Coffeez with Joe Shalaby - Building the Latino LinkedIn ft. Frank López & Edder Barcenas | Coffeez with Joe Shalaby

Episode Date: September 5, 2025

In this powerful episode of Coffeez for Closers, we sit down with Frank López and Edder Barcenas—the visionary founders behind Negozi, the fastest-growing business platform for Hispanic entrepreneurs in the U.S.What started as a passion project is now a thriving ecosystem of over 40,000 members—with in-person events, job boards, and a mission to educate and empower the undocumented community through entrepreneurship.We talk real:- Running a legal business without legal status- Building “the Latino LinkedIn” from scratch- Launching Negozee Life to democratize life insurance and financial tools- Why financial education is the greatest equalizer- And how to build generational wealth—even if you're undocumentedThis one’s all about vision, grit, community—and breaking cycles of limitation.Top producers at E Mortgage Capital are earning more per deal—with faster closings, better tech, and no junk fees.👉 Learn more: https://join.emortgagecapital.comAdvertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

You can be an undocumented person, but you can have a legal entity and you can run business. You make tons of money. So the entity is legal, but you're illegal. That spoke to me because I've grown up in this country most of my life without documents. And we decided to invest in a gozi. First is a passion project. Welcome to another episode of coffees. Thank you, Joe.

Thanks for having us, brother. Thank you, Joe. Appreciate you. Thanks. Thanks. I know, Edder, you flew down, and that's very kind of you to come down for the show. And Frank, it was a pleasure to meet you. to get to kind of spend some time with you at an event that we got to connect at.

Now, I like to start the show off the same way to start with everybody, which is what's your guys' morning routine? Morning routine, like this morning I was up at 4 o'clock in the gym, out by 5.30, took a shower, did a little work, and then drove over here, had some breakfast with Ed and his wife, and now I'm here. That's same for me. I get up at 5 in the morning. First thing, my prayer, you know, give thanks to God for waking up.

another day, I'll say 545, I'm at the gym, get an hour, hit the sauna for at least 10 minutes, go home, get ready, be by the office by 8.30. Love it, love it. All right, guys, well, let's jump into it. So Noghese didn't start, like, as a business. It started as a need. What moment in your own careers made you guys realize that this platform really had to exist? So for me, I met Tony at a racetrack at the BMW race track.

the BMW racetrack in Palm Springs were racing BMWs. And I met him and he was off the chain like crazy. I thought, okay, this guy's been drinking too much. But what he said was really impactful. He said, hey, in this country, you can be an undocumented person, but you can have a legal entity and you can run business. You make tons of money. So the entity is legal, but you're illegal.

That spoke to me because I've grown up in this country most of my life without documents. So anyway, I tracked them for another few months. And then I met him again in Oakland, California at a business event. And I was with my co-founder at the time of one of my companies from Arkansas. And we decided to invest in a gozy first as a passion project because we thought, oh, man, this thing's going to have a lot of impact. But four years later, it's been 3xing on its top line. And its membership is at 40,000 users now.

And it's just spreading like wildfire, right? Because there's an immense need in a lot of areas, right? when it comes to running a business, that's already a tall order. But then if you don't speak the language, if you don't know the system, you're kind of stuck. So we're there to facilitate that and help these businesses scale. So give the audience just an idea of what is Noghese? Yeah. Yeah, so Ngozi is pretty much, we call it similar to the Hispanic LinkedIn at the moment.

It's not as big as LinkedIn, but it will get there. So it's pretty much a platform for business owners in the Hispanic community to network together. And what I mean by that is that we're bringing in people that do taxes, attorneys, CPAs, real estate people, lenders. So it's pretty much like a circle for everyone to collab and pretty much help each other grow and win and build opportunities for others that are looking to come into the community. they're also promoting jobs, you know that. So through Ngoza, you could actually now go on to the website. And like for me, for example, I have my business. I could go into Nogosso and put, like,

I'm looking to hire, you know, two people that could help me with the office work. You go on the platform, they'll blast it to all the members, which is about 40,000 members. And you'll be surprised people do go on there and say, hey, I'm looking for work. So that's how we're working similar to LinkedIn. where you could go into LinkedIn.

Post a job. And you can post a job and people send you messages. So we're constantly building and that's what. I would say the difference, though, it's a brick and click model. Because we also have eight events throughout the country, big events with like 350, 400, 500 people that attend. Essentially in all the Latino hotspots like Miami, New York, Houston, Texas, California. So LA. We're in California, which probably every city is a hot spot.

Well, we're having an event next Thursday, July 24th in Long Beach. Then we're having a three-day conference in San Diego. We're paired up with Avance, which is formerly latitude, founded by the Stefan family, Emilio Stefan and his wife. They rebranded. So we're having that event. That one's going to be, honestly, that one's probably going to be thousands of people there. It's a three-day event. Very similar to Narep.

You guys heard of NAREP? Very similar of NARP, but a for-profit model, right? NAREP is nonprofit. Yeah. And NAREP is going to be there. Yeah, NAREP is actually one of our partners for the conference. So you guys are collaborating with NAREP. I'm a member of NAREP.

There we go. Then we're going to see you there. I'm not Hispanic, but... You don't have to be brother, the money's green. Well, that and that and the beauty of the Noghose too is that, you know, it's very diverse. So we're open to, not just in the Hispanic community, but to bring other others that see the vision and the opportunity. Alliances. Yeah.

I mean, I love the conference. concept of you know a LinkedIn platform for the Hispanic community that's niched down because LinkedIn as great as it is it's very very broad and it doesn't offer like direct support you know yeah direct support whereas Nogosius you know has you know a tighter community a lot more face-to-face interaction opportunities and just you know a lot more collaboration within the platform Yeah, one of the newest investors I was talking to, I think he dropped like 30K here. He was saying, hey, this is a crazy platform because like your membership will actually want to rock the brand.

It's not their, I mean, it's not their brand. They could buy shares into it, but they want to rock the brand, right? That speaks to the sense of community that people are finding there, right? The sense of value that they're finding there. Yeah, it's like NARET. People rock the NAREP brand. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. So it's powerful. So what about Noghze life? You had Nogosie, then you started Noghze life as a vertical. Yeah, so sort of what we were talking about right before the show, right? These folks already have extensive books of businesses, right? In many cases or in some cases, they don't really need to grow their clientele. They just need to further optimize, further monetize the book of business they already have.

And they're not really finding that avenue. I mean, there's the MLM, multi-level marketing for insurance. and then there's other agencies. But no one really speaks to the impact. No one really speaks to the cultural relevance. So it just came to me and I was like, hey, look, why don't we start a vertical where we offer life insurance?

It's very niche. It's not going to ruffle a lot of feathers and it's very much needed. So we kind of started taking a pulse. This was like a year and a half ago. Yeah. Anyway, long story short, we launched a company in Miami in May

and then we've been touring. We were in L.A., New York. We were in Vegas. Now we're going to be in Long Beach, so we're going to go on this tour. We're just showcasing the brand, right? So the brand and the platform is essentially much like your model, Joe. It's technology, right?

It's education and infrastructure, right? Needed resources, collateral that you could use, plug and play, and start offering insurance. And a lot of these folks, they don't want to do extra work, right? They're like, I'm already busy. Cool, we'll be your outsource partner. And we could represent your brand. Or if you're cool, we'll say, hey, we're Negosi Life.

We partner with X company to provide your services. And we'll give you a 50% commission for doing nothing as long as you have a license. And we help them with the licensing process. So you split the commission with them without, would they just refer the deal? Yeah. Yeah. Our model, we basically, we just take a tiny. percentage but they do all the work yeah they just use our our back office

solution our ecosystem our tech branding you guys are straight doing this you you guys are they're just salespeople you guys are doing all the actual leg work yeah yeah in some cases maybe the the partner wants to actually become an expert yeah so we have an LMS system a learning management system they can plug in we have ongoing trainings that we're gonna start live then they can make a bigger piece of the pie. And then they can make a bigger piece of the pie, right? They can just take the whole 100% of the deal.

Nice, nice. Now, you guys have both built, like, different careers in different, like, real estate insurance. But this time, you're building up for, like, the long term. What did you guys have to unlearn to risk or risk to step into something like this bowl? Well, I mean, one of it is, there's quite a few things for sure. I mean, one of them was, you know, we have been in the real estate and insurance industry. We noticed that there was a big gap in lack of knowledge when it comes to like the insurance and life products. So me and Frank, like he mentioned earlier, we saw that this opportunity where the Hispanic

The community, unfortunately, it's not as educated when it comes to the life insurance and the investment products. So me and Frank were like, dude, like, yeah, I understand we're busy. We have these businesses. But this is a good opportunity, not just for us, but to bring value to the community. And what I mean by that is for us building Negoti life, partnering up with Noggi. and being able to work with all the members that are part of the gozy to bring the value to the community and make a spread like wildfire and what I mean by that is that we're not going one by one per individual we're actually working with we're doing B2B so which means that it's

accelerating the you know the the process of teaching the community that life insurance is important I'm pretty sure you guys know this. It's in the Hispanic community. There's what about 40% people that understand how life insurance works. And the other 52 or 60% are not even insured with the life policy. So they don't understand how life insurance works. Lowest level of coverage at any demographics. So essentially we're paid, all of us are paid, commensurate to the problems that we solve.

So we saw huge problems, right? Not only on the uninsured side, but also on the capital. capital side because insurance can be leveraged for cash value. I'm having a panel on the 24th where I got some gentlemen that are buying multifamily large deals raising $50 million fund and they were telling me the other day, you know, one of the secret weapons with some of these big, big acquires of real estate is that they're pulling money out of insurance. I was like neat, right? Why aren't we doing that? So the education piece, there's a whole life or? To earn. IUL, Whole Life, yeah. But it's like, it's apparently within the circle, it's a kept secret. Some people don't divulge that it's coming out of insurance, right? You don't want to share your cards, maybe, because it's a competitive market.

Well, whole life has cash value and just not like a lot of cash value. Yeah. The IUL is probably the Ferrari, right, when it comes to cash value. Yeah. Yeah. I have a client who's picked up not multifamily, just single family, just using IULs. Yeah, actually I'm going to bring her in to do an interview. But yeah, so we saw just a large problem.

And the funny thing is we've had a couple of our partners say, why would you start something from scratch? Why wouldn't you just jump on like, you know, on something that's already preexisting plug and play? We're like, well, the problem's so large that we want to do two things, right? We want to structure in a way where we change the rules. Most of our commissions, we want them to go into the, into the field for folks because part of our mission is to reintroduce

wealth creation into our community through education and also so they understand how commissions work how they understand how they become active participants in the insurance game and then number two we want to make sure that they also become users of these tools so that when they pass on they can create wealth that goes beyond their generation yeah to create wealth in the in the present but then in the long term so that's And to some people, it's like, no, you guys are crazy. You guys are going to fail, right?

This is part of business. Chewing glass and staring into the abyss. Yeah, yeah, that's true. You know, I just released a book, but, like, as immigrants, like, especially in the Hispanic community, like, they're not thinking generational wealth. They're thinking, like, I got to pay the bills. Yeah. I got to pay rent right now. You know, so they're not, they're not like, hey, I got to establish money for the future.

It's like I got to put shoes on my kids. So what that said, like, how are you guys like deconstructing that mindset for those immigrants? Yeah. You know, for that for the Hispanic community. Because that's a tough hurdle you have to overcome. Yeah, no, and you're right, Joel. It is a tough hurdle to bypass when it comes to the Hispanic community. So one is we're working on the educational part, showing them that there is value.

and having a life insurance policy. And the other thing is we have resources when it comes to education. It's the school part. We have, and we talk about how life insurance works a lot at these big negozy events. So a lot of these business owners, we let them know how life insurance works.

We give them information on the benefits of it. And what they do, a lot of these business owners, they just, a lot of them stay shocked because, I mean, I didn't even know that a life insurance policy could pay like a mortgage insurance. I didn't know that I could offer this to my client if they were to pass. They got a life policy pay off the mortgage. Family could keep the home and continue building their, you know, their legacy. So it's all educational. I mean, unfortunately, the Hispanic community, he knows this.

It's like, people don't like to talk about life insurance. They don't want to talk about death. Yeah, they don't want to talk about death. Nobody wants to talk about it. Yeah, never. And then, you know, and... I'm not dying. Yeah, it's like, you know, growing up, I give you an example, like with my parents, you know, they never talked to us about life.

You know, my dad since what's going to be 70. And never once growing up, he was like, hey, Etter, when you turn, you know, when you turn 18, I need you to go get you a life policy or get you an IUL. We didn't know, because he didn't know. They don't even have one, you know. Now, my dad actually... It does have one now. But that's the thing is that there was never training or family was in educating us on how to use a life insurance policy.

Yeah, or the thing I'll add to that, that's on the consumption side of things, right? The other piece we're going after is, hey, folks, you can be active participants in wealth creation. You don't have to be documented in California to get a life insurance license, right? Texas is the same way, Illinois. There's a bunch of states that don't require

a social security you can use an I-10. To get your license? Yes. Yes. So that's a powerful tool, right? That they can actually become active participants in this industry and offer these solutions, right? Because we've not taken, as far as I know, we've not taken a survey to see how many of our business owners and Noghese don't have documents. But anecdotally, I've met several that don't have documents, but they have legit organizations, right? Businesses that are paying taxes that are employing other people and then they themselves can never get a job legally so they could

become active participants with just with a license right and a lot of we're coming across that Joe a lot of people don't know that a lot of people don't know that so that's that's a powerful piece i wonder if you know the LLC allows them you know they're employed by their LLC that basically that does that help them with citizenship does that help them with the whole no No, it's tough. And I can speak to it because I'm under dubious, a dubious status, right? And I've been under a dubious status for a long time. And basically what I realize is, like, I have to leverage these entities.

I mean, that's the power of this country. This country is built on immigration and capital and market, you know, in markets. So, yeah, but it doesn't help you. You might be able to get to a point. Really, the easiest route is to get married to a U.S. listen, right? That's the route. Yeah. That's crazy. That's unfortunate. Yeah. So this whole situation that's happening with Trump right now,

and it's kind of scary times for a lot of friends and family. Yeah, yeah. I mean, if you go to any Latino communities, I was just at the Cajajon is, right, the fashion district. And I was talking to some of the shopkeepers that went to pick up a few things. They're like, we haven't seen this, like, level of ghost townness in a long time. Like it's this one of the guys said back in the 90s when Pete Wilson was in office, he kind of came hard like a Trump style deportation machine. And then it got scary then and people kind of scattered and were hiding. But yeah, I mean, it's not good for the economy at all.

No. Yeah, it's terrible. What's the pulse? Like, is it getting better now? Well, there was an injunction, right? There was an injunction by a federal judge that said they need to halt the deportations because they're really just looking at people. all right, you're brown, let's go check your papers, or you're speaking Spanish, let's go check your papers, right?

So, I mean, there's rule of law too, right? So that, I think, has slowed things down. This happened last week, then Junction. So we'll see how it plays out. And it's one of the reasons why at our event in Long Beach, we're making sure that everybody registers, right, so that we can control access, and we can make sure that people feel safe.

Like, we're on a private property, so we can make sure that we enforce private property rights. If ice were to come through, we could say, hey, you don't have access here because you don't have the right. I mean, they're going to restaurants. They're going to, you know, everywhere. They're going to many private property places. Yep.

But I know they'd stopped since the injunction. Yeah. I know it's been crazy, crazy times in this, you know. But. Crazy times, but whenever, there's crisis, right? Yeah, there's opportunity. Yeah, you've got to keep your eyes open.

Yeah. What kind of opportunity have come as a result of this? Well, you know what? Noghese, I was just talking to Tony about this. Noghesey's taking a real hard stance right now and saying, hey, if you're undocumented, if you're an immigrant, we have your back. We've started creating service centers, financial service centers throughout the country. So if you want to become a financial service under Nogos, you have to become an investor.

So right now all these service centers are popping up. I think the last time I checked is like 250. 250. So if you like Edder's office right in San Leandro, you're a social now. So you're on a map and it says hey this is an immigrant friendly establishment. If you want to do business here, come here. It's a safe haven for business. So that's one of the opportunities that we kind of cranked up right now.

And we're on this chat right with investors and we just see it pop up like new, new new social, new partner, right? New partner. That means they're dropping several thousand dollars so they can be on the map so that it's like an H&R block, right? Can Google it? Oh, these are all the HNR blocks. Oh, these are all the Nogosie financial centers

that are a haven to do business with immigrants. And a safe spot for you to come in and work, do some business. Let's say, for example, I'm in the Bay, you know, he's Frank's here in LA, he could go on the Nogosie and look, hey, where's the location? he looks, I'm in the Bay Area, he could just drive straight to the Bay Area and he has an office space and a safe place for him to work and do business at. So that's pretty much what Frank is saying.

And it is spreading like wildfire right now. There's so many people placing their locations for Noghese members to. Yeah, right now, during crisis, there's what happens is the people got to unite. There you go. You know, it's going to draw the community tighter. Great opportunity, obviously, for Nogosie, to capital. on building those relationships for people. Yeah.

Not maybe monetarily, but at least like community building, which far exceeds any monetary benefit. Yeah, yeah. And you know what? That's forever. It's opened up the doors for alliances, right, with other immigrant communities. Like at the event, I'm having a panel.

I have been a long time friends with the Indian community. I have friends from college. And so we're having them come in. They're probably future investors. A couple of them are already invested in. So kind of opening up those conversations, those opportunities, right, to learn from like the Indian community. I know I have Jewish friends and they're very interested in what we're doing. So it's the alliances, right, the coalition building and business.

It's also, I think, an opportunity right now because they see what's happening. They're like, all right. Scary for all immigrants. You know, I'm an immigrant. Where are you from, Joe? I'm from Egypt. You're from Egypt, brother? Yeah.

Yeah, so, you know, I'm a naturalized citizen. Okay. And when Trump's Big Beautiful Bill came out saying he could deport naturalized citizens, I'm like, wow. I think he did that specifically for Elon. Yeah. Right, he pissed him off too much. Yeah, Elon pissed him off too much. Now he's like, you know, I'm just going to add this to the Big Beautiful Bill just in case.

And now he's doing that with Rosie O'Donnell. Oh, yeah, he did. Ireland. Yeah, he did. So he's like, I think I should ship her back to, Ireland. Yeah, he did. He did say that.

So he's basically added that clause to basically protect, you know, I mean, kind of override freedom of speech. Yeah. For naturalized citizens, which is like everybody. Yeah. Yeah. Basically everybody who's a nationalized citizen who just pisses off the government. There you go.

But hey, go Trump. You know, I love Trump. So, you know, I love what you're doing, buddy. but some of the stuff is a little scary for some immigrants. For sure. So you guys are creating a platform that really uplifts professionals and entrepreneurs. And how is your own Latino identity shaped how you build, how you lead, and how you connect? Well, a lot of it is with the vision is with integrity, transparent.

And a lot of it, like me personally and Frank knows this, is I'm a vibes person. I feel like if we connect and I vibe with you, I feel like we could do business. Sky's the limit. And sky's the limit for sure. So definitely integrity, transparency. That's our biggest one.

And that's the thing that we do bring to the community is like, hey, we're out here to do business together, but let's be transparent. Let's keep it real. And if our fire aligns, let's do business. You know, sky's the limit, there's opportunity for everybody. You know, we look at it more like if we want to collab. Because from that pie, everybody get a little piece and everybody wins.

That's pretty much the way we look at it. And you know, that's part of the reason why, what, nine months ago when I met Edder, I decided to do business with him. You know, because Warren Buffett says that, You can't do business with bad people, right? People that don't have integrity. People that are out to screw you. You can't do business with them.

You can't build enough contract language to protect you. And that's one thing I enjoyed about him. His values were integrity and transparency. I was like, that's cool, right? Like, it's hard to find people you can trust. And especially with the Latino community, right? We're skeptical sort of group, especially with the stuff that's happening now. So we're always thinking someone's trying to get a one-up on us.

So for me, I mean, that's key. Like, those values have to be built in to the foundation of the company. The other thing is, like I mentioned, I've been undocumented most of my life, right? But I still trekked along because I believe that this still the land of opportunity of my little happens, right? Like, I'm fucking undocumented. And I went to UCLA. I studied economics. I went into the private sector for a while, did some contract work.

And then eventually I realized, okay, entrepreneurship is the equalizer in this country. That's how we equalize the plane field. So how do we bring entrepreneurial opportunities to our community to equalize, right? We can't rely on government handouts. We have to kind of empower us and take us to the next level. And for me, that's big, right? And that's big for Noghese and that's big for Nogosie life. Yeah.

Great way to lead. Entrepreneurship is the great equalizer. 100%, brother. It is the great equalizer. And a lot more people are keen to the power of it now. You know, a lot more people are keen to the power of it. Now, as co-founders, you guys clearly respect each other, but what's something surprising you've learned about one another during the grind of building all this?

I would say it's the fire we have in our bellies. And what I mean by it is that, you know, we push, we push hard, we push each other. We know that what we're building is not just for us, but it's for the community and bringing multiple opportunities. And we just grind. You know, we have, I've had people approach me and say like, hey, Eder, we want to, we want to collab. We want to build this real estate or this mortgage, you know, with you guys. How can we collab? I'm like, well, one of it is like, it's going to take a lot of time, you know.

do you have the time to build it? You have it in you. We could build it. And the reason why I say that is because when me and Frank launched Negosi Life, we were literally on the phone. What? Every day, we were on the phone. Every day.

Even my wife was like, what did you just marry Frank? Yeah, that's true. I remember her. My wife, the one that was in here. She said, man, just marry Frank because you're on the phone with him all day every day. And I was like, oh, wow. I was like, that's how much, that's how much grind.

put into this the Noghazi life. Yeah. There's a lot of due diligence that we had to do, right? We're starting fresh from sort of scratch. Like we didn't decide on Manny just because I like Manny or I like Omar. It was a whole process of us interviewing different models. Yeah. Talking a bunch of different people, then talking to other experts that we trusted and we

presented those models to them were like, hey, poke holes in this for us. So there was a lot of due diligence. There's also the contract that we had to do with Nogosy, right, to be able to able to get rights to use the brand because we knew the brand had traction already. Why not use the brand? The brand's going to piggyback. Piggy back off of the brand, right? And we're both investors, so it makes sense.

Like we're going to grow this brand. We're going to go virtual cycle. Yeah, so there was just a lot. And I learned what I learned from this guy is a little joke inside joke, right? He's a lamb, right? When you sell, you don't want to sell like a lion. You want to be calm, cool, and just be inquisitive and curious. And he's really good.

We call it lambing out. Just be a lamb, right? And that's how you're going to close people. So I'm like, I got to be more of a lamb because I get a little excited. I don't even drink coffee. My energy just goes through the roof sometimes. You're a lion. Yeah.

I need to chill out. Right here. I just lamb it. I like that. I heard that. Laming it out. Now let's talk about growth. What mindset shift did you guys have, did you guys each have to make?

Not in business, but in leadership to take this idea to become like an actual movement. Yeah, I would say I'll go back to the whole fire piece. You got to have fire in your belly and see that vision because not everybody, not everybody has that vision where they don't see the opportunity. Me and Frank saw the opportunity and the value we could bring to Noghazi and the community and Noghzi life. It was like, hey, Frank, this is a game changer. You know, if we grind it out, we figured things out, we talked to so many different people, advisors,

and we just know so many people that we were able to pick a lot of different people's brain to get to where we're at now when it goes to life. You know, we just had to do a lot of due diligence and just to get going. Yeah. I think for me it was just being quiet. and listening. And that's kind of what I did as an angel investor in the Gozi. I remember I even took a trip when I, because I invested in three different rounds. My last round I went and sat with Tony, the CEO and just shadowed him throughout the day. I was working doing my work, shadowing him,

right? We were going to meetings with other investors, sponsors. And then at the events, I was just, I was more of a wallflower, to be honest. Now I'm like in the spotlight in the Gozi. But before, people would see me and they're like, you know, that's, I think that guy's his name's Frank, right? Because I was just paying attention and listening. So that's one of the things that's, that I know even as an individual I still need to work on. You know, my lady tells me that all the time, like, you need to listen more, man. You didn't talk too much sometimes. So the listening piece, right? Just be quiet, listen, process. Yeah, I mean, that's that lying sales mentality.

Bro and I. Yeah. trying to close all day right there you go yeah my me and my partner are very similar like yeah he's more of like a lamb like okay he's not a hard it's not he's not a big closer yeah he's very very similar more just analytical and then just takes things very methodical there's no there's no coincidence with that you just met him in the bathroom there you know that's true i did right and i was like he said bye to you and i'm like do you guys meet each other like because he's He's usually quiet. Yeah, yeah, he did.

It was funny because I literally just walked. I was about to use it and then, and then I heard him say, hey, who are you with? And I'm with, you know, where in the Gozy Life and we're reading with you. And he was like, oh, okay, what are you guys going to talk about? Oh, we're going to do the podcast thing. But it just coughed me our guard, you know, because I don't know nobody here. And then he started talking to me, which is kind of cool. Yeah.

Yeah, yeah, that's cool. now what's something you guys have done with Ngozi that you wish existed when you were starting out and how does that shape how you serve today? Let me take it. Yeah. You know what, Joe, I'm a big believer that timing is perfect, brother. So I, that's a really hard question for me, right? Like, especially if you, if you're a person that kind of stays disciplined and stays

prepared, the timing is perfect. Like, I think meeting you, we were just talking when you walked out, was purposeful. I think there's an opportunity for us to do something together. And I just think that's just the way the world works. I met this guy nine months ago, and we started a company. And right now we're blowing through cash, building the tech. And I trust them, right? I trust him.

He had full access to the bank account, blah, blah, blah, right? It just happened. That's just how God works, man. Exactly. I always say God's plan. Yeah. I just follow God's plan. Yeah.

Always. Everything happens for a reason. It was like, same thing happened to me yesterday. It was so much. My girlfriend buys an Aston Martin on Monday. I'm like, you can't park it in this place here, like $300,000 a car. And then yesterday we get a, you guys met her, you met her. Yes.

Yesterday, my tenant's like, hey, I'm going to move out of this place. Like, you know, I need a. And this place that happens, she randomly, I'm like, my property's coming up for rent. You could just take that. You know, like, and her lease is ending the same day that they're moving out, like, within a few days that they're moving out. Like, perfect. You need a car for your garage, you know, like, get a bigger place.

It was like, I'm like, damn, it's like, God just lined it all up. Like, the time is perfect. That's true. Like, God just lines it all. But it's like, it's not serendipitous. It's just God's plan. You know, God's plan is always on time. exact you know and as long as you have good intentions and you want to serve and do god's work

like that says he will line it up exactly in his accordance you know um now five or ten years from now what would you what would it mean to you guys what would it mean to you personally not just professionally if nagozi became the go-to ecosystem for the entire global community and for entrepreneurs yeah I would say is it's gonna be it's God's plan and that's what we're gonna get to within the next few years we did talk about this earlier today right Frank it's like we we're here for a reason we're here to to leave a legacy and build opportunities for others and share the knowledge that we are that we know and we have within the community and we definitely

see it going global and the reason why I say that is because there's just so much opportunity you know I'll give you an example we were in Miami remember we're in Miami we met a we met a lady from Spain and it's just funny how it works because it's God's plan lady was getting into the elevator and she couldn't find her key and I was already in a rush because we had to go to the event to launch Nicosie Life and lady was like sweating panicking and she was, oh my God, I don't know where my keys at. And I was, don't worry about it. I'll take care of it for you. I opened up the door for her. We both got in the elevator.

They had already left. But it's funny how it worked because we were all together. They left and I said, wait, you guys, give me one minute. I'll catch up with you guys downstairs. I got off the elevator, went back and got something from the little lunch break room. And I met this lady. Anyhow, She panicked. I let her into the elevator. And then she asked, What do you do? And she just actually, like, so what do you do?

What do you do here? Like, are you from here? And I'm like, no, I'm not from here. I'm from the Bay Area. She was, oh, you're from the Bay Area. Okay. I'm like, how about yourself? She was, oh, she owns a big magazine company in Spain.

So I was, oh, okay. She was like, yeah. So what do you do for a living? And I was, oh, we're about to launch Negoti Life here in Miami. me feel free to join you know come to the event yada yada yada she was all do my best to join you all right cool uh she didn't show up which is okay but we kept in touch because we were staying in the same hotel so we kept in touch and me and she was all like hey let me get your number and at first i was kind of like why this lady want my number i feel a little weird i'm not going to

lie to you i was like she trying to hit on me but anyway i was like sure i'll give you my number so I gave her my number and then she texts me, hey, I can't go to the event. I said, it's okay, don't worry about it. But then she did that. She was like, hey, are you staying here in the hotel? I'm like, yes, I'm staying there. She was, hey, are you open to meet with us?

And I was kind of thinking like, why did she want to meet? Again, I was like, okay, things happened for a reason. I said, sure, I told Frank. Hey, Frank, what do you think? Should we meet with her? Frank was like, ah, dude, I don't know, man. This kind of. Because we had a lot of meetings lined up that day.

She was one of them. Yeah, she was, I don't know, man. And then we were like, you know what, let's do it. Anyhow, long story short, we met with her. We talked. Yeah, she's a big time shot caller for a big firm in Spain. And she, when we met with her, it gave us me and him to chills because a lot of the stuff that when we met with her and we were talking about, she somewhat knew.

Yeah. Like, and we don't, keep in mind, we don't, we don't. Claire Boyance. Yeah, we don't know her at all. So a lot of stuff that me and him had talked about, we're working to build. she was like that we she was like we should collab sure that we should we should collab him and because I could see us doing this this this and that and me and him just I got the goosebumps man because I was like how does this lady I didn't say

nothing and then she just saw the offer on the table with that yeah it's for us to go to Spain yeah and she's already connected with like the prince and the king and business people she's like let's have a on my magazine Nogosi life lands in Spain right so and that's essentially the future of Ngozi to go international. I mean, we have employees in Colombia. Yeah, yeah, but the licensing requirements are so different. Well, so NgoZ, but in terms of life insurance, yeah, the licensing requirements is what you're referring to.

That would be a whole different ballpark, yeah, for sure. A couple last questions, guys. It's about goals, three-prong question. What's a personal goal that you have for yourself, a family goal that you have for family and then a business school. Yeah, so for me it's definitely spend more time with my with my kids and what I mean by that is that just be more present. You know, I know we get, I get carried away sometimes with work and stuff like that because I want to continue building and leave a legacy behind. But I know the children do need the time and I actually give you a

lot of props for for bringing your son. Yeah. He has a firm handshake man. Yeah. He shook my hand. I was like, oh, I was like, you got a strong handshake. Yeah, and then I like how he asked a lot of questions. That's pretty cool, man. Yeah, just try your best with them, you know. And I always feel like you're feeling, but all I can do. For me personally, like, I just realized I just got to be into everything they're into.

So they're super into fishing right now and sport car trading. And I'm just like, I'm like a pro fisherman and sport card trader now. There you go. Nice. Nice. Just get down on their level all day long. There you go. And try to connect.

There you go. Yeah, same with me. That's what I've been doing with my boy. Sending more time with him. He loves boxing, so go to more boxing events, watch more boxing fights. He likes to, he's only 14. He likes to drive around. So I just tell him this, like, I tell my wife, hey, like, this is me and my, or boy time where I get to talk to him and, you know, connect with him and kind of share knowledge with him.

what's good and what's wrong, you know, guide them through and stuff like that. Well, my daughter's already 18 years old. She's going to college and she's studying astrophysics. Wow. Yeah. Yeah. So she wants to be, when she was little, she always wanted to work for NASA. So she's been working hard.

And I tell her, you know, and I do go into her room and I see her sometimes stressing out. I'm like, hey, baby, don't worry. Just this is going to pay off one day. Just remember that. And then she's all like, all right, dad, okay, sounds good. And, you know, just give her a pat in the back and a hug. And I'm like, you know, I'm proud of you. It's going to pay off watch.

Just keep going. Because, you know, a lot of kids her age are out and about party and going out. I'm like, just stick to it. And you're going to see the benefit. She's in her room studying astrophysics. Yeah, in her room. Not a fun Friday night. No.

And actually, she's a tutor as well. She trains other kids at school. She was hired. That's amazing. Yeah. So that. And then for the business and more time with my wife. Of course.

And then for the business. Don't leave that out, bro. I can't leave that out, but she's going to watch. Yeah, and then the, for the business, it's just leave a legacy, and hopefully we could collab with you as well. Love that, man. Yeah. So personal for me, I want to be like the Mexican War and Buffett.

And not that I want to have billions and billions of dollars, because I think it's never enough. I want to make other people wealthy. I want to specifically make my community wealthy. For the family, I pride myself. that I retired my two parents. I have three children from different moms, but I'm a responsible and present father.

And keep that. My son's 20 years old. He's at UCLA. That's a good school, right? Legacy with me as well, right there, both Bruins. With the business, the goal is to either take Nagozi, the mother company, to NASDAQ,

to the public markets, or to liquidate it or sell it off to a meta, a Microsoft. that's the vision for Ngozi. Obviously, Ngozi life is a revenue stream into Ngozi, so we could spin this off and change the capital structure, bring more revenue to the shareholders, right? So there's that option too. But essentially, I think,

encompassing everything, financial legacy across the board, my family, other people's family. Love it. Last question for both of you. Yeah. When you're in front of the throne of God, what do you think God's going to tell you? I was, ah, you're imperfect, my son.

You're imperfect. But you tried, you tried it, you never gave up to be a good man. Yeah, there you go. I love it. Yeah, I would say, for me, I mean, I pray to God every day. That's the first thing I do when I wake up. A lot of people don't believe me, but it's okay. They don't have to believe me, but I believe in God. And I would say, God, you would say, oh, hey, I'm proud of you.

Proud of you keep going. Keep doing what you're doing. This is your time. This is your opportunity. Not just for you, but for others. So I would say that he'll say he's proud of me. Love that. All right, guys.

If people want to connect with you, how do they find you? For me, it's Frank funds assets on Instagram. And for me, it's Eder underscore the East Bay Realtor. All right, cool. Thanks, guys. All right. Thank you.