Podcasts about bankunited

Send us Fan MailThe hardest part of running a community association right now is that the bills are getting bigger while the margin for error is getting smaller. Insurance costs keep climbing, buildings are aging, milestone inspections and reserve funding expectations persist, and boards are being asked to approve projects that can cost millions of dollars. So how do you fund critical repairs without triggering financial chaos for owners or inviting fraud and mismanagement? In this week's episode of Take It To The Board, host Donna DiMaggio Berger sits down with Meghan Hallinan, Executive Vice President and Managing Director of National HOA and Property Management Banking at BankUnited, to get a lender's view of community association financing. Donna and Meghan walk through how community association loans really work when there is no physical collateral, why incoming assessments and the community's financial track record matter so much, and what red flags can stop a deal in its tracks. They also explain why banks look beyond a single project and want to understand your reserve study, your upcoming capital plan, and whether your owners can absorb the budgetary increase.  They also dig into the operational side: draw schedules on construction-style funding, the role of project managers and inspections, and how boards can avoid common breakdowns when leadership changes mid-project. Then Donna and Meghan shift to risk and controls, including the difference between a term loan and a line of credit for HOAs on balanced budgets, how litigation can affect lending decisions, what to know about the Fannie Mae's “blacklist,” and the fraud prevention tools every association should treat as non-negotiable, including positive pay and ACH controls.  If you serve on a board, manage communities, or advise associations, this conversation will help you build a realistic financing plan and protect your funds at the same time. Conversation Highlights:How banks' views of community associations have shifted—and what's driving the changeWhat lenders evaluate first—before the numbers even come into playThe biggest misconceptions boards have about borrowing—and why they matterCommon deal breakers: delinquencies, underfunded reserves, governance issues, and deferred maintenanceThe Fannie Mae Blacklist explained—and what it really means for your communityLoan vs. line of credit: how to choose the right financing toolWhy reserve funding is under increased scrutiny—and how it impacts borrowingWhat a “financially responsible” board looks like from a lender's perspectiveThe most common fraud red flags banks are seeing in community associationsInternal controls every association should have—and where boards often fall shortHow banks can partner with associations to help prevent fraudNon-negotiable best practices to safeguard association fundsWhat boards should be doing now to become more attractive borrowersThe mindset shift every board needs when it comes to financial decision-makingRelated Links:Podcast: Show Me the Money: Investment Strategies with Michael Coady and Kenny Polcari of Slatestone WealthOnline Class: Budgeting & ReservesResource: 5 Ways HOAs Can Prevent Financial Fraud

Lisa Shim is the Senior Executive Vice President and Head of Technology and Innovation at BankUnited, a national bank headquartered in Miami Lakes, Florida. Lisa ‘s role encompasses technology, treasury solutions, marketing, operations, and corporate strategy. With an impressive career since joining BankUnited in 2009, she has played a crucial role in the bank's digital transformation journey and M&A strategies. Her background includes experience at Merrill Lynch and the retail bank division of Countrywide Bank. Lisa is recognized for her collaborative leadership style and commitment to continuous learning. In this episode… The shifting landscape of digital marketing and consumer behavior challenges even the most established industries. What does it take to drive innovation in a traditional industry like banking? Can personalization and technology coexist to create customer-centric services? With over 15 years leading strategic corporate growth and digital innovation, Lisa Shim has revolutionized customer service to thrive in a fast-paced digital landscape. She emphasizes the value of curiosity, the courage to challenge the status quo, and a collaborative culture that fosters learning and innovation. Lisa also discusses how keeping pace with digital trends like AI assistants involves creating meaningful interactions and seeking diverse perspectives in the workplace to enrich understanding. Engaging with mentors can provide you with these perspectives and enhance opportunities for growth. In this episode of The Growth Fire Podcast, Kevin Hourigan chats with Lisa Shim, the Senior Executive Vice President and Head of Technology and Innovation at BankUnited. Lisa dives deep into innovation and growth-driven leadership in the evolving digital marketing and consumer behavior landscape. She highlights her role in fostering a relationship-driven business model at BankUnited, her strategic approach to digital marketing, and her keen interest in advanced technologies like generative AI.

Mary Harris is the Vice President of Marketing at SRS Real Estate Partners, a firm building upon its retail foundation to provide commercial real estate solutions to tenants, owners, and investors. Mary is a results-oriented marketing executive skilled in client and business development, quantitative analysis, negotiations, strategic planning, and branding. Before her years in the commercial real estate industry, Mary served as head of marketing at BankUnited, responsible for the bank's corporate communications, advertising, and public relations. In this episode… Are you in a leadership position? What can you do to lead your team better? Throughout her career and entrepreneurial journey, Mary Harris has had the privilege of holding different leadership positions. She's discovered that to thrive as a leader she needs to prioritize the people she leads. She has also learned leaders need to surround themselves with mentors who have more experience and ask for guidance when necessary. In this episode of the Growth Fire podcast, Kevin Hourigan sits down with Mary Harris, Vice President of Marketing at SRS Real Estate Partners, to discuss her leadership journey. Mary shares her career and entrepreneurial background, the importance of networking, her career transition from banking to real estate, and her experience as the Vice President of Marketing at SRS Real Estate Partners.

LEGAL MORTGAGE FORECLOSURE NOTICE Default having been made in the terms of that certain Mortgage, executed on the 05/07/2019, by Ronnie J. Andrews and Jenny Andrews, husband and wife, as Mortgagor, to Mortgage Electronic Registration Systems, Inc., as nominee for Carrington Mortgage Services, LLC as Mortgagee, which said Mortgage is recorded in the Office of the Judge of Probate, Clarke County, Alabama, in Book DMM BK 1517, Page 163 on 05/17/2019, and subsequently assigned to BankUnited, N.A. and recorded in the Office of the Judge of Probate, Clarke County, Alabama on 05/24/2021 in Book DMM BK 1548, Page 443, and...Article Link

Michael Lehmbeck, chief technology officer at BankUnited, gives Bank Automation News a glimpse into what he will share with attendees of next week's Bank Automation Summit panel discussion.

Seventh-grader Josh has a lot of questions for Tom Cornish, the Chief Operating Officer for BankUnited: how did dropping out of school affect his career path? As a kid, what hobbies kept him happy in tough times? And, perhaps most importantly: what is Tom’s position on playing Monopoly?

Episode #8 James Matarazzo Mortgage Advisor | Biz Builders with Andrew Haines Mr. James Matarazzo has been in the mortgage industry since 1988. He is a sales, business development and operations executive who has delivered outstanding results for both large and small companies including Countrywide Financial Corporation, Washington Mutual Bank, BankUnited and more recently, ran sales and operations for the East / Midwest region at PRMG. In all cases he has led sales and support teams in generating double-digit revenue increases. James has an extensive record in areas including sales, leadership, best practices, team building, and business development in B2C and B2B environments. He has produced substantial profit growth, and improved customer satisfaction with innovative sales and training programs, enabling companies to gain a competitive edge. For example, he grew sales and market share 50% for a multi-billion dollar organization by introducing new products. These products met the needs of the foreign market previously under-represented in the company. He also upgraded customer satisfaction levels 23% in three months by training account executives on best practices. In another example, he integrated sales and operation divisions, standardizing policies and procedures during seven mergers in a five-year period. He successfully led the change management process while building a sales and operations staff of 100 employees and generating $300M per month. James earned a Bachelor’s degree in Business Administration from the Florida Atlantic University. He is a member of the Florida Association of Mortgage Professionals (FAMP) and continues to help people achieve the American Dream of home ownership. Connect with James on Linkedin here: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jamesmatarazzo/ Follow Andrew on Social Media: Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/AndrewGHaineSR Twitter: https://twitter.com/andrewghaines Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/andrewghaines/ Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/andrewghaines/ Website: https://andrewghaines.com/ YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/AndrewGHaines/videos

Prisma Cloud from Palo Alto Networks sponsored this podcast. BankUnited N.A. falls under the mid-sized bank category. Based in Miami Lakes, Florida, it has about $32.9 billion in total assets and serves both the consumer and commercial sectors. Not one of the largest banks or one of the smallest banks in the U.S., BankUnited N.A., a subsidiary of BankUnited, reflects what it is like for an organization in the financial sector, seen as a barometer for cloud native adoption, to make the switch to cloud native. In this edition of The New Stack Makers podcast hosted by Alex Williams, founder and publisher of The New Stack, Felipe Medina, vice president, IT security operations, InfoSec engineering, and Michael Lehmbeck, cloud architecture and operations manager, for BankUnited N.A. spoke about their DevOps' cloud native journey in the financial sector. The podcast was recorded for The State of Cloud Native Security Virtual summit that took place on June 24. BankUnited N.A. began to make its switch to the cloud about three years ago. The initial idea was to “test the waters” in order to achieve “some tangible returns,” Lehmbeck said. The DevOps team set about testing its disaster recovery capabilities. “We proved our ability to be able to failover between our primary data centers, to Amazon Web Services (AWS) in a disaster recovery-type scenario,” Lehmbeck said. “So, that basically enabled us to get an initial footprint stood up and proof out that our mission critical systems could in fact run in that cloud estate.”

Andy and Jessica welcome you to another edition of a live podcast. The Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) loans are bringing up the subject of SBA financing for business acquisitions, Andy and Jessica are receiving the experts to dive deep into the opportunities this kind of loans are presenting in difficult times while coping with the financial impact that COVID-19 is creating.   The SBA program has historically been a great way to bail out the economy and that is why, in today's episode, the future will be assessed with the company of the experts in business lending, John Wahl, from Live Oak Bank, and Lynn Singletary, from BankUnited.   Listing of the week: Charles Palmer (Nashville). Family-owned Pizza Restaurant in business for 17 years. Italian menu, ample sitting space. Asking price $175,000. SDE $170,000 annually. Really motivated seller. Great potential. Call Charles Palmer (615) 962-4462 or email ppalmer@tworld.com   Key takeaways: [4:25] What is SBA lending? [8:16] The only loans that the bank has been making in the last months are PPP loans. [9:10] The lenders are looking at what industry is asking for a loan and how it was affected by COVID-19. [10:10] How is PPP affecting what is going on right now in the business world? [11:48] The rules for forgiveness have not yet been issued in regard to PPP loans. [15:35] Lynn talks about the waiver of the SBA guarantees. [17:35] 7(a) loan is approved under the CARES act with 110 billion dollars. [17:58] There is a risk of dollars not being available, but it is pretty minimal and short term in nature. [18:35] John talks about the benefits that are available now and will be accessible in the near future. [21:45] What does a typical 7(a) SBA loan look like? [26:19] How PPP loans will be handled in the transference of a business? [29:07] Will PPP money be taxable? [30:10] Make sure you have clean financials. [31:30] PPP loans are only being issued to bank customers. [34:10] How interest rates are determined in these types of loans for business acquisitions. [36:23] What if someone wants to buy a business above the $5 million range through a bank loan? [37:55] John and Lyn talk about which loans can't be done through a bank right now. [41:55] The opportunity of buying businesses that go bankrupt. [43:54] Quickfire round questions [55:58] Deal of the week: Dustin Audet (Colorado). Liquor store specialized in Colorado products. The buyer had an E2 Visa. Listed price $99,000 plus inventory, sold at $50,000 including inventory. The buyer paid in cash. [1:00:50] Listing of the week: Charles Palmer (Nashville). Family-owned Pizza Restaurant in business for 17 years. Italian menu, ample sitting space. Asking price $175,000. SDE $170,000 annually. Really motivated seller. Great potential.   Mentioned in this Episode: The Deal Board Podcast United Franchise Group Transworld Business Advisors Transworld on Linkedin Transworld on Facebook Call us — (888) 711-9018 Email us thedealboard@tworld.com Call Lynn Singletary at (407) 731-9555 or email lsingletary@bankunited.com BankUnited Call John Wahl at (303) 551-4453 or email john.wahl@liveoak.bank Live Oak Bank Email Dustin Audet at dustin@tworlddenver.com or call (970) 618-9330 Call Charles Palmer (615) 962-4462 or email ppalmer@tworld.com

Join former CEO of BankUnited, John Kanas, as he weighs in on how to lead banks, through these unprecedented times with States Title CEO Max Simkoff.Kanas was tapped by FDIC Chair, Sheila Bair, to assist with the government’s response to the 2008 financial crisis. With less than 24 hours’ notice, Kanas flew to Florida and organized a group of investors to recapitalize BankUnited, a regional bank on the verge of collapse.About John Kanas: Currently a Senior Advisor and Vice Chairman at the Carlyle Group, Kanas spent over 30 years at the helm of his first company, North Fork Bank, which he sold to Capital One in 2006. Two years later, he was tapped by FDIC Chair, Sheila Bair, to assist with the government’s response to the 2008 financial crisis. With less than 24 hours’ notice, Kanas flew to Florida and organized a group of investors to recapitalize BankUnited, a regional bank on the verge of collapse./span>

Well, it’s almost time for our first con of the year, so let’s dive in with the Astronomicon crew to talk about their third annual event, and then there’s a fundraiser for Australian wildlife threatened by the fires Friday night over at Whiskey in the Jar… Astronomicon is at https://www.astronomicon.com/ The Outback Give Back is at https://www.facebook.com/events/2495538064053334/ Wave’s invoicing solution is at http://www.waveapps.com/ITintheD The BankUnited $54,000 giveaway can be entered by following  @BankUnited on Twitter and tweet @BankUnited your answer to “what would you do with 54 thousand dollars?”, using the hashtag #GoForMore54 CapitalOne is at http://www.capitalone.com Hey, welcome to episode 332 of the it and the D show a strap on your seatbelts. This one’s going to be a fun one. We got Mike and Dustin in the house talking astronomic on coming up. February 7th and eighth at the Wyndham garden in Sterling Heights. The all star lineup of guests that’s coming to this thing is sick and this is one of the, literally my favorite comic con of the year. We’re going to talk a lot more about it and we’ve got August gets like in the house. Uh, he’s got a cool a benefit they’re doing called Outback. Give back, uh, helping out, uh, people affected in Australia. We were going to a steakhouse. Yes. Cool. Bio bloomin’ on you get 15, 15% get dedicated, uh, donated to Australia. Um, you know what on that? No. You may fire when ready? Welcome back. Thanks for hanging out with us. This is episode 332 of the one and only IT in the D show. Broadcasting live here. Studio one in podcast. He tried and beautiful Royal Oak, Michigan. This is Bob the sales guy. Hey, always hanging out with Dave, the geek Ranee I do the Twitters is doing the Twitter’s finding us online it in the d.com and do us a favor. Give us a like on the socials and subscribe to us everywhere. Fine podcasts are sold, right. So what do we got? We got a, we got the Ann Arbor event coming up on the fourth. Well first off I went, I want to thank Detroit Detroit city distillery. That was our first time going there. Yeah, last week. Last Thursday. Um, and it’s the perfect bed. We’ve packed the place. Holy crap. Well it’s the perfect venue for what we do. Uh, I think we, we brought in about 50 ish people. Uh, not that person all there at five o’clock. Holy crap. It was weird. They were all there at five o’clock. It’s in right in Eastern market. Uh, it’s the perfect venue. I’ve do, I’ve gone ahead and booked once a quarter for the rest of the year for that place. I’ve, I look forward to going back there and I thank you to the staff or the parking lot. No. Great. Everybody loved it. And again, it was one of those things where people were like, Oh my God, I’ve never been here before. Keep hearing about it. Keep meaning to go here. Yeah. I love it. I think the only, cause that’s kind of the, one of the sidewalls of our meetings and I think the only complaint I heard was that some people’s nav took them the wrong direction on Rio poll. Oh, that’s fine. Yeah, fine. Whatever. Uh, but no, so, uh, the fourth, uh, is the Anarbor event. Uh, principal probably pretzel, but I was gay. Uh, so, yep. And uh, and then, Oh geez. And after that we will be at go figure astronomic con, uh, the following weekend, uh, or actually that weekend. Uh, and then our next event, uh, in Metro Detroit is going to be at the Woodward troub on the 20th. And yeah, that’s the scoop. That’s my story. I’m sticking to it cause I remember to set it up for the third Thursday. Not the fourth Thursday. That’s fine. It’s fine. It’s like saying I put him on the pepperoni pizza. I’m so stupid. Or put him on it to meet on the pizza. Just deal with it. Still felt dumped. My um, one of it is my favorite article of the week and this one hit home didn’t hit home, but you read it and you’re like, and it’s basically called the day Microsoft office turned into malware and Microsoft, if you’re not lucky dude, I’m trying to figure out, you’re going to screw the pooch with this one. This is, this falls squarely into that whole like do they not remember 15 years ago will antitrust thing? Probably not. Well here, let me, let me start. Let me start. What’s going on? Is it yesterday? Basically we got a office three 65 message center notifications by email and here was a change coming to the future version of pro plus. It’s basically roadmap number five, nine nine one seven for those keeping score at home, extension of Microsoft searching Bing to be installed to office three 65 pro plus customers. Basically it’s starting with version 2002 for old three 65 pro plus. They’re going to automatically and without your consent, install a browser extension in Chrome and Firefox. It sets your default search engine to bang. Yup. And you I can kiss my ass cause and for those who you know, who might not remember about 15 years ago, there was the whole antitrust litigation, uh, because Microsoft forced you to install internet Explorer wouldn’t have any of the other browsers yet. Eight yada. And like basically everybody knew the running joke was you fired up. I, he once went and downloaded Chrome. Uh, and then you never used IEE ever again back then you downloaded Firefox or whatever. Yeah. Well do you want to make G suite of thing? Cause this is how you make G suite of things. Oh for sure. A couple of things though. This is only enterprise customers. This isn’t your, every, your mom and dad’s office subscription at home. Nobody has office subscriptions at home office three 65, no radio. It impacts everybody from what I understand. No, it’s just enterprise customers, enterprise customers. And there’s a group policy that the administrators can push out that will prevent it from happening. It’s all three 65 pro plus. Okay. And you can prevent it from happening. But the benefit of this is that it will search across your, uh, enterprise SharePoint and one drive and everything. So it’ll show you relevant company results in your search term. So if you go search, are you really, are you really saying this is good? It’s, you’re taking that stance. I’m not saying, I’m saying, you know, who had that technology, you know, had it AltaVista had that tech. Google has that tech. Yeah. But if it’s integrated with your system, like this is, if you’re running office, then you’re using SharePoint and you’re running in one drive and you want search results from those won’t return. So the, it’s an extension that can be prevented, can be removed. But the enabling it by default is the bad part. I’m going to quote Gretchen wieners. I’ve never done that before. Stop trying to make big happen. It’s not going to happen. Never gonna happen. Did she say that or did the one with a mole on her cheek? I forget. I the one with the mall on her. Oh, what the hell is her name? Oh, dammit. I just wanted to say Wiener on the under the podcast. Of course you did. Uh, so, but in that same vein, so Microsoft, you know, we talked about this last week, so we can have wieners [inaudible] nice. So you know, we talked about how they, you know, they, they dropped, uh, you know, Microsoft windows seven became unsupported until it wasn’t, but, but then you have, what was it, Germany that paid, um, 900,000, 900 grand to keep it supported. Uh, and then even though they said it wasn’t supported, they had to release a support patch for it because tiled wallpapers were broken and people weren’t doing it. They’re just like, no, like, it like really, like literally that was apparently the only thing that was broken tiled wallpapers and they had to issue a patch for it. Uh, your desktop wallpaper might display as black when set to stretch. It’s Microsoft stretched, not tall. It’s still, well no, it’s affecting stretch wallpapers and fill a fit fill. Tyler center options are still being worked. Working on for a is why the computers at city hall have to go down for an hour tomorrow and Hamtramck so we can patch all of our windows seven so we can’t stretch or yeah, come on. Hey, still better than the city who for the longest time was the largest single windows Emmy in solid A’s. Just saying. And then, Hey, let’s just go for the trifecta. We’ll just stick with the Microsoft team and get this story out of the way. Uh, 250 million Microsoft customer records leaked. Yay. Who’s shocked? Anybody? Not anymore with anybody. Was it a, was it just an open file on somebody? One drive, 250 customer records spanning 14 years exposed online without password protection? Um, I don’t even know where to start with this. Um, and like where do they come from? This thing’s like a mile long book of, of w did you, did you see where the seat these things came from? Um, it’s metadata. It’s not all the personal crap was supposedly redacted, allegedly. Allegedly. It’s, no, it, I’m, I’m quite sure it is everything that’s out there. Um, so I, I did, I love this, uh, just because I’ve gone down this wormhole so hard, uh, the Disney app was far and away the most downloaded app in the fourth quarter. And how has that news anyway, somebody knows. And it was the most uninstalled after everyone watched lion King the third time and Mandalorian was done in another, like, all right, I’m done. Ah, see lot, I think a lot of people were saying that and then nobody actually did it. Why? Cause like everybody I know got their free year through the Verizon reason. I haven’t canceled YouTube after Cobra, Kai, because you’re too lazy to go. Effing canceled. They know it, but not the dude. I told you I went down. So here’s an, so actually, here’s my bitch about Disney plus. Um, so, you know, I’ve gone through, I went back and started bingeing the star Wars cartoons, uh, as am I right now just for this rebels? I’m in the middle of resistance. Okay. So, so like it would have been nice to know that there was a clone Wars animated movie before there was a clone Wars animated show. Cause a couple of the questions that I had about the show were answered by the movie that I found after I watched the show. And I know Randy, you’re gonna tell me the same thing you told me before, which is there’s a through the years, which is supposed to be the timeline that’s all out of order and out of sync. Like I don’t know who put that shit together. The movies, not cannon. Is that it? No movies can so, but no, like as I’m working my way through them cause after you finish. So I’m trying to make it all the way through it. Uh, there’s all the stupid Lego Yoda Chronicles ones, which I don’t think those are candidates. I don’t care. It’s in the through the years time. Cause I you said that and I’m like, okay, well I’ll just go watch it in that order. They’re all backwards. Like the last episode is first and then it jumps and then it plays like the last three episodes in reverse order and then it jumps ahead and then it plays like it’s just all screwed up. Disney pluses weird. Like it has like the uh, the pilot episode of darkwheel duck is like episode 28 or something like that. So I’m saying like if you’re gonna, if you’re going to have the nerve to say, here’s the timeline, Disney plus there to figure that one out. It’s a thing. But no. So yeah, you clone Wars was great. Rebels was getting, I’m getting ready to start resistance. I’m not a fan so far I’ve heard that, but I also wasn’t a fan of early rebels. I thought it was too childish too kid. And then it gets into more adult themes. It gets a little darker and I thought it was more fun. It gets more, more relevant to the future of the star Wars franchise. I think I’m waiting for resistance to take that turn where it becomes relevant to the first days. Yeah. So one of the ones I found interesting as you know, when you’re a kid and you’re like, when I grow up, you know, I want to be a mid level it manager at a half-assed company. Right. I want a cop. Well it wasn’t that a Superbowl commercial on my way to the middle management. No, that was um, CRN did one, uh, when I was in the it vendors who want to be a yes man. Now I want to work for a V a R I want to do a startup and build it up and sell it to Cisco and then do it all over again. Um, but apparently, uh, it was kind of shocking. They always ask, Hey kids, what do you want to be when you grow up? Teenagers, right? Like you kind of have an idea, well guess what, 39% of what they picked, um, are pretty much going to be automated and gone totally hit the work jobs in 10 years time. So by the time they get to be like 23, 24 and they’re going to be actually working professionals, uh, these jobs are going to be gone. So most of them, like if they looked at, and the funny thing is like from year to two, I’m convinced that nothing has changed since the year 2000 to today. Clothes, music, like TV, like nothing except for like some basic technology and streaming media. Pretty much the movies, there is no like weird Shara music. There’s no like nothing close are pretty much everyone’s dressing the same. Um, but basically everyone, it’s the same thing. Like in 2000, it was, you know, teachers in, uh, you know, business managers and engineers and doctors. Then you go through it and it’s pretty much the same crap is today. Um, but a lot of the things that are going to, um, writers, journalists, cause we talked about AI replacing Uber driver. I want to be, yeah, exactly. I want a side hustle. But if you look at, the only thing that’s really going to stick around is, is you have local doctors, lawyers, teachers. Um, what did I want to be when I was growing up? And there’s two acceptable answers. You’d know me pretty well as what, what would I, what do I, it’s I think people guess it right away. Campaign manager for Walter Mondale, close president. Oh, I was going to go yet politics of some sort when I was in fifth grade, my teacher told him he’s gonna be president. I said, yeah. And I went with it. Yeah, they didn’t say the slop. They though of Hamtramck. Right. Stop right there. Listen, I met the PTA teach. Well then I got to a point where I was gonna be a theater major. My dad said, I’m not helping you with college if you’re going to do that. So I went in the politics and fooled them saying, yeah, it absolutely is. That kind of goes back to my thing where, okay, if automation is replacing the desk clerk at McDonald’s, they still need to go learn how to code kiosks and repair kiosks and you know, go, go, go do that. And there’s still food runners. It’s not like they’re taking, the jobs are shifting, they’re not taking anything away. There’s still job growth. Um, so yeah, hashtag learn to code. Remember when that was bad. Oh, I know there was backlash about that cause huge back. Helping people to learn to code is apparently offensive. Awful. Yeah. So this company, Cruz, I, I’m intrigued like, so they’re basically building automated driverless vehicles, but they’re not just driverless. Like there’s no steering wheel, there’s no pedals. So if something goes wrong, there’s nothing there for a human being to jump in and try to save the day. It was really, really good airbags I guess. Like I don’t, I’ll never get inside of it. It’s a, it’s a GI, uh, Johnny car from, uh, uh, it is totally call it whatever you call it. I just reading it made me nervous and none. I get it. They’re going to be like geo-fence and they’re only in good weather and they can only go so far and they only use for like ride sharing and commuting. So then you’re on it and it starts raining and it just stops. And then what? See, here’s, here’s what they call it. Like Waymo, Google’s, um, they use a level, they call it level three autonomy cause they still need human backup operators who can take control in emergencies. Right. Which is what I want need. Well, even the whole like, dude, even Teslas tell you, you’re supposed to still have your hands on the wheel even when it’s in self-driving mode. Well, let me, let me retract my statement. Since GM just announced that 2200 jobs in Hamtramck with their new electric vehicle. Yeah. Here’s the stupid thing about the crews. So I think that back, I’m going to get in as soon as, as soon as it’s made out by giant or not. Here’s the stupid thing. The cruise vehicles, they’re calling it level four autonomy and they’ll go, there’ll be geo-fence that they’ll only be limited operating in mapped areas in relatively good weather. Yeah, they want you to take that instead of the bus in the morning and it’s going to be the Disney shuttle. It’s going to be and be like the minivan. So basically we will never have them in Michigan. No, no. Yeah, yeah. I don’t see it as a big thing in our climate, even though the climate is changing. I’d never get one. So gray and overcast and rainy days in January have just been one ugly March. Uh, it, you know what, I’ll take it though. I need to tell you last through February 7th. Oh, there you go. Well, you always [inaudible] on that question. Here’s the thing, like usually dumb business ideas. Usually someone talks about it a barn and it never makes it to the light of day. Um, and now the new, the new hotness apparently is pet Flix and chill. Um, and it’s basically a, did I went and looked some of these up. This is the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard of in my life. Basically it’s, it’s, it’s you, you’re going to get a special playlist specifically for your dog, cat or hamster. That’s Spotify. So that Spotify, the specific music for your animal or legal to like Amazon? Yeah. Prime or even YouTube and look up like TV for pets. Now you’re on forever. Okay. Does the chill part come in? But the first three, I mean, but the first [inaudible] that I scanned through all had like squirrels and shit running around in them. Do my dog in a crate, sees a squirrel come on the TV. You have children in cages at your house. Dog. He’s gonna lose his mind. So you’re getting them all hyped up for nothing. Yeah, exactly. He’s going to lose his mind and go bad shit. Crazy. Cause he sees a squirrel like I know like the nest cams where you can like check in and say hi to it. Like Doug, what’d you think? That shell thing out. Michelle does it all the time. Ghost of my human beings talk to it sends a little lasers around so she gets off the couch and watch. I was thinking you would put on something like air bud or inspirational to, you know, come home last nice Beethoven’s third like Turner and hooch. Just think, just think right now there’s a product dev department and all these different companies on how we can have our products being used by people. Does a plot point in Scrooged like didn’t the old man want to start pet programming? Like will they just just have somebody instead of Kojak with a lollipop, have somebody dangle a piece of cheese on a string to, to entice mice and cats to what? It’s bad enough. They put them in those godawful like Halloween costumes, these pets or they throw cheese at their heads. These people are cruel as shit to their enemy. Bull reruns. Puppy. I tried to watch that documentary. I’m one of the puppy bowls boycott of the puppy bowl. Speaking of someone’s been listening, we’ve been talking about this since the 80s and we’re like, if you want me to go shopping with my goddamn wife at the red, Macy’s put a bar in the bar. Right? Well guess what? Someone had this epiphany now that Nordstrom, um, basically they’re, they’re calling it the shoe bar. Um, Oh, I’m sorry. The shoe bar was empty. And they’re like, well, what can we do? Like, let’s put a bar there, bar like an actual bar bar. Um, so now they’re basically having drinks, but like they say it’s for the women’s shopping. No, no, no. Let me know when they add a casino. Right, right. I’m sure you can bet on like different things. Like I bet she comes home with two pairs of shoes, not like going into the dressing room. Like I bet it don’t fit like 50 bucks. I’m always betting on don’t fit. No, I remember bars and malls, like I was always a little, there was always a bar Tuesday, but there was something in the malls that were like, and then there was always the snack counters in the, in the soda fountains at Sears and stuff like that. Well that was my favorite part of commando when they went into the mall, they go, it’s like they go into the bar and it’s like the smokey dive bar, like right in the middle. Like an Abercrombie and Fitch, like in like in this middle section of the mall. And there’s like all these like characters, the smokey, you know, like some all head. One of those kids. There was one at universal mall. It was a tiny little strip bar right across from the theater for when I worked there. When I was at Lakeside. Jonathan B pub was a tiny little one right in the middle of the mall and made no sense it wasn’t accessible from the outside. Welcome back segment two episode 332 this is the one that only it in that he show broadcasting live here is studio one podcast, Detroit, beautiful, Royal Oak, Michigan, Bob the sales guy, Dave the geek, Randy. I do. The Twitters is doing the Twitters. Find us online IT in the D because we are I and you and you’re, you’re still not we. We love you all these many days later. Hey for we dive in. Capital one knows life doesn’t alert you about your credit card. That’s why they created, you know, the capital one assistant that catches things that might look wrong with your credit card, like over tipping duplicate charges or potential fraud. I’ve had it happened more than once. Did you really leave mean to leave that tip? You did and I did, but they check to make sure. Uh, and then it sends, sends an alert to your phone and helps you fix it. It’s another way. Capital one is watching out for your money when you’re not capital one. What’s in your wallet? Seek capital one.com for details. Sweet. So, Hey, we are joined by, I was good. I didn’t mean it like that. We are joined by none other than Mike and Dustin. The duo. Hello. Putting on the third annual astronomic con. This is going to be February 7th through the ninth this year at the Sterling Heights. Wyndham garden 15 in van Dyke. Gentlemen, it’s always a pleasure to see you guys. How you doing? We call it mingle. Palooza, mingle. On top of that, it’s always like crappiest weather ever. It’s like six inches of ice and rain and slush. And last year it was like 50 degrees Fridays we were sitting out. No, I was sitting out. That was the joke. I was sitting outside on the cold bricks cause I felt good on my hemorrhoids. It’s like I was saying that to anyone that would listen. I’m like, I like sitting on these bricks because it’s great for my hemorrhoids and like anyone within earshot would hear me, they’ll be like, ah, it’s good for my hemorrhoids too. I love it. You too. So is this thing’s turned into like an all year thing for you guys? Has it not? It’s a tough one. It’s, it’s definitely something that I know at least Mike works. Uh, eight months out of the year on, I see you guys everywhere. We are like, you guys are hustling. You guys are at every con. You guys are at every event. We love it. Like you’re straight, straight up hustling. We’re trying, we’re trying to grow and I feel like the way we do things is different than most other conventions and you know, we’re, we’re trying to sell it, you know what I mean? We’re a convention of the people and that’s, you know, we go there and meet the people and, and want to see what they want. There was a, there was a reason I got, I fell in love with the indie wrestling, independent wrestling, and it was the intimacy of it. It was, you’re in a, in a small little banquet hall, 500 people and you actually got to shake hands and you got to yell at the wrestler and then he would acknowledge you right at the trying to make them crack. Right, right. Yeah. It’s better than like going, you know, Ford field and no one can hear you. You’re just like, there’s an instance like this show, you can go to the Cobo hall, 10 billion square feet, or like this show is, is, is, it’s, we’re on, everyone’s on top of each other and, and that’s the beautiful part of it. It’s like, it’s an intimate setting and it’s like, but you, you guys, I’m not gonna lie, you guys knocked it out of the park this year. Like you gotta I thought the first year you’d knocked it out of the park with the guest lineup. Last year you guys killed it. And this year I think you went, Oh, well you totally want up yourself. That’s, that’s a, uh, essentially in part due to the guy sitting next to me, Mike and George, uh, they, they know how to talk to people and get these people in that we want, uh, everything else, you know, as far as astronomic con’s format goes to is, is something that we, we have strived for for years. We, we, we make it for the people and you know, the people that, that go to these things to have fun. Well, during, during the break or before we got here, I’m like, you guys got, if you’re a wrestling fan, you know who Alexa Blisses, right? Uh, top five of the, you know, the, the women’s division and WWE and I’m like, how did you pull that shit off the scholar warrior? And it’s been a lot of work. But the nice thing is, is because we are fans, we know what people want to see. So whether it’s wrestling, horror, pop culture or comics, like in our group of people who handle astronomic on, there is a fan of all fandoms. So it’s like, all right, we’ll have a round table discussion. Like, who do you want to see? Who should we go after? And we get told no, but some people won’t come to February, Michigan. Some people don’t work before March because they don’t need to. And we try to work around that to our best of our abilities and really go out there and try to get those unattainable people. Because again, if I’m only going to one convention a year, I want it to be worth my while. Well you guys, you guys did something that no other convention did and I appreciate you doing this. And I think a lot of other people do too. You put the price list out for what everyone’s charging for everything. So now, you know, cause there’s sometimes you’re like, Oh crap, so-and-so’s charging. So I gotta go to the ATM and now you know, you can plot out who you need to see what you need to pay for bringing the appropriate money. Cause you know it’s going to cost an arm and a leg these days. Um, but you know what you’re doing most. Most, I say regular folk who are not familiar with going to cons or anything, don’t realize how conventions work. Like most people will think, you know, I paid my 20 bucks to get in and I just, I meet everybody and get all these autographs and get all these pictures and, and [inaudible] and that’s one of the thoughts that goes into the hidden things. Like we’re trying to, you know, try it out. I gotcha. You’re here now. Like we’re not trying to do that. We put it all out there. This is, this is how it works. And the guests that we bring, we really do try to coax into making it as affordable as possible because we know when you go to these big conventions, you’re seeing these people who are charging North of $100 for an autograph or a photo. We want to be looked at as more affordable for your everyday person like us. If I can go there with 100 bucks in my pocket and meet a couple of people as opposed to not being able to afford to meet one person and be like, Oh that’s the Hey, Nope. And it’s not like a Cedar point line either. The lions are not stanchions and you’re going left and right and left and right. Like you’re at the bank. It’s you’re, you’re essentially walking right by these people within five to 10 feet. So it’s like, even if you can’t afford it, you can be like, Oh man, there’s my man 50 grand. Like I’m going to say hi and wave and you’ll get a response. It’s again, the intimacy is legit. I mean like last year you had Debo, I should’ve called him Zeus cause I’m a rustling vital, but it’s Debo, however. So then you’re like ease except he sits in cracks on ya and he’s doing like yelling from across the room. Right. I mean cause this is the thing like I, all my stories are from astronomical, like Scott Hall turning off the bathroom with me and Erica too. He said that to his, his handlers. One of my best friends, his name is Nick. He’s like, Hey, you want to see something dark match and he flicks the lights out. But everybody yourself included is just you’re dealing with it. And then the same, uh, another similar experience talking about a tiny Lister when I took him to go do a, you know, news interview in the morning and we get to the front and the security guys there and he’s like, Hey, so can I help you? And I started off with my spiel, Oh, we’re here to see blah blah blah and this and, and the guy looks in and tiny just looks at him. He’s like, yeah, Hey, you know who I am? I’ve been here, the guy looks in and he’s like, alright, [inaudible] no, your deal. Oh for sure. And that was a big dude. Like there was a guy at the bar and he’s like, I didn’t know who he was from Adam. And I’m telling him where to get the pizza. And then I’m like, I walked by like, Oh shit, that was Michael Myers. Tony, my wife was there. And I’m like, I told that guy where to get pizza. Like you said, buddies, right? Yeah, of course. Okay, good. I said there’s like three different places to go. Pizza, pizza, sponsor. Okay. Pizza. Populist. I’m totally gonna add, can’t wait to drive that. GM autonomous can totally get out. Who sent him to jail? Right now I have my categories. So I said for like fast takeout, jets is Supreme. Like, you know, you have the different levels. If you want to sit down and do a list like this, you gotta be in the demoed. You know what I mean? Sometimes I want a little Caesar’s hot and ready. Sometimes I gotta have my, if you’ve ever sent anyone at my show too hot and ready, if you’re close enough to a hot and ready, if there’s a hot radio question, is it good? It’s hot. It’s ed. It’s ready. It’s substance. So how did you get, how did you get Randall from CLA? Like this is the first time that those two are together. Like if you don’t know what I’m talking about, that’s you. Randall and Dante clerk’s convention. He has ever done, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, never done a San Diego first. Never done anything versus first ever convention. And it’s timing and it’s, it’s a, it’s a combination of getting lucky. I’m not going to lie cause I know like, uh, Walt Maine was telling us Walt just won’t travel. It’s like he hadn’t, he’s another one on my list. And so is Kevin, to be honest with you, we’ve talked to Kevin Smith through his management in the blinders to do it. Like he was interested. So again, we’re fans. So to me, Kevin Smith is my, we’ve made it. Yeah. If I get Kevin Smith and Mike convention with us, me, Dustin, George, Jamie, Paul. That’s it. I never have to do another one. Windsor Comicon. I think like five years ago. Was it five years ago you had to do at night with Kevin? He was a panel, I think you have know, but it was like thousands of people in the crowd. We all, you know, they filled the Coliseum. They filled the Dallas. Yeah. So I know going into this, I’m like, all right, baby stops, right. I met Megan 15 and I’m like, when we started talking this, I’m like, we have to bring him. He is the, not the key. He’s the glue, the do’s, the glue from Michigan. He’s amazing to his fans. He is like, I beat, felt like we were friends after that. He’s the center of the Venn diagram. Why we turned him into mr astronomic then in the same room with them three times. He tells me he loves me every time he sees [inaudible] I cast it with Jamie and Paul and as soon as I got back from what I was doing, he’s like, you’re Mike. I’m like, yeah. He gave me a big hug. He’s like, thank you. I’m like, no, fake. Thank you. Like I was so excited. He has a picture of me and you, Bob and Dave and lucky that we all signed. He put it up on the wall at his podcast. It’s shared universe, the podcast, the podcast. That was like the first time we all kind of connected cause we were talking about whiskey. Right. Didn’t really know you well other than through the box pretty well, but well better. Yeah. And then you walk in just basically a bottle, a Jase and a bottle of peppermint snobs. We’re like, let’s go to town. Here we go. Yeah. Yeah. That was a good night. That was still the best expression I’ve ever seen in your face was the shot of dr McGillicuddy. Never, never again. You were the angriest man. I finally watched the Jane silent Bob reboot. I saw that. So just watch that. Just saw it, man gets the line, he gets the line poetry. Um, no. So, so between meaning and, and the management company that handles all of Kevin Smith people, um, you know, twist its connection to J muse. He helped save our bots. Year one. Brian O’Halloran not only came and did our show, loved it. We kept in touch. Um, he was like, I want to come back. I want to come back. He’s probably why we got, and, and I think that a combination of timing, because we’re February and there’s nothing else going on and really is, and they want to get Jeff Anderson’s feet wet in the convention world. They know we’re a good placement to be like, not too big, not too little. They take care of their guests very well. And um, let’s roll the dice and lots of do this. And Brian obviously helped Ming help. They’re both coming. They’re both with Jeff’s people. And so it’s like, if you guys really want to try this, here you go. Yeah. So we coined it the first year, uh, of in, at least towards Michigan people like, what else are you doing in February? Right. You know? Well, and it’s not like February in Jersey is any better. [inaudible] they moved out last, all that’s ready to add. He’s like, tech company doesn’t need to do any of this. Doesn’t care. Right? So he’s like, no, I want to say North, Northeast, Northwest. So he’s like Portland. I won’t say he’s like Portland, Oregon, whatever. And so he’s like, yeah, we’ll, we’ll, we’ll try it. Then he did one private signing with Kevin Smith and now it’s, I’m going to dip my toes in the con world and there’s like four conventions after us that have announced you’re getting the clerk’s reunion and with it being 25 years. First one. Yeah, we’re the first to have the panel. Jeff Anderson’s appearance them together and it’s 25 years of clerk. So it’s insane. Yeah. Well you look at, it’s funny like you know if you need help recording panels guy yes podcast Detroit we love you. But if you look at like whatever you’re into, like the whole, the horror scene, you know granted there was, I think you guys are doing just as good of a job if not better than like the stuff that’s been going on here. Like that’s the thing. And I think that’s one of the things that makes you guys so different. Like so. I mean there are plenty of, we, we’ve talked about it like there, there are comic book shows, there are pop culture shows, there are. But like you guys really picked a niche and ran with it. Good gumbo. You know you got all your, yeah, like horror. There are horror shows in the Tristate area, Michigan horror shows and we’ve got a little bit and so last year, sarcasm. I hate horror movies either way. That’s fine. Ron was the LABA limb fosus he did not say horror. Not bad. So we do things differently than you did. Typical horror convention that’s around here cause we do the costume photo ops. What else are you going to get? Sid Haig. May he rest in peace dressed up as captain Spaulding from a Rob zombie movie. Again, it’s not very horror. You could probably watch it. No, I get it. I get it. I just, I get all the pop culture references. I, I’m familiar with all that. I just don’t like to sit down and watch a horror movie. That’s all. You guys are crushing it. Keep crushing. Go. I’m looking at this right now at me. You know how Mark all that cool stuff and it’ll get like this smoking, abandoned car signed by like you know, a Burt Reynolds. I think I’m going to get the most obscure, ridiculous autograph in the history of the planet. I want to have it framed. Uh, Thomas, Ian Nicholas, who’s from American pie, who’s also in little big league. Now I’m going to get a Chicago Cubs Jersey. He sells them. [inaudible] be told I wanted to get Daniel stern before I wanted him, cause c’mon dude, between that and home alone. So when we got a Thomas Ian and I was like, all right, we really gotta try this and he just doesn’t want to do all he was on somebody’s roster as a client. Right? He just never did a convention. But yes, he does sell almost as original as your conversation with Lacey under Alshabaab. Ah, see, this is still one of my, one of my worst moments as a human being at Lacy under all this, right. Uh, Cindy, uh, what the hell is her name? Morris city. Morgan was in Tron and caddy shack. Uh, basically I used the caddy shack a lion on her and I thought it was original. So I said, uh, you know, Novi must be a nice switch from Drury old Manhattan and she, she don’t face him like, I’ve never heard that one before. Hell, are you talking about Madonna with meatballs? That would no work either. She’s like, no, keep going. Like, don’t you got her talking to him, got Kristy Swanson to do a dude, where’s my car line? But couldn’t, she didn’t like the Caddyshack line. She was like, no one has ever, they always asked her for Buffy shit. So when we asked her to say that we touched her. Who? Who’s, yeah. She’s like, no one’s ever asked me for that before we had her sign the autograph. Perfect. My who, who’s Sidney Morgan was like offended that the one thing she did, it was worth, right. The one notable section of your career, it was trying nerds all day. So here, right. You know what I mean? Like I’m like caddy, Cher. I got the, I thought I would think that would work. Right. I was going to be there. Depends on who you are. So bring all your leprechaun gear. Right, right, right. For the obscure. I guess at this point, like we have to understand they’d be, there was one of our best moments ever was, you know, we have a, Oh my God, I’m blanking on her name. Uh, from back to the future, Leah Thompson, Thompson and Bob brings her on Coke, introduces her and he was like, Oh yeah, you know, so Hey, you know, from uh, Howard the duck fame and like, you can hear her break out laughing. And she was like, Oh my God, watch. We are so lucky to be introduced with the star of Howard the duck. She’s like, what I’m talking about guys are clowns like, yes, we are one episode of something I did before I was anybody. That’s what you’re going to put me. Oh, of course. So I mean, I’m going through this list and I mean, I’m looking at like myself. Like Lloyd Kaufman to me is a God, and he signed like for free. He does. I met the paver that, uh, what was the place in pick Clawson Brown bag it. I got a sign, I got a signing from him, like in 94 book came out. And, uh, that was like one of the first times I ever went and got a sign. You know what I mean? The guy’s a absolute stinking legend. He created the toxic Avenger, which I know as a child in the 90s, he’s the co owner of a powerhouse in the underground. Uh, the B movie world is the movie horror world Sergeant Kabuki man, NYP class. Newcomb. I the guys that I’m looking at like, dude, I gotta talk to Charles Fleischer. Like that’s, you know, he’s a real life cartoon character. Honestly, talk to him on the phone, real life, do that. Whatever his flight was like, he’s like, Oh, do you know you travel this? You got your, you’re a frequent flyer number. Maybe like, Oh my God, I don’t know what his real voice is. He’s anything like Rob Paulson. That would be amazing. Yeah. His real voice would be the one that he used during welcome back Kotter. I was going to say nightmare on Elm street. That would have been the one ad and then you’ve got Skolnick man. You’re like, we’ve got the, Oh, we got the ogre drop. Yes. And on with the laugh. Huh? Oh, you did it better. Mike was blown out when we got Betty’s. Yeah. But I cleaned that up. I just need to throw it back in. Yeah. Like, Oh, I’m in love with a nerd. We got Betty to say that Titan signed by her. She was selling that. I go, Oh my God, I can’t believe she’s selling it. Hygiene. Right. So like, we’ve got Skolnick like, you know, come on man. They’re like, to me like that was like the Porky’s revenge of the nerds. Like those were my legs, my age. And I’m sorry. Isn’t Mickey Avalon the guy that sings my Dick? Yeah. Nasty. You have Mickey Avalon. He’s performing on Saturday night. That’s what I heard. Sonny. He’s, he’s performance. I asked her, do the Jane Fonda whiskey every Friday for the last couple of months. [inaudible] asked her that much. Everybody is Mickey Avalon alive or dead? And everyone’s like, I don’t know. He’s very much, Frankie Avalon is very much alive and Augie just got angrier that he’s [inaudible]. I ain’t gonna be able to do the Jane Fonda. What? Mickey Avalon. There’s a guy, uh, I don’t, I don’t know the horror movie, but I, Nathan Bazell, he played a massive levered Vernon, it’s like a mockumentary horror movie where he wants to become a serial killer and uh, Robert England’s in it cane hotters in it. He looks like sniffer in this press photo. He looks like Stiffler. I really bad. I would like to get Stiffler. Oh, that’d be awesome. What’s he doing? Not doing conventions. Tried. He can’t be doing anything. He goes underrated. I’ll tell you didn’t do it. Was he in SQL or did it house just in a TV commercial. Aton right now he’s a, he’s a, he gets all angry in the back of a car or something. I just saw him. Hey man. Martin Cove is doing commercials as, as I saw that koala Chi. That’s actually pretty good commercial. He did a good job with it. Yeah. So go into Le Dan, if you’ve never been astronomic on before. What’s a, I guess paint a picture, right? It’s our town. So the beautiful thing is, is if you’ve never been to astronomic con, we could explain it to you till we’re blue in the face, but you can currently go right now to Amazon and watch our 31 minute documentary. We filmed it last year. You in it Bob, and uh, you’ve got a nice yard called astronomical [inaudible] great Cod. I love this gun and you get to meet everybody and is great. I love it. And these guys do a great job, but I was like, all right, we’re using that. So yes, I gotta look it up now making of a pop culture convention. Astronomical. It’s free. So if you’re an Amazon prime member, you can just watch it for free. And if you’re not, you can rent to box. It’s very affordable. We do have like one minute clips of it on our YouTube channel, which has a bunch of content, but the short version is astronomic con is a pop culture convention. That’s also a party. Like the minute you get there until the minute you leave, there’s always something going on. Well, from the minute you get, last year wasn’t as bad. I’ll give them that much. We’ve cleaned it up because while Michigan is a friendly state to that, I want a family friendly event. So I want to be able to bring my three year old and my wife and not shabby at all. You replace the metal detectors with the alien D containment chambers, right? Sponsored by acts very heavy at the podcast Detroit table. Honestly last year you cleaned it up. I wish that we were never more popular in our lives than we were when the ladies were doing the body painting at the booth. The rocks or mud, I got in trouble for that. Everybody go for that. That so suddenly everybody wanted to talk to us about podcast, technically met Michigan laws that she was not nude. There was no technical, it meant Michigan law. But there was a, we got some complaints, families who complained that she was quote. And so instead of the approvers saying, Hey, I’m like, Hey Dustin, it’s me. Hey, you gotta go tell her to cover up a bit. And I’m like, Oh we never do video because let me look at me and Dave, we never do video podcasts. Oh you’re the guy that made me cover up. And I’m like, ah no, I don’t want to be that title. I’m the guy that told you two very beautiful [inaudible] stallion. He goes, let’s turn on the video. Let’s turn on a little video, see what happens. But no, again, when I say a party, like our stuff starts at this year, we’re starting early cause we’re doing a pool party cause there’s water park connected to our home. We have a pre, it’s on Thursday. That starts at seven o’clock. No pool parties. Good cause first cause you get to chlorine, you get to bleach. Well you get the actual astronomic on drinks so you can be [inaudible] and buzz. But you get into the three 30 on Thursday. Damn man. Gonna mess it off. But yeah, no. So it’s a party that starts Thursday night. There’s a concert Friday pool party into the convention, into a back to the 80s theme party with Mickey Avalon. Dirt. Nasty twisted. They’re doing an eighties party. Bob, I’ve heard eighties garb is a preferred, preferred [inaudible] I heard you do eighties well [inaudible] yeah, that’s what I, that’s my thing too. Yeah. Right. And then Saturdays I make you cover up. Well only if your paced, these are painted. Uh, no but realistically and it goes through till till Sunday at like five o’clock and it really doesn’t stop because people party in the lobby and hang out and it’s a real uh, all-inclusive feelings and, and it’s good vibes and it’s just fun. Lots of, lots of alcohol do. I bust that hotel for putting up with everything, dude. It’s more of a wall of us and we love them. It’s the NC 17 more hardcore version of it. Penguin, cotton and I don’t know that one penguin, I hear things but I’ve never been like, it’s, you know, there’s parties and chaos and mayhem and drinking in the lobby and all that stuff. But like this is, this is more the NC like that’s the geek version of what you guys do. Like during the day, it’s all family friendly and when the, you know, when it gets dark, when the party comes out, right? Yeah. Don’t cross the line. There’s always a line. But yeah, we’re having our fun there. I mean are there [inaudible] you get the more blurry those lines. Right. But by the time it gets blurry, I’m in my broom anyways by three 34 in the morning I passed out. You’re at four, I have to get up at eight. You get up a little later, an hour later versus three hours before I said don’t Wyndham Wyndham garden, Sterling available online. What’s the scoop? astronomical.com/tickets is everything you need to get yourself some tickets. You can get daily passes, you can get weekend passes, you can preorder your fee, all of it. So astronomic con.com or you can get you on Facebook. You guys have been uh, you know, following actually the, the page. You guys are pretty attentive cause you get a million questions. It’s like a job in itself just to like pre answer those answering questions before we started the, yeah, it’s, it’s amazing. You can follow us on Instagram, Twitter, um, Facebook. Obviously we have our own YouTube. We’re on Spotify cause everything we, all the content that we create, we put everywhere for people who art hip to social media so you can find us anywhere. Awesome. We look forward to us spending the weekend with you guys. Thanks criminals studio. I look forward to hanging out and uh, having a good time as we usually have as we have the last couple of years. Like literally this is my old, my favorite kind of the year. As much as I like more city, it’s outgrown itself. No offense. Yeah, it’s a, it’s like a big time convention. I’ve never heard of her. Yes. Astronomic on February seven, eight, nine 15 in van Dyke Sterling Heights. I look forward to seeing podcast to try it there. You guys are awesome and thank you for having us. Yeah, thanks for the time. Hey, we’re going to take a quick break. We’re going to be back. August gets like talking about a charity event that’s coming up for all the Mickey Avalon. At our event though, it’s not super cool people. You have it in a jukebox, so that’s good enough. But we have a TJ, right? Right, right. So this is a TV show. Hey, I’ll be back in just a sec, but here’s the deal. Wave helps freelancers, consultants, and small business owners make move and manage your money, bringing you closer to financial success with accounting, invoicing, payments, and payroll services that are easy to use, secure and free. As an entrepreneur, you understand the struggle and headache associated with managing your finances with waves, free accounting and invoicing services. The daily burden of organizing your finances will be a thing of the past so you can spend more time doing the things you love. Have employees, don’t worry. Wave’s payroll services has your covered so you can pay them on time and with ease, it’s time to ditch the spreadsheets. The shoe box is filled with receipts and the overall stress of managing your finances so you can start growing your business and get back to doing what matters. Find out why millions of photographers, graphic designers, consultants, contractors, and small business owners are using wave to grow their business. Set your business up for financial success by going and signing up for free today at wave apps. That’s w a V E a P P s.com/it and the D. that’s way, that’s dot com slash it and the D. give him a look. Welcome back segment three episode 332 this is the one and only it and the DCL broadcast in live here. Studio one podcast, Detroit, beautiful. Royal Oak, Michigan. Bob, the sales guy, Dave the geek. Randy. I do the Twitters. I don’t know what the hell. What are you doing Randy? I’m find a son. Limes maybe in the d.com where you will find all the things. Hey, bank United wants you to go from warm, so enter for a chance to win $54,000 if a team goes for and completes a two point conversion during the big game on Sunday for resection. Has that ever happened? Sure. Has there been like a two point dirty super? Absolutely. All right. Just curious. Um, all you have to do is follow at bank United on Twitter and tweet at bank United. Your answer to. What would you do with $54,000 using the hashtag go for more 54 everybody has a chance to win. The more tweets you send, the more chances you have of winning. And have a team completes a two point conversion. You’re going to win again. Follow bank United on Twitter and tweet at bank United. Your answer to what would you do with $54,000 using the hashtag go for more 54 there’s only one prize. Many may enter. Only one will win. Must be at least 18 years of age. To enter a for official rules, go visit www dot. Go for more or five four.com that’s go for more. And the number 50 four.com bank, United and a member FDI C. and neither Twitter nor the NFL entities have offered, administered, endorsed, or sponsored this sweepstakes in any way. So, Hey, Aug, what’s going on? Hey guys, how are you doing that fam? Dude, I was told butters would be here tonight. Yes, I know. Um, butters are supposed to be here in a koala costume. Yeah. Will be my girlfriend’s tiny toy poodle that is going to be in a qual costume kissing booth for this Friday’s event. First of all, I want to take a moment to thank Dave for telling me that the episode that I filled in for Bob wasn’t the worst episode ever. The second one was not the worst episode they ever heard. That was the day that I was a more than a guest, but less than a host. Yes, you are a ghost. Yes. Guest. So I heard it was the worst. Well, I’m sure you heard it was the worst from your hospital, but I do appreciate the, uh, the chance to come and sit in with you guys for no, for no other reason. Not that plug in anything. Just to be here and a and talking. I’m sorry I had to do it. Bob, I’m glad to see your badge better with you here and like being here and I’m glad you’re doing well. Seriously. Yeah. I hope you’re feeling better. So yeah, we’re doing a, my girlfriend is Outback, give back. She wanted to do an event, and I’m not a big fan of the name, but it’s a great, amazing thing. So my girlfriend and four of her friends went to Australia back in August and they did like two weeks in Australia and I didn’t go because I do the Hamtramck labor day festival and that’s right. The canoe races and all that kind of stuff. So I’m like, you know, I also didn’t want to spend $1 trillion dude, I’ll show you for two weeks. Yeah. So she did that and then all this stuff has hit the fan and she did all the wildlife tours, all the koala, huggy. Although if you haven’t, if you haven’t been keeping up at home, like literally, it’s like the size of the United States. It’s pretty much been blanket. There’s one point a couple of weeks ago when every road in and out of Sydney was closed. Yeah. Cause you couldn’t, you couldn’t get in or out of the city because of the fires and the, and the smoke. So, and it’s, it’s displaced and killed just thousands and thousands of animals. Like 1.5 L, you know, Australia has such a unique animal population that those animals aren’t anywhere else. Right. So, uh, she’s had said, look, you do all these great crazy fundraisers that whiskey, we do the tracksuit party in a on a good Friday every year that benefits the friendship house, which is the food pantry. We do the Magnum PI party, which is in the summertime where we, everyone wears, you know, mustaches and Hawaiian shirts and raise money for the hero foundation. So can we do a fundraiser for the animals that we were playing with like casually in Australia just a few months ago. I’m like, you find the, the right legitimate charity that we know we’re given the right money to. And she did. She found the Steve Irwin foundation, which runs the Australian animal hospital that has always been there and is now just overloaded with just everything. Yeah. Obviously. I mean, they used to do like, you know, stop harvesting crocodile eggs now they’re like basically just trying to triage, filling up and unloading koalas out of the back of their cars and stuff. So, um, we’re very fortunate to have our good friend Greg [inaudible]. Yup. And if you’re not in the river or people know him from eight at nine next back in the day. Uh, so he is the cohost with Michelle. So, and Jerry, my lovely, beautiful girlfriend and a good cover. Good one. [inaudible] she’s beautiful. So yeah. So, uh, so Conip and Michelle are, are hosting this fundraiser we’re going to and it’s gonna be deejayed by our good friends who are good friends of yours as well. Matt Fox and Jamie Flanagan, who just opened up a new at Northville. That’s dumb. So, and they’re, they’re just wonderful. Jamie comes down to visit us every once in a while. Now he’s on 96, three on the weekends. I don’t know if you know you guys and all of that, but uh, yeah. So he’s, they’re going to DJ and get hip. It’s like I just get the host DJ smalls during Thursday wave. He did. He didn’t does sometimes, like two weeks ago he was doing thirst wave and to bring over to thirst wave. Um, yeah. It’s a fun party too. It’s a fun party, but it doesn’t go to charity like this one does. So, um, but that’s, and, and for the first time, actually it’s only the second time we’ve ever done this, the owner of whiskey in the jar who is not me, I’m just people that think everyone thinks so, um, is giving a percentage of the sale. He gets 15% of all the booze sales goes to the charity as well. So besides just raffling off a doing, it’s not going to be as big as like the tracksuit party where we have like 25 baskets. Anybody can win something. We’re going to do like six baskets of 50, 50, and then a percentage of the liquor sales. So, and then of course Conrad and Mikey, my partners and all this stuff, we’ll give back a big chunk of the money that we make, uh, as well to, we always try to get a nice even number when we’re, when we’re done. So, um, but uh, there’s going to be a, a cash kissing booth to kiss butters. Who is my girlfriend’s toy poodle wearing a koala outfit. And it is so damn cute. I mean, honestly better. Better than a real koala cause it’s one of those things that like, I, I love that. Like chlamydia. Well, no, well there’s that number one dad. But number two, like it was like, Oh my God, it’s so cute. It’s eating like the little eucalyptus leaves. Like that’s their like morphine, if they weren’t eating that they’d be biting your face when they go to sleep. Right. But like we realized that the tracksuit party at the Magnum PII party, which butters also comes to dressed up, uh, everyone just clamors to carry butters around the whole time cause she’s a tiny little toy poodle who’s just as adorable as anything. Attention whore. Yeah. And so we’re like, well, we’re going to charge people to carry butters around at the party. So that’s the butter’s kissing. But did you get the carry around butters for 10, 15 minutes for however many minutes? How many, many dollars you want to donate, something like that. And that’s going to be like the butter’s kissing booth. Okay. Um, and then it’s just, I think it’s a great cause. It’s, uh, we don’t do these pop up fundraisers at whisky. We’ve never done usually like usually your regularly scheduled, we’re coming up on our eighth tracksuit party, which I’ve already ordered my check so I’ve got a fresh Reebok off. You know how the Poshmark, there’s a Valore like a maroon Valora one for sale on my whatever. On Facebook. I scroll by like from Macy’s. I was going to text it to you today. You got, you got to get those, those it’s, we’re coming into, everyone starts rating all the resale shops in Metro Detroit because they know tracksuit party’s coming up. Somebody wants to have the coolest amount to find a troop one or of a lower Phila. And so that’s always a, I told you when I went, I didn’t even need to dress up. I just, here’s where your closet. Yeah, I just want your closet. I have so many now because we have eight of them that I will start like putting him up in the auction. Like, I got this old Reebok, it’s looks, looks like an astronaut outfit, but that one up there and you know, Mike, he’s got a fresh one. He just, he was bragging about it the freshman, he got an old Adidas one that came from Germany. Uh, one of my, uh, I, it doesn’t fit me. I’ll text to text you a picture of it, see if you want it. Yeah, I mean it at the worst. We put it up in the raffle. All right. You people to pay some money for it. So, uh, but that’s, that’s tracksuit party. That’s the next time I’m going to be here. That’s going to be I for good Friday. But right now we’re just, we’re hoping some folks come out, some animal lovers and people come out and support the Outback, give back. So, and it’s free. It’s this Friday night. It’s this coming Friday night and starts when, uh, at eight o’clock. Technically we always, we got to put a start time on it, right? I mean Mikey, Mikey, the Mikey is there doing happy hour at four o’clock, right in the bar opens, we’ll start selling tickets then. Um, and we’re really, really good about people that don’t want to stick around. We, we call you, we text you the basket you want and people come back the next day and the next day. His bartenders love that cause he got to come back to the bar and get your basket. You might as well have a drink while I’m here. You’re honest about it. We’re extremely honest about it. Like, Oh, you won. You didn’t, you weren’t here. That’s fine. Your phone numbers in the back. I sent you a picture of it. If you say give it to someone else, fine. If not, I go raffle. Yeah, we do raffles. We do. We do a raffle. You do always do baskets. Yeah. We’ll give you some tickets and tickets. That would be amazing. That’d be amazing. I know falling warehouse last night. Agree to give us a, a lane and all in a basket. We have a big Takata cooler full of booze. It’s all fifths of liquor. That works perfectly. That’s a, that’s gonna be a big draw a little bit. I like booze. Yeah. Do you like loose? Everyone met about you. So yeah, if a couple of tickets, gentlemen, weekend passes, you can do what you want with them. Oh, you guys are wonderful. Thank you. No worries man. So, and I’ll come back to you guys for the next fundraise. But anyway. [inaudible] so yeah, you’re, you’re now in rotation yet gentlemen. But uh, yeah, our other charities are the, the friendship house we always do, which is a food pantry that only serves for two and two. And that’s the, when we do the, um, tracksuit party for, and the hero foundation is a families where the breadwinner gets cancer and we take care of their holidays. And they’ve been doing that for years and years. A friend of ours father survived pancreatic cancer, which that’s the, you don’t normally hear it. Yeah, nobody does. It’s the 1.7 million. So I’ll break a glass to that muscle. It is, but it’s wonderful. And so that’s why, and that’s Mike, he’s on the board of directors of that charity. I’m on the board of directors of the friendship house and my girlfriend loves the Australia animals. So that’s why we’re doing a Outback. You back this Friday at whiskey, the John Hamtramck. All right, so easiest way to find it. Hit the whiskey in the jar Facebook page. It’s one of the events or there’s an event going, it’s a, and you know Mikey did the graphics for it. It’s [inaudible] whiskey is just like the nicest, friendliest, most fun place. Absolutely. You walk into that bar and you don’t know anybody and suddenly your best friend, you know everybody and it’

Well, it's almost time for our first con of the year, so let's dive in with the Astronomicon crew to talk about their third annual event, and then there's a fundraiser for Australian wildlife threatened by the fires Friday night over at Whiskey in the Jar... Astronomicon is at https://www.astronomicon.com/ The Outback Give Back is at https://www.facebook.com/events/2495538064053334/ Wave's invoicing solution is at http://www.waveapps.com/ITintheD The BankUnited $54,000 giveaway can be entered by following  @BankUnited on Twitter and tweet @BankUnited your answer to "what would you do with 54 thousand dollars?", using the hashtag #GoForMore54 CapitalOne is at http://www.capitalone.com Hey, welcome to episode 332 of the it and the D show a strap on your seatbelts. This one's going to be a fun one. We got Mike and Dustin in the house talking astronomic on coming up. February 7th and eighth at the Wyndham garden in Sterling Heights. The all star lineup of guests that's coming to this thing is sick and this is one of the, literally my favorite comic con of the year. We're going to talk a lot more about it and we've got August gets like in the house. Uh, he's got a cool a benefit they're doing called Outback. Give back, uh, helping out, uh, people affected in Australia. We were going to a steakhouse. Yes. Cool. Bio bloomin' on you get 15, 15% get dedicated, uh, donated to Australia. Um, you know what on that? No. You may fire when ready? Welcome back. Thanks for hanging out with us. This is episode 332 of the one and only IT in the D show. Broadcasting live here. Studio one in podcast. He tried and beautiful Royal Oak, Michigan. This is Bob the sales guy. Hey, always hanging out with Dave, the geek Ranee I do the Twitters is doing the Twitter's finding us online it in the d.com and do us a favor. Give us a like on the socials and subscribe to us everywhere. Fine podcasts are sold, right. So what do we got? We got a, we got the Ann Arbor event coming up on the fourth. Well first off I went, I want to thank Detroit Detroit city distillery. That was our first time going there. Yeah, last week. Last Thursday. Um, and it's the perfect bed. We've packed the place. Holy crap. Well it's the perfect venue for what we do. Uh, I think we, we brought in about 50 ish people. Uh, not that person all there at five o'clock. Holy crap. It was weird. They were all there at five o'clock. It's in right in Eastern market. Uh, it's the perfect venue. I've do, I've gone ahead and booked once a quarter for the rest of the year for that place. I've, I look forward to going back there and I thank you to the staff or the parking lot. No. Great. Everybody loved it. And again, it was one of those things where people were like, Oh my God, I've never been here before. Keep hearing about it. Keep meaning to go here. Yeah. I love it. I think the only, cause that's kind of the, one of the sidewalls of our meetings and I think the only complaint I heard was that some people's nav took them the wrong direction on Rio poll. Oh, that's fine. Yeah, fine. Whatever. Uh, but no, so, uh, the fourth, uh, is the Anarbor event. Uh, principal probably pretzel, but I was gay. Uh, so, yep. And uh, and then, Oh geez. And after that we will be at go figure astronomic con, uh, the following weekend, uh, or actually that weekend. Uh, and then our next event, uh, in Metro Detroit is going to be at the Woodward troub on the 20th. And yeah, that's the scoop. That's my story. I'm sticking to it cause I remember to set it up for the third Thursday. Not the fourth Thursday. That's fine. It's fine. It's like saying I put him on the pepperoni pizza. I'm so stupid. Or put him on it to meet on the pizza. Just deal with it. Still felt dumped. My um, one of it is my favorite article of the week and this one hit home didn't hit home, but you read it and you're like, and it's basically called the day Microsoft office turned into malware and Microsoft,

MEDC (the Michigan Economic Development Corporation) returns to our show to chat about entrepreneurship opportunities, grants, smart zones where you can get additional incentives and benefits to get businesses off the ground, and a whole host of other topics that are vital to the changing Michigan economy and they’re doing to keep our economic engines moving as times change… Find their programs at: https://www.michiganbusiness.org/ Wave’s invoicing solution is at http://www.waveapps.com/ITintheD The BankUnited $54,000 giveaway can be entered by following  @BankUnited on Twitter and tweet @BankUnited your answer to “what would you do with 54 thousand dollars?”, using the hashtag #GoForMore54 CapitalOne is at http://www.capitalone.com Hey, what’s going on? This is episode 331 of the it in the D show. We got a great guest lined up. He’s the MEDC, that’s the Michigan economic development Corp for those keeping score at home. He’s the entrepreneurship and innovation vice president Fred Molnar. He’s talking about, I guess there’s thousands of high tech startups across the state, satellite companies. We always thought it was just like batteries and software, but no, there’s a ton of stuff going on. Stuff I never even heard of, so I’m going to have a really, really fun time talking to Fred and should be a great show. Cool, and Hey, this show is brought to you by our friends at wave. Are you tired of chasing down payments for your small business waves? Easy. I am invoicing software. Hint, hint, wink, wink. You can customize your invoices, look professional and get paid faster for your work. Use waves, recurring invoicing feature. Hint, hint, wink, wink, so that you can sit back and relax and get back to doing what you love. Create your account at wave apps. It’s WAV apps, aps.com/it and the D to get started with 100% free and unlimited invoicing. That’s wave apps.com/it in the D. I’m so checking it out. Dave, you may fire when ready. Thank you for hanging out. This is episode three 31 of the one and only it in the D show broadcasting. Where are we? Back in studio one. We weren’t. We are. We’ve, we’re home Chewie. We’re home. I feel comfy. Feel comfy at the end of the table here. Podcast. He traded beautiful Royal Oak, Michigan. This is Bob the sales guy that go in the worst Chewbacca impersonation ever. Dave the geek. Randy. I do the Twitters. Walker is doing the twin. Oh my. I said your last C I D I forgot. I’m just kidding. Find a sunlight combobulated that too. If you don’t know what I’m talking about. Randy’s till we say, why didn’t you save or why don’t you only say my last name and no one else’s, so I just used it a pause for like probably a good year at least. Yeah. Find us online it in the D. dot com. Uh, do us a favor. Give us a like on the socials and subscribe to us everywhere. Fine podcasts are sold. Yep. Yeah, so we’ve got our event Thursday night, uh, which is this Thursday night, not last Thursday night because I’m a moron and scheduled it wrong. I feel like I owned that appropriately. Uh, we will be at Detroit city distillery, uh, and then next month, uh, in which will be the third Thursday, uh, we’re going to try a new venue, a funnel hangout called Woodbridge pub. A great little spot. Loves great. Dave’s is are going to go to Woodbridge. They go, where’d you get drugged in the last night? He goes, I’m not that shallow. First Facebook post is were wasted and it’s at Woodbridge puppy with REM. And who posted that? Ran me. Oh, well yeah, I was there. Well, I told you what happened. It’s like, cause last week’s episode we were bitching about trying to find venues. And so I walked up to the bar and I’m ordering a drink and the bartender goes, Hey man. And he’s like, you know, I listened to your show. And I’m like, and that’s always a okay, why conversation? Uh, and he said, no, I just kinda cool by the way. He was like, you know, you guys were just bitching about, you know, needing, you know, venues to do stuff. Why don’t you do one of your events here and say you can’t say no. And then two seats was the owner of the bar who went, I’m sorry, what, what event would you like to do here? And I was like, Oh, it’s this networking group thing. I’m like, it’s basically we’re going to bring some nerds in who liked to drink and hang out and talk. And he was like, yeah, you should do that here. What’s the date? And he like, went in the back, grabbed his book. So perfect. I’ve been there in awhile. No, it’s, it’s good color. Seriously. There’s a bartender, listen to this. Yeah, we’re doing it. And they’re not charging us 200 bucks an hour just to be in their lobby. I’m good. Nah, screw everything about you Bulla Rama or whatever the hell you are. Uh, so dude, I’m, I’m, I’m, I’m ripping the bandaid off this first topic. Dude. You want terminators? This is how you get terminators. No, no, it’s not even, it’s worse. It’s, so Dave’s talking about, um, it’s from the independent and scientists create first living robots in major breakthrough made out of animal cells. Hold on. They’re neither a traditional robot nor and known species of animal. It’s a new class of artifact, a living programmable organisms. Would they call it a Xeno bot if I recall correctly, cause you know, meaning alien but meaning Terminator and they’ve already, so they’ve already like, and here’s the like, I dunno how far down in the article you read. Like yeah, they followed a little program task. Oh they pushed this little pebble around and you push this little thing around and then they started to learn and they started to coordinate and cooperate. You aren’t terminators. This is how you get terminated, the three of them. And they created the new language and knock you up in one way. I see. Um, I guess the only good news is, is that they’ve taken cells from frog embryos and turned them into a machine that can be programmed as they wish that that worked out great in Jurassic park. It was, you know, it was the frog, the frog DNA that no, wait. Yeah, there’s no, there’s not a tried and true history of why not to do this. Cool. It wasn’t that a Roddy Piper film a hell comes to Frogtown one of the trauma movies, like from there might’ve been, yeah. Um, I don’t understand what they would do other than military or sex. That’s about the only things that I could think, talking about putting little pockets on them so they can carry you like medicine directly to where they need to go. If you want these frog bots people Oh, inside your body. The small, initially, initially they’re very, very small. They’re like nanobots carry medicine directly to the sales effected. I don’t know that it worked in a, with Martin short movie. Um, wait a minute. They’re nanobots, they’re from frog. So you gotta you’re gonna have a frog growing inside. You know, it’s not going to grow. It’s just going to be like a couple of cells. No, it won’t grow. It won’t, it won’t. It won’t act like life and multiply or mutate at all. It won’t. No trust us. And it won’t be like ant man where they all like just like get into like the nooks, there’ll be like little gremlins. Get into the nooks and crannies of like, uh, yeah, military planes and you know, more magic school bus. Oh. Which I’m not even going to start out how creepy that was. That was horrible. And Hey, if you’re an OTA, a antenna user, which I am, I have several in the house. We’ve got a couple here in the studios, a rescan your rescan, your channels if you haven’t already. Uh, we talked about this when it hit, I believe a year ago, uh, when the FCC sold off a whole bunch of frequencies, uh, to make room for some other stuff. Uh, so what channels can you get? Dude? I’m at like 150. Like, no, from your antenna. Yeah. So, and don’t get me wrong, like it’s not like, so what it is, it’s about maybe the size of the, like half of this. The, the headphone amp. Yeah. And it does have a sheet of paper and it says, okay, well no. So the ones that you put up in the window are that size, does it use your house wiring as conduit? And this sits on, um, it sits on the, on the tabletop right next to the, uh, the TV that I’ve got hooked into. Like I don’t, you don’t have to have like this particular one, you don’t have to have near a window or anything like that. Um, you know, is the, basically it was a, I think this one was like 90 bucks as opposed to like the 40, $50 ones, which are the floppy ones you’ve got to put up on a window. And so what other channels, cause you’ve got, you know, uh, there are networks, there are four different state Fox stations. Uh, there’s like, you know, the normal Fox two, then you’ve got like a Fox movie channel. There’s a Fox retro channel, which is like, and there’s a game show network, uh, all the channel four channels, all the channels, seven channels, all that. I mean it’s all the local channels, three plus channels. I mean there’s a whole bunch of stuff you can pick up. So they said, uh, he said on his article that said, got laughing comment, which is a comedy and scifi content. Yeah, dude, there’s a, there’s a bunch of stuff out there that is still broadcasting OTA that, I mean, if you’re like, and if you’re, if you’ve cut the cord and you’re not using this as one of your options, you’re kind of dumb. Well, so what’s rescan I don’t know what that means. So when you set it up, when you first like plug it into your TV, the first thing you have to do is you tell it, Hey, scan for channels. It’s got to say, okay, what are all the signals when you get a new, when you get a new radio, but they’ve moved frequencies around for cell phones, spectrum and stuff. So you have to rescan because she doesn’t move frequencies and it looks like it’s going to happen again in March against him. Have to do this again. Probably another thousand channels are going to wind up moving. So yeah, I mean, and like I said, I mean I pick up channels, um, in India, Canada, down into Ohio, uh, out into Flint. Um, it’s, I mean, if you get one with a decent range, it’s pretty solid. Very good option. Huh. Um, interesting article came on. Uh, I finally got to do my first, I got to hire a Meyer. My first hire only had about 15 interviews with other people. Um, before I’ve ever, we’re talking about those. Yeah. Yeah. Don’t lie on your resume. Kids. Just, uh, you’re gonna get asked. Now you’re understanding all the pain I was describing. Losers. Wait. So DNS is on your, your, your top skill on your resume says DNS and you don’t know what an, a record or a C name is. Yep. Um, and there’s the door nice down. Yeah. Wall street journal came out with something they’re calling hunger games, hiring. And I’m not gonna lie, I’m not gonna lie. No, no, no. They’re calling it cluster hiring cluster. Yeah. The article made the analogy of hunger games and I’m not gonna lie, if I was ever put in a situation, I, uh, knowingly, I would probably, you know, I don’t know at the time if I would get up and walk out, but basically what they’re doing is like, there was, they’re telling a story right now. Uh, there’s basically, it’s a prestigious independent research outfit in, in New York, um, called the boys Thompson Institute and they, it was high end scientists. This isn’t like, this isn’t like a, a situation where you’re going to work at Amazon as a picker, right. It’s, it’s, you’re going in as a scientist. Um, and basically they brought in 13 of them at the same time and basically it’s almost like a goddamn brothel, um, where like, you know where you’re at, basically sat in front of everybody and they’d said, I like the one in the, in the green jacket. Like I own like to me. And they’re like, don’t. And they basically told them, don’t want up the other one. This isn’t about, they wanted to see how you collaborated with people and how you, how you interacted and where you competitive and, but you don’t know what they want. So you’re going into this thing going, do I need to shine? Do I need to be a team player? Do I, you know, cause they don’t give you the parameters. Are you looking for a support player? Are you looking for a leader? Are you asking for you need a tank or you need a healer or, yeah, exactly. Yeah. Blue warrior needs food DPS. So I mean, I hope this does not catch on because I want no part of it. I’m not a fan. I’m not going to lie. And here’s the thing, like I’ve really made it a point being through that, that hellish. Yeah. Three month interview process that I was with the company that rhymes with Schmoogle. Yeah. Um, I’m, I’m basically, it’s two interviews right now that we’re doing. We have our, we have a recruiter that has to go through their vetting. Then we do, um, we do a, a panel over the phone and if that works, they do an in person and basically all the subject matter experts, um, basically ask three or four questions. We try not to make it weird. Um, you know, most of it’s kinda, it’s kind of fun like the um, and then I S I S culture questions and how they interact with the team, things like that. And then we say yes or no. Like, you know what I mean? It really needs to be, and not saying it’s a perfect process, but you know, I’m not close to what I, yeah, it’s close to what I run with. Yeah. I mean it’s not sitting, you know, in a, in a like, you know, if I brought 13 engineers in and they’re going to look at each other and I’m like, okay, you’re, you know, 10 a death take, take the most socially awkward people you could find on the planet, throw them in a room together, have at it. Right. Well, I mean it goes back to like your thing on team building. Like, there’s a lot of things I’m learning, cause this is the first, this is the first time I’ve ever had to do team building. And you know, when someone talks about like I’m doing this whole big thing about check, don’t shoot free throws, like so-and-so is not good at this. And I’m like, great, so-and-so is let them team up. Yup. I don’t need him to be every, you know, super friends, right. I don’t need Superman to talk to fish. I call mans here, we’ll talk to the fish. So I’m kind of like breaking down. Like when people are like, well, he needs to document more. I’m like, Hey, he’s the admin one. Loves documentation and learning. Let him team up with my engineer three. Yeah. You know what I mean? Like crap like that. I mean, I dunno to me that I’m, I don’t know what I’m even talking about anymore. All I know is I’m not interviewing anyone like hunger games. Like, well then, then, then, then you’re good. Um, I, I but, but speaking of Schmoogle, uh, they are the, I believe third company now to break the $1 trillion valuation market value. You know, why, you know, they own all the data and what’s the next, the fourth Apple, Amazon and Microsoft are first. And what’s the, what’s, what’s going to be the biggest commodity in the next 10, 20 years data, your emails and search history. That’s, that’s what it’s going to be. That was my favorite conversation I had. Well I don’t do those Alexis. They know all too much. Did you ever go to activity.google.com I delete this? No, sure, sure you do. Yeah. And Snapchat deletes all the pictures and yeah, that’s, that’s exactly how that works. What was, uh, the one thing I always like, I wish they had, we always do way back machine for NFL drafts cause we’re nerds and like for like with my football friends, I got Detroit like drafted a Superbowl quarterback. Unfortunately it was the tigers who drafted someone who went on to play football. He was never playing baseball. But like looking up what a stock would be worth. Like, like okay it’s 2002, I had $1,000, I put it on Google. What’s it worth today? Like did it, does that not exist? Cause that would be awesome. Like I can kick myself more than when I go to sleep on any stock chart will show you historical information but it’s not going to show you splits and dividend payouts and what it would look like through the transgression. You know, through the, I’m sure somebody has done it out there. It had to have, I’ve been looking, uh, I’m, I do this, this one and then since Amazon just got mentioned, this one creeps me out. Like I, I don’t, I don’t understand why people are going more and more towards biometric shit cause it just creeps me out. I feel like I’m the only one who ever saw demolition man and I don’t like it. Um, Amazon wants you to pay with your Palm and I don’t mean your Palm pilot. No. And I mean your Palm pro. No, I mean the actual ridges lines and stuff of your hand, you can connect that to a credit card and and and just wave at a camera. I guess it beats the shit out of and putting a little chip in your hand. Like last week we talked about [inaudible]. Yeah, no, not doing that either. But you know I just, I did. Well it is, it is it that complicated to take out a wallet and swipe a credit card or to hold up your phone to use your wallet or like is like, is that where we are as a society right now? Guess what? Guess what business is going to pick up? Cutting off people’s hands again. Like demolition man. How did he get out of the jail? He, there was a retinal scanner and he popped the warden’s eye out and had it on a pen. Right. Mark Cuban’s misses, right. Hit on shark tank. Why? Cause someone just bought a whole shitload of stuff. Someone just bought pants. I was like, is that it though? Is there no two factor? Like it just Palm, it’s your hand unique enough that it, that’s according to that. Well, I mean your fingerprints are, well, you’ve got the uniqueness of your fingerprints combined with the uniqueness of what’s on your fingerprints are one in what? 50,000 faces? One in a million. So apparently your debit card and send me a text or a put MFA notification on my mobile and I hit, yes, I’m buying something at the store. That’s it. Did I just add, I was talking to somebody earlier like I wish everything was as paranoid as Google was about sign ins to my account res. Like I like it’s an and it’s instantaneous and, but, but they’re on it. Like I, you know, if I, if I tried logging it like I was trying to do something here. Emails though. I need a push notification. No, no, no, no. I tried to log into Gmail. Little note pops up right on my phone. Oh, is this you trying to sign into Google? Yup. That’s me or no, that’s not me. Yeah. Why? Why can’t my credit card do that? Why? Right. Or you get the text with the seven digit number. I’m fine with that too. Are you spending $112 at TJ Maxx buying [inaudible] with a little pop up, but I cannot handle, I don’t handle to F ag. Right. I don’t know why they don’t is, here’s the thing, it’s cause there’s money to be made in fraud. Is that, is that what it is? Who’s paying off? Like that’s my business. It’s not like the weed stuff where Hillary Clinton comes on and goes, there’s too much money in legalizing drugs. Like, cause you get to seize everything. Um, who’s, who’s paying who off on this one? I dunno, I’ll, I’ll, I’ll hunt it down. I’ll, I’m sure there’s a vice episode on it somewhere. Um, what’s your, uh, do you remember, do they ever tell you what your fishing rates are? And I’m not talking about like trout Yas. Did they ever tell you what your, do they count your rates? Who clicks what? Shaming Susie for saying something stupid the most it is, these are the departments with the lowest click through rate. We don’t get like, Oh sorry, I, our average you get your management might get different emails broadcast publicly during fishing week that there was fishing, there was coasters handed out and there was gummy Swedish fish it handed out and it was on every TV and there was on every newsletter and we were still at like 11 or 12%. Um, but like somebody came out with, um, I like to see what they’re trying to actually get people with. So I of want to click through to be like, who, what are they trying to get people to fall for? What are people dumb enough that they’re not even doing what I thought they were doing, which was like buying like a URL that kinda mocked or match like you remember, what was it like my visa card, you know what I’m saying, where it looked like your company, but it looked like a vanity URL or something. They’re not even doing that. It’s just, it just, it’s just jibberish like a bullshit URL. But someone came out with a top 10, uh, which was funny, I just got this today and it was a text that came to my phone that said hello Dave, your FedEx package with tracking code, yet idiotic is waiting for you to set delivery preferences. But it’s two D seven CMV. Dot info slash Bitly URL. Yeah. And I’m not clicking no, uh yeah. And if I bought it, I told it where to ship it. Um, but basically the number one was changed the change of password required immediately. It was 26%. Um, basically a, um, Microsoft office three 65 D action of email and process. Yeah, password was heavy cause yeah, password check required. Right. Was the other one drop? This is one where I’m not going to say I fall for it, but it was like Dropbox or like a Google drive document shared. So shit. So that was like both that one and the team’s one where you know, and it was specifically like a name had shared a document with you. If I don’t recognize the name, the skeptical Davis skeptical. No, no, no. But what happens if it’s from work or like me and like, or it’s from Hey, it’s from, you know, like, well then they’re going to get fired for using Dropbox to send company files around. This is what’s going to happen. I have them walk down. The interesting one was like Airbnb, new device login. It was 6% and then a Slack password reset for account. Um, you know, basically there. Yeah, it’s all password. Your cash app, your, your account’s been closed. Coinbase. Oh, I can imagine them trying to hack into Coinbase. Please resolve error. Now could you take a look at this? Oh, then the proof point. The biggest one. Can you, would you mind taking a look at this invoice? Yeah. And then so-and-so has shared a whiteboard with you from Microsoft. Yup. Yeah. Interesting. Um, you know, again, if you’re not a, you’re not savvy, just, you know, hover over the URL. If it looks bad. Yeah. Don’t do not click hover lunch. Good. Yeah. Treat it. Treat it like a, a woman in a ladies’ bathroom. Just hover. Yeah, that’s fine. Uh, so I did, you’re a nest biller. This, this is my favorite story. I love this. And we’ve talked about how stupid some of these accessibility rules are over the years. Um, but yeah, PornHub is getting sued by a deaf man, uh, because they don’t provide subtitles for all of their pornography that they have. Oh, Oh, Oh God. Do me, I just, I’m picturing like, you know, those memes where it’s like, you know, they have the funny thing in the captions. I’m picturing like wild screaming like, or, or like pained expression. Like I, I’m just, I’m just trying to like Mo moaning in Japanese. Like what? Yeah, like what, what, what are you and I, but I do, cause they, uh, they actually replied if they said we actually don’t respond or we don’t comment on pending, uh, lawsuits. Um, but we would like to just point out that we do have a closed caption category that he’s able to use. Plus there’s PornHub user uploaded. Is YouTube responsible for YouTube videos that are in caption? I don’t think so. So why is PornHub different? It’s an option. You can go for it. Like, that’s one of the things they’ve added is the capability to do like an automated transcription thing though. Like I mean sometimes the plot is helpful set up. Randy, is it think of an analogy that would make any sense. And I don’t like my hamburger didn’t have pickles on it. [inaudible] for damages. Like since you didn’t get pickles, it’s not a good hamburger. Somebody you bought me a, the free beer wasn’t cold enough. I [inaudible] you gave me a, uh, an issue of Playboy that was in Russian and, and I don’t read Russian. I, I’m to read the jokes. Dammit. Yeah, I got nothing on this. I, I just, I just thought it was, cause we have, we’ve talked about like, you know, there, there’s a, there actually is a standard out there where your website, technically speaking is supposed to be accessible for blind people. Um, well this would be deaf people, but yeah, no, no, but I mean they know, I’m just saying there, there’s, there’s a standard out there that says [inaudible] you know, the whole ADA thing when it comes to web interfaces, they’re supposed to be accessible for, you know, blind people. You, and that’s one of the reasons why you can’t have voice navigation and you know, because because of deaf people in that kind of stuff and it just, I at the drive through, I’ve always laughed about that and that’s, that’s just actually manufacturing laziness. I lived, I think we’ve talked about that before. We totally have. Why does the dry lot, why does the ATM at the drive through have braille on it? Right. Because they only make one keyboard. It just looks dumb. Um, I always like, I like technology and I like innovation. I’m a huge fan of pushing the envelope until it’s stupid. Um, and then this one, there were, they’re talking about a digital transfer. I should have been turned off when I saw [inaudible]. I skimmed through this. I didn’t even add it to my list. I think myself too. The one thing where I just want to tell him to stop is Toyota. Um, LA is launching an AR program that basically allows users to try out. Um, there are cars without picking up the keys. They basically just put on goggles and they pretend it’s car, but it’s not, but you’re not, that’s not enough. It’s not even see what it looks like inside, but you don’t, that’s the whole point of it. Yeah, that’s that. Yeah. What are the comfort like Kevin noise or an apparently now it’s catching on. Like returns is a big problem. Like Amazon, like that’s the crux of their being of their existence. They would stop carrying everything that’s listed in sizes that are made in China. Oh, I just bought a sport coat that weight and fit you. I’d probably wouldn’t fit Mackey. I bet it was fat guy in a little coat like ah shit. But like target and Lowe’s and Amazon, they’re basically finding out that augmented reality AR, uh, is helpful in decreasing the numbers of returns they see from online shoppers. And then I guess I can see it. Furniture, minor details, 25% of shit is sent back. 25. No, I truly, I believe that. But, and I could see where if they could give you something where you know what, okay, so you hook into like I have goggles, uh, you hook into my goggles and you let me see that couch. I want to buy in my living room where I want to put it and see how it actually spatially feel it. Or here’s things that you need to know. There’s things like, OK, uh, real estate. I think you still need to see it. But like if you put on goggles and got to do a walk through on a house, that’s going to eliminate you needed to needing to go see. Um, yeah. You know, you can also do it for a home inspection too, but you can’t tell how comfortable at couches by looking at it. No, but you could at least see where I’m, where I want to put it. I keep wanting to buy this couch online and my wife keeps screaming at me that it looks uncomfortable and I’m like, I like it. I want to buy it. Um, but I, you know, the, the, I’m trying to think what, like I said, besides real estate and doing like a walkthrough, um, I don’t know what else, like AR like to like, it’s not going to stop returns. Like if there’s a pair of jeans and they’re a size 28 and I want to buy them and then they don’t fit and I send them back. Like, how is augmented reality gonna fix that? No, it won’t. It won’t. Something like that. Like I could see where like, you know, some of the return issues where, you know, it wasn’t, you know, it didn’t look the way I thought it would based on that picture or you know, it didn’t look, or it didn’t fit in with my decor or it didn’t, you know, like step, like I think it would, I can see it helping to eliminate subjective reason returns. Maybe we should support and hope to do augmented reality for that. They have AR, do they? I’m pretty sure. Oh, he backpedals quickly. I don’t know. I heard we talked about that. We did a no, no. So, yeah, no, I can see like, you know, like this objective reason. I just, I just don’t like it as opposed to like legitimate, real concrete reasons where it’s, you know, it doesn’t fit. It doesn’t, you know, it’s not, but you know, the subjective stuff like, you know, I just, I just didn’t like it once it was in the house or something like that. I think I could see it helping limit, helping to eliminate that. Good luck with that. And they’re spinning. Had some money. Right. Yeah. God knows what and something I’m not going to use. Um, I I was tempted to use the, uh, that creeped up quietly if you’re Amazon prime, the whole foods, two hour delivery thing that, that came to my house. I didn’t deliver. I didn’t order anything though. But that’s the thing now someone mentioned it and I’m like, I’m going to see if that’s a thing I’m still good with shipped. Yeah, I am too. I’m perfectly content with you. I don’t need the whole, I don’t need a Nicky batting something admiring. I got a Petco, like I got pet store stuff that I can get delivered now I got a target. Yeah, I’m good. Lamb Shea that you’ve always been eating. Yeah. Yeah. Well, but dude, here’s, you know me and you know how I am when I walk into a store, the reason why I loved ship or I love ship for grocery shopping is it keeps me from overshopping. Like I’m not wandering through the aisles going, Oh, I’ve gotta have five of those and 10 of those. And they did it. Oh, that cake looks good. Ooh, cookies. Woo. Like it cuts out. Keeps me from having to get off my ass on the couch. I mean that too. I mean, everyone’s got their reasons. Yeah. Like now it’s like when it’s time to buy a case of water and a couple of cases of pop shipped, $35 minimum. God bless you. Yeah. Here’s another five. Throw it in the kitchen so I don’t have to move. Right, exactly. Above your, what about your friends at Clearview? At Clearview? Yeah. Oh dude. I didn’t even write it down cause I, that was the last thing I shot across. So there is literally an app, uh, that is, has a database larger than the FBI. Uh, and most police departments, uh, all combined, uh, that is facial recognition based where basically someone, and right now they say it’s not allowed. It’s not accessible to the open public. Sure. It’s not, I’m sure somebody has, it doesn’t make it better either, but so you can just be ensure this is the intro to the article. What if a stranger could snap your picture on the sidewalk and then use an app to quickly discover your name, address, and other details. And this lets them do it. They just made it happen. They scrape public Facebook, Venmo pictures and it’s currently used by hundreds of law enforcement agencies, including the FBI says the New York times in a Saturday report. Yeah. And they said, Oh, it’s not open to the public now, but we expect it will be in the not too distant future. Yeah. That’s funny. The size of the database dwarfs others used by law enforcement because they had the FBI’s, which taps passport and driver’s license photos. It’s got 60 641 million images of us citizens. And this one door. Yeah. Oh God. Yeah. Not, not available to the public. Trust us. They won’t mutate. Oh boy. So Hey, we’re going to take a quick break. Oh, Hey. Uh, so bank United wants you to go for more, uh, enter for a chance to win $54,000. Uh, if a team goes for and completes a two point conversion during the big game on February 2nd, all you have to do is follow at bank United on Twitter and tweet at bank United. Your answer to what you would do with $54,000 using the hashtag go for more 54, that’s G, O, F O R M O R R. E number five, number four. So everybody has a chance to win. The more tweets you send, the more chances you have of winning. And if a team completes a two point conversion, you would win a. So again, follow bank United on Twitter and tweet at bank United. Your answer to what would you do with $54,000 using the hashtag go for more 54 there is only one prize. So many may enter, but only one will boon. Good old Highlander rules. There can be only one half to be at least 18 years of age to enter there. So there’s, there’s a disclaimer for official rules. Visit www.goformorefiftyfour.com. That’s G O F O R M O R E [inaudible] dot com that’s go for more and the number 50 four.com bank, United and a member FTC. Neither Twitter nor the NFL entities have offered, administered, endorsed, or sponsored this sweepstakes in any way there. That’s the first time we’ve had a disclaimer like that or whatever. That’s number four. I almost got into a new Moto goals. I always kind of wanted to go into, uh, the, the old matchbox guy boys, remember that, that really fast talking matchbox guy. Oh yeah. Or was it hot wheels? Was he mad? Ah, it was a, Oh well he’s not thinking about it during the break. We’re going to take a quick break. We’re going to be back with Fred Molnar from the MADC talking about, uh, uh, tech startups, high tech startups should be a cool conversation. This is the it and that he show. Hey, we’ll be right back. Hey, welcome back. Segment two. This is episode three 31 of the it and that he show broadcasting live here in studio one podcast, Detroit, beautiful, Royal Oak, Michigan. Bob the sales guy, Dave the geek. Randy. I do the Twitters is doing the Twitters. Find us online it in the d.com. You want to know why? Cause we all right. And, and you, you still are. And I actually had somebody call me out on that when we were here Sunday, a recording a bunch of episodes. Somebody said, I just forget what I said. And they were like, wow, you, you really can be petty. And like the whole shot of history crew was here and like all of them dove and they were like, Oh no, no, no, no, no. He’s Tom petty. Like he still spends 20 to 30 seconds of every episode every week mocking someone who pissed him off six years ago and they still know what to do. They do. Hey, a four we dive in. Capital one knows that life doesn’t alert you about your credit card. That’s why they created, you know, the capital one assistant that catches things that might look wrong with your credit card, like over tipping duplicate charges or potential fraud, and then sends an alert to your phone and helps you fix it. It’s another way. Capital one is watching out for your money when you’re not capital one. What’s in your wallet? See capital one.com for details. I think we’re a shit ton cheaper than Samuel L. Jackson. I can tell you that much right now for one spokesperson. I’m just, you know, I mean, I can read it as, save me a lot. Jackson. We’re good. We’re good. We’re good. Oh no, no. Hey. But we’re, uh, we’re very, very lucky, uh, to get a someone here that had the day off today, but decided they were going to come in anyway, so we sincerely appreciate it. He’s with the Michigan economic development Corp as the MADC for, uh, for you at home. He is the, uh, entrepreneurship and innovation vice president Fred Molnar. Thank you for putting up with our own ridiculousness. How you doing sir? Good, thank you. Thank you Dave. Thank you Bob. Appreciate it. So, you know, we’re talking about you got to send an email, I’m talking about things that I didn’t even know existed. Um, I’m really not familiar with, with not only aerospace but things that are going on in the state. Um, we’re talking, you know, and then you’re talking about, you know, there’s thousands of high tech startups across the state and I kind of wanted to start there. I we knew about like batteries and companies that are kind of building here and we’re starting to hear rumblings like auto manufacturers are calling themselves software companies now because there’s more into coding than there is actually building a physical car. So I mean, when you’re, when you’re talking thousands of high tech startups, I guess where do we start and where do we end? Is, is that just a broad spectrum or I guess walk me through that? Sure. Um, well we’re definitely technology agnostic, so we’re not really focusing on any technologies though. There is a new MBDC strategic plan, which I can get into later. But the group that I lead, um, what we’re trying to do is diversify the Michigan economy. People here in Southeastern Michigan know we’ve been very auto centric for little bit years, little bit. And of course, you know, I grew up in Allen park around Detroit and, uh, when I was a young man kid and everything, I, I saw the ups and downs of the auto industry. Uh, like many of us did. Um, I mean, hell, I’ve seen it and I’ve only been here since 96. Yeah, yeah. And it was, it was brutal to watch. I had some good friends who, you know, quite frankly, every single one of my friends are either worked, their dads either worked in the auto industry or a supplier for the auto industry. Well, you’re looking at what it did to just streets like Updike and up in wick some like do you know that was an, it was bigger than an entire city block. It was less stretched for two, three, four city blocks shuts down building his dock down, then everything that kind of was around it is gone. Yeah. Yeah. It was devastating. I remember of course the, you know, the early Japanese invasion of the, you know, the small small cars and everything and we were building the big muscle cars at the time. Um, but, but long story short, what we’re trying to do is diversify the Michigan economy. Um, and that’s through technology. So what we’re trying to do, we don’t have like in a tr like an attraction program for early stage tax. So we’re not trying to attract companies here and we’re trying to do is develop companies here, help companies develop, which is funny because like, you know, there was that article that we just talked about I think either last week or the week before where both Detroit and Ann Arbor, our top 10 locations for new tech startups, like I think top five if I recall correctly, we’ll go cost of living’s low and there’s no poop on the sidewalk. Go figure. Well, I mean depends where you go. Yeah. So, so there are, there are really, um, hot areas in the state. As you mentioned, Detroit right now is very hot for tech. Of course. Anarbor has been the basis of technology for the last 10 years plus. Um, but there’s other areas in the state. Uh, grand Rapids is picking up, uh, Lansing’s really good. And actually up in the upper peninsula, Houghton Hancock, uh, which is way up in a [inaudible] is also doing really well. A technology really like, I just, I wouldn’t be doing up there. I was like, I was thinking, I, you hear DUP, you don’t think tech. That’s interesting. Yeah. Well, you know, you think of new texts up there. Exactly. So you know, you think a beautiful scenery, you think of wood products, you think of beef pasties. There you go. Yeah. Smoked fish, paint painted rocks. Um, but, but built around and what we’re doing from the MADC perspective is we’re working with the universities around the state. So we’ve kind of free focus areas. One of them is a universities and there is a research university, Michigan tech university has mentioned, um, and they of course spend a lot of time and energy, but they are a federally, uh, federally funded research university. In other words, the federal government, um, gives them grants to do basic research. Okay. And through that basic research, what we’re trying to do is pull technology that they work on and commercialize that. Okay. Gotcha. And so that’s why up in Houghton Hancock, they’re doing a really good job with that. Well, so, and I think that’s been one of the, one of the biggest issues this region faces and has faced for quite some time. And we’ve, when we’ve talked about it, I can’t remember how many times, um, I mean the brain drain that hit here, you know, back when the economy tanked in Oh eight, Oh nine, 2010 and then continues to hit here as, you know, kids get out of school and don’t want to stay here. And so they’re heading for the coasts. They’re heading for Chicago, they’re heading for, you know, and I think that’s the Austin huge. Yeah. I mean, I think that’s a, that’s a big thing where in many cases they don’t even know that stuff like this exists. This is true. This is true. And, and we’re, we’re, I mean that, that’s still a real problem. There’s no doubt about it. And when, one of the things that we see is, um, a lack of talent. So we have a lot of great companies starting up, great ideas, technology companies. But what happens is the, the founder may be very smart in whatever physics or biochemistry, whatever, right? But they don’t have the business experience. And so they can only take the company to a certain level and then the company can stall out. Because you know it’s school of hard knocks, a lot of it. Right. And so experience and what I’m seeing, which is very encouraging to me is I’m seeing a lot of people that have left the state. Okay. Cause I think the pastors are greener elsewhere. When they go to D C they go to New York, they go to Austin, they go to Bay area, whatever. But at some point they find their significant other, right. And they have kids and they go, you know what, Michigan was a great place to live. It’s a great place to raise kids. Bob, you mentioned the cost of living at sure thing. And so they can, they can earn a very good living here and they want to move back. And so we’re seeing a lot of people try to come back to the state and that’s what we’re trying to do is find them, you know, companies obviously that at the level they want. I think it was like probably 2013 like late 2013 early 2014 when we started seeing a lot more messages from people about Hey I hear it’s gotten better. Thinking about coming back, how do I make that work? So I mean, I totally wholeheartedly agree. Well that’s the thing. If you look at, if you talk to anybody, if we go to any of our meetups and go, did you realize there was, um, I’m free to one of the companies you guys are working with, uh, you know, space technologies in their name and they’re basically making plasma thrusters to start up satellite companies. And if you would have to ask anyone, did you think that this even existed in the state of Michigan? They were like, no. Are they building Vultron right. That’s the first thing I said to Fred, would I go, what the hell is a plasma thruster? And he’s like, uses plasma gas. I’m like, what? Like this is so far over my head, I guess. How do they end up in Michigan? And I guess, you know, talk to me about them. Yeah, so, so that’s a, it’s a great store. It’s an app. So fantastic story. This again is a technology spun out of a university up at Michigan tech. So up in Holton Hancock as far as you can go in the U P peninsula. And here they are building a rocket engines for, for satellites. And if they’re listening by the way, sorry about your Packers, you traders, they’re all packer fans. DUP. This is true. Are you, are you sorry, Roger sucks. Sorry Frank, go ahead. Yeah, so, so there, there is a gentleman named Brad King, one of one of the founders of the company and he is literally a rocket scientist. I mean he has a business card and it says rocket scientist, but he is actually a rocket science. I mean I can get one of those too. There you go. Yeah, I’m a model rocket scientist. I was really good with those. And um, so there, there’s the things that are called smart zones spread across the state. So there’s 21 of these won’t go into too much detail, but one of them is up in holding Hancock and the idea of a smart zone and the local ones you probably heard of of TechTown, you might’ve heard a tech town, Detroit and R verse bar. Yup. Um, auto automation alley up in Troy, et cetera. So, so these, these are all over the state. And what their objective is is economic development of course, technology, economic development. So they’re allowed their legislatively formed geographic areas like a, a research park, and they’re allowed to collect taxes in that park and those taxes have to be used for tech entrepreneurship. Okay. Awesome idea. It’s working fantastic across the state. So this gentleman, rocket scientists, um, had this idea, you know, can I turn this into a company? So he went to the local smarts zone. And of course he’s rocket scientist, not a business person, but they’re business people. So between the two of them, they put together a plan to create a company called in space technology. I think it’s already in space technologies, um, and helped him get it off the ground. And they were so to speak. Yes. [inaudible] very good. Very good. And, and you know, people, people have asked them, well why are you up in the U P and his, his perfect answer is, well the ups is as close to space as Florida or California. Do you ever remember, do you remember when? Probably when the show first started and I always screamed about outsourcing rural. Yeah. Because there was a, I was in the, the V set, you know, doing satellite parts for, you know, back in like Oh four and we went to a manufacturing plant in the middle of nowhere mid Michigan. But everyone, they were making 10 bucks, 12 bucks an hour and they were ecstatic making that kind of money cause small house, you know, I’m like, Oh my God. Like why are we shipping jobs overseas? Why don’t we outsource rural and make that a thing? So yeah, hearing this, I bet you the, you know, part of it is just, you know, outsourcing world. Yeah. And they’re there. They’re getting high quality people coming in like earlier discussion from outside of the state because they want to live in the UPA. If you ever been to key went up peninsula Minnesota, a beautiful part of the state. It’s gorgeous. Gorgeous, gorgeous place. Yep. How’s the flooding rebuilding going? Uh, pretty good actually. Last time I was up there, which is a couple of months ago. It’s come a long way. Yup. Yup. So what are, I guess where do you, when you, when you talk about there’s no really just start, you know, start and stop, but what, you know, something that, you know, if you’re a tech startup and you want to catch, you know, the MADC XY and getting either grantor, I guess, what, what, what’s going to catch your eye? Is it, you know, building nanotech? Is it software? Is it something unique? I guess what’s, what’s some criteria you guys are looking for that check those boxes? Yeah. So there’s a lot to unpack there for, first of all, we, the MBDC just so I’m clear, we don’t actually give grants to companies. Okay. So the way we work, we work through third parties. So in other words, if we want to do an early stage, a fund, we have one called the the first capital fund or the pre-seed fund. We put out an RFP request for proposal, people bid on it, and then we say, this is what we want to have accomplished. And we let professionals do that. So in this case, you might’ve heard of invest Detroit. Okay, invest Detroit does our first capital fund and that’s up to $150,000. Essentially it’s a, it’s a, uh, convertible debt. Um, and then the proceeds up to half million dollars. But that’s how we work. So we have professionals manage the money. We, so we don’t do correct. Direct grant took a, a company. Um, but as far as, as far as what gets funded, there’s a lot of variables obviously rented for economic development. Okay. So we’re not in it for the founders to make a lot of money. We’re not in it for investigatory. It isn’t a to make a lot of money. It’s all about economic development. So if there’s a path for the company to grow here in the state of Michigan and hire people and, and pay a, you know, a really good wage, that’s what, that’s what we’re looking for. So that’s really the primary. Well, and that’s what you need. I mean, you need, and that’s, you know, that’s kind of the point of changing the focal point of the economy is you need those new economic engines to take. Like, I mean that’s, that’s the issue. I mean, you know, the, the economic engine of the automotive industry died, you know, or, or five of six cylinders are gone, you know, and so it’s not, you know, as reliable as it used to be. And so if you’re going to have, you know, it’s, we’ve had this conversation a bunch where like Michigan was pretty much the walking, talking definition of middle-class for the longest time. And that’s a roaded very hard and heavily like you don’t have, cause you don’t have those engines powering that anymore. Very true. Very true. And it’s sad to see. Right? And so what we’re trying to do obviously is bring back good paying, good paying jobs. Yup. Very cool. Yeah. The one of the things I was thinking about also, I was just looking at all the emerging tech stuff and some of the things, you know, I brought it up right off the bat. It was all these battery companies. Then I then you, I don’t think I’ve heard a thing for nine months. Is that, is this still is, I mean, is this still a thing in a state where we’re, we’re trying to build like that next gen battery for the electric car, I guess, where, where does that all sit? Yeah, so, um, there was a, I think it was an Agus was before my time, but I believe in the Granholm era when she was governor, there was quite a bit of focus on battery technology. Um, and it might’ve been too early because it never really panned out very well. Um, but Western Michigan around Holland has got a couple of good, uh, really early stage battery companies that may get some, it may get some legs. So we, I don’t think from a state perspective, we’ve, you know, given up on that, I mean, that’s the kind of thing that has a long lead time. I mean, that’s, that those things have incredibly lengthy test cycles on them. Like it’s not like you don’t, Hey, we’re going to build a plant and start cranking out batteries and they’re gonna hit the market in six months. Like that’s, that’s a few year initiative. I’m sure you look, you look at Riviera getting all a, what do they get 100 million from Amazon? Um, definitely something to hang the F, you know, or to plant a flag on saying, Hey, look what we’re doing here. Look at, you know, between like, you know, duo being valued at $1 billion and things like reveal and getting on here. Yeah. I mean this is a, it’s some, some great success stories that surviving shocked Silicon Valley, especially when duo, you know, hit the billion dollar valuation got bothered. Something that’s not heard of and it’s, you know, it’s the same conversation, you know, you used to have with, you know, a lot of your peers at one of your prior gigs where, you know, you, I remember you saying you’d be on those conference calls and just kind of gets back to, you know, just some of the positives that Michigan has to offer. You know, your, your peers in New York and Boston and LA would be bitching about, you know, salary and not making enough money and all that kind of stuff. And you’re like, I don’t want you talking about I, I’m good. Yup. Oh, it’s definitely, you know, getting back to the battery. Um, there is, uh, a big federally funded and MBDC funded, uh, partially battery lab, uh, at the university of Michigan’s and they’re looking at solid state batteries. You know, like you said, it’s a long, it’s a long lead time, but who knows what could come out of that. Right. I mean, and it’s not like the automotive industry is dead because I mean you, you do still have, you know, all of the connected car, you know, technology and all of the, you know, whether it’s, you know, what I’d necessarily autonomous, but you know, all the, you know, the steps to autonomous and everything else. Um, you know, a lot of that is going on here. I mean, you know, they, there are, you know, testing centers, you know, testing basically fake cities that have been built around the area, you know, to test some of this technology. And it’s kinda cool to see that happen here as well. Oh yeah, no, there’s, there’s a huge investment by the state of Michigan, uh, through the MIDC an M. dot. And others, Michigan department of transportation and others in the automobile industry. Cause obviously it’s been the focal point for the state for years. And we are the leader. Uh, granted it’s, it’s, it’s, I think everyone would agree it’s gone down considerably, but we’re still the leader in automotive technology and we’re actually the leader right now in mobility. Um, when you look at, uh, Detroit and then you look at, uh, um, the ACM, the automobile, uh, uh, center for mobility out in Ypsilanti, and then the MCT out of the university of Michigan or other places. There’s a lot of energy right now put up into mobility. And actually the MADC has a brand new strategic plan, which we’ve been just rolling out. And what are the focus areas? Is mobility. Okay. Which you would imagine is crack is correct. Uh, one of the other areas is advanced manufacturing because we make things really, really well in this date. And while we have, uh, another focus is medical devices. So we have a, a very strong actually medical device. A lot of is in Western Michigan. You think of Stryker, uh, and other companies. We’ve actually had a few startups on here for medical devices now that I’m thinking about it. Yeah. Yup. And, and so, but that strike I know of, and that’s, you know, that’s also advanced manufacturing to a lot of the, uh, of the medical devices. So it’s kind of, you know, where our strengths are right now. So it’s going to be an interesting, I’m curious to get your take on it. If, if you, if you don’t have one, that’s fine. You could tell me how stupid. Um, the biggest issue right now with autonomous vehicles and getting is lidars and they have these big huge servers in the trunk is when at the end of the day when they’re collecting all this data is getting it uploaded into a data center. And what they’re doing now is they’re, they’re pulling these drives out and they’re shipping them via FedEx to data centers and the next two, three days are uploading this, uh, 20 terabyte or whatever, God knows how many, how much data is coming. So 5g now, you know, we talked about, you know, the government’s trying to give $1 billion away or something for our a 5g R and D here, your R and D here, uh, to compete with Huawei and to get ahead of the curve on that, which is good. We always, we hear it’s going to be the devil. Then we also hear it’s going to be our savior. Right. Uh, and you know, I’m just curious, is it, was there any buddy making headway on the, in the, in that department, the, and the 5g or in the, uh, data collection for, uh, for LIDAR? Uh, not, not from an MBDC perspective. I’m sure it’s happening around, but yeah, but we’re not, we’re not involved in that at this point. All right. That’s something that, you know, I’ve been following for a long time. We were doing some projects with some other companies, uh, in Germany cause they’re, you know, the data collection part. And like I said, the, it’s insane how much data these things are collecting. Um, so how does one find out about these zones? How does one find out about, you know, applying for one of these grant programs, that kind of stuff. Like where, where do people, like how you got an idea, where do you go? Yeah. So certainly if, if you’re in a university, so let’s say you’re still at a university, either you know, a postdoc or whatever, you have an idea at a university or you’re actually working professor at a university, you would work with your office of technology transfer. Okay? So if you have an idea, that’s where you would start. And then from there we have a three or four university programs. So we have about a third of our budget MBDC entrepreneurship budget. We have about a $16 million budget. About a third of it goes to universities. And there were, again, we’re trying to, to take technology and move it along to the point where it can be hopefully commercialized and then hopefully it’s, it’s strong enough to start a company. Okay. So that, that’s, that’s one of the places we go. So if you had a university, go to office in a technology transfer, if you’re outside of a university and you have a tech idea, you’d go to one of your local smart zones. Okay. And again, there’s 21 of those smart zones. But if you go to Michigan business.org forward slash entrepreneurship that will connect you to all our programs that we have and they’re, they’re considerable. I, I truly believe from a, from a nationwide perspective, it’s a state of Michigan’s tech entrepreneur. Entrepreneurship programs are one of the best in the country without a doubt. Interesting. So in just I guess just to clarify, cause we do our, our demographics are a lot weirder than we ever thought they were. Um, just tech stuff or other stuff. Yes. So it is, so the group that I lead is just tech. Okay. There is, there is a separate group at the med C that handles traditional, let’s call it traditional entrepreneurship. Okay. So if you wanted to, you know, start a restaurant or you know, hair salon or grocery store without, you know, traditional business, there is a group that helps support that same basic website and just start there. Yes, you could, you could go there, go to the MEDC website, Michigan business.org and you’ll be connected to those resources. Okay. Very cool. Awesome. Fred, seriously appreciate coming here on your day off and spend some time with us. Uh, definitely, you know, keep us in and, and you know, if you got any cool stories about any, uh, emerging companies, we’d love to have you back sometime and, uh, appreciate the time you spent with us. Great. My pleasure. Thank you gentlemen. Absolutely. So, Hey, this is going to wrap episode three 31 up for the it and the D show. Like to thank Fred Mueller from the med C. appreciate the, uh, definitely the insights and the stories given on some cool new companies coming here to the state of Michigan and, uh, how to be involved in, um, I guess, uh, on behalf of a Bob, Dave and Randy, do us all a favor, drink up your drinks, get your phone numbers. You don’t get to go home. You just gotta get the hell outta here. See you next week. Drive careful. Beat it. See you guys.   IT in the D On the web: http://www.ITinTheD.com On Meetup: http://www.meetup.com/ITintheD/ On LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/groups/IT-in-D-91763 On Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/ITintheD On Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/ITintheD Podcast Detroit is at: On the web: http://www.podcastdetroit.com/ On Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/PodcastDetroit On Twitter: https://twitter.com/PodcastDetroit On Soundcloud: https://soundcloud.com/podcastdetroit  

MEDC (the Michigan Economic Development Corporation) returns to our show to chat about entrepreneurship opportunities, grants, smart zones where you can get additional incentives and benefits to get businesses off the ground, and a whole host of other topics that are vital to the changing Michigan economy and they're doing to keep our economic engines moving as times change... Find their programs at: https://www.michiganbusiness.org/ Wave's invoicing solution is at http://www.waveapps.com/ITintheD The BankUnited $54,000 giveaway can be entered by following  @BankUnited on Twitter and tweet @BankUnited your answer to "what would you do with 54 thousand dollars?", using the hashtag #GoForMore54 CapitalOne is at http://www.capitalone.com Hey, what's going on? This is episode 331 of the it in the D show. We got a great guest lined up. He's the MEDC, that's the Michigan economic development Corp for those keeping score at home. He's the entrepreneurship and innovation vice president Fred Molnar. He's talking about, I guess there's thousands of high tech startups across the state, satellite companies. We always thought it was just like batteries and software, but no, there's a ton of stuff going on. Stuff I never even heard of, so I'm going to have a really, really fun time talking to Fred and should be a great show. Cool, and Hey, this show is brought to you by our friends at wave. Are you tired of chasing down payments for your small business waves? Easy. I am invoicing software. Hint, hint, wink, wink. You can customize your invoices, look professional and get paid faster for your work. Use waves, recurring invoicing feature. Hint, hint, wink, wink, so that you can sit back and relax and get back to doing what you love. Create your account at wave apps. It's WAV apps, aps.com/it and the D to get started with 100% free and unlimited invoicing. That's wave apps.com/it in the D. I'm so checking it out. Dave, you may fire when ready. Thank you for hanging out. This is episode three 31 of the one and only it in the D show broadcasting. Where are we? Back in studio one. We weren't. We are. We've, we're home Chewie. We're home. I feel comfy. Feel comfy at the end of the table here. Podcast. He traded beautiful Royal Oak, Michigan. This is Bob the sales guy that go in the worst Chewbacca impersonation ever. Dave the geek. Randy. I do the Twitters. Walker is doing the twin. Oh my. I said your last C I D I forgot. I'm just kidding. Find a sunlight combobulated that too. If you don't know what I'm talking about. Randy's till we say, why didn't you save or why don't you only say my last name and no one else's, so I just used it a pause for like probably a good year at least. Yeah. Find us online it in the D. dot com. Uh, do us a favor. Give us a like on the socials and subscribe to us everywhere. Fine podcasts are sold. Yep. Yeah, so we've got our event Thursday night, uh, which is this Thursday night, not last Thursday night because I'm a moron and scheduled it wrong. I feel like I owned that appropriately. Uh, we will be at Detroit city distillery, uh, and then next month, uh, in which will be the third Thursday, uh, we're going to try a new venue, a funnel hangout called Woodbridge pub. A great little spot. Loves great. Dave's is are going to go to Woodbridge. They go, where'd you get drugged in the last night? He goes, I'm not that shallow. First Facebook post is were wasted and it's at Woodbridge puppy with REM. And who posted that? Ran me. Oh, well yeah, I was there. Well, I told you what happened. It's like, cause last week's episode we were bitching about trying to find venues. And so I walked up to the bar and I'm ordering a drink and the bartender goes, Hey man. And he's like, you know, I listened to your show. And I'm like, and that's always a okay, why conversation? Uh, and he said, no, I just kinda cool by the way. He was like, you know, you guys were just bitching about, you know, needing,

BankUnited President and CEO, Thomas Cornish was abandoned when he was 2 1/2. Circumstances prevented his adoption; his mom-to-be packed up, beginning multi-city bus trips, ending in Miami. After poverty, anger - education, opportunity and, giving back.

In this first episode in a series about exiting your business, Dennis Zink talks with Mark Dunlop, Vice President with BankUnited, and attorney Ken Chapman, partner with Bowman, George, Scheb, Kimbrough, Koach & Chapman, P.A. about exit strategies.  You'll learn: The six most common exit options The best time to plan for selling your business Key considerations to include in your planning How to increase the value of your business SBA (Small Business Administration) loan guaranties The need (or not) for audited financial statements How to make your business more desirable The importance of cash flow If you own a business, at some point you will want to sell it, pass it on to others, or otherwise exit it while gaining the most value for it.  Listen to this series of podcasts and learn how to do it right!

Hey guys! Today I have Stephen Speer on the show and he is the Vice President of E-Commerce Business Acquisition at Bank United. We go through some very specific details for how you need to shape your business to make it attractive to buyers. We go through how people should run their accounting - it's not as easy as simply deciding you're going to sell, if you want to get the most bang for your buck, you need to make sure your business is prepped in the right way. Not only that, we also talk about how you can also go out there and use Stephen to help finance a purchase of a business. If the specific business you're looking at has the right numbers, Stephen can help you find finance the loan based on those numbers and not your own wealth! This was really eye opening to me! If you'd like to talk to Stephen or find out more, you can contact him below and find out more below - and yes he was brave enough to put his real cell phone down so take advantage of it! SSpeer@BankUnited.com Cell: 813.766.4524 BankUnited.com/SBF

If you've ever wanted to sell or purchase a SaaS business, listen to this Podcast because Nathan Singh has done both. He sold his own SaaS business in early 2017, only to turn around and buy a bigger SaaS business in December of the same year. He's a former NASA Scientist who out-negotiated a full price, all cash buyer to win the deal and close on a multi-million dollar SaaS website. In this interview Nathan shares how he approached his listing review, initial seller conference call, due diligence, navigating the SBA process and the transition after the sale. Nathan also shares why he feels SaaS businesses are the right fit for him, and what other types of website business models he looked at during his search. Episode Highlights: Learn how to make a buyer love you – and want to sell to only you. Interviews should be conversational, friendly and flow naturally. Nathan shares his SaaS due diligence process for this business. Seller was meticulous using Asana and Dropbox with SOPs and a streamlined process. How to navigate the SBA process and the team he worked with. What was it like to take over a remote team that was loyal to the owner. How he took over the business, worked for three weeks and then went on a three week vacation. SaaS Businesses produce recurring revenue without product working capital. Seller worked part-time and Nathan is planning full-time to expand and growth the business. Nathan purchased this SaaS business with an SBA Loan. Tax returns matching the P&L is great, but not always the case for solopreneurs. Keeping the sale confidential is critical until the APA is singed. https://youtu.be/yj_XkpWdRKs Transcription Mark: Hey Joe, how are you doing? Joe: Doing great today, how are you doing today Mark? Mark: I'm still under the weather. Joe: I had somebody tell me at the prosper show recently that they obviously enjoyed the podcast they came out to pay this compliment, but that he could tell we were in different parts of the country. I'm not sure how, I said "Did you watch" he said "No, I listened". And he knows that we're in different parts of the country. So where are you in the world just so people understand? Mark: How in the world did he know that? Joe: I don't know. It's your funny accent I think. Mark: I'm up from Minnesota, although people think that Minnesotans have an accent, we do, but especially up north. Not as much in the city. I'm in the Twin Cities the Saint Paul side. If anybody's ever coming to the twin cities just drop me a wine and be happy to get together. Where are you? Joe: I'm just northern shell at North Carolina out in Morris zone North Carolina, and the more people I talk to, there's lots of sellers around here, lots of buyers around here and I've connected to just quite a few so anybody in this area, reach out. Mark: I thought down in North Carolina you guys supposed to have a bit of a twang accent, aren't you? Joe: No, not from here. [inaudible 0:01:47] from here. Everybody moves here because they're too darn cold up north. I grew up in Maine. We fled to the south back in 2006. Mark: Ah, ah. Whoever that was that knew we were in different parts of the country, I want to know how. That's pretty good. Joe: Not only did he know that, he came up to me to thank you and me personally for doing the Podcast, number one, and doing it with Norm Ferrar on SOP's because he got to connect with Norm, and it helped take his business to the next level, and he said it has made a huge difference in his business and his life. Mark: That's fantastic! Joe: Yeah! It's a feel good moment at that time. Mark: We got to be careful; our heads are going to get really big. Joe: I know, I know. Let's talk about somebody who doesn't have a big head but should, because he's a really impressive guy. That's Nathan Singh. He bought a multi-million dollar SaaS site for a million. He has also been a client. We sold his SaaS businesses before. You remember Nathan well, right? Mark: Absolutely! Joe: Well, Nathan is one of the nicest guys, very humble. Former NASA scientist, NASA engineer, and turned entrepreneur. We worked together first on the sale of his business last spring, and then he purchased a multi-million dollar SaaS site I've closed in the fourth quarter. And in review, we're sharing on this Podcast a lot of the things that he did right to make a great impression on the buyer, to out-negotiate all cash buyers to work with the SBA and lender to literally, quote, Nathan is one of my favorite clients of all times from the SBA lender, and the under writer as well. He instilled confidence in everyone all along the way that made him the choice to be the buyer that they approved him overlooking at other buyers as well, and he has just done a great job. Getting the business sold and then he talks a little bit about what he has done since purchasing the business including going on a three week vacation within three weeks of buying a multi-million SaaS business. Mark: Wow that's pretty brave! I don't think I could've done that. Joe: He had it planned, he took it and things went well, and they continue to go well. Mark: That's really good. So I'm excited to listen to Nathan. Nathan is generally, one of the nicest guys I've dealt with in 10 years, and I've dealt with a lot of nice people but he rises at the top of the list of one of the nicest guys. I'm excited to see him in the video, because I don't think I've ever met him in person. Also, more importantly, listen to what he has to say. Mark: Let's go to it! Joe: Hey Nathan welcome to Quiet Light Podcast! How are you today? Nathan: I'm doing well, thanks for having me. Joe: Excellent man! We haven't chatted for a while. I know you've been traveling so welcome back. Listen, we've talked about this briefly but the tradition on the Quiet Light Podcast is that we don't read scripts and do flowing introductions of our guests. We'd rather hear it straight from you so, for the folks that are listening today, can you share some background on yourself as an entrepreneur and where you come from? Nathan: Yes sure. So, before I was even an entrepreneur, I started off doing software engineering, and mostly high level stuff on requirements and project management. Work on department of defense for a couple of years and then moved on to their space operation. So while I was there, I really got the bug, for trying to start my own business that we knew we have an idea what I was going to do, but I just happen to run across somebody who was selling an app and basically started his app and it was a screenwriting program called Scripts Pro, brew that out for a couple of years and then it got acquired, and I was like "I want to do this again" so it just rings and repeat. After that I had an online ordering platform called Order Zen and had the same with that. At that time was actually easy to broker. So I brew that out till what I can do, and then we got that acquired, of course with a seller for that one. Pretty much after that, we became very tight, and I monitored your listings specifically, very closely, and then we came across the listing for Envira Gallery and that's kind of have [inaudible 0:05:57] Basically, that's pretty much the background that I had since industry extinct and that's why I [inaudible 0:06:02] it over to this senior entrepreneur acquisitions have been online businesses. Joe: I think you sort of lightly flew, touched over the fact that you were a NASA scientist. I mean, come on, that's a glowing thing to have in your resume. Let's not make that too light. It's an interesting transition from a scientist working at NASA to becoming an entrepreneur. I guess once you get the bugs, you will get the bugging, and you can't stop. So that's great. So I want to talk a little bit about the process that we went through, and you in particular, went through in buying Syed's business. Syed was a guest on the Podcast as well, as you know. In terms of how it works for you and what we looked at, can you, for the people that are out there looking at businesses and building portfolios of online businesses, can you talk a little bit about your vetting process and how you went about it? Then we'll jump into how you handled the call of Syed and the whole process right through the closing. Nathan: Yeah, absolutely. So the good thing, I mean I had some pretty good time between the time that I sold my last business and the time that I was working. So I got pretty acquainted to what was in the market, multiples they were going for, and the kind of business that sell out. So predominantly I was looking at SaaS businesses. I've been it in before. I love the fact that it was recurring revenue, there's no product I had to deal with, so I really zero in on that as my primary, well, it's more left open to great businesses that had good year over year return, and Syed just sort of filled all those checkmarks. They had great in over a year return, it was growing. In his case there was kind of a lower owner involvement which is great because that allows me to come in at full time and really push at the growth. So those were some of the main key characteristics. But one of the biggest ones, I know that you're familiar with this one. First question I'll ask you is, "Joe, is this taxable?" and I wanted to make sure that was it, because I wanted to leverage my money as much as possible. It may not be for everybody but we certainly list, so I've been trying to pursue SBA business and the loans for a while, [inaudible 0:08:04] And as you know that's not been easy for the last, however many years. But I would say within the last year too, I've seen more qualified banks and qualified SBA folks come in and be able to really take that sort of thing with ecommerce businesses and SaaS businesses, know what they're talking about, and present it to their credit department, and make it happen, and I actually solve with Stephen Speer, he's not even a competitor, he's a guest as well. Joe: That's right Stephen Speer from BankUnited, for those that haven't heard the Podcast, he was a guest. Very informative, as far as lenders go, I'd say Stephen is top notch, the best, and he's an entrepreneur, sort of, himself. Yes he's a lender with BankUnited but he works from home often, more often than not, and lives our lifestyle which is really unique, and he understands ecommerce and so he is underwriter, really important. So for those not familiar with the SBA, it's Small Business Administration. If you're buying a two million dollar business for instance, you don't have to have two million dollars. You can have 200,000 dollars and really leverage your money. But note, is Austin a ten year note which obviously works very well in terms of these online businesses. Let's jump to the first call that you had with Syed. Nathan, can you talk about your objective was on that first conference call would start? Nathan: Yeah, so the objective is pretty much similar as with most sellers, you try to get a feel for the seller and knowing the business with its seller personally. You're going to be working pretty close to this guy or girl. So, the main thing is, I want to understand what Syed does day to day, what is his outlook for the business, you know, kind of that more, the regular things that you'll for even if you're buying a house, and how the thing was maintained. So with Syed, it was really, we talked about this before. He knew early on that I was a gator so that kind of help me knock a little bit there too. Joe: What do you mean gator? What does that… Nathan: For the gator, so quarter gator not [inaudible 0:10:11] it's seminal, it's two different things.. Joe: Did you see the Podcast by the way? Nathan: I heard the Podcast with Syed. Joe: I put the hat on and I have a gator said hold up… There it is right there folks.. Nathan: But yeah, it was really bad to understand, you know, kind of gains and knots in the businesses. I was a buyer, one of the specific things you're looking for is, is there anything I'm missing that wasn't in the perspectives, in terms of, what is the seller doing that if I remove him from this equation, will I still be able to do this? Because that taught something that you will rarely see at perspectives and even on conversation. You're kind of feeling out for that but at the main time, at the main thing, what I would advise, anybody that's listening that's looking to buy a business, because I've been doing this for a while, in terms of talking to sellers, and back and forth, and I've been selling my own business. You don't want this to be a stringent interview where you're just running through all these questions, you want to be very conversational and let it flow. I've gotten a lot of good results by doing things that way. I think that was the main thing, is that we kept it friendly and conversational instead of, "I'm trying to figure out why you're selling this because I don't trust you." It was just a totally different approach. Joe: I can tell you that, with the conversation that you had with Syed, he has told me that on that call he wasn't looking forward to it being over. He enjoyed the conversation and the things that you had in common like the gators, but more along the line of taking care of the customers, and taking care of your people or your staff first, and he really enjoyed it. Where some of the other conversations that other seller have, they can't wait until it's over. I had that experience with one of the people that called me when I had my business for sale back in 2010. He was rude, he was abrasive, and I did all I could to stay on the line and be polite, and just wanted the call to be over. Even if he made me a full press offer I would have a hard time selling him the business. So that makes a huge difference, I think when you ended the call with Syed, his thought was, "Man I really hope Nathan makes an offer, loves to do business with him, and the people that are using my services and products, and the staff that I have in place, will really enjoy working with Nathan and thrives with him as the leader of the business." Is that kind of what you were shooting for or it's just natural that you did that? Nathan: You know I think it's a little bit of both, I've sold being on the opposite side and being on Syed's then while I was selling my business, I've come across different buyers and newer party's conversations, when you just talk to them, you're like, this is not the right fit. Even if this guy came with a complete cash offer or whatever it could be, this may not be the right fit. With Syed, I kind of guessing here, I think he was sort of looking, not so much about the deal or the money but he was looking for a right fit because he was worried about his folks that were, i mean these are all permanent employees with no contract, there's really in this business, five of them, and so he really cared about them and he really cared about the customers. A lot of it came from me just doing things that were customer centered, I've always run companies like that, I've run teams that way, and I just sort of mentioned that, I was like, I don't know who else your other buyers are, but this is the way I do things, so I don't know if that fits within your battle, it just happen to be that way, and then I heard later on that these were his core values, and those are my core values, and we just sort of mesh over that. Joe: Yeah, it was exciting factor in choosing you over the, technically, two other buyers. Let's talk about, jump forward to your due diligence process, what was your goal in due diligence, how did you approach it, and how long did it take? Nathan: You know, it's funny. I've done more due diligence in past businesses that was much smaller. I'll sort of elaborate it on line. So the initial due diligence I've coarsely didn't know, returns on profit and loss versus statements and all that good stuff, what you're supposed to do. I did not do as deep with due diligence solely because of the talks that me and Syed did have, and just the reputation that Syed had. So his influence in the WordPress community, he has got a lot on the line. So I didn't really have to worry about him ripping you of and stuff like that. He was really worried about, they going to the right buyers, versus me worrying I've got the wrong seller and the wrong product and… Joe: But you still verified that financials that was to make sure… Nathan: Yeah, the basic stuff was all done but I didn't lose any sleep worrying if it's something was going to happen because, again, there's still background that you've parked over this. When you see that the tax returns are completely reflective with the P&L that got submitted and the perspectives, that right there gives me the warm fuzzy I need as I go forward. I don't have to kick and [inaudible 0:15:00] as much, trying to figure out where am I getting ripped off. You're going more with the mindset, okay the basis is there and everything else should just work flow and it did. But that was the main stuff, it's just making sure that everything wind up with ways that it was. Joe: You only note on the tax returns, for those buyers and sellers listening, Syed had a business partner, so often time with partners, the tax returns and the P&L's are very very clean. When you are a solo entrepreneur, your more things, personal things with the business, it can get a little bit messier. The SBA looks at the tax returns, first and foremost, they'll use the P&L's if it's halfway through the year, and three quarters went through the year, thanks for that nature. But the tax returns are first and foremost, and what they do, their valuations off of. So don't be completely afraid if you're a solo entrepreneur, that you cannot sell a business, then have it be, financed with an SBA loan because you absolutely can. With the lenders that we've worked with, they understand the add tax schedules and the personal benefits that anyone takes, and so do the underwriters within the group that we work with there. So, you didn't worry too much about the due diligence process, naturally, you verified the financials, you had several calls with Syed, and you went through the process with the SBA. Let's jump to that for just a moment, what was it like going through the SBA process and what did you had to do? Nathan: Yeah, the fun thing is that I had actually been through this process with previous businesses before, and so I've actually gone to that fun part of the business. We just had issues and pulled out. I was familiar going in. So first of all, kudos to Stephen, kudos to you, and kudos to Syed for just being an awesome team for making it all happen. That's probably why we had them work speedy close than what's usually expected. But you know, aside from that, I think having everything ready to go, I mean, Stephen was good about that, and pretty much gave me more or less the stuff that I needed in terms of, "These are things on the checklist, you should probably have this done because from my experience I know that it's more of that likely go through". That helps, because a lot of times, there's always [inaudible 0:17:17] going on, a lot of times the buyer takes a long time to get stuff back. So we didn't really have that issue here. But you know, again, it really mattered. I've worked with SBA bankers before, and it really matters on who it is that you're dealing with. With Stephen's case, he just had everything down. He's done ecommerce, he's done SaaS businesses, there is no "Well how does this work or where is the? So tell me where the hard assets are in the business?" There was none of that. So that kind of straight lined the process really well for all of us. But I think just having that stuff done upfront, that's what helped us get really done at speedy line. Joe: You said that Stephen and myself and the underwriters all worked very well together and Syed and so on and so forth. I happen to have dinner with Stephen and the underwriter that worked on your business, they were both in Charlotte a couple of weeks ago, and they both talked about you being one of their favorite buyers. So for anybody listening, this stuff matters, Nathan brought a business, would that note to the seller, when somebody else made and all cash offer. The seller chose Nathan over that all cash offer at the same purchase price, because he liked Nathan and what he stood for. The SBA lender and the underwriter, both said that Nathan was one of their favorite buyers of all time which makes process easier. They're going to work harder for you when they like you. It's human nature, so really really important to understand that aspect of it. Let's jump now on to closing, training, and transition, and what's taking place since then. I think we closed just before Christmas. By the way it was probably from letter of intent to closing about 50 days which is fairly short for an SBA loan, and we had a full week of thanksgiving in there, so call it 45ish. What's transpired since you close, how was it going, what was training and transition like and so on and so forth? Nathan: Yeah, again, comparing it to the past businesses I've had and worked with the past sellers, it's been night and day. The great thing is that because of the level of business, you know that will add the seven figures, because Syed runs seven and eight figure business above, he's very meticulous. So the first thing he did was setup, you know when they found a project in a drop box to view list. With all other things that his team needed to do for me, everything I needed in there. So that made it a lot more extreme ride then. Again if you're selling your business and you're getting to that point, make sure you have something like that in place, because that's the other warm fuzz and that lets you know that "Okay it's stuff I'm not thinking about as a buyer, the seller informed about for me" and we kind of running through those checklist. So, you know, I would say the transition went pretty smooth, I mean not really that he cuts.. You know, I talked to the CTO, I talked to the CFO, we all had these one on one's where we talked about what they did, so I made sure that I knew exactly what each person role is because I was taking over a couple of people's roles… Joe: How did they feel by the way, the staff, with you coming in and taking over Syed's role? Were they excited? Were they scared? What was that like to tell them that news? Nathan: You know, I think that initially they were, like most transitions, they were maybe a little one sided, just because, there was a lot of grey areas up until the actual deal was inked. So they were a little one sided, they were a little confused about what was going to happen now, they are getting the impression at something else or did I keep the same things they've had. So from my end, it just took a little bit of, getting them all on, talking to them face to face and letting them know, "Listen, everything stays the same, I've liked the way that Syed have done business, I've planned to keep those same things in place, let me know if there's something you're customed to and that is done because those things have all been accounted for" and so I wanted to do it and make sure I went above and beyond what they were expecting what happened after this transition and just kind of talk them down on the fears of what naturally happens when there's a transition even in corporate out and serious stuff. We're good to go now and that's what kind of passed that. Joe: While we kept it confidential, we didn't want to let the staff know that the business was even for sale, until everything was finalized, inked, and really truly going through. That's something all sellers struggle with, when to tell the core people. In my case, when I sold mine, I think I waited until the asset purchase agreement was signed, because she was valuable to me and I wanted her to stick around for me and for the new owner of the business. So that's what we did here, and I know that Syed said you did a great job instilling confidence in the staff and making them feel comfortable. One of the attractive things about this business is it was one of many businesses for Syed so he wasn't working full time on it. How was the workload then for you, taking over the business? Are you working full time early on or you're finding yourself with more than full time? You're working less? What's that situation like? Nathan: Yes, I'll say initially, at first two weeks, just like any transitions, it was pretty much full time. But I had a pre-planned vacation that's about three weeks long, that I have to go to India. So for me, that was a big deal to make sure that I would be able to leave and just do the minor stuff in the background and have some question, to get things while I'm abroad. Joe: So just, you bought the business, we closed, and then you had two and a half weeks of being around and then you went to India for three weeks? Nathan: Correct. Yeah. Joe: And everything still ran smoothly. Nathan: And everything is still smooth. I mean, that was mentioned to me early on and that was again, that was a really attractive factor to know that. You know, I think you've mentioned that you could move and go to the Far East and come back. That's kind of what I did. So, it was good to come back and see that everything was still in place, that the team was, the team was phenomenal, that Syed did assemble. Each individual player plays a major part in what they do, and for that reason they're also very turnkey. That's a turnkey business, turnkey team. So, that's why when I saw where am I inserting myself, it was kind of learning the role to what's already being done. How can I improve, how can I make things better for them, and be the leadership that Syed has been able to provide and do his other businesses. Joe: Okay, so where do you see your workload now? You were working really busy, after just a couple of weeks you went away for three weeks… Nathan: I would say that corporate atmosphere, it's like still checking at 8:00 to 9:00, I'm out by 5:00 – 5:30 and I'm told, you know, the employees do the same thing. Let's not make this a full 12 or 14 hour a day, and I want to balance that, that work-like balance too. Because I came from that kind of environment and I know it pays good. I usually work the eight or seven hours, sometimes nine whatever it needed. Rather than that, at a certain time before my wife comes home or whatever, I'm usually done, closed out, and I'm trying not to think about it. Joe: Well, what are you working on? Syed didn't work in about a few hours a week on the business and now you're working 30-40. Are you fixing broken things or are you working on to projects and growth opportunities? Nathan: Now the great thing is he built a solid foundation so what I'm really doing is I'm working on the stuff that he wasn't able to do, which is the marketing advertising taking that further gain, the PPC's setup, optimizing on the SEO getting the right content writers in to put that detailed information that we really liked, that's been attracting the other folks and traffic. So it's been really centered around the business development, the marketing and advertising stuff, which has really been done, because again, he's got great and recurring revenue, we've got a great organic traffic through Google, so from that right now, it's the going above and beyond the PPC stuff. The stuff that he didn't have to give and didn't really have to focus on because the business is really self-sustained. Joe: Right, so you want to grow the business, you didn't buy it and just collect a check every month, you're trying to grow it so you're putting in more hours. Nathan: Aside from just the business development, it's also providing that the one on one with these folks. I mean again, these are not contracted. These are folks that have certain benefits and they've liked that type of attention and focus from a leadership. So that's what I'm enable to do, I'm enable to gear about the product road map, provide my input to that where we want to go, instead of just kind of them doing whatever, it's done and just see that the money reach the bank, it's not really that. Joe: As far as much, one thing we haven't touched on is where they work from. You've got five employees, are they all working from an office or they're all remote? Nathan: They are all remote, they have been doing that for many years, so again, I tried to focus and know what side has all of you been doing, since Syed has 40 plus employees, they've been doing this for years, and I think Syed began and has been doing it for 14 to 15 years. So I liked that idea, and I liked the fact that they're able to do this with milestones. I don't know, there's no… You know a lot of times, I would just set a meeting yesterday, but some other guy, they own a company here in Houston, and they were like, how do you keep track? I was like, I don't. There's a lot of trust involved, and there's milestones that are set, and as long as these milestones are being set, I don't care where they're working that 40 hours. Joe: What's your favorite software? What system are you using to communicate and track what they do and work with them? Are you using Slack or what are you focused on? For people that are running remote staff that are having trouble with it, what would you recommend? Nathan: Yeah for Slack it's been awesome. I'm pretty new to Slack, I used Skype on my last business. Slack is way better than that so I highly recommend that. We use Zoom, we do a lot of this, the face to face meetings. I think that matters a lot with the remote staff, was getting at Facetime, and again, letting them know you're just not an employee behind the computer that's just in another state. We're talking to each other, we're going to do once or twice a year meet ups. So we do team building activities, that's super important too. Yeah I would say that Slack, the Zoom, and also Asana. Those things are big key to really help with the project management and the milestones we've set, and Github as well for the developers. Joe: Okay, awesome. Alright Nathan because we're running out of time, how do you see the future of the business? What are you looking over that 12, 24, 36 months? You're going to hold to stay, you grow at 10%, you're going to grow 50%, what are you predicting? Nathan: Yeah, you know, I hate to throw a prediction at it right now, I'm happy if we're over the double digits, anywhere in the double digits will do triple digits in over a year growth, I'm a happy, happy camper. I think when possible again, got a great business, great team in place, and there's nothing but upsides so, I'm looking forward to it. Joe: We'll going to have to check in, in the future and see how it turned out. You have any last minute thoughts for multipliers and sellers? You've been in both shoes, you sold, you offer your services, business, you bought one, any last minute thoughts in terms of what they should do or focus on? Nathan: Yeah, I would say the huge takeaway from this and for me has been, you know, when you're doing these buyer and seller conversations, no matter what side you're on, keep it conversational. It's great to have your question beside, but don't run through it like a machine gun and keep it just robotic and mechanical. Because there's a huge human element here involved and this was a prime example that actually happened. Joe: That's great. Nathan, pleasure doing business with you twice now, I'm looking forward to hearing some great news, great success, with Envira Gallery and so on and so forth. I hope that really works out and maybe we can check in, in the future and do another Podcast update and let the folks know how you've been succeeding. Nathan: Yeah, I would love to. Joe: Awesome man, thanks for your time today. Nathan: Awesome, talk to you later Joe. Links: Nathan Singh – LinkedIn GitHub Stephen Speer @ Bank United for SBA Loans Asana – Making Teams Work

If you've ever wanted to sell or purchase a SaaS business, listen to this Podcast because Nathan Singh has done both. He sold his own SaaS business in early 2017, only to turn around and buy a bigger SaaS business in December of the same year. He's a former NASA Scientist who out-negotiated a full price, all cash buyer to win the deal and close on a multi-million dollar SaaS website. In this interview Nathan shares how he approached his listing review, initial seller conference call, due diligence, navigating the SBA process and the transition after the sale. Nathan also shares why he feels SaaS businesses are the right fit for him, and what other types of website business models he looked at during his search. Episode Highlights: Learn how to make a buyer love you – and want to sell to only you. Interviews should be conversational, friendly and flow naturally. Nathan shares his SaaS due diligence process for this business. Seller was meticulous using Asana and Dropbox with SOPs and a streamlined process. How to navigate the SBA process and the team he worked with. What was it like to take over a remote team that was loyal to the owner. How he took over the business, worked for three weeks and then went on a three week vacation. SaaS Businesses produce recurring revenue without product working capital. Seller worked part-time and Nathan is planning full-time to expand and growth the business. Nathan purchased this SaaS business with an SBA Loan. Tax returns matching the P&L is great, but not always the case for solopreneurs. Keeping the sale confidential is critical until the APA is singed. https://youtu.be/yj_XkpWdRKs Transcription Mark: Hey Joe, how are you doing? Joe: Doing great today, how are you doing today Mark? Mark: I'm still under the weather. Joe: I had somebody tell me at the prosper show recently that they obviously enjoyed the podcast they came out to pay this compliment, but that he could tell we were in different parts of the country. I'm not sure how, I said “Did you watch” he said “No, I listened”. And he knows that we're in different parts of the country. So where are you in the world just so people understand? Mark: How in the world did he know that? Joe: I don't know. It's your funny accent I think. Mark: I'm up from Minnesota, although people think that Minnesotans have an accent, we do, but especially up north. Not as much in the city. I'm in the Twin Cities the Saint Paul side. If anybody's ever coming to the twin cities just drop me a wine and be happy to get together. Where are you? Joe: I'm just northern shell at North Carolina out in Morris zone North Carolina, and the more people I talk to, there's lots of sellers around here, lots of buyers around here and I've connected to just quite a few so anybody in this area, reach out. Mark: I thought down in North Carolina you guys supposed to have a bit of a twang accent, aren't you? Joe: No, not from here. [inaudible 0:01:47] from here. Everybody moves here because they're too darn cold up north. I grew up in Maine. We fled to the south back in 2006. Mark: Ah, ah. Whoever that was that knew we were in different parts of the country, I want to know how. That's pretty good. Joe: Not only did he know that, he came up to me to thank you and me personally for doing the Podcast, number one, and doing it with Norm Ferrar on SOP's because he got to connect with Norm, and it helped take his business to the next level, and he said it has made a huge difference in his business and his life. Mark: That's fantastic! Joe: Yeah! It's a feel good moment at that time. Mark: We got to be careful; our heads are going to get really big. Joe: I know, I know. Let's talk about somebody who doesn't have a big head but should, because he's a really impressive guy. That's Nathan Singh. He bought a multi-million dollar SaaS site for a million. He has also been a client. We sold his SaaS businesses before. You remember Nathan well, right? Mark: Absolutely! Joe: Well, Nathan is one of the nicest guys, very humble. Former NASA scientist, NASA engineer, and turned entrepreneur. We worked together first on the sale of his business last spring, and then he purchased a multi-million dollar SaaS site I've closed in the fourth quarter. And in review, we're sharing on this Podcast a lot of the things that he did right to make a great impression on the buyer, to out-negotiate all cash buyers to work with the SBA and lender to literally, quote, Nathan is one of my favorite clients of all times from the SBA lender, and the under writer as well. He instilled confidence in everyone all along the way that made him the choice to be the buyer that they approved him overlooking at other buyers as well, and he has just done a great job. Getting the business sold and then he talks a little bit about what he has done since purchasing the business including going on a three week vacation within three weeks of buying a multi-million SaaS business. Mark: Wow that's pretty brave! I don't think I could've done that. Joe: He had it planned, he took it and things went well, and they continue to go well. Mark: That's really good. So I'm excited to listen to Nathan. Nathan is generally, one of the nicest guys I've dealt with in 10 years, and I've dealt with a lot of nice people but he rises at the top of the list of one of the nicest guys. I'm excited to see him in the video, because I don't think I've ever met him in person. Also, more importantly, listen to what he has to say. Mark: Let's go to it! Joe: Hey Nathan welcome to Quiet Light Podcast! How are you today? Nathan: I'm doing well, thanks for having me. Joe: Excellent man! We haven't chatted for a while. I know you've been traveling so welcome back. Listen, we've talked about this briefly but the tradition on the Quiet Light Podcast is that we don't read scripts and do flowing introductions of our guests. We'd rather hear it straight from you so, for the folks that are listening today, can you share some background on yourself as an entrepreneur and where you come from? Nathan: Yes sure. So, before I was even an entrepreneur, I started off doing software engineering, and mostly high level stuff on requirements and project management. Work on department of defense for a couple of years and then moved on to their space operation. So while I was there, I really got the bug, for trying to start my own business that we knew we have an idea what I was going to do, but I just happen to run across somebody who was selling an app and basically started his app and it was a screenwriting program called Scripts Pro, brew that out for a couple of years and then it got acquired, and I was like “I want to do this again” so it just rings and repeat. After that I had an online ordering platform called Order Zen and had the same with that. At that time was actually easy to broker. So I brew that out till what I can do, and then we got that acquired, of course with a seller for that one. Pretty much after that, we became very tight, and I monitored your listings specifically, very closely, and then we came across the listing for Envira Gallery and that's kind of have [inaudible 0:05:57] Basically, that's pretty much the background that I had since industry extinct and that's why I [inaudible 0:06:02] it over to this senior entrepreneur acquisitions have been online businesses. Joe: I think you sort of lightly flew, touched over the fact that you were a NASA scientist. I mean, come on, that's a glowing thing to have in your resume. Let's not make that too light. It's an interesting transition from a scientist working at NASA to becoming an entrepreneur. I guess once you get the bugs, you will get the bugging, and you can't stop. So that's great. So I want to talk a little bit about the process that we went through, and you in particular, went through in buying Syed's business. Syed was a guest on the Podcast as well, as you know. In terms of how it works for you and what we looked at, can you, for the people that are out there looking at businesses and building portfolios of online businesses, can you talk a little bit about your vetting process and how you went about it? Then we'll jump into how you handled the call of Syed and the whole process right through the closing. Nathan: Yeah, absolutely. So the good thing, I mean I had some pretty good time between the time that I sold my last business and the time that I was working. So I got pretty acquainted to what was in the market, multiples they were going for, and the kind of business that sell out. So predominantly I was looking at SaaS businesses. I've been it in before. I love the fact that it was recurring revenue, there's no product I had to deal with, so I really zero in on that as my primary, well, it's more left open to great businesses that had good year over year return, and Syed just sort of filled all those checkmarks. They had great in over a year return, it was growing. In his case there was kind of a lower owner involvement which is great because that allows me to come in at full time and really push at the growth. So those were some of the main key characteristics. But one of the biggest ones, I know that you're familiar with this one. First question I'll ask you is, “Joe, is this taxable?” and I wanted to make sure that was it, because I wanted to leverage my money as much as possible. It may not be for everybody but we certainly list, so I've been trying to pursue SBA business and the loans for a while, [inaudible 0:08:04] And as you know that's not been easy for the last, however many years. But I would say within the last year too, I've seen more qualified banks and qualified SBA folks come in and be able to really take that sort of thing with ecommerce businesses and SaaS businesses, know what they're talking about, and present it to their credit department, and make it happen, and I actually solve with Stephen Speer, he's not even a competitor, he's a guest as well. Joe: That's right Stephen Speer from BankUnited, for those that haven't heard the Podcast, he was a guest. Very informative, as far as lenders go, I'd say Stephen is top notch, the best, and he's an entrepreneur, sort of, himself. Yes he's a lender with BankUnited but he works from home often, more often than not, and lives our lifestyle which is really unique, and he understands ecommerce and so he is underwriter, really important. So for those not familiar with the SBA, it's Small Business Administration. If you're buying a two million dollar business for instance, you don't have to have two million dollars. You can have 200,000 dollars and really leverage your money. But note, is Austin a ten year note which obviously works very well in terms of these online businesses. Let's jump to the first call that you had with Syed. Nathan, can you talk about your objective was on that first conference call would start? Nathan: Yeah, so the objective is pretty much similar as with most sellers, you try to get a feel for the seller and knowing the business with its seller personally. You're going to be working pretty close to this guy or girl. So, the main thing is, I want to understand what Syed does day to day, what is his outlook for the business, you know, kind of that more, the regular things that you'll for even if you're buying a house, and how the thing was maintained. So with Syed, it was really, we talked about this before. He knew early on that I was a gator so that kind of help me knock a little bit there too. Joe: What do you mean gator? What does that… Nathan: For the gator, so quarter gator not [inaudible 0:10:11] it's seminal, it's two different things.. Joe: Did you see the Podcast by the way? Nathan: I heard the Podcast with Syed. Joe: I put the hat on and I have a gator said hold up… There it is right there folks.. Nathan: But yeah, it was really bad to understand, you know, kind of gains and knots in the businesses. I was a buyer, one of the specific things you're looking for is, is there anything I'm missing that wasn't in the perspectives, in terms of, what is the seller doing that if I remove him from this equation, will I still be able to do this? Because that taught something that you will rarely see at perspectives and even on conversation. You're kind of feeling out for that but at the main time, at the main thing, what I would advise, anybody that's listening that's looking to buy a business, because I've been doing this for a while, in terms of talking to sellers, and back and forth, and I've been selling my own business. You don't want this to be a stringent interview where you're just running through all these questions, you want to be very conversational and let it flow. I've gotten a lot of good results by doing things that way. I think that was the main thing, is that we kept it friendly and conversational instead of, “I'm trying to figure out why you're selling this because I don't trust you.” It was just a totally different approach. Joe: I can tell you that, with the conversation that you had with Syed, he has told me that on that call he wasn't looking forward to it being over. He enjoyed the conversation and the things that you had in common like the gators, but more along the line of taking care of the customers, and taking care of your people or your staff first, and he really enjoyed it. Where some of the other conversations that other seller have, they can't wait until it's over. I had that experience with one of the people that called me when I had my business for sale back in 2010. He was rude, he was abrasive, and I did all I could to stay on the line and be polite, and just wanted the call to be over. Even if he made me a full press offer I would have a hard time selling him the business. So that makes a huge difference, I think when you ended the call with Syed, his thought was, “Man I really hope Nathan makes an offer, loves to do business with him, and the people that are using my services and products, and the staff that I have in place, will really enjoy working with Nathan and thrives with him as the leader of the business.” Is that kind of what you were shooting for or it's just natural that you did that? Nathan: You know I think it's a little bit of both, I've sold being on the opposite side and being on Syed's then while I was selling my business, I've come across different buyers and newer party's conversations, when you just talk to them, you're like, this is not the right fit. Even if this guy came with a complete cash offer or whatever it could be, this may not be the right fit. With Syed, I kind of guessing here, I think he was sort of looking, not so much about the deal or the money but he was looking for a right fit because he was worried about his folks that were, i mean these are all permanent employees with no contract, there's really in this business, five of them, and so he really cared about them and he really cared about the customers. A lot of it came from me just doing things that were customer centered, I've always run companies like that, I've run teams that way, and I just sort of mentioned that, I was like, I don't know who else your other buyers are, but this is the way I do things, so I don't know if that fits within your battle, it just happen to be that way, and then I heard later on that these were his core values, and those are my core values, and we just sort of mesh over that. Joe: Yeah, it was exciting factor in choosing you over the, technically, two other buyers. Let's talk about, jump forward to your due diligence process, what was your goal in due diligence, how did you approach it, and how long did it take? Nathan: You know, it's funny. I've done more due diligence in past businesses that was much smaller. I'll sort of elaborate it on line. So the initial due diligence I've coarsely didn't know, returns on profit and loss versus statements and all that good stuff, what you're supposed to do. I did not do as deep with due diligence solely because of the talks that me and Syed did have, and just the reputation that Syed had. So his influence in the WordPress community, he has got a lot on the line. So I didn't really have to worry about him ripping you of and stuff like that. He was really worried about, they going to the right buyers, versus me worrying I've got the wrong seller and the wrong product and… Joe: But you still verified that financials that was to make sure… Nathan: Yeah, the basic stuff was all done but I didn't lose any sleep worrying if it's something was going to happen because, again, there's still background that you've parked over this. When you see that the tax returns are completely reflective with the P&L that got submitted and the perspectives, that right there gives me the warm fuzzy I need as I go forward. I don't have to kick and [inaudible 0:15:00] as much, trying to figure out where am I getting ripped off. You're going more with the mindset, okay the basis is there and everything else should just work flow and it did. But that was the main stuff, it's just making sure that everything wind up with ways that it was. Joe: You only note on the tax returns, for those buyers and sellers listening, Syed had a business partner, so often time with partners, the tax returns and the P&L's are very very clean. When you are a solo entrepreneur, your more things, personal things with the business, it can get a little bit messier. The SBA looks at the tax returns, first and foremost, they'll use the P&L's if it's halfway through the year, and three quarters went through the year, thanks for that nature. But the tax returns are first and foremost, and what they do, their valuations off of. So don't be completely afraid if you're a solo entrepreneur, that you cannot sell a business, then have it be, financed with an SBA loan because you absolutely can. With the lenders that we've worked with, they understand the add tax schedules and the personal benefits that anyone takes, and so do the underwriters within the group that we work with there. So, you didn't worry too much about the due diligence process, naturally, you verified the financials, you had several calls with Syed, and you went through the process with the SBA. Let's jump to that for just a moment, what was it like going through the SBA process and what did you had to do? Nathan: Yeah, the fun thing is that I had actually been through this process with previous businesses before, and so I've actually gone to that fun part of the business. We just had issues and pulled out. I was familiar going in. So first of all, kudos to Stephen, kudos to you, and kudos to Syed for just being an awesome team for making it all happen. That's probably why we had them work speedy close than what's usually expected. But you know, aside from that, I think having everything ready to go, I mean, Stephen was good about that, and pretty much gave me more or less the stuff that I needed in terms of, “These are things on the checklist, you should probably have this done because from my experience I know that it's more of that likely go through”. That helps, because a lot of times, there's always [inaudible 0:17:17] going on, a lot of times the buyer takes a long time to get stuff back. So we didn't really have that issue here. But you know, again, it really mattered. I've worked with SBA bankers before, and it really matters on who it is that you're dealing with. With Stephen's case, he just had everything down. He's done ecommerce, he's done SaaS businesses, there is no “Well how does this work or where is the? So tell me where the hard assets are in the business?” There was none of that. So that kind of straight lined the process really well for all of us. But I think just having that stuff done upfront, that's what helped us get really done at speedy line. Joe: You said that Stephen and myself and the underwriters all worked very well together and Syed and so on and so forth. I happen to have dinner with Stephen and the underwriter that worked on your business, they were both in Charlotte a couple of weeks ago, and they both talked about you being one of their favorite buyers. So for anybody listening, this stuff matters, Nathan brought a business, would that note to the seller, when somebody else made and all cash offer. The seller chose Nathan over that all cash offer at the same purchase price, because he liked Nathan and what he stood for. The SBA lender and the underwriter, both said that Nathan was one of their favorite buyers of all time which makes process easier. They're going to work harder for you when they like you. It's human nature, so really really important to understand that aspect of it. Let's jump now on to closing, training, and transition, and what's taking place since then. I think we closed just before Christmas. By the way it was probably from letter of intent to closing about 50 days which is fairly short for an SBA loan, and we had a full week of thanksgiving in there, so call it 45ish. What's transpired since you close, how was it going, what was training and transition like and so on and so forth? Nathan: Yeah, again, comparing it to the past businesses I've had and worked with the past sellers, it's been night and day. The great thing is that because of the level of business, you know that will add the seven figures, because Syed runs seven and eight figure business above, he's very meticulous. So the first thing he did was setup, you know when they found a project in a drop box to view list. With all other things that his team needed to do for me, everything I needed in there. So that made it a lot more extreme ride then. Again if you're selling your business and you're getting to that point, make sure you have something like that in place, because that's the other warm fuzz and that lets you know that “Okay it's stuff I'm not thinking about as a buyer, the seller informed about for me” and we kind of running through those checklist. So, you know, I would say the transition went pretty smooth, I mean not really that he cuts.. You know, I talked to the CTO, I talked to the CFO, we all had these one on one's where we talked about what they did, so I made sure that I knew exactly what each person role is because I was taking over a couple of people's roles… Joe: How did they feel by the way, the staff, with you coming in and taking over Syed's role? Were they excited? Were they scared? What was that like to tell them that news? Nathan: You know, I think that initially they were, like most transitions, they were maybe a little one sided, just because, there was a lot of grey areas up until the actual deal was inked. So they were a little one sided, they were a little confused about what was going to happen now, they are getting the impression at something else or did I keep the same things they've had. So from my end, it just took a little bit of, getting them all on, talking to them face to face and letting them know, “Listen, everything stays the same, I've liked the way that Syed have done business, I've planned to keep those same things in place, let me know if there's something you're customed to and that is done because those things have all been accounted for” and so I wanted to do it and make sure I went above and beyond what they were expecting what happened after this transition and just kind of talk them down on the fears of what naturally happens when there's a transition even in corporate out and serious stuff. We're good to go now and that's what kind of passed that. Joe: While we kept it confidential, we didn't want to let the staff know that the business was even for sale, until everything was finalized, inked, and really truly going through. That's something all sellers struggle with, when to tell the core people. In my case, when I sold mine, I think I waited until the asset purchase agreement was signed, because she was valuable to me and I wanted her to stick around for me and for the new owner of the business. So that's what we did here, and I know that Syed said you did a great job instilling confidence in the staff and making them feel comfortable. One of the attractive things about this business is it was one of many businesses for Syed so he wasn't working full time on it. How was the workload then for you, taking over the business? Are you working full time early on or you're finding yourself with more than full time? You're working less? What's that situation like? Nathan: Yes, I'll say initially, at first two weeks, just like any transitions, it was pretty much full time. But I had a pre-planned vacation that's about three weeks long, that I have to go to India. So for me, that was a big deal to make sure that I would be able to leave and just do the minor stuff in the background and have some question, to get things while I'm abroad. Joe: So just, you bought the business, we closed, and then you had two and a half weeks of being around and then you went to India for three weeks? Nathan: Correct. Yeah. Joe: And everything still ran smoothly. Nathan: And everything is still smooth. I mean, that was mentioned to me early on and that was again, that was a really attractive factor to know that. You know, I think you've mentioned that you could move and go to the Far East and come back. That's kind of what I did. So, it was good to come back and see that everything was still in place, that the team was, the team was phenomenal, that Syed did assemble. Each individual player plays a major part in what they do, and for that reason they're also very turnkey. That's a turnkey business, turnkey team. So, that's why when I saw where am I inserting myself, it was kind of learning the role to what's already being done. How can I improve, how can I make things better for them, and be the leadership that Syed has been able to provide and do his other businesses. Joe: Okay, so where do you see your workload now? You were working really busy, after just a couple of weeks you went away for three weeks… Nathan: I would say that corporate atmosphere, it's like still checking at 8:00 to 9:00, I'm out by 5:00 – 5:30 and I'm told, you know, the employees do the same thing. Let's not make this a full 12 or 14 hour a day, and I want to balance that, that work-like balance too. Because I came from that kind of environment and I know it pays good. I usually work the eight or seven hours, sometimes nine whatever it needed. Rather than that, at a certain time before my wife comes home or whatever, I'm usually done, closed out, and I'm trying not to think about it. Joe: Well, what are you working on? Syed didn't work in about a few hours a week on the business and now you're working 30-40. Are you fixing broken things or are you working on to projects and growth opportunities? Nathan: Now the great thing is he built a solid foundation so what I'm really doing is I'm working on the stuff that he wasn't able to do, which is the marketing advertising taking that further gain, the PPC's setup, optimizing on the SEO getting the right content writers in to put that detailed information that we really liked, that's been attracting the other folks and traffic. So it's been really centered around the business development, the marketing and advertising stuff, which has really been done, because again, he's got great and recurring revenue, we've got a great organic traffic through Google, so from that right now, it's the going above and beyond the PPC stuff. The stuff that he didn't have to give and didn't really have to focus on because the business is really self-sustained. Joe: Right, so you want to grow the business, you didn't buy it and just collect a check every month, you're trying to grow it so you're putting in more hours. Nathan: Aside from just the business development, it's also providing that the one on one with these folks. I mean again, these are not contracted. These are folks that have certain benefits and they've liked that type of attention and focus from a leadership. So that's what I'm enable to do, I'm enable to gear about the product road map, provide my input to that where we want to go, instead of just kind of them doing whatever, it's done and just see that the money reach the bank, it's not really that. Joe: As far as much, one thing we haven't touched on is where they work from. You've got five employees, are they all working from an office or they're all remote? Nathan: They are all remote, they have been doing that for many years, so again, I tried to focus and know what side has all of you been doing, since Syed has 40 plus employees, they've been doing this for years, and I think Syed began and has been doing it for 14 to 15 years. So I liked that idea, and I liked the fact that they're able to do this with milestones. I don't know, there's no… You know a lot of times, I would just set a meeting yesterday, but some other guy, they own a company here in Houston, and they were like, how do you keep track? I was like, I don't. There's a lot of trust involved, and there's milestones that are set, and as long as these milestones are being set, I don't care where they're working that 40 hours. Joe: What's your favorite software? What system are you using to communicate and track what they do and work with them? Are you using Slack or what are you focused on? For people that are running remote staff that are having trouble with it, what would you recommend? Nathan: Yeah for Slack it's been awesome. I'm pretty new to Slack, I used Skype on my last business. Slack is way better than that so I highly recommend that. We use Zoom, we do a lot of this, the face to face meetings. I think that matters a lot with the remote staff, was getting at Facetime, and again, letting them know you're just not an employee behind the computer that's just in another state. We're talking to each other, we're going to do once or twice a year meet ups. So we do team building activities, that's super important too. Yeah I would say that Slack, the Zoom, and also Asana. Those things are big key to really help with the project management and the milestones we've set, and Github as well for the developers. Joe: Okay, awesome. Alright Nathan because we're running out of time, how do you see the future of the business? What are you looking over that 12, 24, 36 months? You're going to hold to stay, you grow at 10%, you're going to grow 50%, what are you predicting? Nathan: Yeah, you know, I hate to throw a prediction at it right now, I'm happy if we're over the double digits, anywhere in the double digits will do triple digits in over a year growth, I'm a happy, happy camper. I think when possible again, got a great business, great team in place, and there's nothing but upsides so, I'm looking forward to it. Joe: We'll going to have to check in, in the future and see how it turned out. You have any last minute thoughts for multipliers and sellers? You've been in both shoes, you sold, you offer your services, business, you bought one, any last minute thoughts in terms of what they should do or focus on? Nathan: Yeah, I would say the huge takeaway from this and for me has been, you know, when you're doing these buyer and seller conversations, no matter what side you're on, keep it conversational. It's great to have your question beside, but don't run through it like a machine gun and keep it just robotic and mechanical. Because there's a huge human element here involved and this was a prime example that actually happened. Joe: That's great. Nathan, pleasure doing business with you twice now, I'm looking forward to hearing some great news, great success, with Envira Gallery and so on and so forth. I hope that really works out and maybe we can check in, in the future and do another Podcast update and let the folks know how you've been succeeding. Nathan: Yeah, I would love to. Joe: Awesome man, thanks for your time today. Nathan: Awesome, talk to you later Joe. Links: Nathan Singh – LinkedIn GitHub Stephen Speer @ Bank United for SBA Loans Asana – Making Teams Work

Steve Nudelberg is a serial salesman & entrepreneur. As a product of his entrepreneurial spirit, he developed On the Ball - a company that focuses exclusively on sales & business development. Inspiration for the company name was derived from the feedback Steve received from business associates, claiming that he was always 'on the ball'. The core philosophy is rooted in that what we know and who we know can help your business grow. On The Ball's list of clients include Toshiba, BankUnited, AIG, Transworld Business Advisors., and Getaway2Give Steve's book "Confessions of a Serial Salesman" is a best-seller and is a very practical and easy-to-read book. He is a mover and a shaker as he partners with some of the biggest names in sports, business, and entertainment. Steve is high-energy and truly a motivating guy. In today’s episode, we discuss: Why Steve gets up between 3-3:30 each morning What makes his philosophy on sales different and so successful How to connect and build great relationships Website: www.nudelberg.com Twitter: @Nudelberg Instagram: @Nudelberg On The Ball Marketing website: www.ontheballmarketing.com Listen to Steve's On The Ball podcast, where he has had guests like John Salley and Brandon Steiner Get a copy of Steve's book "Confessions of a Serial Salesman"  The Tipping Point: How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference by Malcolm Gladwell Make Your Bed: Little Things That Can Change Your Life...And Maybe The World by Admiral William H. McRaven Dig Your Well Before You're Thirsty: The Only Networking Book You'll Ever Need by Harvey Mackay Watch the Admiral McRaven University of Texas speech that Steve mentioned by clicking here. "My network determines my net worth." (Steve Nudelberg) Today's podcast is brought to you by audible - get a FREE audiobook download and 30-day free trial (new subscribers only) at www.audibletrial.com/SuccessIsAChoice. Over 180,000 titles to choose from for your iPhone, Android, Kindle or mp3 player.  Get a free audio book download from one of our past podcast guests such as Kevin Harrington, Micheal Burt, Lolly Daskal, Jeremie Kubicek, Kelly Roach, and Pat Williams.

Many larger deals are SBA-oriented. This is a better method for buyers because they get a 10 year repayment period, and it is better for sellers because they can get more money. In 2018, SBA lending limits are changing and they will be bringing 90% of the funds to the deals. It is really good for buyers and sellers. Today, we are talking with Stephen Speer who is the VP and Business Development Officer at BankUnited Small Business Finance. Stephen is a lender, not a banker. Bankers have a tendency to over-promise and underdeliver. We had a bank deal that took over 90 days to close. Both the buyer and the seller were beside themselves with frustration. With a transaction we recently did with Stephen, we got a commitment letter in 34 days which put us two weeks away from closing. This is an SBA transaction that will close in 30 to 45 days which puts us on the same playing field as cash buyers. Today, we are going to cover benefits of the new SBA guidelines and how they benefit both the buyers and the sellers. [Download Our SBA Starter Kit PDF] Episode Highlights: How the SBA aspect of buying and selling online businesses is becoming more prevalent. Stephan has been lending for 25 years and is now located in Tampa, Florida. He works in the ecommerce business acquisition space. He has been with BankUnited for the last two years. The SBA allows lenders to take a greater risk by guaranteeing 75% of that loan. The purpose is to encourage small business lending. Stephen has formed an ecommerce lending team around him. BankUnited is a preferred lender and everything is underwritten and funded in house, but the loan has the SBA default guarantee. Buyer qualifications include income, assets, assets after closing, credit, and collateral. Does the actual business cash flow based on the structure of the deal. Asking the right questions to make sure the buyer is the right fit for the ecommerce space and business that they are purchasing. Getting financials up front and looking at a solid year of tax returns and a ramp up year. How most sellers in ecommerce sell within three years because the trajectory is going up in large multiples. Profit and loss statement plus addbacks equal total earnings. Interest and one time expenses area add backs. Most people want to minimize their tax exposure. Do not commingle two businesses together when you are trying to sell one. Getting off of schedule cs and doing business tax returns. Having an independent third party do a business valuation. Have someone do ecommerce due diligence to poke holes in the financials. 25% injection or down payment with 10 or 15 from the buyer and 10 or 15 from the seller in a seller note. In 2018, the buyer will only have to come up with a 10% injection, and the seller won't have to come up with anything. This will have more sellers open to financing. BankUnited feels comfortable up to a $5 million loan. There are different variables, but with the right buyer they can go high. They will work with buyers on the SBA process. What does an SBA loan cost? There is a deposit for third party fees like business valuation, appraisal, titles, and attorneys. It's usually about $12,000 that is financed into the loan. Plus a 3.5% SBA fee. It the deal falls apart the money can be used on the next deal. Resources: BankUnited Small Business Finance 629 South Fort Harrison Avenue Clearwater, FL 33755 813.382.7543 SSpeer@BankUnited.com BankUnited.com/SBF How To Buy An Online Business With A SBA Loan – Updated for 2017 Centurica

Many larger deals are SBA-oriented. This is a better method for buyers because they get a 10 year repayment period, and it is better for sellers because they can get more money. In 2018, SBA lending limits are changing and they will be bringing 90% of the funds to the deals. It is really good for buyers and sellers. Today, we are talking with Stephen Speer who is the VP and Business Development Officer at BankUnited Small Business Finance. Stephen is a lender, not a banker. Bankers have a tendency to over-promise and underdeliver. We had a bank deal that took over 90 days to close. Both the buyer and the seller were beside themselves with frustration. With a transaction we recently did with Stephen, we got a commitment letter in 34 days which put us two weeks away from closing. This is an SBA transaction that will close in 30 to 45 days which puts us on the same playing field as cash buyers. Today, we are going to cover benefits of the new SBA guidelines and how they benefit both the buyers and the sellers. [Download Our SBA Starter Kit PDF] Episode Highlights: How the SBA aspect of buying and selling online businesses is becoming more prevalent. Stephan has been lending for 25 years and is now located in Tampa, Florida. He works in the ecommerce business acquisition space. He has been with BankUnited for the last two years. The SBA allows lenders to take a greater risk by guaranteeing 75% of that loan. The purpose is to encourage small business lending. Stephen has formed an ecommerce lending team around him. BankUnited is a preferred lender and everything is underwritten and funded in house, but the loan has the SBA default guarantee. Buyer qualifications include income, assets, assets after closing, credit, and collateral. Does the actual business cash flow based on the structure of the deal. Asking the right questions to make sure the buyer is the right fit for the ecommerce space and business that they are purchasing. Getting financials up front and looking at a solid year of tax returns and a ramp up year. How most sellers in ecommerce sell within three years because the trajectory is going up in large multiples. Profit and loss statement plus addbacks equal total earnings. Interest and one time expenses area add backs. Most people want to minimize their tax exposure. Do not commingle two businesses together when you are trying to sell one. Getting off of schedule cs and doing business tax returns. Having an independent third party do a business valuation. Have someone do ecommerce due diligence to poke holes in the financials. 25% injection or down payment with 10 or 15 from the buyer and 10 or 15 from the seller in a seller note. In 2018, the buyer will only have to come up with a 10% injection, and the seller won't have to come up with anything. This will have more sellers open to financing. BankUnited feels comfortable up to a $5 million loan. There are different variables, but with the right buyer they can go high. They will work with buyers on the SBA process. What does an SBA loan cost? There is a deposit for third party fees like business valuation, appraisal, titles, and attorneys. It's usually about $12,000 that is financed into the loan. Plus a 3.5% SBA fee. It the deal falls apart the money can be used on the next deal. Resources: BankUnited Small Business Finance 629 South Fort Harrison Avenue Clearwater, FL 33755 813.382.7543 SSpeer@BankUnited.com BankUnited.com/SBF How To Buy An Online Business With A SBA Loan – Updated for 2017 Centurica

Confessions of a Serial Salesman The Podcast with Gerry Litrento, SEVP at BankUnited by Steve Nudelberg

"Duck farmer," asks host Michael Stoler, "what's a duck farmer?" So begins the conversation with John Kanas, named chairman, president and CEO of BankUnited, in 2009. Mr. Kanas grew up on Long Island, taught school and became a bank president at 29.

Uncle Sam seizes and sells Florida’s BankUnited. The dollar continues its decline. And the SEC takes a closer look at just how, exactly, Bernie made off with billions. In this week’s Motley Fool Money we tackle those questions, discuss whether U.S. stocks really are cheap, air some beefs, and offer up three stock ideas.