Need Money for Your Business, Expert Karen Rands give you the Do's and Don'ts

Hello and welcome to Shedding the Bitch Radio, where you can discuss, debate, and get advice on how to discover and shed the bitches of fear, insecurity, self-doubt, and negative mindsets so you can realize your dreams and life purpose and create and accelerate the riches you want in life. Join us here live every Tuesday at noon Eastern and dialogue with us at 818-572-2910. You can also chat with us at blogtalkradio.com/sheddingthebitch or share your stories on our website at sheddingthebitch.com. Whatever the bitch is that's holding you back from living your life to the fullest, it's not worth giving up the riches in life that you deserve. So call in now and let Bernadette Boas know what's holding you back.

818-572-2910. Good day, good day, good day everyone.

How are you?

This is Bernadette Boas and yesterday I was talking with Sheryl. Shedding the Bits Radio, and we have a great program today. Those of you who are listening, you can't see me, obviously, but at the same time, those of you who go out tomorrow onto our Shedding the Bits YouTube channel, I am in studio with our guest Karen Ryan. She's going to correct my pronunciation of her name in a minute. I saw that on your note about Karen or Karen.

Oh, because— oh, that's a joke. So that is— we actually say Karen, Kayron. Yeah, Kayron.

Oh, okay.

That's my festival nickname.

Okay, another time. Well, unless we have time, then we'll dig into it.

Hey, Deborah, how are you?

I see you out there as well. And I hope your kids are well. Are they good?

Yes, they're doing so much better now.

And we're going to be a little bit— I'm trying really hard to get you as close as possible to— to my speaker. There seems to be a technical issue from a BlogTalk perspective, but we're good.

Deborah, are we good?

Yep, I can hear you.

Okay, perfect.

I won't have any water, but hopefully my phone won't drop into my glass.

No, that's okay, that's okay.

All right, we have a great program today, but before we get started, and I'm going to get serious for a minute because I need my Shedding the Bits community for something. And I promise not to cry.

Okay.

So, just need some prayers. I have a 21-year-old nephew who's been dealing with a very debilitating disease for about 6 years. He basically has not left his house. He can't really leave rooms. He can't look at light. He can't listen to noise. He can't do anything that really then provokes every nerve, every fell on his body from creating some excruciating pain. So it's been a very, very tough, tough road for, obviously for Kyle, who just turned 21, which is just heartbreaking to think that, you know, he missed out on school, he missed out on his first date, his first kiss, he's missed out on so many things, and yet it's amazing that this boy, now a man, is as strong as he is. Well, His parents have been trying to do everything for him, and trust me, they have. And it's my brother Mike, my younger brother, and his wife Karen, and their daughter Erin. So the four of them are working really hard to find an answer and a cure. We actually want a cure at this point. So they just landed up going to the Cleveland Clinic. They drove out there yesterday, I believe. And fortunately, they got a doctor who was like, okay, yes, we need to check him in and we need to, you know, kind of really focus on what we can do and what we need to do for him. So just need as many, many deep, deep, deep thought-out prayers, even if they're high-level prayers, whoever you pray to, to really just throw a lot of angels their way and a lot of prayers their way in hopes that they find a cure. For this and that he can have the life that he deserves. And if you would do me a favor, you can go to my Facebook page, my personal page, Bernadette Boas, and you'll see a little write-up about it. And you'll see a YouTube channel. The one thing that is hurting a lot of us and killing a lot of us as well as Kyle is he has an amazing voice and he loves to do covers of all the old-time singers. So Kyle Boas, K-Y-L-E Boas, B-O-A-S, if you would go to his YouTube channel and and even just listen and like and share or subscribe, do something as a kind of a, just a shout out to him, even though we can't watch them or listen to them really. You know, if you could at least throw your support along with those prayers, I'd be sincerely and deeply grateful, so would my entire family. Deep breath. I don't even have my water.

Alright, so we have a great show for you.—

and we've had great shows all month. It's July, so for all of you listening, we've been talking about resetting, we've been talking about mid-year, we've been talking about goals, we've been talking about women, the perceptions men have of you can be disturbing, and I did a whole program on it a few weeks ago. So go out to BlogTalkRadio.com and look at our past episodes, download them, listen to them, as well as go to our YouTube channel Shed the Bits YouTube channel, and you'll even see interviews that I've done in studio, which today is my house. And this one with Karen will be up there tomorrow, but we had Michael Moore on there last week talking about networking and net weaving and what you really need to do to build your network, so to speak, personally or professionally. And we have had some great interviews. So do that as well as Look there tomorrow and you'll see our smiling faces. All right, let's see. Okay, so this is the way it normally works is I'm going to talk to you about the subject that we're going to talk about. I'm going to give you a rich question I want you to be thinking about throughout the program. And most likely our expert is going to address that. And if not, then you can always go back to Shedding the Bitch on Facebook or Twitter. And Deborah, of course, is out there tweeting and watching you and taking in any comments that you might have. And we'll be sure that we get back to Karen in regards to following up with you on any of those questions.

Okay?

So we're talking about money today, and I don't care if you're a business owner, a corporate professional, or you're a stay-at-home. We're talking about money, and more importantly, ladies, we're talking about how you can actually up your expertise, your credibility, your viability out in the marketplace, even your own self— or not self wealth, your own wealth through angel investing. So our topic today is Give Your Money an Upgrade Through Angel Investing, and we've got the pro in the house. So what we're going to be talking about is that decades ago, only the most wealthy and institutions invested in real estate that thought about it and even knew how to do it. Same with investing in private companies and even the stock market. So ladies, think about, you know, are you really in the stock market or did you just hand it over to a financial planner and hope that he's doing or she's doing whatever you need her to do? But that's all changed for real estate and stocks because of the changes in regulations and all that has changed with the deregulation of the JOBS Act. In 2012. The great democratization— she loves to— democratization, thank you. The great democratization of capital economy, entrepreneurs can set up their company to raise capital from strangers, even advertising as such, but will they invest? Likewise, there's no barrier from investor to entrepreneur, good, bad, and the ugly. So if the JOBS Act is to work, we need people with the means and desire to invest in these entrepreneurial endeavors, to have the knowledge and tools to make smart angel investing decisions. So Karen has a brand new book. Where is it? And obviously you're going to have to go to YouTube tomorrow. You can see a copy of it and her smiling face. But her new book, Inside Secrets to Angel Investing, comes out on August—

August 5th.

So, well, the print book is available now.

Where? At Barnes Noble.

And Amazon.

And everywhere you buy books.

And the Kindle version is in preorder now, available August 2nd, and we're running a promo August 5th on the Kindle version.

Okay, so we're going to talk about that because she has a whole thunderclap opportunity and event going on.

She's teaching me. We want to make sure you're aware of it because if you do have a Kindle, you can actually get it free.

We love that word, free.

All right, so what are the 3 things that you're going to listen for?

3 ways entrepreneurs and investors can connect without that middleman, what entrepreneurs need to be prepared for, and what angel investors need to look for when evaluating a company, and the benefits of using Insight Secrets to Angel Investing and the investor portal to grow our financial IQ, your financial IQ, and investment portfolio.

We have a lot to talk about, and keep in mind one thing too.

Just because it sounds like we're talking about something like, "Ooh, angel investing. Ooh, raising money for my business, but I work for Coca-Cola or I work for a small company," this information is going to be very relevant to you whether or not you're that business owner seeking to learn what's inside the mind of an angel investor, what they're looking for. It's going to be for you that have never even considered investing but have you have money sitting in a drawer that you think might benefit causes and companies that you like. And then of course it's going to be for those who are angel investing or want to be, and of course we'll talk all about that as well.

All right, we're going to take a brief break, but before we do, your rich question.

The question I want you to be thinking about as we have this conversation, and again, I'm pretty convinced Karen's going to answer it, but if not,, then you can always reach out through Twitter or Facebook on Shedding the Bitch, and we'll make sure Karen gets the information. But what is that one area of either raising capital, like I said, maybe for your own business, or investing? Maybe you do have some money that you'd like to invest. And what is it? What questions do you have? And you can use the risk tag angel investing, hashtag angel investing, or our usual hashtag Shed the Bitch. All right, and follow on Twitter or Facebook through those tags. So when we get back, we will introduce you formally to our guest Karen and get into this conversation.

We'll be right back.

You are listening to Shedding the Bitch Radio with Bernadette Boas. We are inspiring individuals around the globe to discover, confront, and shed their bitches of fear, insecurity, and negativity so they can create the riches in their career, business, and life they deserve. Be sure to check out Bernadette Boas' book, Shedding the Corporate Bitch: Shifting from Bitch to Rich in Life and Business, available on Amazon and sheddingthebitch.com. We also want to thank our sponsors, TSR Consulting, who offers a broad range of tax services for small to corporate-sized clients. Go to TSRConsulting.com to learn more. And Parker House Virtual Services, who provides virtual assistance and social media support for small to medium-sized businesses. Email Deborah Parker at deborahparker78@gmail.com for more information. To become a sponsor or advertiser on our program, email us at mediarelations@sheddingthebitch.com. Shedding the Bitch Radio airs every Tuesday at noon Eastern Time. Be sure to go to blogtalkradio.com www.facebook.com/sheddingthebitchradio and follow the program for all of the updates and announcements of our guests and show topics. Now let's return to Bernadette and Shedding the Bitch Radio.

Welcome back everyone, we are talking to Karen Rand and I actually love her description.

I want to be her actually.

I aspire to be a venture catalyst. She's a compassionate capitalist, which we're going to talk about, an economist, an investor, and entrepreneur. She is the leader and advocate for the compassionate capitalist movement. She believes entrepreneurism is the greatest source for wealth creation. You don't have to be successful entrepreneur to create generational wealth if you can learn how to invest in those companies that have the potential to be the next best thing, according to Karen. She is the founder and CEO of Kuberan Capital Holdings, a consulting and advisory firm for entrepreneurs and investors right here in Atlanta, but she works all over. From 2001 to 2012, she managed to rebuild the network of business angels and investors to be one of the most active angel investor groups in the Southeast, a notable national recognition, and has morphed that into the national network of angel investors. So today, over 2,000 investors have participated in some aspect of Karen's investor education offerings and have over 5,000 that have attended her events seeking to meet with invest— I'm sorry, to meet with entrepreneurs that have compelling investment opportunities. Furthermore, over 1,000 entrepreneurs have benefited from Karen's teaching and coaching, many of them applying that knowledge to their business strategy and capital-raising efforts.

Activities.

Her clients have raised over $60 million combined and created hundreds of jobs according to what we've been able to track. Karen has been a frequent speaker, or is a frequent speaker and mentor with numerous small business and economic development initiatives, and was the recipient of the Advocate of the Year Award in 2016 at the Flight to Freedom Summit in San Ramon, California for her work to promote compassionate capitalism. Karen resides outside of Atlanta, Georgia with her family, and she's here in studio with me. I'm so excited. How are you?

I'm good.

We've known each other for quite a while, 2009?

Yeah, I think so.

2009, right around there? Because ladies, I'm just going to give you a brief little thing. I'm not an angel investor. However, the minute I went out on my own, I said, you know what, I need to learn about this thing called capital raising. And really understand it and then even network with the types like you because that's a way of then when I do need help and support, right, then I have already a network. Is that what you recommend to even entrepreneurs starting, growing, expanding?

Oh, sure.

Yeah, you need to always think through your— that one-degree separation. So it's who do you know and then who do they know.— and so it's— I mean, it's— you're always building your network, and you know, in the corporate world, people know that because it's the job security, because you can always find and land someplace else if something happens and you need to get another job because of who you know. Right. Well, it's the same thing when it comes to raising capital, because when you establish personal credibility within a framework of a network, when you start to talk about that you have this great big project, or— you're investing in a great big project that you have believed in, you bring that personal credibility to your network to at least have the additional conversation.

Right.

Well, I'm also going to throw out there too, we might sound as if we're talking to entrepreneurs and business owners, but those corporate professional women that I have listening on a regular basis, don't take for granted or don't assume that you don't need to know about this because I even learned in my corporate career as I was going up the ladder, I was getting more and more involved with our acquisitions and mergers. And it really was beneficial for me to have some degree of knowledge around capital raising and how to deal with investors. And if I were— I didn't have to go into any meetings in corporate, but I certainly had to understand what does it mean to acquire money, raise money, let alone companies and whatnot. So, yeah, and as women, it just really added a notch to my to my whole kind of resume that I actually had all that merger and acquisition experience by the time I left corporate and didn't need to necessarily lean on it for corporate, but I definitely lean on it for business. All right, so let's make sure everyone is clear on what angel investing is and what it means and all that kind of good stuff.

Okay, so—— for people like you and I and some of the other people that we know in the world of entrepreneurism or, you know, on the investing side, we take it for granted that people know this term angel investing. And I did. I mean, I had never heard it before I left my corporate job.

No.

And came in and kind of jumped into raising capital for a company that had been my client, and I was going to go raise capital for them because I kind of thought I knew what that was about, and I didn't., and, you know, discovered the Angel Investor Group that I took over and started my learning process at that point in time, and it wasn't— and I actually talk about it in the book, The Making of a Compassionate Capitalist, because I met this very successful executive, okay, a very successful executive, he was the president of a— and CEO, or he was the CEO of a US operations of a foreign-owned company in the agricultural space, and I met him at a networking thing and he saw on my resume, I mean on my business card, venture capitalist and angel investing, and he was like, "What's that?" And he was actually talking to his financial planner at the time about kind of getting himself financially structured so he could leave his cushy corporate job and go either acquire a business or start a business because he wanted that more. He was bored with his job, right? He was making money, and so he got the original version of this. This is many years ago when I wrote just— some ebooks on it, some chapters, and started learning about it and became this angel investor. I was stunned that the financial planners of the world, the ones that really should be advising companies on this, never talk about angel investing. It's almost like it's the words that won't be said or something like that. It's like taking money out of their pocket. Yeah, and there's FINRA, which is the regulatory environment for the SEC, has created an environment that makes it fearful for those wealth managers to talk about that. And so bottom line is that angel investing was started many years ago by people that were patrons of the arts, and so they were called— they were high-net-worth people, and they would invest in a play or something like that, and they were angels to that. And then it morphed over the years through the dot-com that we know about when people discovered— and regulatory changes, it's always about regulatory changes— changed it where people could put private money into companies. Before they go public. And so, it has always taken on the name of angel investor because, you know, you're looking for money and they're an angel to give you money. But a lot of times you've also heard of Shark Tank, right? Everybody's like— There's devils out there too. Those are angel investors too, but more common terms that some people hear when I'm advising companies, they'll say, 'cause some of the people that may invest in their deal may not have ever heard of angel investing or may have had a negative connotation to it, 'cause they think it's gambling or it's really high risk. So they'll be silent partners in a deal Or if you've ever read Robert Kiyosaki's Rich Dad Poor Dad book, the cash flow quadrant, if you think about the right side of the quadrant, what it is, it's business owner and investing, and his whole thing is making your money invest, it works for you. So owning pieces of multiple companies, you're in effect an angel investor. Right. And then making those investment dollars work for you, and my goal is to make people think about it, shift the paradigm so the same way they think about it wanting to add real estate to their portfolio, but want to add private stocks of private companies to their portfolio as a wealth creation strategy.

Well, one thing that I thought was interesting that we talked about before we got on the air was, and you kind of mentioned it, is, you know, you have all these corporate baby boomers right now, and they've made a lot of money, and it, you know, and now they want to leave corporate and leave the man and start a business of their own. Well, another strategy could be that instead of going out and starting your own business, and you know, 9 out of 10 businesses fail within 10 years, well, what you could be doing is actually getting educated, engaging someone like a Karen, and actually your business strategy is around buying or investing in businesses, investing in businesses. Like she said, that builds a portfolio just like you would your financial planner or real estate portfolio. Around businesses and therefore become an angel investor.

Now, is there a monetary limit? Okay, so traditionally angel investors have been— had to have been what they call an accredited investor, and that's a term that the SEC uses, and it's based on a certain level of income and net worth. And in general, it's, you know, rule of thumb, $250,000 as an individual income for the last 3 years or $250,000 as a joint income and $1 million in assets that's not your primary residence. And so that was kind of where it was. That's why when I, in the introduction, 20 years ago the only people that invested in real estate were the high net worth institutions. Well, the same thing on the angel investor side. Okay, so that's the great democratization of the capital markets because now really rules changed through the JOBS Act. So it goes to like there's the 3 ways that you could raise capital from strangers. There's crowdfunding that people have heard of. It's called Reg CF.

Indiegogo and— Well, I said those are, Indiegogo Kickstarter are not equity-based. So EquityPoint is the one that is equity-based then?

Well, they are independent. They are registered with the SEC. Those are the ones most people think of as crowdfunding, but there is a reward-based or donation-based. And off the top of my head, I can't think of the ones off the top of my head, and there are people that are my partners on that that would say, shame on you, Karen. But anyway— You left that part out. Give me a question on that, I will tell you who they are. Anyway, so in almost every state, last I looked, it was on the books of every state. It may not have been fully implemented yet, but every state has what they call— Georgia does too— interstate crowdfunding, which says you can raise money from your people within your state if you're incorporated in that state or have your primary operations in that state. I looked it up just recently to see if Delaware Incorporated could still do it, and you can as long as your primary operations are in that state. And the regs seem Reg CF that finally got through allows people to go beyond their borders and raise kind of within that and raise money outside of their borders on a national basis. And there's some variations between states, so you may want to, you know, look into that. But basically, that anybody that makes $100 grand can invest in those kind of companies. It's up to 10% of your income, but it's capped out at like $2 grand per deal. That's the Reg CF. Then you have your other ones, which is a variation of a Reg D offering. For the record, it's 506. Those are only accredited investors, and they have to provide evidence that they're accredited investors.

Okay. But— and so go learn all about that. Okay? So just get educated on angel investing. But the question that I really wanted to hit on was, because I want them to read your book, even if they're not an angel investor, if you're even thinking about— or you're an entrepreneur thinking about raising money, or you're not even there yet, or you're there, or you're an angel investor, I want you to read her book. I want you to get this book because it will give you those inside secrets as to what it's all about and what angel investors are learning and reading and therefore what you would want to arm yourself with. There's a 30-plus page glossary right here. That's what I figured.

It's like 300 terms that you need to know for the venture app world or the angel investing world.

Right. So the question though I have is, what— is there a kind of a limit of investment that an angel makes versus like a venture capital? Like, is it maximum of $250,000, $1 million, $5 million that an angel investor would make versus a venture capital or somebody else?

Okay. Before, can I do one more thing? Sure. Answer that question. Sure, sure. I have to do the third one. Oh, I'm sorry. That's the one that's like the big sleeping giant. There is no reason to do a— So for your listeners that are owners or active in a bigger company, maybe they're $3, $4, $5 million in revenue, they always think that this new product they want to come out. They'd be like, "Oh, if we could only raise $10 million, we could do a whole launch campaign for this new product, and we could be a $30 million company and get ready to be acquired." Right? Where do you go to raise that kind of money? It's hard within the traditional angel sector if you're that far along to do it, and if you've taken a long time to get there, you're not going to get it from VCs and you're too small for private equity funds. So the Reg A+ is the secret, kind of like the Trojan horse to do that, because you can raise money from anybody, same limitations, $100 grand kind of a deal, so it's unaccredited and accredited, and your existing shareholders can also participate. Participate in selling the stock if they've had the stock for 2 years at the same time and whatever your offering is, you can raise up to $50 million over the course of a year. Wow! And you get 6 months based on the filings you have to do, you can roll over to be a public company after 6 months if you complete your filing process.

Wow, I didn't even know that.

So it's like it costs money, but not as much as going public. You have to spend money to make money, people, but it's a very exciting thing. Stage and not that many people are doing it. So to your question, which is, is there a particular level that makes an angel investor versus— So there's not a cap on it. There's not like a max that you can invest. It's just really subject to what the company's offering and how much shares they're giving up and how much money they're raising. On average, an accredited investor that participates in angel investor groups, you know, these networks that are around the country. I've talked about Rich Group and— Right. People on average invest $25,000 to $50,000 of their own money on a given deal, and so that's sort of the industry standard of— Their own personal money.

Right.

But one of the key things, and one of the things I point out in the book, and I was actually— Jakey Keddy was commenting, or Jakey Redd, anyway, he commented on Twitter about this, that he's an angel investor, that people get involved in angel investing and a lot of times they'll do one deal.. And then the odds of them losing their money is actually quite— you gain experience over time. But just like with any stock, any kind of investment portfolio, you need to have a strategy that expands and you diversify within your strategy of including that so that you have— my recommendation is at a minimum you need to figure out how much you have the ability, how much money you have to invest over the next 2 to 3 years and a commitment to take that up, divide it by 5, that's your minimum investment because you need to have a plan to invest in at least 5 companies or don't even get started.

To then overall make money off of it. Right.

Or don't even get started. It's just like investing in real estate. It's a pain in the you know what to invest in one property, manage one property that's income-producing. Or do what Yap Town's strategy says, you're going to add to your portfolio over time. To kind of gain an abundance in that. That's the same thing when it comes to angel investing. So you can start out as a crowdfunder investor because that's your thing, but have a strategy that over time— and one of the things that a lot of people don't know about, with people that are in corporate positions, they usually have a big fat 401 that has some matching from the company and stuff like that. Well, you can roll that over into self-directed IRAs the same way that you would invest in real estate out of a self-directed IRA, you can invest in private companies. The same way. Right. So you could build it in there tax-free for your retirement. That's kind of part of the generational wealth, and there's a whole bunch of tips in the book about how to do that kind of a thing and how to do— compare it to real estate investing and get a revenue stream, you know, an annuity if you will, and versus like the flip or something. So there's lots of different strategies.

And I just noticed, um, and then we'll take a brief break, but I just also noticed a quote on the front of her book, which you can get on Barnes Noble, Amazon, and everywhere you buy books, but it's from Mark Cuban. She mentioned Shark Tank, and we know those guys. But, uh, always wake up with a smile knowing that today you are going to have fun accomplishing what others are too afraid to do. Very nice, very nice. All right, Inside Secrets to Angel Investing with Karen Rand. Before we go, are you going to that— Daymond Johns is in town. Oh, is he in LA again? Yeah, tonight I'm going. Daymond from Shark Tank. Again, I always want to learn about pitching and, you know, the kind of feedback from folks like him, angel investors. One thing that I love about Karen, and we never really talked about this because she and I really don't think gender, but there's very few women from an investing perspective, and let alone from an angel investing and venture capital investing and all those other things. Sure, do they invest in the stock market? Probably, because like it's self-directed or it's directed by someone. And so I've always, um, uh, respected Karen and applaud her and her doing, um, because of the fact that we women— the reason why I wanted her on the show We need— you need to get educated about this. It sounds intimidating. It sounds a little bit overwhelming. You're probably rolling your eyes going, what are these people talking about because I don't have money and I don't think about investing in companies. It's not as scary as you think if you engage someone like Karen to educate you and lead you along the way, and you get her book. Inside Secrets of Angel Investing.

And there's— with the book, you get access to a portal that has sample term sheets, due diligence checklist, how you decide what kind of company, do they meet your measurements, the minimum criteria for a company. So you get a lot of tools to help you in the journey.

Even just getting educated, I'm telling you, it's a huge business imperative and advantage of you over everybody else in the room, whether at corporate or in your own business, even at home, because you could be a stay-at-home mom and you have some disposable income, a nice amount of it, and just are like, okay, what can I be doing with it? So that's why we want to get you educated. All right, we're going to take a brief break, and when we come back, we're going to continue this conversation because I need to know what a compassionate capitalism or capitalist is. We'll be right back.

You are listening to Shedding the Bitch Radio with Bernadette Boas. We are inspiring individuals around the globe to discover, confront, and shed their bitches of fear, insecurity, and negativity so they can create the riches in their career, business, and life they deserve. Be sure to check out Bernadette's book, Shedding the Corporate Bitch: Shifting from Bitch to Rich in Life and Business, available on Amazon and shuttingthebitch.com. We also want to thank our sponsors TSR Consulting, who offers a broad range of tax services for small to corporate size clients. Go to TSRConsulting.com to learn more. And Parker House Virtual Services, who provides virtual assistance and social media support for small to medium size businesses. Email Deborah Parker at deborahparker@parkerhouse.com. 78@gmail.com for more information. To become a sponsor or advertiser on our program, email us at mediarelations@sheddingthebitch.com. Shedding the Bitch Radio airs every Tuesday at noon Eastern time. Be sure to go to blogtalkradio.com/sheddingthebitchradio and follow the program for all of the updates and announcements of our guests and show topics. Now let's return to Bernadette and Shedding the Bitch Radio.

Welcome back everyone online listening to us via BlogTalkRadio, or if you're going and checking us out on YouTube on our Shedding the Bitch channel, you'll see our lovely faces. As I have Karen Rand in the studio and we are chatting angel investing, private equity, getting you smart around where you could build your wealth because it's not just the traditional ways, especially women, think about building wealth. Alright, so I've always gotten intimidated, I will say, and always had a question about compassionate capitalism. It sounds nice, but at the same time it's like, ooh, capitalism. So describe for everyone what that is very quickly.

Stempling, I hope. Yeah, so it's funny, exactly right. When it's on my card, people say, "Oh, can those go together?" You know, stempling. So in a nutshell, it means when somebody invests their money, time, or knowledge, resources into entrepreneur endeavors to bring innovation to market, create jobs, and create wealth. And it came up from because Capitalism is about making money, right? And so lots of people invest in these other classes to make money, but they don't really move the human endeavor forward, so to speak, right? It's just buying and selling. So they're making money, and that's all well and good, and that's part of what we want to do as we, you know, become independently wealthy, right? But the compassion part of it— so passion, everybody knows that part of being a successful entrepreneur is having a passion for what you're doing. And Warren Buffett has this theory in his investment strategy that says, "Invest in what you know," right? And so compassion means I'm going to take my money as an investor and I'm going to invest it in an entrepreneur that— or a project that I understand and I get that I think this will benefit the world with this innovation. Can become successful in the marketplace. And I see this entrepreneur really being passionate about it. So I am going to not just be a capitalist, I'm going to be a compassionate capitalist because I'm investing to do all those things within our economy that will grow our economy.

So it's using your heart and kind of matching that up with someone else's passion for an endeavor, an innovation, a project, whatever the case might be, that can move the world forward.

And then not just a donation, right? Right. Create jobs and create wealth. I think it's that, sustainable business. Right, right, right. Yeah, not just to help you with your hobby.

Yeah, it's all about job creation, capital creation, wealth creation, and economy building.

And that's the movement. That's what I'm— my mission is before I die.

It will be— Long time. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

So this will be something. It will become something that people think about, that millennials that have it, they're changing the way that they look at the world, what's important to them in the workforce and stuff. And they'll drive a cheaper car and save their money and do this stuff. They can go and be a compassionate capitalist, right, as they grow up into the workforce. And then us that are still looking around at what we want to do, but we don't know if we have the energy to be an entrepreneur, let me go use my money to partner up with that. Good call. It's amazing, as my angel investor group was growing, when people would come in after they invested in something, we'd have a follow-up meeting or something like that,— the pride that they had because they invested in something that they could really see a benefit to what it was going to do, an innovation that was going to change the marketplace or change how things were done or whatever it might be. And so, there's a lot of personal pride that comes with also being a compassionate capitalist. Right, right.

Well, and I want to address this. It's not on my list of questions, but that's okay. That's how I roll. But, um, so something that you just said, you know, when people think and they're listening to this and We're talking investment. We already said that that can be intimidating for some people. And we're talking innovation. That can seem awfully, whoo, big, you know. And yet they're out there and they've got, you know, a business and they've got a product or service with a passion behind it. And it might just be something kind of— they don't see it as like innovation. It's not going to change world markets, but it is an important small to big type of initiative. How do you work with your angel investors and even your entrepreneurs to kind of overcome that intimidation factor or that overwhelm factor when it comes to knowing that they should be able to go out there and feel confident to seek out money based on their passion and their compassion about what it is that they're doing?

Does that make sense? Yeah, sure. So I have this Venn diagram that I use a lot of times in my presentations and education thing, and within that is— it's kind of like that world of angel investing. And so you have what I call the subjective and the objective investor. So you have your subjective investor that has an emotional connection to what it is that you're doing, and they will kind of overlook some of the other things because they just— doctors are notorious for doing this with biomed products and things like that, right? The people will just invest in stuff, or sometimes it's because the entrepreneur the relationship, oh, I totally believe this person can do it. And then you have the objective investor, those are the people that are in the business of investing. And they're going to— in order to get into the criteria that they look for, you have to have all that other stuff that makes it a business, that makes it an investable business. So it's more than just the emotion and the passion, it becomes this other piece of it. And ultimately, when it comes down to deciding between business A and business B, and which one they're going to put money in,— there will be an emotional element to that decision, but you know, you have to have both. So when you start out, you can get by with just passion, but eventually you have to get that other piece of it. And that's the reason why experienced angel investors— when I first— the very first version of this, I interviewed probably 100 different investors trying to understand what made them and how they learned how to be an angel investor. And a whole bunch of them told me that they got involved in angel investing because a friend invited them and they did this stuff and they lost money, but they kept at it and eventually figured out how to make money. I thought that was horrible. You know what I mean? I was like, really? That's how you learn how to be an angel investor? Let's see if we can fix that. So that's part of the thing that with all of this advent of the wall coming down between investors and entrepreneurs, and even in the crowdfunding space, you have to think beyond the emotion, and that's That's part of the goal of the book because we don't want people to go do it one time, lose their money, and never do it again. Right? And same thing when it comes to companies coming to me and they want to raise capital and they'll be a market participant, let's say, versus a market maker. Okay? So maybe it's a new way of doing something and they just want to set up a business in their neighborhood or in their community and they don't necessarily want to— they've got a different take on why they're going to be different, but in general there's multiple of other things for them. So they can still raise capital, but they have to think about it differently in the way they go about targeting who they're going to raise capital, and the messaging that they do. And although this book doesn't get deep into kind of that part of the crowdfunding part of it, or that neighborhood crowdfunding, or raising money from your neighborhood, there will be another one, and there will be a follow-on that will be on the portal about it. I just had to get the book out.— it's a whole process that you go through, and I, if I'm going to be successful in this movement, I have to do not only the ones that have a million dollars in net worth and how they do that, but the people that have $300,000 in net worth and are making $100,000 a year and they want to invest in something down the street because they believe in it for whatever reason. The same process applies of what they need to look at to make sure their $2,000 is as smart money into that business as somebody's $25,000 or $50,000 into something else is the same sort of smart money going into that. The amount, the risk according to the level of capacity for risk for either of those groups is the same. The process of making a smarter investment— is the same, and this book will give you the foundation for that and the tools. Right.

And so what I love is the fact that all of this knowledge, whether you act on it and become that angel investor or not, just— you can tell from just the conversation with Karen is that even these words and these lingos and these understandings of terms and concepts just knowing those things kind of ups your game when it comes to conversing in business or in corporate. So a great segue to the fact that her book is available right now, and I happen to be a very tactile person, so I like to write and scribble. So it's available in paperback right now wherever you buy books. And then talk to us about the Thunderclap event that you have coming up, because it was a new concept to me. I haven't published a book in a while, and I want to make sure that any of you who might like it from a Kindle perspective can take advantage of it.

Okay, so Thunderclap is a service similar in a way to like a Kindle, or I mean like to a Kickstarter or something like that in that you have to gain, but instead of raising capital, you are gaining people that believe in whatever it is that your cause is. And then on a specific date they go and they sign up, and they click on Facebook, and they authorize it for Facebook, and they authorize it for Twitter, and they have a Tumblr account, they authorize it for that. And a premade post that I created will go out on a designated day to that group's followers so that it's like a shout. It's a thunderclap. It's a shout out all at the same time to draw massive awareness and try to create a viral kind of response to it. And so because of how Amazon works when they help to promote a book, you give them exclusivity on Kindle for a period of time, and they'll make it available by the library. So if you're Kindle Unlimited, you can get it through that program. They bundle it with the book. Book, the printed book where you can get the $2.99, you can get the Kindle with that. And then they give me 5 days that I can make the Kindle version free. I'm going to get 2 of those days on August 5th and August 6th using this Thunderclap. So if you want to go and sign up on the Thunderclap thing, which is— it will be on the links and stuff, but if you are familiar with Bitly, it's a shortened link. So it's bit.ly/ a, in Angel, capital I, Investing, one word, dash, capital T, C. So AngelInvesting-TC, TC for Thunderclap, which is the A and the I and the T and the C as caps. And that will take you to there, and then it will be really terrific for me to be able to broadcast that out This book is available for free, and then you'll be able to go down and get it for free on Kindle. And you know Kindle, you can download the Kindle software and use it on your regular phone, your iPhone, your Samsung phone, on your tablet, on your laptop. You can use it, the viewer for Kindle on any platform, and they offer it there on the site for you to download. So go get the book. You'll have the book. There's lots of links in it. It will take you all around. So in one way it's really even better because all of the links The links to stuff are in there. I noticed that my quotes are tiny for some reason in that, but you can zoom in and look at a quote if you want because it's a picture. But then you'll also get access to the portal too. Even though you got it for free, you still get access to all the resources.

Awesome, awesome, awesome, awesome, awesome. Okay, so Karen— or Karen— Deborah, I need to make sure that you get the link so we get it out there all over the place. But please, we were talking about it earlier, we're both authors, we publish books, we know that it takes an army, it takes a tribe to really get our passions, her passions in really educating people on the inside secrets of angel investing. It takes a tribe to do it. So I would love it if our Shed the Bits community would support her in going out to this Fitly Thunderclap URL. And like she said, all you need to do is hook in your Facebook and your Twitter and Tumblr there. Everything is done for you. She pre-scheduled, pre-wrote some posts that all you need to do is then share it out through the Thunderclap app out to your community.

And then it will be pre-scheduled.

So you will do it today, but then it won't be sent out until August 5th to help her get as many people educated and as many people's eyes on this subject as possible because it is a great education and a great strategy for yourself both professionally and personally.

I'll also add that if you're curious and you want to know a little bit more about the book, we've been kind of talking about it, you can go to InsideSecretsToAngelInvesting.com and that's my book site. There's a little video there about why I did the book and there's a sample of the chapters There's a list of some of the benefits, the resources. There's some additional information, and the link is also on that page too if you want to go there. If you're like, well, I want to know more about it, that's why I do that.

And we'll make sure that it's all posted on our Facebook and Twitter pages on Shed in a Bit so you can also reference that. I also want you to all make note of Karen's social handles. Okay? So it's KarenRanz.co, not company, KarenRanz.co. You can email her. Say we didn't get your question answered, because we've been like talking a lot about kind of different things. It's Karen@KugarandHoldings.com, K-U-G-A-R-A-N-D Holdings.com, Karen@KugarandHoldings.com. Kuglerandholdings.com. Her Facebook page is Business Investor Grow. You can find her there. You can find her on Facebook as well with the National Angel Investor Network. And I would also check that out, educate yourself, see how you may or may not be able to get involved in those things. And then her Twitter handle is Karen_Rand. That's where you'll find her on Twitter. Hook in with her. LinkedIn, just look up Karen Rand, you'll find her on LinkedIn.

You can use that same email address to connect with me on LinkedIn. Yes, I've done that. I've got a picture on it. Everyone accepts you. Yeah, as long as you have a picture. Yeah, I don't do blue, white.

Yeah, no, no, no, no, no, no, I don't either. All right, so we're going to take another brief break, and when we get back I'm just going to wrap up. Well, we're not going anywhere, but I have another couple key questions I want to understand from Karen, and we'll be right back.

You are listening to Shedding the Bitch Radio with Bernadette Boas. We are inspiring individuals around the globe to discover, confront, and shed their bitches of fear, insecurity, and negativity so they can create the riches in their career, business, and life they deserve. Be sure to check out Bernadette's book, Shedding the Corporate Bitch: Shifting from Bitch to Rich in Life and Business. Available on Amazon and shuttingthebitch.com. We also want to thank our sponsors: TSR Consulting, who offers a broad range of tax services for small to corporate size clients. Go to TSRConsulting.com to learn more. And Parker House Virtual Services, who provides virtual assistance and social media support for small to medium size businesses. Email deborahparker@parkerhouse.com. Deborahparker78@gmail.com for more information. To become a sponsor or advertiser on our program, email us at mediarelations@sheddingthebitch.com. Shedding the Bitch Radio airs every Tuesday at noon Eastern time. Be sure to go to blogtalkradio.com/sheddingthebitchradio and follow the program for all of the updates and announcements of our guests and show topics. Now let's return to Bernadette and Shedding the Bitch Radio.

Welcome back everyone, I'm sitting here in studio with Karen Rand and Karen is a venture capitalist, she's an angel investor, she's an economist, she's an entrepreneur and she's sharing with us her inside secrets.

To angel investing, but you can learn all of them if you pick up her book, Inside Secrets to Angel Investing.

And we'll make sure you have all the information out there on our social sites because on August 5th, for those of you—

unlike me, I'm not a Kindle fan, but if you are, then August 5th is a great opportunity for you to get a free copy.

But I also want you to get the— you really— I personally feel you really want the soft copy as well so you can take notes, and you can highlight things, and you can use it as a true reference tool. Though I'm sure you can do all that on Kindle too, but I'm old-fashioned.

I'm one of those that takes those little strips of sticky notes things and stick them like little arrows.

Yeah, my books are all massively messed up. All right, so in our last few minutes, share with us what are those first— and I'd like us to talk to— both the entrepreneur who might be considering this or the corporate professional who has money sitting around, but also to that angel investor who— or one thinking about becoming one and didn't realize this. Maybe they're a real estate investor and they're not really considering other options. What would you tell them to be the first couple of steps they could be taking or considering?

The first two things that they would need to do is figure out their capacity to invest, because that will dictate a lot of the types of companies that they can invest in. And so it's— and then sort of how they want to get their return on investment. So if they're— most angel investor deals or angel investment deals that are true equity in a company, you're probably not going to see a return on your investment for 5 years or more. Okay, so it just sort of sits there. So if you are— we're like, well, I don't want to wait 5 years to get a return on my investment, then you need to think about other things. Where I have this— there's a— it's not as known, but there's a thing called royalty financing or revenue cycle financing, and that's where you provide the money and you get like a little tiny piece of equity, but you get paid back on a quarterly, monthly basis, whatever is set up until some multiple of your money is back. So you don't get as much equity as what you put in, but you get your money back. So I compare that to kind of like when you buy rental properties and you're getting money every month on the rental property, and then they're holding off on the big return when you would sell it. Yeah, yeah. And then I— so depending on— but you're not going to get as big of that return because you've been kind of traded getting equity for getting payments, okay? Right. And then there's, um, where you can be a financer. There's a lot of programs like Prosper.com and these various different things. So if you're feeling more like, like the flip model, where I'm going to go buy it, I'm going to rehab it, and I'm going to flip it and make my money quick, then that's much more of that kind of being where the bank says no, you become the financer. And so sometimes my investors have gotten started with that process. In my story about Jack, I talk about how he did his first investment that way, and then he— you kind of— it's like You get your money, you get a little return on your money, and you build your war chest to do the other types of investments.

Because I remember she said it takes more than one to really kind of get a real good benefit across all of them.

So you figure out how much and what you want sort of based on your risk capacity, and then you can target the kinds of companies based on what you knew. And in the tool set of the— on the resource, there's a sheet where you go through and you grade your knowledge in different areas, different industries, so you can kind of set up your own measurement. So that when you see a deal and it comes your way— and in the book I talk about how you find deals and all that stuff— then you can look at it and it becomes really easy to be able to say, oh, it has a 5, so I can look at it. Oh, this one only has a 4, so I'm not going to look at it. And then over time, as you're more comfortable—

That's actually a great resource to just kind of assess where you're at right now regardless, to really kind of say, okay, here I am on my comfort and my knowledge of angel investing.— and therefore I need your book, I need to go out and kind of engage, I need a network. That's actually a great source. And again, her book Inside Secrets to Angel Investing is also— it's targeted to angel investors, but trust me when I say, and she knows that a lot of her entrepreneurs will leverage it so they know what's going on from the world of angel investors and what's in their head. So it's a great book for all of us, and ladies, I just want to— kind of advocate, the more you can get smart and up on kind of what is going on out there in the— what we'll call the investing world, building your wealth, seeking that investment or that infusion of capital that you need for your business or for your company or for your corporate role, if you are involved in things like that, or if you're not, you can still be one up having that knowledge. So please check it out. Go to her website, KarenRantz.co, or her— remind me real quick— Angel— Inside Secrets to Angel Investing.com. That's easy. It's all about the book, and you can see more details in regards to the book as well. Yeah, these times go really, really fast. It's amazing. So we're going to have to have you back so we can— I know, isn't it amazing? So we can—

what we'll do is— is this my copy? Woohoo! Sign it for her when we're off.

Yay, I get a copy, and I am going to read it, and I'm going to mark it up, and I'm going to go back to her and go, whoa, really? I didn't know that. But at the same time, I'm going to look for other topics from this that we can drill into so we can all because I've talked to my community about the work that I do with Rick's group in the entertainment sector, and I'm raising money both in my business and for my screenplays and whatnot, so I'm always trying to keep myself up to date, and so I know that you have the same questions I have. So thank you so much for being part of the program. Oh, shaking my hand. Shaking my hand, please. But everybody, I hope you enjoyed our conversation with Karen Rand.

Check it out on our, obviously, blogtalkradio.com.

It'll be up on sheddingthebitch.com as well tomorrow. And then of course if you want to see our smiling faces, go to our Shedding the Bitch YouTube channel and you can check us out for our radio program right there on YouTube.

I want to thank everybody for being part of the program today.

Karen, thank you. And Deborah, I'm glad your kids are doing well. And thanks everybody, and please, prayers for my nephew and his family.

And I will talk to you right back here next Tuesday at noon Eastern time for another episode of Shedding the Bitch Radio.

Talk to you soon, everybody.

Thank you for listening to Shedding the Bitch Radio with Bernadette Boas. Join Bernadette every Tuesday at noon Eastern as she helps you shift your bitches to riches. And the dialogue is always going on at sheddingthebitch.com. See you next week.