Trading Secrets - 88: Bachelor Nation alum Dylan Barbour reveals the $$$ behind his fitness startup Vizer, influencer marketing, & beyond!

Episode Date: January 23, 2023

This week, Jason is joined by entrepreneur turned reality TV and social media star, Dylan Barbour!     Many of you may know Dylan from his time on the Bachelorette and Bachelor in Paradise where he met his now fiancé Hannah Godwin. What you may not know is Dylan is the co-founder of a fitness company, more tech than anything, allows people to work out while donating food to those in need.   Dylan gives insights his career in banking prior to the show, how he was casted for the Bachelorette and how his mom wanted to look over the contract before signing on, how Vizer was started with his cousin, how the app has expanded into multiple products in the health and wellness space, and his thoughts on influencer marketing. Dylan also reveals how he passed two of the CFA tests within the six months but never completed the third test,  how Vizer partnered with the number one behavioral economics researcher to help building the incentive model of the app, how he was able to monetize after being on the show, and why he refuses to be a part of a syndicate. What differences does Dylan see about Bachelor in Paradise when he was on it compared to now? How much money from influencing does he use to put into high risk CPG? What would he invest in right now and what would he stay away from? What competition did he win that resulted in $500K?    Dylan reveals all that and so much more in another episode you can’t afford to miss!    Be sure to follow the Trading Secrets Podcast on Instagram & join the Facebook   Host: Jason Tartick Voice of Viewer: David Arduin Executive Producer: Evan Sahr   Please note that this episode may contain paid endorsements and advertisements for products and services. Individuals on the show may have a direct or indirect financial interest in products or services referred to in this episode.   Produced by Dear Media.

The following podcast is a dear media production. Welcome back to another episode of Trading Secrets. Today we are joined by entrepreneur turned reality TV and social media star. Dylan, I want you to know. Me saying that almost made me want to throw up. But it's the truth. Dylan Barber, I know Dylan from his time on The Bachelorette and Bachelor in Paradise where he met his now fiancee, Hannah Godwin.

What you may not know is that Dylan is the co-founder of a fitness company, more tech than anything, that allows people to work out while donating food to those in need. It's an unbelievable app. Today we are going to learn what it is like to build a startup company from scratch. Here, Dylan's thoughts on his experience in Bachelor Nation and where he sees it's going from here. But most importantly, what we're going to get into it, Dylan, is you guys most definitely probably don't know about his expertise in CPG investing. He's a brilliant investor, sophisticated, deep vacuum in, probably one of the most in the Bachelor franchise. And we're getting into that.

Dylan, thank you so much for being on Trane Secrets. Thanks for having me, man. That was the first half of the intro is pretty brutal. The second half was good. The brutal part. That was being on The Bachelor, your engagement, that you're a reality TV star. Do you think you are a reality TV star? No.

Why? Yeah, it's a good question. You were the star of paradise? One of many. We're all stars in our own, right? But yeah, I don't know. It seems like a fever dream. Okay.

Do you have a good relationship with the show? Like, when you look back on it, or you like, that was amazing. It was great. Or you just indifferent? I had a great time, like, obviously. But I think my, I don't know, there was like a six-month span post-show

where I was a little reckless. Cavalier, something might say. With the chirping and stuff? With the chirping, which I was like, thinking about that the other day, I was like, why would I do that? But 28 now, I'm a man, so we've matured. Why do you think you did do it? I don't know.

Just stir it up a little bit? Yeah, I like to stir it up. But you don't stir it up now like you used to. Yeah, I'm very tame now. Why is it? Did Hannah reel you in? I've been reeled by multiple people. You can't wreck that massive career hers.

Not anymore, no, I was a liability for a minute there. I love it. All right, let's get into your career pre-show. What were you doing? And what was the process like when you left to go on the show? Yeah. So I went to school on the East Coast. If you go to the school in the Northeast, like especially a liberal arts school,

we're probably going to work in banking. So I did public finance, investment banking at Citigroup for a summer, and then left that graduated. As an intern? He has an intern. Yeah, yeah. As an intern, what do you make doing something like that? I think it was like 20 grand for a summer.

And the goal with that, like anyone that's in banking, you're trying to get in I banking and consulting. The big thing is you're trying to land an internship, right? Because you need the job, for the most part, you want that offer going into your senior year. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's the big thing. Like, if you come into it with a job offer, your senior, you can just, like, do whatever you want. I didn't get the job offer, which, like, was probably deservedly so.

I, like, would work really hard, but I never asked questions. And I think I realized that, like, that was, like, a fault. I should know, like, why I was doing something. I would just be like, yeah, just tell me what to do and I'll do it. So that was one thing I kind of, like, took with me after that. Question on that. Yeah. People that did get the offer.

I'm just curious. group going to your senior year, how much were they getting offered and were their signing bonuses? It's six figures, I think, to start and then I think around like maybe like a 10 to 20 grand signing bonus. But then you have to pay it back if you leave after a year. Or within a year. Okay. That dangling carrot's always there in big corporate. Yeah, pretty brutal. But then, yeah, so I graduated. Banking's like pretty intense. If anybody has done it, you work till like 1 a.m., I feel like and you have no social life. So I didn't want to do that. I did. private wealth management, which is like the polar opposite at Morgan Stanley. So it was super

tame. I would have like nothing to do come like three o'clock. And so I would like go home, take a nap, wake up, study for the CFA. Because I was like, I need to be challenged in some capacity and then like work out for two and a half hours and then just go to sleep and do it all over again. Wealth management in New York City or where are we working? I worked in Palo Alto, lived in North Beach. Okay, okay, gotcha. So San Fran. And so how we'll do it this time? 22. 22 first job out of school? Yeah.

Ultra net worth or net worth? Like, what's the size of clients you're working with? It was, it would range, like, some people would have, like, $10 million and $20 million and some people would have, like, a million dollars. And if you didn't really have, like, over $500K,000, like. 90,000 base plus bonus. How far off am I? Pretty far off, yeah.

Yeah. Well, can you make a job like that? I think, well, I was in, like, an associate's program. So I was, like, making, like, 50 grand, and it was, like, a five grand bonus. Okay. And like living in the, and if you can't like, if you're not an advisor and you don't like get any type of like commission on anything, it's just like I'm just like capped. Got it. So I was like, well, I'm not really doing anything. I need to learn something. So you take the series tests. Then I was like, oh, the CFA sounds hard. Like, well, and I just do that. And so I passed the first one, passed the second one. And then I quit my job, started Pfizer and went on The Bachelor. So did you go for your third series again? I haven't done it yet. That's crazy. Okay, so guys, just to put it out there, like CFA, in my opinion, is the hardest designation by a long shot. Also, if you hear us sipping over here, we are pre-gaming the L.A. Rams game. But that being said, it's the hardest designation, I think, in any business category or designation that's out there.

You have to take three tests. You can only take the sit for the test once a year, right? The percentage of people that fail the test, I believe, is in around 60% or so. About only 40% of passing, right? No, I think it's higher. It's higher. I think it's a higher fail rate. Okay, so fail rates, like, let's call it 70%.

We'll do the research. We'll bring it to the recap. But the point is, you can only take it once a year. You fail it. You have to wait a year. So to pass two for two is like extremely impressive. Not to pump your tires anymore. And I took them in six months.

So the first test you can take twice a year. So like I think it's like December and June. So then I think I took mine in December. And then the second test is once a year. So I was like, fuck it. I'm just going to take the second one. So then I took it six months later. That's really impressive.

Why didn't you finish it? Because of the show? Yeah. Because then the next time, 12 months later, I was in paradise. Okay. Growing up in high school, where you're always like ultra-smart top of your class? No. Okay.

So it's just if you put your mind to it, you're there. Yeah, I actually have like a very strong belief about that. Like I, I mean, I got like a 3.0 in high school. I had like a 3.0 in college, like super average grades. And then when I didn't get the job after my internship, I have like a massive chip on my shoulder. And I was like, oh my God, like I'm just going to put my mind. to it. I nearly aaced the Series 7. I think I got like a 97 on it. I was like, I'm just going to study super hard. And so like that's kind of how I operate now with stuff, like especially

at a startup. It doesn't really matter. If you just do everything you can to try and figure it out, like you can accomplish it. CFA much tougher than Series 7, but Series 7 is another one that a lot of people take and will fail their first time. So that's extremely impressive. If you fail, you get fired at Morgan Stanley. So you have one shot. It's a lot of pressure. It's like performance anxiety when you take a test. Okay. So you get through that. You got your CFA. You then get called on the show. How'd the show find you? Who put you in the hat to be on the show? Yeah. So I ended up quitting Morgan Stanley to start Viser and then I think it was about eight or nine months later. A producer reached out to me

on Instagram and was like, hey, I'm a casting producer for The Bachelor and Bachelor at like we'd love to talk to you. They just DM'd you. Yeah, it's Lindsay. This is bullshit. I just said, oh, Clayton came on too. And I told like the shit I to go through and like this and that. We had the regionals. Hawkins in the room here. Hawking and I both went to regions. We both called each other and we go, dude, you're never going to believe this. They're going to believe this. And a producer called

us at the same time and said, hey, we want you to go on the batte. And I'm like, get the fuck. We both got offered to go on. We both go to regionals. Then they do, like, what I call nationals, but they bring top 50 to L.A. And here you are just getting a DM. Yeah, so I got the end. And then I said no.

Why did you say no? Well, I'd never seen the show before. and I was just like, I'm not the type of person to, like, be, like, an influencer, public or things like that. So I was like, I don't really want to get involved. And then I told my mom about it, and she was like, well, what's, like, the worst that can happen? And I was like, I mean, a lot of things could happen and be very bad. And then I ended up responding. I was like, hey, you know, if this is still an opportunity, I'd love to learn more, did a FaceTime with Lindsay, went up to L.A., came back, just like met with a few people.

and then did the hotel thing restay the night, and then they told me, like, a month later. Gotcha. Now, you'd mention your mom. Your mom, she's in media and entertainment to some extent, right? She's an attorney. Yeah. It's like entertainment law, so clearance, clearing things to, like,

I'm, like, bad at explaining this. Yeah. But essentially, it's like if a movie or a show or a song's, like, using a name or a logo or a brand, like, so they don't get sued. Okay, gotcha. Gotcha. And then she's going to be mad at me if I explain that wrong, but that's, to my knowledge.

That makes sense, right? So if, like, this show was meaningful and big, which, you know, question mark. It's getting there. And White Claw was here. Like, essentially, there could be, like, some type of law issue with White Claw being here. Yeah, it's like, if you're just watching, like, a Netflix show and someone has, like, a Pepsi shirt on. Okay. Got it.

It's like, so you don't get. Interesting. So, like, Pepsi doesn't see you. So I'm surprised that you said no. And then you're not with her background, like knowing all the forms of it was like, yeah, no, it's great. Go for it. Yeah, I'm surprised my mom. was totally fine with it. But then she was like, don't sign the contract until I read it.

And I'm like, well, you're going to have a ton of like edits and they're not going to make the edits. So how about I just skip that step and sign it? And then you can be mad at me afterwards. Did she look at the contract? After I signed it. And what did she say? She's not happy about it. Yeah, I can imagine. We'll leave it at that because I don't want any cease and desists at our door. But it's a wild sign off. Yeah, it's a doozy. But we live in California, which is like the most friendly.

for contracts. For people, yeah. Like non-competes in California don't really exist. It doesn't exist. Yeah, it's like fake. Okay. All right.

So you go on the show, but you're running, you're now not working for Morgan Stanley. You're done with the finance. You start Viser. You're eight months in. That's got to be a pretty tough thing to just leave to go film a reality show. Yeah.

My cousin was, so I start the company with my cousin. She was definitely not happy about it, which makes sense just because it's like, yeah, I'm going to be gone for who knows how long. But I think for me, like, I just kind of wanted to do it for person. personal reasons and just give it a shot and just see what happens. She kind of like what was weathering the storm while I was gone. But then I came back and she was like, cool, like let's

get back to work. I was like, yeah, I really want to, but I've got to go to paradise for a unbelievable. All right, let's back up a second. So you start visor. Viser's doing great now, but when you start up, how you and your cousins started together, do you take a 50-50 equity? No, it's women-owned. So she started the company like 2017. maybe and had the original idea and then told me about it while I was at Morgan Stanley and then I was like oh I love that like I love the tangibility of it I love the wellness space like I want to be a part of it so then I quit and move down and so we split it not 50-50 but okay something close to it got something close to it understood so then you

get involved at this point eight months in you're not taking money like you're not you're not getting paid oh no no no we no we still don't really pay ourselves like market salaries for sure and it's been almost five years but but like yeah you don't make any money so like the first year we didn't even know like you don't even know what you're doing like you just we're like this is the rough idea let's meet with as many people as possible tell them what we're doing get their feedback like have them poke holes in it and then let's go to the next meeting with it a little more fine-tuned and we did that for the first 12 months we didn't even have an app we just like sam designed the screens and we put them in a clickable prototype and we'd be like hey the app's gonna be ready in

two weeks. Can you give us feedback? It was ready like 14 months later. Sounds right. Yeah. So we just met with like probably three or four hundred people the first year. We would just drive all over San Diego, just like asking people doing customer interviews and just trying to figure out like what the hell we were doing. Okay. And your app is pretty intensive, but I think the number one question I get about apps in the range is just all over the place. What does it cost to get an app built like that? Yeah, it depends. So I think firms are like way too expensive. So if you go to like a contracting firm, we went to somebody and they said like bare minimum 150 grand, which is pretty high. A lot of that, like you can, you can cut down

if you do design. So like, since we designed the screens and did the wireframe and was like when you click this button, it goes to this page, like all they had to really do is connect it. We got a contractor to do it for like 20 grand. Oh, nice. But it was it, I mean, MVP. So like we had to tear it all down eventually. But yeah, like to get started, like you could use Figma, use Envision to do the screens in the wireframe and then find somebody to just like connect it. Okay. So it worked out obviously when you went on the show because you come back, you then have some following. So you could bring more attention to the app. At any point, though, is your cousin, and I'm asking this because of my experience with my boss is like the big question

are you going to get fired? Like did your, even though your family, did your cousin at all say like, I don't know. Like this could really hurt the business. And did you almost think about not going because of that? Yeah, no, I never thought about not going. Okay. But it was like always a chance. Like, we're like, yeah, I mean, if I go on and just like hated by the entire world, then that just like completely kills the business, not have to disassociate myself.

And like, that was definitely at risk. I obviously knew that wasn't going to happen. So, yeah, it ended up working out. But like, the goal of going on was never really to promote the app. Like, actually right before I went on, we actually restricted the app to people only in San Diego. interesting why we just like it wasn't like ready to be seen at all still like still like we're working on it it's getting better I mean the the company itself is is not really a wellness app anymore it's like we equate it to like Amazon for the

health and wellness space to where Amazon has multiple products right they've got AWS they've got Amazon streaming they've got their marketplace like we're in a similar boat to where we've got our incentive app we've got this like really interesting tool that we're about to launch next month that is kind of like a way for people to just try healthy brands. And then we're about to launch like a corporate wellness kind of modification of the app that is today. So like partner with insurance and companies like an employee wellness tool and things like that. So we have like multiple products and then the app is kind of like the first one that we did. Okay. So the epicenter

of this app is people go work out. They log their workouts and it's giving back to charity. But with that you're obviously bringing users. You're bringing the brands that are giving back to the charity, you bring in charity. So with that app center, you're then building off the blocks to do all these other things. Yeah. So it's like the core function of it, like we built out of behavior economics, we partnered with the number one behavioral economics, kind of like professor, researcher, just like guy, he's the man. Turns out he's based in San Diego. Helped him, or we partnered with him, we helped like kind of underpin the incentive model with his research. So a daily pro-social reward of donating a meal and then a weekly long-term personal reward.

which is like when you donate, you earn points and can redeem them for free products. Traditionally, it was restaurants. We've now launched groceries, now people can get free groceries at like Walmart, Kroger, places like that. Cool. Okay. Obviously, after the show, you've had a lot of monetary success. So is Hannah.

But one of the questions I got to ask before we move in on the timeline is, I think people hear this to say, okay, eight months, you're taking a salary that's under market value or you're not taking much money. And people out there, like they want to start doing something, something like this, but they can't afford it just because of the cost. What is your suggestion

to them? And were there any tips that you have that allowed you to do that? Besides raise money. Both are good. Yeah. I mean, it's really hard to start a business and not raise money. I think like cash flow positive businesses out of the gate are few and far between. So especially like tech, like that's a super like tech debt is a real thing where you have to just like pay a ton up front to get the tech to the point to where it starts like flipping and becoming a cash flow positive asset. But yeah, it's really just like, I don't know if you listen to how I built this,

but every single story is the same. They work a full-time job, they figure out something they're super passionate about, and then there's that like inflection point of am I gonna go do this full-time and use my life savings to figure it out? Or am I just gonna stay in my job and let this idea die?

So it's just like making sure you're comfortable with that. Obviously it's a lot harder to do that, the older you get. So we started at 22, 23, like, worst case scenario we could have done something else but like at no point in time over the past five years have been like oh i need to start looking for another job like i just i just know we're going to figure it out so gotcha okay so we've had the founder netflix come on and then we've had mark lorry billionaire who owns uh multi-billioner owns minnesota timur wolves with a rod they both have opposing point of views on

this uh mark randolph netflix o pm swears by it don't do anything without other people's money you have your skill set you're doing it you're putting your work you're taking the risk go get other people's money. Mark Lorry had 364K debt left to his name, put every penny into his business, left himself nothing. And then when he fundraised, it was easy because he said, I don't have any other choice but to succeed, ended up selling that company for hundreds of millions of dollars. What side do you take, OPM or go all in? So I would say both, we went all in in the beginning to get it to the point to where you can get other people's money. Like if you start out of the gate, raise money, you're going to give up a lot

more than probably you should versus if you're willing to kind of like take the chance and bet on yourself you can keep a lot of that equity and then come the fundraise it's like the best of both worlds got it okay cool but i mean yeah if you have if you have fucking million dollars in the bank and you can start this business and get it to 10 million dollars in revenue then yeah you should do that get after it like 99% of the population can't do that understood okay you get off the show you're on hannah brown season get off the show and i remember they tell you to you get the opportunity to go in Paradise. I remember you called me, Lori introduced us, and you were contemplating. You were contemplating pretty good about it for a lot of reasons, at least on the call you were. Was it that

tough of a decision or not? I think Paradise, when we went on, like the seasons before aren't like what it is today, if that makes sense. I agree with that. There wasn't a drinking rule until I think our season or the one right before it. Like the people, there are some people who would go on that are like not, I don't know them personally, but seem like not the coolest people. So it's like, okay, is this really worth it? Am I just like, I gave it a shot the first time? Nothing really happened. Do I really want to like roll the dice again to where like, okay, I went on in the first show, wasn't hated, amazing, had a great time, met some awesome people. Do I really want to roll the dice again and be like, yeah, let's try it again? Because like the risk

reward it's there's so much more risk than like you actually going on and finding somebody and oh yeah of course if you're looking it as a business decision it's a bad business it does not it's a terrible business decision to go on if you're looking for some type of return or even love honestly yeah yeah that's for sure okay but you end up deciding to go what was the what was the one driving factor uh why not the why not so like i decided to go on the first one because i just broke out my girlfriend and my dad had just died so i was like fuck it like nothing's going right like let's give something a try and so then the second one i was like well i might as well just like see this whole thing through like how many people get this opportunity in life so i did it

i probably wouldn't have done it if hannah didn't go i think that was probably like a big factor for me so you knew before that that you had your eyes on hannah yeah i think everybody knows this but like we went to dinner before the show like me her lory wells okay and like i like had met her like we were in a group but i like met her there and i was like if i were to go like this is probably the person I'd want to get to know. Got it. And then when I got there, I was like, yeah, this is what I want to do. Okay.

So I'm terrible with, like, keeping up on the bachelor know. So I actually didn't know that. So that's interesting. Got it. So you had that. You have a dinner. You have a Bachelor burner account. Bachelor Burner account.

Yeah, right. Yeah. There we go. We're settling right now. Anybody that thinks I have a Bachelor burner account, logging in right now to Instagram. We're doing this live. I have three accounts there.

Ramen noodle. Trading Secrets. You can conferred. There is no other account. Tyler Cameron fan 161. He's so full of shit. All right, there's the answer. Boom.

All right. Now, so you go on the show, you get off the show. Obviously, it works out for you. I don't want to know the number because it's going to get us in trouble, but all I want to know is a yes or no. Did you negotiate with the show on compensation numbers for Paradise? No. Will we get in trouble if you say the number?

I don't know. People have said it before. I don't know. I always err on the side of caution these days. I feel like it's like a thing. Yeah. it's like people get paid to go a hundred bucks a day or something or did you do a guarantee no i didn't do a guarantee because like i was like yeah i had like no presence i've talked openly i've talked

about my book everywhere about what i got paid it's like 700 a day or something like that yeah i think everyone's changes a little bit but yeah it's something like that but it's nothing that material my point is you're not getting rich off it yeah i think it ended up being like 15 grants for the whole season yeah something like that's crazy and then i have some of these vanderpump people that come on the show and i'm like so i heard rumors you guys make 25k an episode just like oh it's way more than that. Yeah, it's ridiculous. It's unbelievable.

All right. So you get off the show, though, it works out for you. You go right back to Viser. When was the moment that, because your first time off of Hannah Brown season, you didn't have that many followers, right? No, like no, like no platform. No platform. So you didn't make, did you make a penny off of Instagram before you went on in Paradise?

No. Okay. Get off Paradise. You're like the King of Paradise. He goes, yeah. Yeah. I was like, you guys were on my season. You guys are on my season.

And then when did... I actually remember the moment. So, this is really funny. I would go to... No free ads. I'm not going to say the name of the gym. But we went to this hit class. That right...

No, it's F-45. So I used to go to F-45 all the time. And the episode was airing 5 p.m. Or, yeah, 8 p.m. Eastern, but it doesn't air until 8 p.m. Pacific time. So there's like a three-hour delay. And I was like, oh, I'm just going to take the 4-45 or 5 o'clock class at F-45. and then, like, when I'm done, I'll go home, shower, chill, and then the episode will be on.

But it's airing on the East Coast right when I start the class. So I, like, put my phone away, come back out after the class. I, like, turn my phone back on. I've got, like, 100 missed calls, a bunch of text messages. I'm, like, trending on Twitter as the banner person. And then, like, I think I got, like, 50 years or 100,000 followers, like, within the first, like, one or two episodes. And I was like, oh, fuck.

Yeah, what's happening? It was pretty insane. I was like, oh, my God. Like, what's happening? And then it just kept getting bigger. Because, like, the first, I mean, that had to have been one of the most watched seasons, I feel like. Hannah Browns. Well, Hannah Browns and then Paradise right after, I feel like it was one of the most.

Hannah came from Colton season. Yeah, which also was a really popular seasons. And Hannah had, she had a bunch of followers, though, from Colton season. Yeah. She had like a million or something coming into the, to Paradise. I mean, that's crazy. It's crazy. It's, like, doesn't.

Yeah. Was she making money before she went on Paradise? like with ads and stuff? Yeah, I think so. Okay, gotcha. And so, yeah, it just like exploded every single week just kept getting crazier and crazier because for the first, like, I don't know,

eight, maybe like six episodes, it's just Hannah Blake and I. Like, that's the whole, the whole drama. The whole drama. And so it's like, you're just spotlighted for whatever, like a month long of the show and it's just like incessant. And I was like, oh my God, this is insane.

And then it kind of came down and then like when the show ended, it went back up. And then now it's like. Okay. So. And then monetizing with, that after the show. Tell me a little bit about that journey. Like the first opportunities,

things you've learned, just the whole, the whole breakdown of monetization. Yeah, first ad was with liquid IV to do a story. Love that. Yeah, shout out, shout out Brandon and Hayden. But it just like, yeah, I'm so bad at it. I'm still pretty bad at it, to be honest, because I'm just like, I feel like it's not me. Yeah. What's not you? Just like doing ads and stuff. Like, I've gotten better at doing things that I like. Okay. Like I partnered with, I've probably and a few health and wellness products and wearables and things like that. And it's like, that's actually what I do all day. So that makes sense.

But like doing like an app shocker thing like isn't really. That's not going to do it. It's not going to do it for me. So yeah, it's super interesting. Like you're, this was three years ago now. There's just so much money in influencer marketing that. And like I work with the brands that pay these people. Yeah, we're going to get into that.

And I'm like, oh my God, like there's just so much money and like one of the new products that we're launching for Vizor next year is like something to actually enable tracking for these things. Like when you're a food and beverage brand and you partner with an influencer that you just launched in Walmart, you have no way of tracking how many people went in and bought your product versus now we're about to launch something that will let you do that. Oh, so you're saying if you are promoting us, you're promoting some type of CPG or you're promoting some type of something. And you're saying you're not directing them directly to the link. You're actually sending them to a retail store. There's no way to track it.

No way to track it. Gotcha. It's impossible. And so then what are you doing to do that? We're using, like, we have a point of sale integration, and we're creating kind of like you can call them mobile offers that people can generate on their phone, walk in, scan them at checkout, and so you know they came exactly from this ad. But you do agree, especially as an investor in some of these companies, which will get to, you do agree that influence or marketing in general is probably one of the most optimized ways to put a, oh,

just giving me a look. Where are you going? Put a product in front of people for the most efficient way. Yes. I guess. I think it's overpriced. Okay. I actually, like, I think macro-influencing is on its last legs, and I think

like people really want, like, micro-hyper-engaged communities. Yep. But, like, where are you going to get a $5 CPM? Like, you work with an influencer, you pay them 10 grand. They get, I don't know, 100,000 views or 500,000 story views. Like, that's a pretty good deal. That's pretty good. Yeah. That's all you care about. What's the alternative?

That's all you care about. Yeah. Versus, like, Instagram and Facebook, the iOS update. It's like, like, acquisition costs are like $50 and higher, which is not sustainable. Yeah, that's not sustainable. But, yeah, if you're looking for impressions, I don't know that there's a cheaper way to get it. Yeah, it's just like, are there followers in India, like in your products based in the U.S.? How can you convert that?

So, like getting more detailed with the analysts. Yeah, I would say that we're seeing, especially CBG companies, are getting so much more efficient with the way that they are doing influencer marketing. And there are companies out there, like, I mean, I'll throw a couple up, like a beam CBD, right? Like, Beams doing well. Beam's doing well. They are some of the toughest negotiators when it comes to influencer marketing. And that's what you're seeing.

You're seeing a lot of these companies do really well with how they're negotiating. Well, the big companies like have just an ungodly amount of money to throw out of it. Yeah. Like insane. And you were talking like Fortune 500. Yeah. The big company is like. And it's much cheaper than a five.

I just looked up yesterday. 6.5 million for a 30 second commercial for Super Bowl. Yeah. So why? Yeah. But like if you're saying, 100 million people are going to watch that. And then someone who's going to put up a million dollars,

a million impressions on a post, who's going to take it for 25, 35 grand. It's a no brand. You'll take it all day. All day. And what I think a lot of brands will start doing next year is just paying people for content and less about their following an audience

and just saying like, you're a good content creator. It's actually super time consuming for me to go film and take photos and all this stuff. So I'll buy this content and I'll pay you an extra 15 grand for me to have 12 months usage and just boost it all over social media. over social media. Well, I've talked to some CMOs, and what they're doing is the other thing, too, in social media for anyone out there that doesn't know is you'll get that the deal, right? 50K

for a post. It's a one-off. But then you do one, you're done, and you'll never see them again. I hear what they're trying to do is a lot of influencers are trying to sustain, like, what can I make this year? So companies will say, we'll put you on entertainer, like 3, 5K a month. You don't post it, don't touch it, just create the content for our page. And then they have their entire social media outsourced. We paid a girl $1,000 a month, post on TikTok for it. interesting it's it's such a good deal like for a brand to pay somebody call it five grand a month and they give you 20 pieces of content that you can like white label and boost and all the stuff

it's so worth it got it unbelievable okay with you influencing social media in general have you made a pretty good amount of money doing it or you just like i'm done with this i mean yeah it's it's pretty awesome like sometimes i'm like oh my god i can't believe i like get to do this So I definitely feel very lucky. But I just take essentially every dollar and invest it in like food and beverage, like high risk, CPG brand. Okay. So the money that comes in from influencing, you take every dollar put into high risk.

Pretty much. Yeah. Okay. I just let it ride. Let's talk about that. Time's taking. You take the money in. Liquid IV, I'm making this up.

I'm not saying they pay $8,000 for a store. They pay you $8,000. You got $8K. You go put it into investment. What type of criteria are you looking for when you invest into a small company? Yeah, so I usually do like 10 to 50 grand somewhere in there. It depends on the terms of the deal. Like I want to get at least a tenth of a percent, like at a bare minimum. I've done a few where I didn't do that. Like I kind of want to stick to my like moving forward. I kind of want to stick to that kind of like thought process. But yeah, I look for the brand. Like is this a cool brand? Is this something people would want to post about just organically and see it's got to be in the better for you space. So some type of like healthier products. Would you say dough cookie dough is in the better for you space? I would say dough is in the better for you space.

They are using better alternatives than any other cookie dough company out there. And like, I'm of the belief it's impossible to take somebody who's eating lays chips and turn them like vegan and working out like 20 times a week. With small steps. Versus if you break it up into small steps, like it's scientifically proven to work to make people healthier. So I'm a fan of healthier alternatives. It's the same reason why I'm a big fan of like Olipop and Poppy over peasant.

Pepsi and Coke. So yeah, I look for the brand, Betterview Space, the founder. Really, that's all you're betting on when you're doing like precede to Series A is like, is this person going to figure it out? And then like I'm starting to add like retail doors. Are you in a thousand doors? Like, okay, are you like over a million in revenue? Like things like that are kind of what I'm starting to like include in my process. But I don't lead deals usually follow on on when you've got terms set by a VC or high number of individual or something like that. Love it. Okay. Doe. I also want to put out there, huge fan of it. Sabina, the founder, got to meet with her a few times from an introduction from Dylan. She's unbelievable. So I was just poking fun at Dylan. Doe is

an incredible company, check it out. Can I give people the website here that I'm looking at? Yeah, totally. If you're curious, the companies that, in the thesis, I mean, some of the stuff about Dylan that just blew me away is just the due diligence, the thought process, the business acumen behind his decision-making, he has a site called barber, b-a-r-b-u-r.v-c.c. It shows his portfolio, thesis, media, and every company that he's invested in. So I'm just looking right now, right? You got Ranch Rider, you got B'amani. Bumani. Bumani. You got Moku, jerky, dough, mesclah, you have chubby. You have, I mean, there's a ton. Dream pops, honeycomb. There's a ton of them in here, right? I've done 15. I think I've done like 10 in the past year.

So you're at least, if it's 10K, 15, you're at least 1.5 in on this stuff. If it's 10 to 50, 10 to 50, I think I'm around like 500,000. 500,000, okay. Somebody check me on my math. Oh, no, no, you're right. Okay, this is my fifth interview today. That was way off. Yeah, I was thinking 100,000.

I think it's around. Okay, so around 500,000. When you're, so you've made a comment that you're not investing in these companies, like someone that's a high net worth investor. What are you doing different? Like, in what sense? You're negotiating tactics, how to get in, how to not be part of a syndicate, how to get extra equity.

I pretty much refused to be part of a syndicate because they definitely, generally have fees into carry, and I just think that's like, like for me and my position, I work with these people. I will not agree to that. If like somebody has zero connection to the space, maybe it makes sense to a syndicate. Moving forward, I think I'm like super founder friendly because I'm a founder myself. I think like maybe if I, assuming some percentage of these exit and I have cash to reinvest again, like I would probably be more like harder negotiator in terms of like I can add a lot of value so maybe doing some sort of like equity preference of putting in you know call it a one to one 15 grand and getting an extra 15 grand

and like advisory shares or something like that just because like I have a platform I can introduce to retailers just like as another founder connections in the space and I just feel like I'm just so founder friendly that I'm like hey listen like I just want to be along the ride and support and if you can help me out in my journey too then we can both win so I love it that's probably what I would do next time very cool have you with your financial acumen and business acumen And I look at myself in the way I've kind of, Caitlin has taught me so much, but I'm able to help and advise a lot on this stuff.

And people will come to her with deals all the time and we'll take the calls together. Have you been able to help Hannah with this stuff and she got involved with some seed investing? Hannah's in a few. Yeah, I think she's in Ranch Ryder, Beaumani, and Moku. And Doe now. So shout out Doe again.

Yeah, Hannah wants, she's like super smart. She's like, I don't wanna over, like I've probably over-invested in CPG, but that's just like what I do all day. So I feel like I have a good idea on who may do well and who they're not. But she like does influencing. She's launching her own personal company. She like has invested in seed brands. She wants to start like buying some rental properties and Airbnb. So she's like really smart about diversifying and like very proud of her for doing that. Me on the other hand, I'm like fuck it, let's go all in like give me your high risk.

Give me her a high risk plant-based smoothie. I'll take it all day. I love it. I do have an an Airbnb potential opportunity in Nashville, we should talk about it. Maybe theme it all bachelorette, but we'll get to that. Let's go. All right, good stuff. If someone is out there investing, and this is too complicated to them, they're like, see investing, all the stuff you're saying is too much. And also, guys, stay tuned to the recap.

You guys know the curious Canadian. He is going to be confused by a lot of the jargon that Dylan has put out there. He is the man, and he will ask me definitions. We'll talk through those. So stay tuned if you are feeling a little confused. Someone that is a little bit of a more novice investor. They are sitting on cash in this crazy environment, right? inflation's up the ass, don't know where to go.

The market's turning left and right. What type of investment advice would you give to someone? If I had money right now, I'd be buying real estate. So I think rates have come down. There's a period of time there where investment rates were lower than personal rates. Like if you were to go buy a personal house and get a personal mortgage, like your rate could be like 7 or 8% and the investment rate was 6, which I thought was insane.

So that's probably what I would be doing right now. I wouldn't invest in, like, yeah, again, I'm not an investment advisor. I think you, like, legally have to say that. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I don't know. I really like real estate. That's probably the next thing I would do. Stay away from crypto.

Okay, good advice. Yeah, stay away from crypto. But, yeah, I mean, if you're interested in, like, investing in consumer brands, like, if we're going to go into recession, alcohol brands usually do well in a recession. So you can look up, like, on any we funder. angel list to any of those websites and you can invest as little as 500 bucks. Love it.

That's good advice. I also like being involved in alcohol space, I think, because, like you said, it's a great hedge against just the mayhem that's happening. It's definitely not cyclical. STZ is my favorite. Rochester, New York, Constellation Brands. Check them out. Again, not investment advice.

Ranch rider. Ranch ride. Hey, one day Constellation might buy ranch ride. They might. That'd be cool. Consolation, if you're listening, you totally should. And I have a funny ranch rider story. I'm sitting at the, uh, Caitlin and I are on the sidelines at the Green Bay Packers game. And all of a sudden, a kid comes next to us. His girlfriend,

I think at the time, I don't know if they're engaged or married. I was like, oh, a fan of the bachelor, what are you doing here? You're a Bill's fan. And I'm like, you know, Caitlin and I are like, no, no, we're just supporting. We have a good friend, whatever. The boyfriend comes in and goes, oh, you're from The Bachelor? Like, I do deals with Dylan and Anna. I'm like, what? You do deals with them? So all of a sudden, you start telling me about Ranch Rider, so you invested with it. Yeah, Brian. Okay. Now, the other thing I didn't know is just thought There are two random people. All of a sudden, the president of Green Bay Packers,

the chief of officer, the head of the head, comes in and hugs them. And I'm like, how'd you know him? He's like, oh, it's my dad. What? Yeah, his dad is the president of Green Bay Packers. How did you not put that together? I have to call this. Yeah, that's what we were on the, we were on the field.

Well, so that's why he said, I told him, I was like, I'm going to the game on the 19th. He was like, oh, would you want field passes? Yeah, dude. And I'm like, how do you get field passes? Unbelievable. All right. I'm going to give a call. Little do you know.

You're investing. He should get Aaron Rogers Fund to invest. There you. Our X3. Our X3 Fund. We've talked about that when Kelly Flanagan came on. Holy smokes. All right, I want to quickly, we've got to wrap up here soon, Viser.

I did see and read that in the early years of Viser, you entered and won a startup competition, split a million dollar prize. Is that a fact? That's a fact. We should have won the full million, but we tied. What was this? What was this competition? It's the Alliance Health Care to a great foundation.

they actually ended up investing into Viser themselves, which was great. I think it was like right when I got back from Paradise a week later, we were pitching in the final pitch competition. So that was a pretty wild experience. But basically it's for companies that were forwarding the health kind of improvements in San Diego. And so we won because we were using behavioral science to like kind of underpin our incentive app to make people work out more and introduce them in healthy brands. That's cool.

500K. What'd you guys do with it? How'd you spend? Got a table. No, I'm just kidding. Literally a conference room. Yeah, yeah. No, we, yeah, I mean, we started to pay ourselves, I think we paid ourselves like 30 grand a year or something like that. Hired our COO, hired a few more people, and it's just really

like operating capital at that stage. That's pretty cool. Where does a company stand today? How are things going? Raising capital. How has the growth been? Yeah, it's pretty awesome. I mean, we're up to 14 people and over five years. We've only raised a million and a half dollars. So we're... That's impressive. Super lean. Try to run the company off revenue. It's going really well. I mean, I think 2023 is going to be an exciting year for us. I think we grew revenue a little over 200% from last year and another recession. Like, it's so brutal. 2020, COVID shuts everything down.

Yeah. 2021. Still kind of like, this year, shit starts to pick up again. June, everything shits the bed again. And then everyone's like super scared for 2023. But yeah, I mean, I think we're in a good spot. We don't really need to add that many more people to this. the team, we don't really need to like increase our burn a crazy amount. So it's just like,

all right, the product's ready. Let's start getting some brands involved. Let's start making people healthier. There you go. The burn. That's another one. We'll talk about that. There's a lot of jargon here. We're going to talk about it in the recap. Stay tuned. I got the last, and we'll show you how to get the Biser app. Last question I got for you, I don't want dates. As a guy you always asked me, I could care less. But as a finance guy, I need to know. When you look at all this wedding stuff, right? Right. When even, I don't I don't care if you talk to a plan. I don't give a shit.

We're in the process of it right now. Whatever. Okay, so you're in the process almost done. So you're there. But talk to me about just your take on the cost of anything wedding and how you're managing is in numbers and finance. Yeah, that's ridiculous.

It's nausea. Yeah, it's overpriced. I was saying we should just tell people we're having an event and not tell them it's a wedding and we'll probably get half off. So Sean Johnson. Yeah. Andrew East, right?

You know, Sean. She told me what they did is that, because she has a charity. She just told vendors when they met with them, met with them. It's for a charity event. Yeah. And she said the same exact product, the same exact things were coming in at one fifth of the cost. Yep. Just ridiculous. Yeah, it's, we're, we're trying to get like, we, so we know somebody who makes champagne. So, I think we'll be able to get champagne. We know somebody who makes tequila. So I think we'll be able to get

tequila. I've talked to a few beer brands. Think we'll be able to get some beer. Great. Don't have to pay for that. There's a lot of things you can get. There's a lot of things you can get it. But there's a lot. There's a few things we can get, though. Yeah. I mean, I mean, maybe have a flower connection, but usually flowers are tough. No flower connection. And if you do it abroad, it's different. If you do it in the U.S., it's different. So we're like managing that right now. All right. What does one person not know about Dylan and Hannah when it comes to business or career that might be interesting behind the scenes? Other than you're a gamer, we know you're a gamer. Are you going to take that professionally? I wanted to stream for a minute there.

You did? Yeah, for a minute. I was like, I should stream. I'm very funny. Have you? Self-proclaimed. Self-proclaimed. No, I did it for a little bit just for fun during COVID. I thought it was super interesting. I kind of wish I, it's just a time commitment. And, like, a lot of the things I don't do because I have, like, a full-time job, which I think is probably the number one misconception is that people think I'd just, like,

set on my ass all day on social media. That's fair. So, yeah, I would say that the thing that people don't know about us is, like, kind of our end. I would say the investment side is, like, something that not a lot of people know. And I'm super proud of it. I mean, I suffer from imposter syndrome as I'm sure a lot of founders do. So just like trying to figure out, is what I'm doing right? Am I right?

Am I smart enough? Am I good enough? Like that kind of thing nonstop? So, yeah, just like I would say that the business side, Hannah launching her own company, like us trying to be like sustainable businesses outside of just doing sugar bear hair ads on Instagram. Yeah, I think that's well said. No offense to them, by the way.

No, yeah, they've done very. well for themselves. The last thing I want to say is you led to a misconception about how people do think you don't work and you and Hannah work your ass off. Can you give people a little context? Like how many hours you putting in? How many hours is Hannah putting in just perspective? I mean, we started at 6 a.m. today. So it's 4 o'clock now. I mean, we're going to be going until like 10 o'clock tonight. Like Hannah's day starts a little later than mine, but hers goes late into the night because it's like setting up a content strategy, shooting content at night, planning what the week looks out, setting up photo shoots, like things like that.

I mean, yeah, it's a full-time job. Like I, there are some people who can get by on influencing working like two hours a day. Totally. Very doable. Yeah. I could do that all day. And you make a couple hundred thousand dollars a year. It's a great job.

Versus like if you rely on that and six months from now it's gone, you're fucked. Yeah. So I love it. All right. One trading secret. Dale and Barber, something that people can't learn in a textbook or in a classroom or from anywhere. Anyone else out there. What would Dylan Barber's life, money management, financial management could be anything?

What's your trading secret you can leave us with? My trading secret, which isn't really a secret, it's like it doesn't matter where you went to school. It doesn't matter what your grades were if you can just like spend the time actually learning something and doing it regardless of like how shitty or how dumb you feel in the beginning. I guarantee you like in the near future you will be exponentially better than what you were before and then a lot of people before you who've tried to do it. I love that advice, especially in 2022. There's so many places you can go to get information. You don't have to sign up for the classroom session. You don't have to be at the university.

You can be a student of your own. And like you kind of had said, I wasn't the 4.0 student. I just really focused on this and had the best outcome. Yeah. I love it. Awesome. Dylan, where can people find you? And specifically, Vicer app.

If you haven't downloaded the Vicer app, where can people download it? It's on iOS and Google Play. Just type in Viser. It should be the first thing that comes up. And for me, Dylan Barber on Instagram and the real D.B. Coop on TikTok and Twitter. The real D.P. You haven't changed that. No, keep it. I got a lot of it. You like that. Twitter, Blue, baby. Nobody's taking my blue track.

Twitter, blue, Dylan, Barbara, unbelievable. Guys, stay tuned. We're going to download the Vicer app. David's going to do it. I'm going to do a full review. So I'm forcing you to listen to this, even though you don't want to. Please. Very impressive. Dylan. Everything you've done. through the show, outside the show, all the investing stuff. It's been a pleasure again to know you and congratulations on everything.

It's truly, it's truly awesome. Thanks, man. Thanks for having me. Thanks for being on this episode of Trading Secrets. Ding, ding, ding. We are closing in the bell to the Dylan Barber episode. What a gem of a man. Bachelor at Hannah Brown season.

Bachelor in Paradise. Entrepreneur won some money. Clearly a smart guy. And he won the jackpot. He is now engaged and on his way to marriage. with the lovely Hannah G. So he's got all things going. Really enjoyed Dylan.

But of course, that's why we bring on the Curious Canadian. What do you thinking? What do you got? What questions are top of mind? David Arwin, welcome to the recap. Thank you, Jason Tarduk,

for having me today on what is our, I think, 90th episode. Congratulations to us. I'm going to say this. I think this episode was the trifecta episode. And what I mean by that is that you could have three different groups of trading secrets listeners that listen to this, you could have people who tuned in

because they're Bachelor fans and you got a Bachelor alumni on the show. You could have people who are new to the podcast who probably heard some things and are really inspired and some things that completely went over their head. And they're going to have some loyal listeners and be like, you know what, I'm starting to see here some familiar things. I'm starting to get a feel of what's going on. I'm really starting to see some things, maybe some tips, some tricks that I'm applying in my life or that I've thought about that Dylan touched on. So I think it was kind of that triple threat, triple threat action from Dylan today. triple threat. We love a good triple threat. I love a good triple threat. That's a beautiful thing.

It is. And before we get, I know we're business. I know we're finance. But anytime there's the pop culture aspect to an episode, I got to, you know, my curiosities, they peek up a little bit. The hairs on the back of the neck, you know. He alludes to something. I got to bring it up. So I got a couple little questions and statements about his time when The Bachelor in Paradise. We'll get through this really quick. Number one, I, nice little training secret. He didn't even know. I didn't know that he was kind of getting set up by Lori K before going for dinner with Hannah before the show even aired.

Yeah, I think that leaked like around that time that I think she was reping everyone. I think, I don't know if Blake was at that table or not, but she got a group of batch people together and that's when they met. Yeah, that's a fact. Factor fiction, that's a fact. You heard it.

I think we didn't hear it because Blake was too busy getting buried on I mean, I know you're the curious Canadian and we're talking business and money and stuff, but I know you get very curious about pop culture. I respect that. You know, listen, there's a lot of things. There's a lot of people talking before Paradise, right? I mean, that's just the reality of the situation. People start to network, if you will, and they understand, you know, some of the opportunity that comes with the show and if it works out. But, you know, let's be honest, you know, nine out of ten people that end up on that island

it does not work out in their favor. And I'm not talking about like, I'm not talking about like, oh, you know, they'll get a relationship breakup. I'm saying like nine out of ten people

don't end up in a relationship off that Paradise show. Now, you were fourth and inches from going on the show. Football reference means you're really, really close. How,

do you know how early people find out the cast like when they get casted or do they actually not know? Well, technically you're not supposed to know, right? Unless you're just chit-chatting before. Okay.

So you're only going to find out through, you know, either like an agent or, you know, you guys are like talking DMs and stuff like that. And you'd be surprised how quickly the gossip gets around. So I think in general, a lot of people have an idea of who's going down to the beach before. And agents, right, like, okay, I run a talent management company, they're going to try and talk to the clients they rep. They're going to say, hey, who do you know? Who should we be looking out for?

You know, who's going to crush it out there? I'll go talk to my agencies and start. pitching these people. So you got a lot of people that are curious because of love connection. And then there's a lot of people curious because of it brings it back to this podcast opportunity. Do you think that they submit a list of people who they want to see at the beach? Because you always hear on the show like, oh, well, you know, so-and-so is one of the people I was hoping to see down there. Do you think they actually get to submit a list of like who would be your top three love interests? I mean, listen, you think about the strategy. The intro, the people that

they pick have to be good TV. The people that they pick have to have good engagement. The people that they pick have to do things for ratings and move the needle. I do remember when I was deciding, I was like thinking about do I go this year or the following year at the time when I was single. We're talking 2018 people. And I do remember that I was told your, if you look at like, oh my God, bring it back trading secrets. You look at like your stock value, your stock value for paradise, just like that little world is at the highest point right after your season.

And then the next year they might bring you, but your stock value is not as high because your relevancy in the ratings and you're not coming up the show and all those things I just alluded to isn't as high. So every year you wait, I think is every year your stock value goes down

and every year that when you talk about who are they going to select, your propensity of getting selected is probably less. And after many years removed, I would say unless you're an outlier, The reason that you're on there is because someone who is right off the show has made a request for you because of a potential interest.

And that rounds out your bachelor curiosities with David Ardwin and Jason. And these are all opinions, people. I don't need any more lawsuits. These are just opinions based on what I know. I never went down to that island. So, you know, take it for what it means. Well, I loved the fact that he wasn't shy about saying, I am not a reality TV star. I don't think he has anything that he wants to do with being known as a reality TV star.

this guy and you share a little bit of similarities in the corporate banking world when he fresh got out of college but he's a he's a stone cold entrepreneur he kept saying visor and i thought he was saying Pfizer at the start um so i did some research on on visor i want to ask you a question though when it comes to an entrepreneur or comes to starting something out of a passion project that he brought up and he referenced the podcast how i built this and he basically said you know everyone on how i built this which is a podcast that's you know basically goes into the detail of how people started their now super successful multi-million or billion-dollar companies says everyone on how I built this had a nine to five job and then with a passion idea they eventually had to put their

life savings into it and go into it full-time or else that idea goes to die now he said that matter-of-factly like that's the only way and I know we probably have a lot of people listening to this podcast who find themselves in that nine to five with a passion idea that they want to take somewhere I want to know do you fully agree with them is it matter of fact you have to do that or what can you kind of like, can you shed on just that whole topic that you guys talked about and the way he said that? I was really curious about that. Okay. Well, let me, I think you made a really good point. It's really interesting for people listening back home to the whole idea of the matter of fact type statements. So I think in general, when you hear Dylan speak, he speaks with a lot of confidence.

And there's probably a lot of things he said in this podcast that were very, this is how it is. and what I've seen a lot of common denominators between most entrepreneurs and startups and especially guys with finance backgrounds and especially venture capital guys who invest like he checks all his boxes. It's very matter of fact speaking. It's funny when I go to a lunch

and there's like a PE guy and a venture capital guy and investment banker and an entrepreneur, everyone's talking 100 million miles an hour and this is how you're talking to the PE perimeter show and the bed-bubut, and it's like a matter of fact it's very stone cold.

It's like you're saying things with such confidence and such stern amount because that's what you have to do to make it. That's what you have to do to gain traction of investors. That's in the DNA. You can't help that. I mean, yes, 100%. You can prove in showcases in which there were situations where someone was working full time. And on the part time, they got it going and they worked it and they hustled it. They got some investors. They didn't put their life savings in. They grew the company to a position where cash flowed. They exited the company and made millions and millions of dollars. I guarantee you there are examples of that. I think

what his point was is that your probability and success, your likelihood of success, if you want to be a legit entrepreneur, build a business, get the right investors, get it to a level where it can exit and exit at the point that's going to make you rich, the likelihood of success is much more probable if you do that. And I would stand by that statement, if you go all in. And we heard it. We had someone on. Mark Lurie, multi-billioner. What did he do? Just that. Right? Put every penny he had, went all in. And most of the people that we do have that. So I'd say the like one standard, two standard deviations, the majority of people, that is the key ingredient. Interesting. No, it's true. We almost, like he said in the episode, like I'm not a financial advisor,

like we have to say we're not life coaches. So if you do end up quitting your job and pursuing something, it doesn't work out, don't come after us. You got your hand up there, Jay? What do you got. The only thing I'll add to that is it really is dependent on the industry, right? Like, if you're in a cash flow business where you're doing a service on the side and as a result, you know, you're freelancing website design, you'll make cash. No, you don't have to invest all your savings. But what is the hardcore entrepreneurship where you are investing in big growth opportunities, you're going to have to put some skin in the game. You're going to have to raise money. You're going to have to go all in. So it does depend the type of business and,

and really just the inner workings of how that company makes money and how much money that company needs to get to the level it needs to get to. Then that makes perfect sense. And kind of transitioning from Pfizer to kind of what everyone can do, which is personal investing, sounds like he's pretty heavy into investing into CPG. 10 to 50,000 is kind of his sweet spot. Kind of funny to see how that, what's that?

I got to ask you a question. Yeah, what you got? 10 to 50K as his sweet spot. He's investing a CPG. I don't think you even realized it. You just said that. Like, you're an investor. Like, the curious Canadian is no longer curious.

So, let me ask you, and you didn't ask me, what does CPG mean? So I think I know what it means. I didn't think you're going to put me on the spot. I think from listening to the episode, it kind of made me feel more confident. Is it consumer packaged goods? yeah like to fucking look at this sharpshooter a couple years in

he's literally a financial advisor CPG consumer package goods that's like all your typical consumer goods like think like food items like bars makeup you know like the dish detergent stuff like that you nailed that well I had to stop you there because you were starting to speak like a venture capital

guy I was like who is this guy well I coached my hockey team to a couple losses this weekend so that's a big win for me I needed that win that's a huge win it is This is kind of crazy, though, you know, that's his investing strategy. I know you have your investing strategy. You know, one thing he did say is stay away from crypto. You know, just hearing that now we're 90 episodes in, like how big was the crypto craze,

the NFD craze in the first 25 episodes that we did? What a difference two years can make. I mean, what a difference two years can make. I think he's probably saying that it's just because the volatility of it. We didn't get into like the all the inner workings and what his take on is it. But, you know, I don't know if you guys have seen, Bitcoin is almost, you know, as we're recording this is around 22k a coin right now. And Ethereum is close to break in 1600 a coin right now. So that's up significantly in the last, you know, a few weeks. So who knows what's going on in

that world? Q the, David, did you find your crypto comments? David, did you find your crypto? Go rate five stars. Ask me, you'll get the same answer. Okay. So as always, doing my due diligence, I got to be the curious Canadian. You bring up, whenever you bring up things in the episode to bring up in the recap, I get fired up. Usually it's already in my notes. So we're going to hit a couple of those things. One, we're going to look up the CFA.

You guys touched on it a lot. It sounds like an insanely hard thing to do. Just shed some light on that for the people at home. What exactly industry is related to the CFA? Like you will be taking the CFA if you want to do what. And then what are the pass rates, et cetera, that go along with it. Okay. So it's a three-part.

exam. We talked about that in the interview. And the fundamentals, like the things that you have to know in this exam are all things investing, all things valuation, portfolio management and wealth planning, et cetera. It's an insane test. It's an insane test because it takes, if you want to get your CFA level three, that's your full certification. You have to go through three tests, right? Level one, level two, level three. You can only take it once a year like we talked about. If you fail it. You have to wait a year. So if you look at in 2022, the level one, there was only a 36% pass rate for level one. So you sit for level one. You study your ass off for it. You take it. Only 36% of people pass it and can take the level two the next year. You don't pass it. Wait a year. You then wait to level two. Okay. In August 2020, there was level two exam. Only 40% of people failed. So you're one at 36%. You got to wait for level two. Boom. Now only 40% pass. Then, level three, and there, you know, they had another sitting in August 22 for this. Obviously, if you're taking level two at August 22, you can't take a level three, but only 48% past it.

So look at that. I mean, you look at the ranges. It's an extremely tough thing to get. What do you get it for? If you're, you know, you're working in investment banking, it's a good place to get it. If you're in wealth management, if you're in any type of big analyst role, it's a good place to get. I mean, if you have your CFA pretty much under any type of financial-esque role, it is a massive designation and the toughest to get. And probably worth the six to seven figure job that it comes with after three years of absolutely grinding, getting through that. Series seven, something that he brought up. Series seven, same question. What industry is it for? You're taking the Series seven if you want to be a blank.

Okay, so Series seven, like, okay, like when you, when there are a lot of kids that went to be investment banking analysts and part of like you go through like a 10 week program and then you get places an analyst and at the end of the program you got to take your series seven and it is uh it's a FINRA um general securities essentially license and so if you don't pass it though like he said usually you are fired but what it does is it's a general securities representative exam it's like a GSRE uh it's administered by FINRA which is FINRA is financial industry regulatory authority. And then like what it technically does is it gives you, once you have that Series 7, the ability to buy or sell security products. It helps. You can buy

or sell options. You can do direct participation programs, investment in companies and variable contracts. So you're on the investment banking side. Or if you are even like any type of financial advisor, you'd have to get a Series 7. Now, one of the things I always remember, when considering financial advisor role is usually to have to get a series seven in 66 at the bare minimum or a 65. But there's a lot of moving parts. Essentially, if you are working with any financial advisor, they're likely going to have their licenses in this space. I think they have to at this point. And a lot of the investment bank analysts too. If you didn't explain what some of those things meant, like FINRA, we're going to have to have a recap to the recap to recap the things that

you talked about in that explanation. So really, really well done. by you there. Love that. What else you got for me? I'm just, is there any other tests out there that, you know, people might be listening to you to take pride in in terms of like, oh, I've done that or I've done that, or I wonder if he's going to touch on this? I mean, there's a lot. I could, let me actually, let me throw her back in the hot seat. Let me ask you this. Do you know what the CPA is? That's the accounting one. There you go. And we've talked about that in this show. So you nailed that. I'll go outside of the business industry because I know we got a lot of people that listen to this that work in all areas. What is an MCAT?

uh med school okay what so it's a what is it though mcat uh yeah a test you a test that you take a test that you take to get into med school that gives you a scale okay you nailed that else that uh that's the lawyer one a lawyer version of the SAT now that gmat gmat gmat's grad school business grad school wow this guy is on fire i'm done with the questions david is shooting a hundred percent the guy's on fire. All right, David. We'll end with this. You know, you told me to bring a couple of these things up in the recap.

Little do you know that I think that we've touched on them before. So this kind of theme, if you put me in the hot seat and me actually know what I'm talking about, feels good right now. So I'm going to mention a couple things that we went through and went over and see if I'm on the right path here. So you told me to bring up burn in the recap and we've brought up burn before. Yep. Do you know what it is? I think so. wow well you just tell me if i'm right or not burn give it a go burn rate is basically how much cash

you go through so it's a basically a set amount that you know you're going to lose each month before you go negative it's it's literally like a negative cash flow think like burn you're burning cash how much negative cash flow are you burning monthly burn rate you want to think about how much cash you have to go through the rate at which you're burning money and that is like you know we've heard the word from kyle cook episode runway how much runway do you have that's the David nailed it. What else do you got, Curious Canadian? All right, CPM, I think I know what CPM stand.

I think I know what it means, like the definition. I don't fully know the acronym. Okay. So CPM, what do you think the definition is? Let's start that. CPM is, we hear it all the time in all of our influence of marketing episode. Basically, it's the cost per like views or not like customer acquisition, but like it's the going rate for cost for, um,

how many views that you get on an advertisement? I mean, you literally nailed it. So CPM stands for cost per. And M is a symbol for 1,000. So cost per 1,000, CPM. And essentially, it's how much are you paying to make a thousand impressions? So, you know, maybe your goal for CPM is $5, right?

So you want to pay $5 for every 1,000 impressions. So if someone made 10,000 impressions, what would you be willing to pay 50 someone makes 100,000 impressions you'd be willing to pay 500 a million impressions you could do the math from there right so that's the idea just when we think we know what we're talking about they throw a thousand in for m and then the english language just goes shit again uh last one i got c investing i'll take it from here it has to be uh early stage investing in like a startup company probably something venture capitalists vc's do uh think of an investor investing in a company, planting the seed in, being the beneficiary as it grows

into more money in your pocket, has to be what seed investing is. David, honestly, you're going to have to take over the host because you nailed it again. In the different areas of raising capital for a startup, there are pre-seed, their seed, there's seed plus, there's series A. These are all different stages at which they are finding different sources to move the company. So pre-seed is like pre-product lunch before it's even there. There's a very small amount of customers. There's barely any revenue. You're not raising that much money in general. The size of the raise is very low. Usually friends, family founders, accelerators, angels, there's a whole group. Then seed would be, okay, you got a little revenue going. There's a little bit of evidence that the company's work.

you're going to raise more. So if you're doing seed, maybe you'll do like, you know, 250,000, 500,000 to 2 million, and then you would move up from there as the company is growing. So think about it like you're planning the seed and it's slowly sprouting. You nailed it. Those are different stages of raising money. David Ardoin, you might have to become the host of this podcast. You are learning and hopefully the money mafia back home. I hope you guys are fired up by the Curious Canadian because obviously he is taken in a lot. I'm very impressed, David. You got anything before we wrap it up? No, I just hope

there's some listeners out there who have been with us since day one is like we're doing these little games like seeing if we know that are also like in their cars

or wherever they're listening answering the questions and then hearing the answers with a little fist pump just a little fist pump at the end. Just a little fist pump for the kid

before I know it I think David is going to be investing VC round CPG let's fucking go. Thank you guys for tuning into another episode of Trading Secrets. Remember to give us five stars, Money Mafia, you guys are the all-time best.

Five stars, let us know what topics you want us to cover. Let us know what guests you want. We are right around that 90th episode, and let me tell you what, for that 100th episode, we got quite a guess. Caitlin Bristow's coming on. It's going to be pandemonium. It's going to be fan-dimonium. David, anything before you go?

No, I hope by this time next week when we're on, the bills are still in the playoffs. So, go bills. go bills we will see you next monday hopefully for another episode of trading secrets one you can't afford to miss making that money money playing on me making that money money living that dream making that money money money pay on me making that money money living that dream Please note that this episode may contain paid endorsements and advertisements for products and services. Individuals on the show may have a direct or indirect financial interest in products or services referred to in this episode.