Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the Money Mondays. We are here. I'm just recording right now on Father's Day, so it's Sunday. Tomorrow, this episode comes out, which is today for you in real-time. That's why I'm wearing this dad hat that Trevor got me. I'm not officially a father yet. I got 60 days left until around August 17th or so that this baby named Ariana Ocean. She will be joining me on this adventures, and you will see here on the podcast. You will see her on stages with me, not right away, obviously, but as soon as she's allowed to be, she'll be traveling on tour. And her Instagram is Baby Girl Boss. I'm going to try to inspire more women to come into the investing world, podcasting, speaking, everything between. And so I'm going to take a little Baby Girl Boss out onto the world and showcase why women should dive into investing and learning about everything in this category and the whole concept of the Money Mondays. I started it because I wanted to teach, showcase why we should have these important discussions about money. Typically, we cover three core topics: how to make money, how to invest money, how to give it away to charity.

Today's topic is going to be a shorter form episode, a solo episode. We're here at the Ranch right now on Father's Day, where I want to dive into How do I, for myself, think about investing into companies, which is called private equity investments or angel investing, for you to consider for yourself, if you ever want to invest into a company, what are some of the things that you should look for and decide for yourself? Because typically, angel investing is considered high risk. I have lowered my risk by these main categories. Is there still risk? Of course there is. However, if I can think about the four things I'm going to go over with you before I make my investment decision, it will reduce my risk drastically. I've done 43 angel investments. I raised $44 million the last couple of years for investments into mostly food and beverage brands or what's called CPG, consumer product goods. I typically invest 3 to 6 million dollars per deal. I put in a portion of that and I raise that type of amount, 3 to 6 million dollars per deal. I'll walk you through some real life companies that I've done in the past, present, and future.

And I do that into companies doing between 2 and $20 million in sales. Why do I like the $2 million to $20 million in sales range? It's because the hardest part of business is zero to one million. I mean, zero to $100,000 is really hard, but zero to $1 million, really, really hard. Zero to $2 million, the reason I wait till $2 million is they got past the hard stuff, the zero to $1 million, like figuring out if people buy their stuff, figuring out their website, e-commerce shipping, their goods, services, brand, product, app, whatever is the thing that they do, zero to one million, it means, wow, they already surpassed most of the free world. Most anybody that tries to start a company doesn't ever get to one million. So if they get to two million, well, now they figured it out, right? They're about to get into their They probably have the right staff involved. They're hiring some more people. When they started at 3, 4, 5, 6, 7 million, obviously, now it's something that I can really scale. I can come in and pour gasoline on the fire if you're doing 6 million.

If you're doing zero, I can't pour gas in the fire, the floor just gets wet because there's no spark. And so for me, I'm trying to find companies doing at least $2 million in sales that I can pour gas in their fire. So I'll walk you through some real life examples. I'll walk you through my theories of how I come up with and decide investing these companies. So you can think for yourself, maybe one day you want to invest. It could be today, tomorrow, next year, 10 years from now. But I want to walk you through it. So whether you're thinking about it or maybe a significant other, a parent, a friend, a kid, a coworker, they might be thinking about investing in the companies. Typically, angel investing is a $25,000 minimum. Can you invest a thousand bucks, five grand, 10 grand? Of course you can in different types of deals. Some deals have larger minimums, but for the most part, people consider an angel investment check around $25,000. You have a complete option of how much you want to invest into it. However, what I think about is it's a one-to-one loss-risk ratio. So let's say you're investing $25,000.

Your only loss-risk ratio is that a 25 grand. All you can lose is $25,000, which is a lot of money. I'm just saying in the math part of it, 25 grand could be five grand, 500,000, 5 million. The concept is the same. One to one risk ratio. That's what you can lose. But the win could be 50,000, 100,000, 500,000, a million, 2 million, 5 million. The win rate can be very high depending on the type of company you're investing into. If you invest into one individual location, it will never become a billion dollar company. If you invest into a franchise, maybe it could. See the difference? If you invest into one thing, it only has X amount of cap that it can get to. There's a maximum. If you invest into something that's very scalable, it can go very big. Now, the things that I invest into, I'm not always looking for grand slams. I don't need it to be billion dollar companies. I'm happy with what they call a base hit, a single or a double. I might invest in one location and it goes on to do six figures or seven figures. That's fantastic.

I'm not looking for everything to go become an eight figure, nine figure, 10 figure, billion dollar company. It's unnecessary. Sometimes I want that I want that high risk. Sometimes I just want to make something that I can put in 25 grand, 50 grand, 100 grand, 200 grand, and it just makes back some money, 10 %, 20 %, 50 %. Other times, I'm putting in that same amount of capital hoping for 500 %, 900 %, 2000 %, something crazy to happen because I'm angel investing, hoping for a big return. Now, let me give you real life examples. Rumboboxing, boom. They have over 90 locations, but I only invested into one. So you might have seen me post on social media a couple of months ago, buying 50 % of the West Hollywood location of Rumbuboxing. Why did I do that? Well, that individual location can only do X. X being, let's call it, six figures a month, the lowest six a month. Because we're capped out on how many classes we can have per day. It's around $25 to $40 a class, depending on the class or the package that you buy. And so we're maxed out at what it could ever do gross sales-wise.

So why did I do it? Why at this stage of my career would I invest into one location when over here at Ever Bowl, I invested and we've got 94, 95, 96 locations now and growing? Why not invest more into that thing? Well, let me explain it. So with Rumbubox in this example, the calendar, his name is Noah Nyman. Well, he created this business with some really interesting investors. Very cool. Brought a lot of celebrities and DJs and musicians and models into Rumbuboxing. He scaled it to around 12, 13 locations, sold to a private equity group. They've now scaled to over 90 locations. That's an interesting story. Typically, I would have liked to invest into that in the beginning, right? When he would have gone to four, five, six locations, not one. When he got to four, five, six, I would have wanted to invest in around there because that's around that two, three, four million dollars, right? You see where I'm going? Why did I invest into just one location when there's already 90 out there now? Because it's a proven business, but I see things in that location that I can improve or increase revenue on.

Here's a real life example. The West Hollywood location is right there on Sunset Boulevard, and I noticed when I went inside there, there was no refrigerator, selling water, drinks, supplements, snacks, food, anything. So that was a pretty obvious thing. I said, That's not rocket science. I just thought about, well, people are boxing and working out for 45 minutes. I'm sure they want some water or juice or something healthy that they could drink, maybe a quick snack, maybe some food, maybe some food to go. So I brought I had an Icon Meals. So iconmeals. Com, it was very healthy meals. We raised $3 million for them a couple of years ago. So I went on both sides, right? I helped raise $3 million for Icon Meals. The UFC also invested into the company. At the same time. I now place Icon Meals inside of Rumbuboxing, and now I've got hundreds of people a week, sometimes hundreds of people a day, looking at Icon Meals. That's cool for me. It's cool for Icon Meals. And so I'm double-dipping in that scenario, right? But that's added extra revenue when people buy those meals, which has been doing really well in that refrigerator.

Well, great. That's extra revenue. I'm bringing in first-form supplements. I don't own a piece of first-form, but I've been helping with social media campaigns since 2016. They built up this humongous brand, a multi-billion dollar brand. And so if I can help them even more for free just to place it there, that's great. I get more friends seeing it. I get all these new class members seeing it. Hundreds of people a day, hundreds of people a week, get to check out First Form. Great. It's just a nice thing to do for my friend. Cool. If they start buying it, I don't make any money from it, but it's nice to do it, and it increases the revenue here at Rimbaud Boxing. And I can go on and on with the different snacks you'll see there. We have BLK water that's in there now. We're going to be putting in Rise We have coffee. We have glowwater in there from our friend Kev. A bunch of different brands that I'm friendly with are now placed there, getting lots of people seeing it, posting on social media. So by doing that, I'm increasing the revenue of a business that already has a good amount of members in it.

Then start adding social media content, start adding branded deals, getting corporations to start throwing events there, adding all this more social media content. We've already increased the revenue by 28% in just like two months. Why? Just more action, more eyeballs, more ways for people to spend money to buy drinks, snacks, supplements, etc. Nothing I'm doing is rocket science. I just found a business that the founder, Noah, already knows it inside out. He loves it. He's passionate about it. It's a great product. All I can do is look and analyze, how can I fix this business to increase the revenue? You can do the same thing in your niche. You might be really good as an accountant. You might be really good as a doctor or a lawyer or a health specialist or a as an organization designer, you might see a company or project or something that you might want to invest into or consult for or advise for and get some equity in that you can help fix and increase the already existing business. That one location, now that I can take it to, let's call it six figures a month, low six figures a month.

If it can go up a little bit more, 28 %, and then eventually 30, 40 %, that's fantastic. Will that impact my life forever financially? No, not one location. But what if I call corporate a year from and say, Hey, by the way, this revenue was at this, and now we increase it to 30, 40, 50 % higher by doing these things. Would you sell me more or do a deal with me to help you on your stores? That could be interesting. And if it doesn't work out and the parent company never says anything, or they don't want to do anything, no problem. I'm happy taking my investment into this one location, increasing it by 30, 40, 50 %. And that's cool. That's perfectly fine. That's considered what's called a base hit. Now, on the other side, going for a grand slam is Ever Bowl. Ever Bowl is an acai bowl chain. I invested $500,000 back in 2018. I brought a friend of mine to put in $500,000, another friend to put in $500,000. 2019, I raised them $5 million for the company to take these acai bowl locations that there was around 17, 18, 19, 20 locations at the time and helped them scale.

Fast forward a couple of years later, now here we are in 2024. They have around 94, 95, 96 locations. It's hard to keep up because they open a new location every six days, which is wild. They just built another warehouse called WeBuild. They built another warehouse called WeBuild in Atlanta, 45,000 square feet. And so now they'll start to open locations every three or four days, which is even wilder. And so I helped invest into the company. I helped raise capital for the company. Me and some friends bought a bunch of locations. I'm really into this company. This is why I'm looking for a grand slam. I don't want to sell the company right now. I don't own the whole company. I'm saying that I'm I'm hoping that they don't sell right now because I believe in this business. There's already over 400 locations from franchisees that have been paid for. Drew Brees has like 160 locations. Jason Tatum, who's probably going to win tonight. Who knows when you guys listen to this tomorrow? Probably going to win. Boston Celtics are going to take game five and finish this off. Well, if he might be the MVP, and he just invested a lot of money into the company and bought locations for Boston and St.

Louis. So I got Jason Tatum, Drew Brees, Gary Vee is involved in Ever Bowl now. We got Kamara Usman, the UFC fighter, like all our investors, partners, advisors of this company. I'm looking at a grand slam for this one, right? I'm hoping for something huge to happen here, and I've been in it for over half a decade now. That's okay. This is the one that it's worth it. I don't want to make 20, 30, 40 %. I want to take what's called my shot at glory, and it comes back to be a thousand %, 2000 %. Something crazy and wild happens for this business financially because a year and a half ago, they also raised an additional $15 million in funding to have a war chest of capital. So it's quite a safe investment now for me because there's no debt. Company has a bunch of money. It's called a war chest. It took a war chest round. So that it could fade any situation. Anything that happens out there in the markets, it's got the capital to do whatever it needs to. But at the same time of the war chest round, also selling over 400 locations to franchisees.

Holy smokes. A lot of income coming in. And tens of millions of dollars in gross sales. And so for me, that one is very compelling because if we have hundreds of locations, not if, when we have hundreds of locations, this could become a very large exit. It's very compelling because I invested quite early into the business. So this could be 10X, 20X, 30X, who knows? That's called a grand slam. I'm waiting for a grand slam. So one franchise has almost the exact amount of locations, I think 94, 95 of Rumbble Boxing. I only invested in one, and I only have 50% of one location. On the other side, I own a bunch of locations of Ever Bowl, like physical locations. I invest into the parent company for equity. I'm helping on every different angle to really be integrated in the business, hoping for a grand slam. You see the two different dynamics? I just want to talk you through real life, real financials, real numbers of what I'm really doing with these things so you can pick and choose things for yourself and things that might be relatable to you. Or open your eyes up to be like, You know what?

Maybe I do want to invest into a company. Maybe there is someone in my world that has seven gyms. Maybe you want to invest in number eight. Maybe you know someone that has six dry cleanings or they have 17 landscapings. Well, those are interesting for you to consider maybe investing into those. If your friend isn't opening up number one dry cleaning or number one laundromat or number one taco shop or their first pizza restaurant, that is really high risk investing. Lowering your risk is when they have five and eight and twelve. See that difference? Going Going from location 12 to 13, not that hard. Going from location zero to one, super hard. Like super hard. Let me back it up. Back when I was saying I wanted to be at least $2 million in revenue, going from 11 million revenue to 19 million revenue, not hard at all. Like, literally not hard at all. I don't want to downplay it, but I'm going to downplay it. 11 million, 19 million, not hard. Going from zero to one million, super duper hard. Barely anybody ever does it. So if you find someone's already doing a couple of million in revenue, well, they've already shown you so many things on my list.

So that brings me to the list. And then we'll go back to some other companies and I'll walk you through real-life investments. So my list is four core topics to make a decision if I'm going to invest into a business or brand or person. Number one, do I believe that this person, the CEO, the top executives, are what I call ride or die? Will this person at one in the morning at a convention booth, find out that the plumbing fell and there's flooding all over their booth, will they go there and fix it, willingly? Or they're like, You know what? Let's just go at 07:00 AM tomorrow, and maybe I'll get some of the guys to take care of it for us. Okay. I want someone that at 1:00 in the morning immediately throws their clothes on and runs over to the convention and starts figuring it out because they don't want their brand representation the next morning when When thousands of people come in that are there for the convention, see your booth in disarray because you don't want... You can even imagine people seeing your brand like that. I want someone ride or die.

Now, I'm not saying you have to work 24 hours a day in blood, sweat, tears all the time, but because if you want me to give you $500,000 into your business, I don't want to see you in the Maldives. I don't want to see you in Bali on a yacht. I don't. I gave you money for your company, and I want you to be invest into that business. I want you to care about your business. So part one is, do I believe that this person is right or die? Are they willing to work morning, noon, or night on their business because they care and they want to? Can they do it? Do they have experience? Now, they don't always have to have experience. Let me be clear about that. Having experience is nice in sometimes, in some categories, but not always. And they can fix that with advisors, executives, other people around them. They can be, the CEO could just be the visionary that's passionate about that thing, but they don't necessarily have to have a wide array of experience. Give me a real quick example. So let's say there's a Harvard graduate that's selling red cups, and his red cups are typically $3 he's selling for $250 to beat the market.

And he knows he can sell it because XYZ amount of cups for college campuses and homes. And everyone wants these red Solo cups. He made a more efficient version, 50 cents cheaper, blah, blah, blah, blah, cups with a percentage going to help rescue the planet. Her green cups are biodegradable. They're zero % this, no carbon footprint, blah, blah, blah. Her thing is passion. She cares about saving the planet. She cares about being carbon neutral. She cares about everywhere, of how they make these cups, how they sell these cups, and everything about it. In this example, the Harvard graduate has real experience. He's got the pedigree. He knows all the numbers. He's got the stats, the business plan, the financials. Everything is dialed in. Who do you think Dan wants to invest into? Well, it's not the Harvard one. Why? The obvious choice would be Harvard, right? From a financial safety perspective, this Harvard graduate, to me, is unlikely to be ride or die. It's no offense to Harvard. It's very smart, very well put together. But if Gary Vee calls him and says, Hey, buddy, I'll give you $1 million to travel around to be the president of my company, and I want you to take on this new category, what's he going to do?

He's going to take off his red cup hat and flip it around, and he's going to go work for Gary Vee for a million bucks. Why? Well, that's the financially prudent thing for him to do for his career. He knows he can go build a career, and maybe I don't fault him for that. But if I just invest into his company and he goes off and leaves, what happens to my $500,000? Some new person that also probably doesn't care about red cups, they take on CEO. Might not work out. What about her? She wants to save the planet. She doesn't care about a million dollars. She doesn't. Not saying that she doesn't care about money. She cares about saving the Earth. She has a deeper meaning for this business. She will be at every convention, every trade show, every retail store, speaking with passion. Her blood is green because she cares about her green cups so much. And she will tell everyone about her green cups morning, noon, and night. Well, the Harvard graduate, again, no offense to Harvard. That's not the concept of it, that he has this opportunity to do something else because the cup is just a widget.

He could be selling pillows or phone cases or tables, and it's just math and money to him. You could replace the red cup with anything, and he would be happy to sell it for money and for generating business and to generate a return for his investors. Nothing wrong with anything about that guy, except for me, I don't feel like he's going to be ride or die if he's just selling red cups because of the financials. Just because he can save 50 cents a cup, you think that that's what he's going to stand on. She's standing on passion. She cares about saving the planet. And so the first thing I think about deciding about investing to a company is the person, the people, the executives. Will they be right or die. Number two, does anybody care? Well, I can tell you that they care because people vote with their wallets. So if someone has $2.7 million in sales, I know that people care, and they are If my product is 10 bucks, well, that means that $270,000 people spend 10 bucks on their thing. I'm in, right? I know that they care. People care. And I can pour a lot of gas in that fire because they've proven that people care before I even I'm not there to help make it more efficient, ship the package more, faster, manufacture for cheaper, or anything that I might be able to help with social media or paid ads or whatever.

I just know that people care because they voted with their wallets. Number three, is it scalable? Can I pour gas in the fire? Can they make enough of the thing? Is it scalable? Meaning, can it go bigger than that city, that state, that online, that niche? Is it scalable? Now, not everything has to be scalable. Like I said, sometimes it might just be a base hit or a double. I'm hoping that it does okay or well, but it's not scalable to become a billion dollar thing, and that's okay. But I need to know that in the early stages for how much money I'm going to deploy. I don't want to put $500,000 into something that's not really Is it scalable? Unless I'm just looking to make a 10 or 20, 30% return, which could be okay. Typically, I'm not looking for that on an angel investment side. And so is it scalable? And if it is, how big is it? It's called a TAM, a TAM, total adjustable market. The total adjustable market, some people mess that up a bit. Let me give you an example. You've seen Mark Cuban and Damon John get really mad on Shark Tank when someone says, Well, did you know that the pillow market is $17 billion?

Okay, dude. If we just get 1% of the $17 billion, we're going to be... Stop. You'll literally see there's highlight reels of Mark Cuban, Dame and John just ripping these people to shred. The total accessible market for furniture is not you. You are a product inside of an entire universe of a total addressable market. To me, a total addressable market is. What is that niche, specifically around that similar price point of that thing in your country or wherever you can ship to or whatever you can execute on? That's your total addressable market in reality. Can you take on the entire furniture market when you're just selling pillows? No. And even if you did, there's a heck of a lot of competitors that have a ton of funding, and they're going to keep growing bigger and bigger and bigger. And so when people say, I just got to get one % of the car market because I got a new car, window shield. Okay, dude, that's not... Just because cars is worth hundreds of billions does not mean that your window shield is worth hundreds of billions in that market. So is it scalable is number three.

What level do I believe that this thing can get to? And how can I help it? Again, you can also be called dumb money. I could throw a check into something that I can't help. That's okay. Maybe there's something that I just want to put money into. I don't invest like that, meaning I don't want to just throw money into something that I can't really help because I want to help. I want to roll my sleeves up and let's go. Let's do these things to help protect my investment. And if I bring in friends or my elevator I want my elevator syndicate investors to join me on something, I really want to be able to help it. I don't want to be dumb money and just throw money in. It's okay if you are and you want to be very passive and not think about it, perfectly fine. That's just not how I am built. I want to be really actively involved in these deals. Fourth and final thing that I really, truly, passionately care about to make a decision if I'm going to invest into a business or raise capital for a business through the elevator syndicate.

Can they back it up? The things that they told me, CEO, President, executives, can they back it up and prove it to my lawyer, my accountant, and my CEO? These are three very important people in this structure. Why? Lawyer, well, that's obvious, for the legal investment paperwork for the details, the documents, the financials. I need my lawyer to agree that the things that they said is true. And by the way, not that they were necessarily lying, but sometimes entrepreneurs get excited. They're like, Oh, yeah, we're going to sell to all thousands of Walmart stores. Great. I'd like to see an email from the buyer saying they want to purchase. Well, we met with him at a convention. He was in the same line as us at Starbucks. That is not an order for thousands of stores. Very big difference of you meeting the buyer from Walmart versus getting a purchase order for him filled out, processed for you to make, manufacture, and ship to Walmart. And so backing it up is, my lawyer is going to check out the things that they said. On the accounting team, This is my older brother. He has a whole accounting firm, accounting office, and they will analyze the financials and tell me how profitable it is, what's their debt, things like that.

Again, not all businesses will be profitable. Even when they're doing $5 million in revenue, it doesn't mean that they're profitable. But I want to understand their financials. How can I fix things? Are there redundant things that should be removed? Are there people I can help bring in to save them money? Could they use the Minimus warehouse in Thousand Oaks, California? Could I send them to Minimus warehouse to save them money? Could I help them with shipping shipping or web design or any little feature paid media? Anything that they're spending money on, could I help them with it to reduce their overhead to make them become profitable if they're not profitable or make them more profitable if they are profitable? And then Joey Carson, my CEO, to just look through the BS. Okay, buddy, you said you're going to be in thousands of Walmart stores. Show me. Joey is going to be very straightforward, very blunt. And you'll have your own versions of these type of people, or you have trusted friends in your circle or advisors, someone that you could ask to check out a CEO, if you decide you might want to invest into a company, showing someone away from you.

And don't lead the witness. Let them look at the business plan, the financials, the story, and don't lead the witness. Just show them the things and let them rip it apart. Let them tell you. Because you can't see the picture when you're inside of the frame. So when you're dealing with it and you're immersed into it, you can't see all the details that are going on. You can't see the picture when you're inside of the frame. Okay, so those are the four things that I look for when I'm making a decision if I'm going to invest into a company or raise capital through the elevator syndicate for a deal. Let me walk you through a couple more real-life deals. It will wrap up this episode. Real-life deal. I told you about Icon Meals. We raised $3 million for them. And then UFC invested. You can check them out at iconmeals. Com for very healthy meals. They have a massive warehouse in Dallas, Texas. I'll actually be out there with them next week at the warehouse. Vlk Water. Blackwater. Tall black bottle. We might even have it. Is there something in the refrigerator? Maybe. We'll check.

Trevor is going to check real quick. Vlk Water is already in 29,000 stores and growing. We just raised millions of dollars for that brand. They already had millions of dollars, obviously, because they're already in 29,000 stores. They have different flavors of BLK water with fulvic acid inside of it. You got one over there? All right. Oh, they got the can version. So BLK water. Here's the canned version, if you're watching on YouTube, this is the sparkling elderberry. They have plain versions of the water as well. This is good for gut health. And fulvic acid is really interesting if you want to Google search it. F-u-l-v-i-c, fulvic acid. So I raised millions of dollars for this business a few months ago. I've known the founder and I've known some of the executives for years. And watching them get into 29,000 stores and growing and watching them build up dozens and dozens and dozens and dozens of distributors made me feel very confident in the business and the brand. So we're able to raise the funding with them very quickly through Elevator Syndicate. You can check that out at elevatorsyndicate. Com. It's free to join. You have to be an accredited investor.

But Elevator Syndicate is where I send out deals like BLKwater, like Icon Meals, like Cars and Coffee, Ever Bowl, etc. There's no plug there, by the way, it's free to join if you want to just get text messages and emails about elevator syndicate deals. So BLK was interesting because it had all the check marks. An established business, 29,000 stores, great executive team, has over 100 employees. Great social media. Check, check, check, check. Does anybody care? Yeah, they're in 29,000 stores. Not only are they in the stores, but they sell through at number one, two, or number three in that specific category for beverages. Well, you just prove that people care. Is it scalable? Of course. It's freaking water. It's very scalable to hundreds of thousands of stores around the country and hopefully around the world. And can they back it up? Well, yes, obviously, the financials were great. They have a serious team behind them. They had tens millions of dollars invested into this business before us. The Rise Beverage Group. I'm working on that right now. Ready to Drink coffee brand, working with BLK, distribution deals. They're already in 30,000 stores. I mean, that sounds fantastic.

Check, check, check. Selling at number one, number two, number three, the Rise Beverage Group and their different products. Nitro Brew Cold Coffee. It sells at number one, number two, number three in tens of thousands of stores, 30,000 stores and growing. Okay, well, check, check, check. Good executive team, good distribution, great packaging. The guys at BLK have great distribution. They can help with Rise Coffee. Rise Coffee can help with BLK. Bada bing, bada boom. Everybody wins. I like that. And so I'm actively raising capital for that. Cars & Coffee. I put in $1.6 million October 2020. To start Cars & Coffee because Gary Vee had an idea called Cars & Coffee, and I ran with it, and it was fun. And then all of a sudden it became a $10 million business in eight months. And then I was like, wow, this is more than fun. It's the middle of the shutdown, and we did $10 million in gross sales. So I raised $4 million for the business. Then I raised $6 million more a year later to scale it to do over $32 million in sales now selling sports cards and Pokémon. Well, I had to be the check marks for myself in that one.

It's really rare that I've been starting my own companies. I've just been investing in companies for many years now and trying to buy big chunks of pieces of other companies, not necessarily starting my own, except the summer of 2020, when Gary B. Mentioned Cards and Coffee in the concept of just being like the Netflix versus blockbuster of the card space, Well, that became compelling to me. And so I put up my own capital because I didn't want to raise capital at the time because it was the middle of the shutdown summer of 2020. And so only once I hit $10 million in sales did I just decide to go do a round and bring in Post Malone and the owners of Forever 21 and executives and hedge fund people, Ed Milet, all these types of characters to invest Marshawn Lynch into the business later, once I knew that people cared. I was my own barometer for myself. I didn't even want to raise money for my own company at the time because I wanted things to be right. Who are the executives? Well, it's me and my guys. Does anybody care? Yeah, we did $10 million in sales in eight months.

Check, check. Is it scalable? Yes, it's sports cards and Pokémon, and we're selling 24 hours a day online. You can go visit thecaffeebreakers. Com or thepokeybreakers. Com. Thecoffeebreakers. Com is 24 hours a day where people can livestream and buy sports cards. Thepokebreakers. Com is to buy Pokémon 24 hours a day. And not just Pokémon, you can buy variations of Magic: The Gathering, Yu-Gi-Oh, etc. And then, can it back it up? Yes, it's my own CEO, my own accountant, my own brother, my own lawyer, obviously, are all overseeing and watching my craziness scaling this business to now do over $32 million in sales for Cars & Coffee, building a national chain store. I still wanted to make sure the check marks were there for my own business before I raised capital for it. All right, so we talked about Cars & Coffee, talked a bit about Ever Bowl. We got BLK Water, the Rise Beverage Group, Icon Meals. Gosh, there's more companies that we've done last year. Oh, it's Skinny Pasta. It's Skinny Pasta. Last year, did over $9 million in I raised $3 million for the company through the elevator syndicate a couple of years ago.

And then right this second, literally right now, raising another $3 million to tag on to their round. They're raising a bigger round. $3 million. We already raised a couple of million of it. I think 2.3 or 2.5 of that 3 million. So it's wrapping up as we speak over the last few weeks. It's Skinny Pasta is, you can imagine by the brand name, a healthier for You pasta selling through really well at chain stores, selling I'm doing really well online. Why would I raise a round a second time? I'm doubling down on my own investments that's now proven success. The founder, Brian, has a great track record. He loves financials, which it's hard for He doesn't need to say that for most people. He loves the accounting, he loves the financials, he loves the numbers, he loves the percentages and every little stat. He has a good executive team, and they went and proved it because when I first raised the 3 million, they obviously weren't at 9 million sales. He went and proved that he could scale it to grow the business. And a little over a year ago, he went on to a TV show with over 4,000 applicants onto this TV show with Tim Draper.

Tim Draper being the main judge, the main character. Tim Draper is one of the most well-known, respected investors of our lifetimes. Over 4,000 applications. He makes it onto the TV show. Not only does he make it onto the TV show, he wins first place. And Tim Draper invests $1 million into the round. Holy smokes. When you're talking about checkmark, ding, ding, ding, ding, investment from an iconic investor like Tim Draper. Well, what do I want to do? I want to put more money into that. So we're raising $3 million more right this second through my elevator syndicate. Again, you can go to elevatorsyndicate. Com, and you can get text and emails about deals like It's SkinnyPasta. And we just bring in accredited investors to these rounds to help beverage brands, food brands, product brands, etc, to help them scale. They already have good amounts of revenue that we can pour gas in the fire. Why do I want to raise a round from a bunch of different people through a syndicate? Elevator Syndicate has 846 investors in my group. Through the Elevator Syndicate, what I get is a lot of smart people that also have businesses that can throw in 25K, 50K, 100K.

They can throw in more 200K, 500K, a million, etc. But for the most part, it's a lot of 25K, 50K, 100K checks. But you can do the math. If I get 42 people to throw in 25K, 100K, 50K, all of a sudden I'm raising $3 million to $6 million rounds. And then I go have certain people that want to throw in bigger checks, $500K, $1 million, $250K, $500K type checks. So what's called round out the round. They're rounding it out. So let's say I'm doing a $4 million round. I'll go get 2.6 million from a bunch of 25K, 50K, 100K checks. And then I'll go get some big checks, 250, 500K a million to round it out and finish off that 4 million bucks. And so I'm typically able to raise in about 15 days from the start, from start of publicly announcing a raise when all the paperwork is ready, doing the presentation, raising the round for a company, very fast and efficiently and effectively. I will tell you guys on one of the upcoming episodes, I'm about to raise capital for someone very interesting, someone very, Very famous, but I want to say it when it's public information.

And I'm finding consumer brands, food and beverage brands, CPG, consumer product goods that I can help scale. As you're listening through the real-life investments that I've done, Joyride Candy. We did $4 million for them. Joyride Candy is in most target stores and a lot of health food stores. It's literally called Joyride. And it's the better for you, a better for your kids version of candy. It's less sugar, less carbs, less calories, etc. All across the board and zero on some of the products. And so why would I do that? Well, I wouldn't typically raise money for a candy brand because that's not something I totally believe in. That's the same reason I don't really raise money for a, I don't know, a I would never raise money for a cigarette brand. I don't want to raise money for a lot of those hard alcohol brands. Maybe if it was a cool brand or something like that. But outside of that, I try to just invest in things I would want to publicly be posting about all the time. I don't really feel like posting. I'm never going to post about cigarettes, obviously. And so And I wouldn't be proud to post about a certain type of candy brand.

But this one I like, Joyride, because it's healthier for you. And that's why he's doing so well and why he's in so many thousands of stores because it's a healthier for you candy. You can check that out, Joyride. So I find companies like that. We did it for Creatures of Habit. Creatures Of Habit is spelled with a K. Creatures Of Habit. The founder already sold multiple restaurants in New York City. And Creatures Of Habit, that brand, Gary Vee, was an advisor to the company. So there's a checkmark. The name is cool. Creatures of Habit with a K. So you can go to creaturesofhabit. Com. It's a healthier protein oatmeal brand. It has a cool brand. It has a guy that sold multiple restaurants that he built. It has Gary Vee as an advisor. I raise a couple of million bucks for the company because I liked it. Checkmark, checkmark, checkmark. They have the right size business. People like it. People reorder it. Packaging looks good. It converts well on ads. I want to invest into the company. And so as you think through and listen to the things I'm talking about, in real life investments, I'm raising 3 million, 4 million, 5 million, 6 million dollars for these businesses.

I'm finding the categories of people that I believe in. I'm finding the products that I can help. And for you listening, whether you're in the car, you're in the gym, you're at home, wherever you're watching this or listening to this right this second, think for yourself and you're going to start to notice it in your mind when you're scrolling through social media, especially on Facebook and Instagram and LinkedIn. That friend from school That coworker that you knew they were going to start a company one day. That person in your world or in your life that's got seven gyms or 13, whatever, locations, you'll start to notice those type of deals popping up, and you might want to consider angel investing. Think about the things that I do to reduce my risk. Study for yourself, investments for you. Make sure it's an affordable amount because even when you invest and it does really, really well, you don't necessarily get money back along the way. Quick example. Icon Meals, Creatures of Habit, BLK Water. These are brands that are scaling consistently. I invested in a company called SneakerCon, the big sneaker conference. These are conferences, businesses, products, consumer brands that are scaling quickly.

I typically don't get any capital back along the way. Sometimes you get distributions like Ever Bowl. Ever Bowl did multiple distributions where I just get these big random deposits or big checks or wires from them because Ever Bowl has a ton of capital. They're profitable, debt-free, opening stores left and right. People are signing up revenue. What is it called? Signing up franchise deals left and right. There's money coming in left and right for the business, and so they can do distribution deals. Most businesses have a few core products. They're reinvesting their capital all the time, and you actually don't want them to take capital out to give you a portion of your money back. You wanted to reinvest in the business to help make it grow bigger and bigger and bigger. With something like Ever Bowl, they just had too much capital coming in left and right. They had that $15 million round, so they didn't have any debts or anything to worry about. And so that one has done distributions multiple times because of that situation. But for the most part, most businesses, even when they're very scalable and doing well, they're going to reinvest their capital back into the business, which you want to happen for the long-term growth.

And so I say that because you might throw in 100 grand into a business. It's crushing it for three years, but you're not getting money back along the way. You're hoping for an angel investment that three years from now, four years from now, five years from now, that 100 grand becomes worth a million or two million. Something crazy happens. If it doesn't work out, like I mentioned, you lose the 100,000, one to one loss ratio. But if it works out, holy smokes, it can be a very big financial impact for your life. You just have to understand when you're researching in the things I'm talking about For yourself, what fits you? What style investor are you? What did you like when you listened to food brands, consumer products, the craziness, the base hit concept of just investing in one location, investing in a bus in locations, doubling down like It's Skinny Pasta, Raising Money Twice. What were the things that triggered for you in your mind that you liked or didn't like or resonated with you? And then do research about that. Research angel investing. I do things through AngelList. Angellist is a multi-billion dollar company in the background that helps me with my financials, my paperwork, etc.

To raise capital for deals. If you want to get the text and emails about elevatorsindicate. Com, go there and you can receive. You have to be a credit investor, please. It's important. We only raise capital from a credit investors in these types of brands and businesses. There are some deals out there that you can not be a credit investor and still be able to invest in deals. But the ones that I'm raising for or the ones I've told you about are focused on credit investors. Research as much as you can about the business, about the brand, about the person, make decisions wisely, and you might find out for yourself that you enjoy becoming an angel investor. All right, guys, as I wrap this up, it's very important to have discussions with your friends, family, and followers about money. Talk about finances, talk about accounting, talk about car notes and loans, and why you shouldn't loan your friend X amount of dollars without a contract, why you should make sure you're not cosigning leases left and right for people because that comes back on your credit. What is credit? What is a FICO score? Have discussions with the people around you about money.

We grew up thinking it's rude to talk about money. I think it's rude and ridiculous to not talk about it because otherwise, if we don't tell you, Hey, if you cosign for that girl and you guys break up, that's on your credit. Hey, you cosign for your friend, that lease on that car, and you get an argument, that's on your credit. We have to have discussion about it because if I don't say that to you and you're my friend or my kid or my boss or my neighbor or whatever, and I don't have a blunt discussion with you about it, well, it's partially my fault that you went out there and did that when I could have helped protect you in that situation. So we need to have discussion about money, and we need to remove this concept that's rude. There's nothing rude about talking about reality. The reality is loans come up, leases come up, cosigning comes up, credit comes up because it's part of our daily lives. So please go out there and talk about it. Make sure you like, comment, subscribe. Visit us at themoneymondays. Com. Every Monday at 4:00 PM PST, I do this live one-to-one coaching, where I'm answering questions and asking questions, live and talking and engaging.

We've got hundreds of people that keep coming in and joining themoneymondays. Com. All the money there goes to, boom, those animals right outside this RV motorhome right now. It goes to the wild jungle. And so if you want to join us, It's 200 bucks a month where you can prepay for a big discount for the year. You can also join for free for the first 30 days for free right now at themoneymondays. Com. And join me every Monday at 4:00 PM pst as I'm live on Zoom answering questions and talking through these type of details that we go through on the podcast. I'm just getting into more details in person on these Zoom calls. I appreciate you guys. Like, comment, subscribe, and we'll see you guys next Monday.