeah.
David:I did not say that. Whatever. But there are things that I wanted to do. Like, I've offered some of my people the ability to pay their internet bill, because I will tell you as a development company, having my devs on a bad internet connection cost me money. Oh, yeah. And they all turned me down. Which is weird. You know, what's also weird? How many of my employees turned down free maid service? I don't understand that. That didn't make any sense. It's free. What are you doing? Well, I don't want my kids to think I'm lazy. I you know what? That That makes no sense to me that. That's okay. That's okay. I will not get on that. soapbox. But I love the idea. And I'm guessing based on reading your LinkedIn and hearing YouTube speak just a little bit, that the idea of rewarding your employees is a big deal to you. Is that why you started fringe? Or was that just a cool idea? And you ran with it? Like, tell me how you guys got moving?
Jordan:Yeah, absolutely. I mean, really, I think there's more that I saw something that was broken, that I wanted to fix, if I'm if I'm honest. So I used to be in financial planning. So I used to work for a big firm, did that for about five years, jumped out started my own firm with actually with one of my current co founders. So we had another company before this. And we did fee only financial planning. So he's pay us a monthly fee. Be with us as often as you like, give you advice on whether you got money or not. Right, we would work with younger people with no money for us to manage. But they would pay for the advice to accumulate that money, right. And what I've found is when when there's no products to sell, and you're just given advice, people ask you really honest questions about stuff they don't understand, right? Like the stock market, for example. Most people have no idea how it works. No idea what stock versus a bond and words like share and stock? Are they the same thing? I don't know. So that was one black hole. But the really, really, really big black hole in people's financial knowledge was benefits. No one understood their benefits. So they'd be applying like to your your point earlier about people kind of applying for multiple jobs or trying to choose between them, right? They would always ask me like, What is this? Like the definition of disability? It seems like it's different with this one and that one? And is this enough life insurance? And the I fell into the trap of actually explaining and answering their questions for like, 30 to 45 minutes until I saw their eyes droop? And then I was just like, you know, I don't even think you care about the answer. So like, let's just move on. Benefits are boring, like, they're boring, and they're disinterested. And the only time that you look at them is when you are sick, or when something horrible does go wrong. And you're like I should have read that contract. Like, it's just not interesting to people. And so as a result, I'm like, Well, what are we doing that we're offering these employee benefits, the point was to engender loyalty and goodwill, right, and to take care of our people. And we might be taking care of them. But they don't understand it. They don't appreciate it. And they don't appreciate it. And we're not engendering anything, right, we're just given away a ton of money. So I thought, what if we could add to benefits, something that's easy to understand, has some immediate value in people's lives? Or is a low cost but a high perceived value? Right? Like think about what you just said earlier? That wife said, how about that place? That gives you free maid service? To what two grand a year?
David:Yeah, that's a bonus. It's a lot like somebody could offer
Jordan:five grand more, and they'll take the job with the maid service. Because it's not about the money. It's about being cared for. It's about this that idea of like, oh, wow, they really value their employees, that must be a good culture. So it's this fascinating thing where actual value and perceived value sometimes have nothing to do with each other. And I think that's very true. And the benefits
Gary:to go off that like the actual and proceed I think a lot of it is just like you said, some of the benefits that big companies offer seem to be hidden because unless you you sign up for them when you start, and then maybe once a year when you have to renew stuff, or you get a little know from HR, but they're just in the background. The smaller little things that you say like they're in your face all the time and whenever they reoccur. You're like, oh, yeah, that's cool. I don't have to pay for that. It's given To me, yeah,
David:yeah, exactly. Exactly one of the things one, so I'm in a business group called C 12. And I saw on your LinkedIn you do, you're in a couple of business groups, Forbes and whatnot, which I didn't even know where business groups very interesting and company, and Fast Company, right, I didn't know that they had their own things. But one of the things that a lot of those guys that are in my group have guys out in the field, you know, ditch diggers, for lack of a better term, you know, doing manual labor, cleaning things, picking things up, whatever. And they're paying an hourly rate. And he goes, You know, I want to give them good benefits, but they don't care. They want all the only number that they care about is that dollar per hour. He's like, I can give them he's actually done the math, he's like, when you add up their let's say, they're getting 15 an hour, just making a number up. I'm giving them an extra $5 an hour in healthcare every year, right. And they will take the guy that gives no health care, but 16 an hour. He says I lose guys like that all the time. And he's like, that drives me crazy, because I'm trying to care for them. But they don't care. Either. They don't understand like you're saying, or to them. It's like it's so in the back of their mind is like, we have long term disability. Yeah. And the only reason we have long term disability is because my father was one of those guys who said, I'm going to work till I die. Right? That's not uncommon in the older generation in particular. And the other problem is he got sick before he died. He's still alive. And so he but he couldn't work anymore. The sickness was bad enough that he had to stop working way before he was only in his I think he was like 73. I mean, not his retirement age for sure. But not 95 or something, right. And so he couldn't do his job anymore, because it just physically couldn't do it. And he had nothing at all. Now, in his case, long term disability actually wouldn't have helped. But it made me think of me and my team, right? And if I couldn't work, what is what's the plan B. And then we're like, dude, there isn't one. Because I'm, you know, I'm not old enough to be able to retire right now and have a pile of money. That's not reality. So I need something to take care of me and my family. More importantly. So that's where I find the way that benefits happen. It's because I want them and then I can't give them just to myself, because I feel bad. Like, that doesn't seem right. That doesn't seem right that only I get them. But so they it rolls downhill. And and that's, that's good. I guess I technically could give it to myself. But then it becomes very fringe, like you were saying, and then there are this is my next question for you when it comes to fringe. So let's say I give you free, Spotify, whatever, 18 bucks a month, that is not a covered benefit in a tax world. So technically, that's a taxable gizmo. Right? So that's, what 200 bucks a year that now do you guys handle that weird tax stuff? Or do you just let us know, and we have to handle it?
Jordan:Kind of depends, you know, we might be, we might be tied into your HRIS or your payroll system, right? We might not be right. It just depends on the size of the company, how sophisticated the HR department is, and so forth. But when I say most companies do is just gross up wages at the end of the year to cover that, and so that there isn't any tax ramification to the employee, obviously. But yeah, it's one of those things like, hey, could if we could get that lifted at some point and expand the definition of covered non taxable benefits, like that'd be really cool. But, you know, it's gonna be
David:decades. Oh, sure. Yeah, I mean, that's a mountain to climb, because it's what you think is necessary. Someone else thinks is a luxury. Well, okay. That's fair. But yeah, taking care of my people is what matters. And if the problem is, is all these laws exists, because there's some SGAs back up there, who says, you know, what's a fringe benefit of beach house? That's what I should get. And that should be a taxable, taxable thing. And that's why all these laws exist because of those people.
Gary:I had a question about you started in 2018. With us. We did you see any weird ups and downs during when the pandemic hit and companies, a lot of them turned remote, whether they liked it or not. Or a lot of people had to start hiring remote. A benefits package like yours, I'm assuming, probably saw a lot of traction during that time. Was there any like ups and downs for your company during that?
Jordan:Oh, no, that's an insightful question because it was very much a big part of our story. So yeah, we started technically it was 2018 but like right at the end, and so we didn't we didn't get much done you know, in that last like month and a half of the year especially in like going on clients I did building a few things and marketing resources. really, in earnest 2019, we raised some money at the beginning of 2019. We had a good year, like, we felt like oh man, this idea is gonna take off. And then that pandemic hit the day it was like, it's here in America, and everyone's talking about it. I was in San Francisco raising money with VCs, all of whom canceled their meetings. And so I was in a hotel, doing zoom calls with people that were a mile away. So I flew across the country to meet no meetings took place. I've done this in Virginia. So So we ended up you know, we had a pretty nice trip. Thankfully, we didn't need money, like right then anyway, flew home, we had a $0, first quarter in 2020, nothing we made$0 in new revenue and 2020. It was like, Well, I guess we're dead, right? And then we were and all of our investors who are like, well, you know, batten down the hatches is going to be ugly, this and that. And I was like, You know what, I'm not listening to you. Like, we're gonna double down on marketing, we're gonna change our messaging, we're talking about remote first benefits, package up your culture and ship at home, all that type of messaging. And it worked like a charm. From like, April, May, it just took off through 2020 and 2021. And then like everybody else, 22 and two was like, starting to get a little tough. We're kind of like swinging back up right now. But yeah, it was a big part of our story. Gary is a big it was a big deal. Everyone was looking for a way. Yeah, that's a how do we engage with these people? How do we offer like personalization? What's funny to me is all sudden, people realize that they have remote employees, you know, because like everybody had, like five remote employees are ready. And nobody gave a crap that there was like, no equality of benefits between the headquartered employees and the non like, no one cared. But then as soon as like 90 to 100% of people were remote. They were like, well, we gotta have equity, like, you know, like, all of a sudden, like, the ethos changed overnight. And which benefited us greatly. You know, if I'm honest.
David:That reminds me. I'm going on tangent again, Gary. Sorry. I am reading a book called rocket fuel. Have you heard of that? One? It's a pretty, pretty common book. Yeah, not on the edge there. So they talk about I'm early in it. We are bringing our integrator into our world, using their terminology. And the first bit is about the visionary. And one of the key things about a visionary is well, they cast a vision, that name, and they're also hard to work with, which is interesting. I'm a visionary. I know that sounds silly, but to call yourself that, but I know that's my role at the company. And Gary will absolutely admit that I'm really hard to work with. Yes, but one of the things that you mentioned. Thank you. Thank you, Gary, I appreciate that. All agreed on to that. So what you said, though, is one of the key factors of a visionary is exactly what that story you just told is, I don't care what you just said, we're going this way, we're doubling down, we're taking a risk. And we're going to do this now doesn't always work. Right. But the fact that you were just like, You know what, because if you weren't a visionary, which, according to the book is 3% of the population 3%. And that, what the 3% of the population? And I don't know where, how they get that, but through their studies, is it but 67% of all revenue in this country? Comes from small businesses. Yeah. So 3% 67 Pretty interesting stuff. But anyway, they have the gumption to even though their advisors are saying there's something in their gut that says not we're gonna go this way. And that can obviously derail the world. But it's also the only way things get done, really. So it's cool. It's cool to hear that you're just like, No, no, no, we're gonna try this way. And it worked. And now it worked for a little while, right. And then people went back to work. Now you gotta change your messaging to get right. Yeah, when we did, which is great. I mean, that's brilliant. I love the hutzpah as it were. So let me get to brass tacks. How do y'all make money? Is there a? How does it work? I say I'm interested because I am. I want to offer this to my employees. What does that mean? What am I doing? As an owner? What am I signing up for?
Jordan:Yeah, so what what you know, the money that's coming from you to me and that client situation is you're gonna pay a software fee of some kind, you know, our stated fees $5 ahead, right. If you're a giant company that comes down, obviously you get that feature. On top of that, the only thing you're paying us is the for the benefits that you want to provide your people. So if you want to offer 50 bucks a month, per person, 100 bucks 25 You want to do I see a little bit of monthly so there's like
Gary:the benefits they could choose from fitting like from that category. You mentioned a point system earlier where they can kind of because right on your total we
Jordan:take the cat cash that comes in from our customer, we turn that into fringe points, we apply the points to people's accounts. And then they can spend them as they will Some people spend them as soon as they hit their account. So we will save up for 13 months and go on a vacation. People are all over the place because people have different buying patterns and you know, just different relationships. So
David:it's it's not a user to lose the situation. If I say it's everybody gets $100 a month for whatever they want, right? They don't use it for whatever reason, that adds up. Now a year goes by they have $1,200, they can just go blammo buy me something pretty. Yes.
Jordan:And it's it's cleaner to do it that way too, because it is taxable money to the employee, at least initially. Right? So I always advise employers just treat that like money spent, you bought them those points. And even if in the rare situation, they leave your company, they still have some points in their account. Let them have it. That like you tax them for it. You gave it to them. It's theirs, right? You're not taking back the swag you gave them like turning your T shirts. You left the company like why would you take the points,
David:I should do that. Gary Kernan your T shirts. Gary makes all the T shirts. So he has a lot. Yeah, he has a lot of T shirts actually.
Christie:Big pixel build world class custom software and amazing apps. Our team of pros puts passion into every one of our projects, our design, infused development leans heavily on delivering a great experience for our clients and their clients, from startups to enterprises, we can help craft your ideas into real world products that help your business, do better business.
David:Say I have 10 people, and I say they have $100, you would take $50 for you. And $1,000 for them out of my account every month. That was right. And that would just go over there. And then from a tax perspective, do you provide some sort of report that allows us to do the magic? We do? We do. Okay. And then so they can spend it however they want, they just you just open up? Here's a bunch of stuff you can do. And that's very cool. I love that. Yeah, I'm totally looking into that.
Jordan:We got a relationship with a couple 100 different brands. And so you know, we obviously can make some margin on you know, we're not, we're not marking anything up, nobody's paying more than retail for anything they're getting on the French marketplace. Sometimes they're paying less, but there is a margin that's pre negotiated.
Gary:That's what I was gonna ask. If you have a little bit of bargaining power with some of the companies you offer benefits with, if you're bringing in, you know, the possibility of like, 100 200 people becoming subscribers or whatever to their service. Right? You get a little bit of a discount,
David:but you don't know if it's 15 bucks for the Spotify family plan, you secretly are not so secretly agreed, you work with Spotify, you know, behind the scenes, say, Hey, I might bring you 1000 People over the next year. Can I get it for 10 bucks? And they say cool. It's still 15 bucks, and you're keeping that five? So? Yeah. Yeah, it makes sense. Nice. Both sides. I love that. So where are you guys in terms of as a company? Are you on your runway? Are you self sufficient? Where are you guys sit?
Jordan:Yeah, we're, we're like, within a year from self sufficient, probably at this point, right. We've raised a few different rounds, including our Series A about a year ago, which was 17 million. And, you know, we're, we're at a place now where it's all about scale. It's all just like, okay, everything works product market fit, we know who our best customers are, we know what people are gonna buy. We got the brand relationships, like everything said, it's just like, how do you get to, you know, 10s of millions of users as fast as possible. In so that's kind of really the focus at this point. So yeah, pretty soon here, we're gonna be cashflow positive, and I'm gonna be loving life.
David:That's very cool. So you raise 17 million in your series A in more sense, then tell me about like, that's really crazy. Yeah. How did you know people? Or how did that come to be in terms of when you're in Virginia? Not Silicon Valley. Right? You're not giving yourself six $70 million, which we've seen in the past on the podcast, which is crazy. Where they're like, I just had a lot of money. And so I built this company. That is awesome. So how did you go from a dude in Virginia, to a dude who was able to raise 70 million? Because that's a rare thing. That's what every one of the startups around this area want to be? So what advice or how did that happen?
Jordan:Man, I mean, I think a lot of it comes down to a mentality that like, if you're not from a tech hub, you probably feel this, like, well, you guys are in Raleigh, so you kind of more tech hubs than I am but you got a chip on your shoulder. You know, you're just like, You know what I can do every damn thing that people in Austin in Denver and San Francisco in New York can can do like they're not special. I If you want to use it, there's a mentality that you need. And you're going to need it in spades because you're going to hear no way more often than the San Francisco based, you know, fundraiser is going to hear no, simply because they're gonna look at you and be like, did you just like, step off a hay bale? You know, Virginia's
David:only dirt roads? Yeah.
Jordan:Right. You're just you're just a flyover state. Like, I remember talking to a VC in New York, and I'm in Manhattan talking to this guy at like a coffee shop. And we were talking about Instacart I think it was we're talking about Instacart being on the platform. And he got and I was talking about ordering it myself, like down here in Richmond. And he goes, whoa, wait, you guys have Instacart out there? What on them on the moon? Like, what do you mean out there? Like there's a million people in my city? Like, what do you get out of me? It's just like, like coastal elitist, that are just like, I don't understand, like, Are you from the past, you know, like, is like that no understanding that we live basically exactly the same way out here that these giant cities, but they were that was fascinating. So point in saying all of that, you're gonna need extremely gritty mentality to do that, you're gonna have to hear no, I would argue five plus times more than, you know, your peer that has less of a good idea that's raising next to you, because he went with so and so to Stanford, the they used to work together at Google that like, there's just all these connections, you're not gonna have, you know, out here. And so it was it was hard, man, we, we got lucky. I mean, one of my co founders had a friend who was in that world who made some intros, we met a group at a coffee shop and San Jose, it turned out that one of the founders of the VC happened to go to high school at the same place in my other co founder did in Richmond of all places, and like, there was a lot of like, kind of values alignment, and we got that first like San Francisco money, ya know, and then we were able to get more than just pause on refered and so forth. It was still very hard, but
Gary:yeah, once someone okays you, then it's like, the little brotherhood of VCs are like, okay, then yeah, I want a piece too. Yeah.
Jordan:Yeah, it's the scarlet letter in reverse. It's like, Yep, he's okay. And he's got this. He's been
David:stamp of approval. Ballpark, how many times do you think you were told no.
Jordan:Just in the series, a it was it was like, between 40 and 50. And we're talking like, hours with each group. So I bet it was, you know, 100 plus wasted, so to speak ours, you know, to do that raise. And that was, you know, the third official raise, and we did some other like Angel. So, a lot. I mean, a couple 100 times, I'd say, like, have heard No, when
David:I think that's good to hear. Because I think it's still the mentality, especially, I mean, you were raising money in a sweet time for raising money. And doing it now, I imagine is two times as hard because now money is the stupid money is gone, as I like to say the crypto money has left the building, because they all realized that was dumb. And now money costs something right. And so it's even harder now. So that number is gonna be even higher. But it's important to hear that even when it's quote, easy, right after the big old quotes there, it's still hundreds of hours, dozens and dozens and dozens of knows. And you still are a success story. And that's important to hear. And I think I think that's worth worth mentioning. It's raising money is such an interesting thing. Because if you have one of those names, which there's probably 100 of them that people know. And they just turn on the spigot, and they just fall into them. I remember Stewart Butterfield did an interview. He founded slack a forever ago. And he was raising money in the mid 2000 10s. And they're like, Why are you raising money you just did a year ago. He's like, because it's cheap. And because it's here, and I might need it. He goes, he goes we run our company. This was during an interview who's super Frank, which is why I really enjoyed listening right talk. He's like, we have enough money right now to run for a decade. The way that we are running right now our runway is literally a decade. And we're raising two more billion dollars because it costs us nothing. All I have to do is say I'm interested and people just Oh, and they fall in and yeah, and that's where I think crypto was kind of falling into that. I have a friend of mine that went and did NF Ts. And he's buddy with had started six months ahead of him. And he's like I made a million dollars in six months off this stuff. It's come on and he's like, hired the guy. And then what's crazy is NF T's fell off the planet as God intended. But they still Although they still were able to raise another million, like in January of this year, because there was some dude who was still drinking the, the stuff about NF T's even though clearly in January 2023, that stuff was gone. Right. Right. This was a punch line already. We had been making fun of them for a good two years. Thoughts is, what is interesting. They still got another million. Yeah, yeah, crazy. And I know people who have great ideas, who have all the stuff you want to have that drive, etc, etc. Right? But they're here, which is interesting. Like that you mentioned, but they can't raise 100,000. Right, right. And you're like, you're just gonna throw money, like it's just nothing at this horrible idea called an NF. T. Yeah. And this guy over here is really got something and you won't I find that really fascinating. But that chip on your shoulder is real. I mean, I do a lot of mentoring a lot of startups. And that's just there's a even here, we're considered a second year city, which is actually good. We actually consider that a good thing. But it's not San Francisco. Right. And I think the difference Yes, you're right. The developers, the entrepreneurs have everything that those guys have, except one big thing. And that's access. You can go in San Francisco and get your daily coffee and just start talking to your buddy, and the guy just happens over here. You're talking about it. And he's worth a billion dollars. And he might invest. I mean, there's, there's a guy who's new to the area here. His name's Bill Rawlings. Fabulous, dude. He wrote a book called A startup cafe. And it's literally a book about he was at an apartment over in Palo Alto, had an apartment over a cafe. And every morning, all the luminaries that you can ever imagine from the 80s had coffee there. Right? And he started multiple businesses, right? Don't these crazy stuff, because he's like, he's he worked with Steve Jobs. He worked with all these guys. He worked with the guy who helped found next with Steve, I mean, just crazy, crazy stuff. And it's all because it's just there. It was just, you could spit in a VC, right? That does not exist here. Right? Period. There's like, in our world, there might be a dozen angels that are well known here. And they're like, royalty, of course. Right? You have money you give away who can be right. And that's about it. Right? There's a few venture farms and stuff but tiny.
Jordan:Yeah, what I've noticed is nobody wants to go first. Right? So that's really the the key is to get the first check. And then people are a consensus, that stamp of approval thing, and nobody wants to look like an idiot, you know. So I went to the first person we got a check from was my co founders dad, he wrote us a 20k check, you know, like out of his 401k. He's retiring, right? And, and then we're able to go get another 25 and then 50, and then another 50. And then, but a lot of these people were like, they'd never written a check to a startup in their life, like first time Angel. I'm doing it because I trust you. And that's it. And then I got referred into angels that do it more regularly. And then I got to those guys, right, that everybody knows about, right? And only a couple of them actually said yes. Right. But but then it was like, Okay, well, now I gotta go get institutional money. And then I'll tell you like, I shouldn't give this away. Because I feel like it's our secret sauce. But like, family offices are great to work with. You essentially have one GP one super rich guy, and then three or four guys that work for him that just manages money and find investments for him. Right? And so there's no fund, there's no like, Oh, it's a 10 year funds, a five year funds a seven year fund, like we got to get in and out and a certain these guys don't care. Their timeline is death or beyond. Right? So they're just kind of like, yeah, we'll get in sounds like a cool opportunity. They put no pressure on you yet. Like they're they're not trying to force you to raise more so they can cash out. Like there's none of that stuff that you might deal with with a VC. And we have some great VCs too. Don't get me wrong, but some family offices, man, cheat code, cheat. So So
David:family offices, correct me if I'm wrong, that is a wealthy person or family. That Bill Gates. That's an extreme case, but there are a much smaller version there right around as to Yeah. Yeah, there they are wealthy person who has created a company that literally their job is to manage that wealthy person's money. That's right. I actually, I had an idea. This is sorry, Gary, when I had an idea, so I got all excited about the power of compound interest, which everyone who's never really looked into that just regular investing. Blow Your Mind. If you take $10,000 and give that to your 18 year old kid, you pay for their retirement if they don't get it by the time they're 65. So I had this idea. Hey, instead of when you're talking to my financial planner, instead of in your financial planner, so you'll get this instead of just leaving a big nut when I die. to my kids, and they become useless slobs. What if I set up a thing that they it just the the money, let's say $2 million, just for easy. And that million dollars, whatever interest it gets bleeds out and goes to my children. Right? Yeah. He's like, That's great. And I said, Well, then I also would like to for my grandchildren out of that fund. I would like to make $10,000 at when they're born, that becomes like 20 million by the time they're retired again, if they don't touch it. I would like to do that for them. And I would like to do that with every one who was born from my line. Right? I'm going to change my family tree. And my finances. I love I love Yeah, I love that idea. Except for the problem that it's illegal. Wait a minute, why is it illegal? Because while you cannot leave money to someone who's not been born yet? Yes. And so and he explained to me that is why the very basic of why a family office exists, is they can do exactly what you just designed, right? Because it's a company managing it your have been long gone. It's like think Carnegie. Right? He's gone forever. But his family is still benefiting from that fortune forever ago, because there's a family office that just says, Oh, another Carnegie was born. Yeah. 100 $100,000 into their account. Have a good one. So I'm not to that point yet. But there you go.
Gary:Yeah. Why didn't my great grandfather think of that?
David:It's really, it's really crazy how little money little amount of money it really takes to completely destroy your I mean, you're talking about, you can create wealth so easily, as long as you are not an RA. And that's where everyone gets gets this wrong, is they're all in a hurry, get rich quick, that doesn't work. But get rich, slow, man that works every time.
Gary:Also, a lot of people are not in the situation where they can just put that money away and not needed. You know,
David:of course. And that's true. I'm not taking that away.$10,000 is a lot of money. I'm not saying that. But if you can tell your kid, you don't have to worry about retirement anymore. Like I just live or you know,$4,000,000.04 to $5 million. What $10,000 turns into ish. Is that the same as $4 million to date? No, but is that one heck of a springboard? Yeah, yeah, it is.
Gary:Yeah, Jordan, I had a question during your multiple, multiple, multiple attempts of getting money and being turned down at any point, did you need to rethink or pivot the core idea? Or did you stay strong and thinking the core idea was there and eventually these people will just catch on?
Jordan:Yeah, too stubborn. I knew. I was confident I was right. I also had co founders. Right. So it wasn't just me kind of hanging out believing I was right in a bubble. I had a lot of people around me going, Yeah, this, this is a great idea. Like, we just need to just keep cramming it until somebody's like, Okay, I see it. Yeah. And that's how you change things. You know, like, everybody just follows best practices. There's nobody around to create the next best practice, you know, like, so. I'm like, I hear you. You don't you know, like the name you think you've already seen something like us? Whatever. They, whatever your excuse is, really all I'm reading on their face is like, I don't know you. I don't know. Anyone who knows you. Right? That's the real reason, right? I was just like, sure. Next.
David:Yeah. Why wouldn't they? Don't you wish you could just save yourself that two hour presentation? Yeah. And just cut to it. You don't know me? I don't know you. Are you cool with that? Right now? Cool. I'm out. Through it, dude.
Gary:I think that kind of confidence would actually turn heads to. Yeah, yeah. The next guy like that meeting guy will call the next guy is like, I heard your meeting with this guy from fringe. Yeah, he's he's super cocky. And you say Oh, really? Really? Good idea. Next thing, you know, balls rolling.
Jordan:Yeah, like Zuckerberg in his PJs? Yeah, back
David:from that douchebag that no one wants to work with.
Gary:A guy from Napster. Yeah.
David:Oh, dude, that guy. Wow. He's fascinating because now he's like a legit business man and owns stock in all of the 90s. Startups. I mean, he has got to be so stinking rich now. What's the name? Stuart something. No. What's that guy's name? It's gonna bother.
Gary:I don't know. My daughter just watched a social network like last week and I forget. Yeah, I forgot his name. He's
David:Justin Timberlake. That's who he is. That's right. Forever. That's that's what he looks like to me.
Jordan:Sean Parker, I think is Sean
Gary:Parker. I think he goes with it though. I saw him looking down. So he did you cheat.
David:Chad GBT busted out.
Gary:All right. Well, Jordan, it seems like you've had a pretty extraordinary journey. What would you say are your top three pieces of advice for any entrepreneur, new business or startup that is about to embark on that same journey?
Jordan:Yeah, yeah. Um, first, I would say be careful who you listen to. Anybody? Again, Right. Yeah, I mean, not just from a standpoint of like, How smart is this person, but there are people that will hear your idea, hear your elevator pitch and respond and think that they know exactly whether or not it's going to work and what you should change. And they just like to hear themselves talk, you know, but as a new founder, you're very insecure about your idea. You know, like, any negative comment from anyone, you're just kind of you want to be like, I don't know, maybe I was wrong about the whole thing, right? So like, it takes an enormous amount of stubbornness and confidence to kind of go like, I hear you. I'm gonna go ask somebody else. Okay, yeah, I'm gonna take that away. I'm ignoring that. Yeah. And like, just keep getting that advice for finding your idea. Yes, refine it. But if you're going as far as to raise money, do market surveys, like form your LLC, I would imagine that you're very confident, at least in the very beginning, that this idea is both big and solves a real problem in the world, you know, and so if you've identified that, and you trust yourself, don't let people talk you out of it. You know, don't let people kind of talk you down to like, I don't know, like, maybe you should pivot this way. Or that or adjust. Somebody's got to be the visionary, you know, and if that's only 3%, that means 97% of the advice you're gonna get is probably naysayers, right? So you gotta be really careful who you listen to is probably the first thing I'd say. You know, secondly, anyone and everyone who loves you, is the first person you go to for for money, you know, and it doesn't matter if they read check for $500, or they write a check for $500,000, they don't have to be rich, you know, they do have to fulfill some legal limits, since they there's some stuff, right? You can always, you know, do your Kickstarter route if you want to, but just go get some money, it's going to give you so much confidence to raise anything, right? Just like oh, people are investing their hard earned money. In my idea, we raise money when all I had was a sticky note. I literally, we hadn't even built anything yet. It was just like, I had a deck about an idea. And we raised like, I don't know, like 150 grand on that. Something like that, which was like, I can like pay myself for a while. That was really cool. Yeah. And it's such a confidence builder to raise a little bit of money. And then you have people that have a vested interest in your idea. And now they want to make connections, and they want to help you out. And they'll do anything, ask them to do because they just gave you their money. Yeah. So that you got you naturally got advocates and evangelist for your idea. Because their, their treasure is in, right, so to speak. And so that that's a big deal, too. So raise money early, even if it's a small amount. Be careful who you listen to. And then the other thing is, and this is counter to most advice I've ever heard, but I'm going to write a book someday called only go into business with your friends, which is the exact opposite advice that people
David:have heard the opposite by 8 million times. So that's really interesting. And that's a whole nother podcast.
Jordan:Yeah. Because when it comes to co founding a company, you gotta have as much trust in your co founders as you have having your spouse. I mean, you got to know for a fact, if like, they got your back, they're going to represent you well, to stakeholders to clients to the board. You know what I mean? Like, they gotta be really great, great men and or women, you know, that you trust implicitly. And I've benefited so much from that, like, we've been doing that for five years, and I still have some, like, non gray hair left. I still like and be able to sleep at night. I'm not on anxiety medicine. And the only reason for that is because I have co founders that I genuinely trust it so I can take a week off two weeks. I don't do it very often, but I can. And like, I know the business is okay. Yeah. So just, I would I'd say hire whoever, hire somebody you don't even like who has a great skill set, and then maybe it won't work out? Maybe it will, who knows. But when it comes to co founding when it comes to partnership, don't like do not get into business with somebody that you're like, I'm not sure. Like, you're you're not sure now you're really not gonna be sure, in a year or two. And I've had that experience to where I kind of got into business with somebody I didn't trust and it was a disaster. I've seen both sides. I'm pretty confident you should get into business with your friends or at least people that you really trust.
Gary:Talk about a tangent getting into business with your friends. That's you just described 90% of how the skateboarding industry was built.
Jordan:Yeah, that's true. That's true. Yeah, a lot a lot of niche industries like that that come from one neighborhood one city one group of friends. Think about one of the most successful YouTube channels in the world dude, perfect. Yeah, all those guys like went to college together. I one of you went to a&m. Those guys went to a&m I believe. Yeah. That's
David:right. At least some of them did. Yeah, I went to a&m that yeah, they're in Dallas. They're like heroes. It's really everyone loves Dude Perfect in Dallas.
Jordan:Right and how many guys have well, mostly guys have followed suit and have done all the bottle flipping and that like, like they're the most famous they started an entire industry, ya know from a college house. So it's, it is a lot of times exactly like that. It's just like people who love the same thing and like each other a lot, and they can change the world.
Gary:Those are great pieces of advice, man, Gary
David:is very hard to to impress with the advice because we get a lot of it now, should we ask that question every time and I love watching Gary's face, you can tell if it's good advice or not. He's like, dude, or
Gary:heard that a lot of times. I prepare myself for, you know, the textbook, you know, motivational poster answers. Because I dream big.
Jordan:Believe in yourself.
David:Don't give up on your dreams. Right? Yeah. You can do it. Believe in yourself good as good is better than perfect. Yeah. That's actually a really good one.
Jordan:That actually is a good one. Yeah. Are Good is the enemy of perfect. If
David:anyone wanted to reach out and learn more about you, how would they get in touch? Yeah,
Jordan:I mean, friends, if you're interested in friends friends.us Just go to the website is probably the best thing to do. If you're interested in in me want to know any more of my story and things like that. Just LinkedIn. You know, there's not a lot of Jordan pieces out there. I'm pretty easy to find. So yeah, yeah, just hit me up. I would love to love to talk.
David:Very cool. Well, thank you so very much for joining us. This has been an absolute blast.
Jordan:Yeah, it's been a great time. I appreciate you guys.
David:It's been a lot of fun. I really, really enjoyed it. Gary is having technical difficulties, so we'll just make fun of him.
Gary:I can't say anything anyway.
David:That's fair. It's fair. It's not really any different. Well, thank you again, and we will be back next week. Have a good one, everybody. Awesome. Bye.
Christie:Hi, I'm Christy Bronto, Content Marketing Director here at Big pixel. Thank you for listening to this episode of the biz dev podcast. We'd love to hear from you. Shoot us an email. Hello at Doug big pixel.net. The biz dev podcast is produced and presented by big pixel. See you next week. Until then follow us on Instagram, Twitter, Facebook threads, YouTube and LinkedIn.
