How To Raise Money ONLINE!! (Zach Morrow Interview)

Hey everybody, welcome back to Investment Fund Secrets. So today we've got my good friend on here, Mr. Zach Morrow. Fantastic guy. You've already heard his intro. Long list of a crazy career in the Marines, working in the White House. We'll probably dive into all that, but now runs a super successful fund. They're anticipating doing about $100 million of transactions in the next— this year, the next 12 months, which is just incredible. We're excited to have Zach on. We might even split this into 2 different segments because I think we're getting a lot of content out of here, but Anyway, Zach, welcome to the show. How you doing?

What's going on, Bridger? Glad to be here, man.

Yeah, this is gonna be fun to have you. Actually, so Zach came through, you had listened to the podcast first or saw like an ad of me or something?

An ad, yeah, I saw your ad on Facebook.

And you DM'd me. We met up a couple weeks ago in Nashville. It turns out Zach runs an incredible fund with his partner. We're gonna dive into all this, but I said, Zach, you gotta come on and talk to people how you raised a lot of money in the past, had really unique ways of raising money and thinking about pitching investors. You've done a lot of raising money online through online marketing. an expert through building out funnels and ads, stuff like that. I know a lot of people have DM'd me and asked me about raising money, not just from word of mouth, right? Raising by advertising and doing, you know, 506 filings or Regulation A filings where you can actually advertise. And so anyways, we're gonna dive into all that in this episode. So really fun. So Zach though, going back to the beginning, tell us your story. How did you get started? Tell us all about that.

Yeah, so as you mentioned, Years ago, I was actually on a Marine Presidential Security Force. I worked for a top-secret facility, Department of the White House, worked in matters of national security every single day and for 2 separate presidents. And, you know, Bridger, you talk about allowing your future to be dictated by the decisions you make today, and that's a principle that is very important to me as well. Coming out of the Marine Corps, I learned a lot of things that I liked and More importantly, I think at the time I learned a lot of things I did not like. And so, as I was setting forth for the course of the rest of my life at the time, you know, I'm a father, I'm married, and had a little baby girl, right? And I'm coming out and I'm trying to set up a structure for the rest of my life that would allow me to live a life of impact and legacy, one where I could not only control my future, but also be in a position to create the income and impact that I knew that is important for each of us in our lives. So, I think everybody that's getting connected to you, Bridger, is realizing that there's greater opportunity out there. I was in search for that opportunity and so, coming out of the Marine Corps, I started 2 of my own businesses and I started learning how to grow and scale a business. Some things, obviously, I was learning the hard way. A couple years into business, I met somebody named Blake Templeton.

And what type of businesses are you doing right now? Are these just These aren't investment businesses, right?

No, these were not investment businesses. And so, at the time, I met Blake and Blake actually had started and was running his own private investment firm many years earlier. He started back in 2006 which subsequently is Boron Capital. Boron Capital is who I'm with now, right? So, Blake and I started doing some business together and he ultimately became friend, mentor, and we started doing business consulting. We were growing my businesses, and then I eventually sold all of my businesses and came over full-time to the team here at Warren Capital. So, my background was not exclusively in investments or investment funds. My background was in investment business, understanding business communications, leadership, and actually how to work with people in such a way that you can produce an impact in their life. And so, it's funny, just like you talk about all the time, I don't have the Harvard MBA.

Yeah.

You know, I don't have the Harvard finance degree that brought me to this position. I came up a little bit through the school of hard knocks and did some on-the-job training and learned from mentors and people before me of how to grow and scale. And so, it's been an internal search that's driven me to become the best. And so, it's my passing and competitive spirit and drive is what's led me to be here today. And it's that relentless effort that I would encourage, and I'm sure everybody listening to this podcast actually has, to get there. So wherever you're at, that's the recipe, right? So I love it.

So, so you meet Blake. What year did you meet Blake? So he started in 2006. When did you meet him?

I think we met in 2014 originally.

Okay, 2014. So then So what, like, and for people watching this too, you don't need to be the guy that starts the fund. You can come on later and join up like you've done with Blake and be very successful doing that. So what, when you approached Blake or Blake approached you, how did that happen? And why did he— what drew you in? Like, what, right? You're just like, hey, I've ran a couple businesses. I was in the Marine. I worked in the White House for a while. Like, hey, now can you raise money for me? Right? What's the connection? From those 2 and how did you and Blake become partners?

Yeah. So, originally, again, he was doing business consulting for my businesses. So, we'd been doing business together for quite some time. And as things were growing and scaling on his firm's side, we started doing more things together and then, it became a relationship where I was coming over and helping on some things. And eventually, you know, I remember we were actually at a conference, working a conference down in New Orleans. And I was helping with some structuring. We were doing some business development, really like meeting with investors and things like that. And I remember we were sitting across the table from each other and he just looked at me and he's like, what do you think about doing this full-time? I'm like, what do you mean? What are you talking about? You know?

Yeah.

He's like, what do you think about doing this full-time, coming over, you know, running in a VP position here and coming alongside of us at the firm? And, um, you know, obviously that became, you know, more extended conversation. Uh, but for me, it was a reality that sometimes in life you're going to hit a point where you realize that you don't have the right scale in your current lane to get where you want to get. So, that was really the idea, is that the businesses I were creating did not have the same scalability And didn't offer the same upside potential that being in a fund has. And so, wherever you're at, if you're a person that knows you want to live for a purpose bigger than yourself, if you are a person that wants impact, you got to make sure that the vehicle you're in can take you there. And so, my hard realization was that what I was creating was not going to take me there and was going to slow me down. So, ultimately, it led me to the decision of selling my businesses and coming on over here full-time with Boron Capital. It's been an exciting adventure ever since.

Oh, I love that. I love you talking about vehicles as well. About, I feel like running a fund, this investment vehicle is, it's the vehicle that can take you to the most wealth possible in America. Maybe this and like running your own like tech company, right? I think those 2 vehicles, the most wealthiest people come out of those vehicles, right? And I love what you said about if you want to make impact and change the world, like, you got to be in a good vehicle. Um, I love that. So, okay, so you guys team up 2014-ish, right?

Couple years after. Yeah.

Couple years after UK, you're actually officially on.

Yeah.

And what, what were you guys investing in at that time? And what are you doing now? What, what was kind of the Boron Capital? What are you guys doing there?

Yeah, so at Boron, we've got a couple beliefs. Okay, we've got a couple core principles that gauge everything that we do. Okay, and what I would tell you is, it starts with 3 C's. We're looking for cash flow, we're looking for collateral, and we're looking for control. Okay. Here's my encouragement to all of you who are setting up funds, and also all of you who are looking to invest in funds. You should be investing in places you can mitigate risk. Now, the only way you can mitigate risk is to control the variables, but the only way you can control the variables is if you own the investments. So, I encourage everyone to consider the control aspect of where they're investing and also consider that to look where you're investing or how you're investing. So, we're looking for control. So, we're what people in the industry would call vertically integrated. At our core, we're always gonna have collateral. We're gonna have commercial real estate. We're gonna have real tangible asset, okay?

Mm-hmm.

That provides collateral for us and our investors. And then, we're gonna be vertically integrated which means, we're owning the operational arm of that investment property, right? So, we have a couple niches of business that we operate in and we're gonna actually operate a business on-site that gives us the ability to not only have collateral to protect our money, but when we own the business side, it allows us to increase profits and actually have better control over the profit margins to increase the bottom dollar.

You're not hoping somebody else runs it well. You're gonna make sure it runs well. I love that.

Correct.

Yeah.

Yeah. So, with anything, there's pros and cons, but we think of everything in the long term, and we're looking at how we can grow and scale with control that allows us to have a successful track record. So, in 14 years of business, right, praise the Lord, no investors lost money. And we believe that it is these principles that has allowed us to do that because we set up those risk mitigation factors, but we also set ourselves up in a position to leverage our ability to increase profits.

I love that. I love that you mentioned about the control factor. I've heard this from multiple fund managers is that it's not X's and O's. It's not high risk, high reward, low risk, low reward. There are, there's a factor of control in there that where you find that alpha.

Yeah.

Where you can have high returns with relatively low risk if you do the 3 things you just mentioned. I love those so much. That's awesome. Um, it sounds, it looks like you guys have done very well in your firm and have grown very quickly. That's why I wanted to bring you on. You're a great example of what's happened. So congrats to you guys at Boron.

Appreciate that.

So now looking forward, your main role there, you do a lot of strategic planning and then also a lot of— I would just call it money raising in the most basic terms, right? Going out, finding investors, raising the money, bringing in the dollars. So I want to hear from, from the horse's mouth, from you. How do you raise money effectively? What's your strategy when you say, wow, we got to raise $10 million or $20 or $30 million? Just starting out, how do you go about it? And then I'm gonna ask a ton of follow-up questions. But walk me through the process of how you raise money.

Sure. As Bridger mentioned, what I do is, I set up the ecosystem that allows investors to get connected to what it is we're doing, okay? I don't think of it just as capital raising. You have to set up a system that allows people to get to know you, understand who you are and what you're doing before you ever get in front of them. I would encourage everyone to start processing How can your reputation precede yourself so that when you walk into a meeting or you walk into a room, people understand what it is you're there for and what it is you do? And so, I would say this.

Hmm.

Investors invest first in people. So, if they don't know you, it's gonna be very difficult to close in any amount of time or for any dollar amount, right? Because the first thing they're looking at is, who are you? The second thing they're looking at is track record. And the third thing they're looking at is the actual deal. And you'll never actually get to the deal presentation if they don't first have a base or a foundation in agreement with who you are as a person and what your track record is.

And is that what you mean by ecosystem, by the way? When you mentioned ecosystem, that— those are the kind of 3 things you're looking at, right?

That's what you mean?

Yeah. Okay.

People first. How do you let them get to know you? How do you let them see your track record? And then, how do you get a deal in front of them? I want people to know us, to know our track record before I ever ask for them to join us. Okay, so how do you do that? Just understand this principle. 80% of all decisions are made before people ever get on the phone with you. So, when they get on the phone with you, they're already leaning 80% in one direction. Okay, and that's just on the phone call.

Hmm.

Right? So, how do you create it to where there's relationship prior to interaction? So, what we do is, we start processing from a marketing standpoint. Now, depending on how everybody's structuring their funds, your marketing abilities are going to be low. Your marketing abilities are low if you're not structured appropriately. So, structurally for us, Yeah. We operate under Regulation D 506 primarily. So, within 506, we can market publicly and we can speak to accredited investors.

Yeah.

Okay, so we, we put out consistent content and we have a whole marketing team that allows us to engage with our users. These— the, the person that you're asking for money, if these people have millions of dollars to spend, their time is extremely expensive. And so, they have to value what they're spending time on if they're going to spend time on it. So, we want to actually give them the ability to engage with us on their own time prior to us ever speaking with them. So, what we do is we have marketing systems that deploy out videos that allow them to get to know about us and what we do. Then, we have retargeting, which means if they're engaging with us, they're getting to see more and more content from us. So, setting up an ecosystem of content that allows people to understand who you are, what your beliefs are, how you invest, what your track record is. How do we get all of that out of the way before we ever get on the phone? Then, how do we actually get them on the phone? We do that by setting up a system where we can already help them make up their mind and know they want to spend time with you before you ever actually have that first interaction. And so, we focus a lot on that front end.

I love this. And this is what, when we first started chatting about, I just thought this was the coolest thing ever that you guys have effectively figured out a really cool way to find investors Through online content marketing, ads, stuff like that. And what you just mentioned, I love too, is you retarget them and are trying to help them on their own time.

Yep.

Trust and like you before, because that— I love that principle of 80% of decisions happen before the phone call. So what are a few things you make sure to include on those videos to help maybe break down some of their false beliefs, help them trust you more? What are a few things you make sure to include? on those, those pieces of marketing material.

Okay, great. Before you ever put it out, a single piece of content, you need to understand exactly who it is you're trying to market to.

So, the who. Yeah.

Who are you speaking to, right? For us, majority of the funds or investments we do are going to be with individual accredited investors. Right? If you're going after family offices, private equity, if you're trying to bring on other funds or investment groups, it's a different process. So, this is not necessarily the exact formula for those guys. Now, do you need a reputation before you ever get with them? 100%.

Hmm.

Right? But understanding who you're speaking to is of the utmost importance. Are you, are you running a stock-based fund? Are you doing certain types of trading? Are you doing hard money loans? Are you doing actual acquisitions and then running the business operations like we are? Are you going out and flipping properties? Everything's relative. You got to know who your person is. So, the first thing I would tell you is that understanding who they are, understand where are their pain points and what are their desires. So the first thing people want to know, at least our front end, is we're trying to create what we'd call status alignment. We want them to understand that we are one of them. We want them to understand that we're of the same value level in terms of this relationship, and we're going to be a valuable resource for them. So they need to understand that they're going to get value by spending time with us. The, the old ways of rapport don't create status alignment. Right, just because you're from the same hometown, that might give you something to kind of, oh hey, that's awesome. But if they don't understand that you're in the same league or a league above them when it comes to this specific thing, Mm-hmm. It's not going to be valuable for them in this lane. So, status alignment's the first thing we're going for. I can give you a quick example. It's like you're at a bar, right? And maybe you know everything there is to know about having a certain style of drink. Well, if you ask the bartender for a very specific drink that nobody else knows about, all of a sudden, they know you're that type of person.

Yeah.

When you go into the investment world, if they can't see sound investing principles and fundamentals coming out very, very quickly and understand that you are an expert at your craft, then, it's not worth their time. They wanna be with other experts. So, status alignment is the first thing we're looking for. And then, we try to call out our audience, right? We want them to know we're talking to them. So, we're gonna have videos.

So, you'll target like accredited investors. Hey, like, are you doing that? Calling them out specifically right there?

In certain videos, yes.

Okay.

So, I have a video right now. Um, we pulled it from a podcast and for those of you who are numbers geeks, 50% of people— Bridger, I know you guys do some online marketing as well so you'll get this. 50% of the people that watch this video are finishing the entire thing. And the exact video is, what is an accredited investor? So, we pulled a clip from a podcast where it's me just saying, let's just break this down right now. Who is an accredited investor? This is what it is. And people are watching that all the way through and by the end of the video, they're actually knowing like, I'm that person.

Yeah.

This content is for me. And they know that we're the authority or the expert in that topic because we're giving them The exacts. We're giving those definitives to them.

Yeah, I gotcha. Okay, so you've done it. You mentioned kind of being at the same level as them, right? You're understanding your who, the person you're targeting, having the same status as them, calling them out. Then what's next? What do you guys do next?

So then it's a lot of nurturing. We're providing more of that, uh, content. We want people to get the feeling of omnipresence. So it's, it's sending more videos their way, all of which that is relevant commentary on what is important to them inside this space. So, it's relative commentary on the financial markets, relative commentary on what makes sense in 2020 for this type of investment style, what makes sense right now. Investors in 2020 allocation needs to look like XYZ because of XYZ. So, it's giving them relative commentary on market and market conditions.

Now, at this point, is there any, uh, like opt-in, like, hey, if you want to learn more, come here, if you want to invest, come here? Have you done any of that yet, or are you waiting to do that?

So, until they've cycled through a handful of videos, we don't have hard call to actions. We'll drop links inside the comment section and things like that so they could connect with us. But we don't do any hard closes. And once people have spent time circulating there, we'll actually pull them over and target them with more specific call to actions where it's getting them on an investor presentation, It's sending them to a full webinar on a specific offering, or it's driving them into the backend to review, to review our current offerings, things of that nature. So we're not really asking for anything from them until we know they're very interested in our product. We're trying to create, again, remember, people, track record, then deal.

When you mentioned sending them more videos, I think some people watching this, and we do some online marketing, right? And you talked about being omnipresent.

Yeah.

Like, I've met people like, Bridger, oh my gosh, I see like 40 of your videos a day, right? And I'm like, I'm so sorry about that. But we, we only do that to like a certain small group of our little, you know, to other people we don't even send our videos to, right? That's a cool, you know, cool feature with Facebook marketing, Google, online marketing in general, essentially with ads, is if somebody is interested in your ad or has watched it for 50% or 100%, you can retarget them super easily. And then it feels like, oh my gosh, Boron Capital's everywhere. Oh my gosh, these guys must be crushing it, right? I see— oh my gosh, I see them everywhere. And it's like, no, yeah, they're doing well, but just to you we've been doing that, right? You become omnipresent in their mind and kind of fill up their mind space. I think that's a really cool concept that you brought up of the omnipresence to that potential investor or potential person you're trying to, to get to your firm. I love that.

Yeah, I would tell you that Investors need to see activity. Activity creates track record as well. So, you can do it the hard way by calling them once a month for the next 3 years, right? And are strong-arming your way in there, but relationship takes time. So, how can you create relationship prior to you ever spending time with them? It not only frees up your time, but it allows you to collapse The cycle. I would tell you that money is truly measured more in time than it is dollars, right? So money, as far as dollars go, you need to increase dollars, of course, but the faster you can bring money to the table, the better. So always asking the question of how can you collapse time? How can you collapse time? How can we increase the speed of relationship? How can we increase the speed of trust? How do we let them get to know us quickly? So that we can have a real conversation.

I love it. So, okay, so you've done the retargeting, you've got them warmed up, they've— you've nurtured them through your content, you've done that, you know, all the 3 steps you've been going through so far. So what's next? Once you have that call to action, what happens then? They— you hop on the phone with them then? Do they— because in a Regulation D 506 fund, which you guys are doing, you can advertise, but you have to verify all of your investors are accredited investors.

That's right.

You have to have a check, kind of a checklist. You guys have to get W-2s, like you have to really like verify that it's— in a 506, they just have to check a box. That's kind of the one of the big drawbacks of a 506. So, how do you get a— what's— sorry, I'm asking a lot of questions here, but what's next in the process? How do you validate they're accredited investors and then getting on the phone with you and closing them? Walk us through that.

So, so it's just important to understand that Nobody could ever invest with us unless everything has been verified. And it's the same in a B. Actually, B— the drawbacks of B is that you can't advertise.

Yeah.

And B, you have to actually have a pre-existing relationship. So, you can't advertise and bring people in. You got to spend time creating a relationship beforehand. So, we focus on relationship anyways because it's the right way to do things. You want people to know exactly who you are, what you're doing, and be excited about being a part of your deal, right? Being a part of your fund or your offering or whatever it is. So, with the C, we actually have them opt in. So, but if they're gonna opt into something, whether it be, we've got, you know, ebooks they can download, we've got, you know, webinars that go out, is we're telling them this is for accredited investors only and they're having to mark, they're having to verify, yes, I'm an accredited investor, before they can actually even get the content. And then, once they go to content, you know, they can, they can see the content, but then, it comes down to verification has to happen. So, if I'm on the phone with them, it's letting them know, hey, you've already checked this. We just want to verify you understand what an accredited investor is. You understand its definition? Yes, you are. No, you're not, right?

Yeah.

And then, of course, once you go through the pitch, then, Then, you still have to verify, right? There's processes that have to take place. They're going through verification questionnaires. They're having to get, you know, signed off by either legal or CPA or bringing in W-2s or, you know, verifying a net worth. Generally, we make everybody go through their attorney or through a CPA to complete that process. There's also third-party verification sites that you can utilize as well. So, we streamline that by having a back backend software to our website. It's a private investor portal that they have to go through the steps in that portal and they can actually walk through all of their closing documents to include that online. And then, of course, our team has to verify everything before we could accept a subscriber into any investment.

Into the fund. Yeah.

Gotcha.

Okay. Really cool. I love that. That's— yeah.

Is that too much or just enough?

I love that. So, and it obviously didn't probably start that way, but now you've built systems to streamline it like you talked about, the increasing speed. How can the speed of trust, the speed of Just getting a person from zero to, I want to be a full-time investor with Boron Capital. I love that. And you guys have, it sounds like you've done a very good job over time of streamlining that process.

It's definitely something that, I'll tell you, I mean, it's not been easy. I mean, as you know, in this world, it's not commonplace at this current time. So, there's pros and cons to it. You're pioneering a lot of things. But the pro is that you're gonna be one of the only people that's putting in this time and effort online and you're building a brand that people can recognize for many years to come, and you're jumping in ahead of all the other people, so the competition is much lower.

Yeah, I love it. Okay, so walk me through now, you get on the phone with them, and not even, maybe not even just these investors, but investors in general, how does that look, right? A lot of people ask me, Bridger, I just don't know what to say to an investor. I get on the phone, I'm nervous. How does that conversation go? Once you get on the phone with the, a potential investor or you're in the meeting room or you're in the boardroom, whatever it is.

I got something for you. You ready?

Yeah.

Let's talk about the phone call before we talk about a boardroom.

Okay.

If you are working to raise capital, whenever I heard this one thing, it flipped everything in my brain, okay? This one thing changed every way, the entire way I approached any email, Entire way I approach any phone call, any engagement, and it's this: money is a commodity. Stop thanking people for the opportunity to take their money. You're doing them a favor. You are offering them something. You don't need to thank them for them considering to utilize your thing. You bring value, and your value needs to be known. Inside of you prior to every email and call. If they're not the right investor, you need to kick them out real quick. So, my first engagement is actually me qualifying them to find out if it's a good fit. I try to disqualify people so that I don't waste my time.

Hmm.

I try to disqualify people so that they don't waste my time, and you should do the same thing. So I'm going to give them— they should already have a high-level overview. They should have already said they're interested before they ever get on the phone with you. That's, that's how I've set it up. Now, in the olden days, I had to play the cold calling game, right?

Right.

You're, you're talking to people, you got a referral, you know, call this person. I wanted to get a lunch meeting, a coffee meeting. Look, spend time, be direct. They will appreciate it and they will respect it. So, it might look like this. If I'm cold calling, hey, Bridger, Zach Morrow, Boron Capital. I was calling over real quick. Uh, I had a, I had a referral over to you. We both know Tom. Tom said you might be interested in, uh, looking at these investment offerings with us. Uh, did I get you at a terrible time? Hmm.

No.

You know who I am. You know what I'm here for. Like, if you can get a referral, please do. Something in common.

Yeah.

Right. Hey, we're both in this group. I saw you on this. Um, Jim referred me, you know, whoever Jim is, right? And is now a terrible time? Okay, one, the terrible time question you need to lead with every time, because guess what? Nobody wants a cold call, so it's always a terrible time, right? So, they're either— that you're giving them the liberty to say no First of all, you're not trying to trap them into something. Okay. Second, when they say no, I just hit them with a— or I would, I hit them with a, you know what, it's always a terrible time, isn't it? Perfect. I actually wasn't calling to visit with you right now. It's a bad time for me too. I was just calling over to find out when we could set up a good— or, or I was calling over to get a good time set up. Hmm. Yeah. Would you be opposed to jumping back on the phone tomorrow afternoon after 3 PM? Hmm. Or is tomorrow terrible for you? Is Thursday terrible for you? Right? Whatever it is. So, if the answer is, yeah, it's actually a terrible time. Yeah, it's always a terrible time, isn't it?

Boom.

I was calling over just to find a good time. Let's jump back on this. And then, well, I don't know. Listen, I was just calling over to talk about this. I know you're into this sort of thing. Look, if you're not interested, You can just let me know yes or no right now. If you have no interest in learning about new offerings, just tell me yes or no now. You know, Bridger, I'm not really interested in it right now. Perfect. See you later.

Yep, hanging up.

Hang up.

A ton of time. I love that. That's direct. It's to the point. I love that. That's, that's perfect. Saves them time. Oh, I love that.

And then the qualifying call, if they've said yes, they're interested, the qualifying call is going through this sequencing to ensure And getting them to verify, I'm very interested in your deal.

Mm-hmm.

Right? So, now they know what you do, they know who you are. Yeah, I'd be, you know, so maybe on that call we booked a follow-up. So, at this time, you know, hey, on the next call, I just want to spend 10 minutes with you, give you a high-level overview of what we're working on. If it makes sense, it makes sense. If not, you know, we both move on. We can look at the next one together. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Got it. So then, on the next deal, you've already set the expectation, you set the time. You call up, okay, hey Bridger, you know, we're calling over today to talk about this deal. I'm gonna give you the big picture. Here's where we're at. Here's what we're doing. You know, does this one make sense to you? You know, if you're going deal-based, you can do it that way. Once you've established relationship, you know, our goal is that our people are gonna be investing their entire portfolios with us and we're gonna run everything over and over and over again, right?

Yeah.

But most people aren't interested in that on the first move. Right. So that long-term relationship is built up over time. So especially if you're new and getting started, started out, they want to try you out, right? How many times you heard that?

Oh, I love it.

Yeah. I'll try it out. Yep. Yeah.

Yeah, I love, I love getting trial investments. I tell people, yeah, give me a trial investment. I'm gonna knock your socks off in 6 months and you're gonna be putting in, you know, 4 times that next year. That's what I tell people, at least for mine, because I'm just new and I'm young. Yeah. Anyways, that's, everyone loves though, oh yeah, I'll give you a trial investment. I'll give you something here. Right? And they love that. That's kind of how a lot of mine go too. I love that framework you just built out though of the— anyways, sorry, I keep cutting you off. But I want to hear next now. Let's continue on. Right? So is that still the phone call or do we want to move to the boardroom now?

So boardroom is going to be different. And a boardroom investment is always different. So I'll just tell you, with the structure we have, I don't currently have to do a lot of boardroom. I do it, I do it, I do it differently. Now, a boardroom pitch, getting through of how to craft a pitch, is, would be a massively longer situation. But I'll give you guys a great resource. Actually, I got it on my desk. I'm gonna plug somebody else. Here you go. Go read this book, Flip the Script by Oren Klaff. Oren Klaff will talk to you about walking through the pitch and structuring that for investors. Oren's a great resource. Um, so, there's a little plug for him. Um, but as far as what we do, my goal is, how do I get as many people in front of me at the same time so that I can actually create Net time, right? So, rather than one-to-one, a one-to-one, I'm always looking for a Zoom call like this. I'm jumping on a video conference because I want them to see, I want them to see me face to face. I want them to know I'm real, right? And then, I'm going to walk them through the pitch, right? Here's what we're actually doing, but I've already qualified them. They should be 90% closed before I have that call with them.

Mm-hmm.

Right? And then, it's just finalizing questions. So, how do you create resources that work for you? So, the other thing that we do is we do investor presentations where I'm putting all my list, all my people on a single platform and I'm running the pitch to all of these people at the same time. So— Almost like a webinar or a big Zoom call. Correct.

Yeah.

Correct.

I love that.

Yeah. Yeah. For, yeah, webinar, right? I'll run a webinar where I'm walking everybody through the new offering. Right, and then that becomes the content that I can take back to them. So for the other people, it's, you know, hey, I'm interested in checking this out, blah blah blah. Great, go here, watch this.

To automate. I love that, the speed of— yeah, just saving everybody time. I love that. I've met a lot of people too, actually, that, that really prefer Zoom calls, or just because it saves time for us to go meet up for lunch We got to drive there, or if I'm coming to— I guess if I'm coming to your boardroom, that saves you a little bit of time. But still, to get ready for a meeting, to be there face-to-face, just takes a lot of time where it could be shortened on a quick Zoom call or a quick webinar. Um, at least initially. I love that. Yeah.

Yeah, so jumping on a video conference if you have to go one-to-one, that's a, that's a key, right? Because it gives people face time. You can instill certainty and confidence. Right? But allowing people to disqualify themselves, and just circling back to that, you need to allow people to disqualify themselves. Don't waste your time if it's not the right deal. And it doesn't mean that you're, that they're, that it's you. Like, deal specifics, like, people are looking at a variety of things for something to be right, right? It's not just the risk, right? And they're looking for, I would probably outline like 5 things Like, you know, I would say there's 5 things that go into it. People are evaluating risk, evaluating reward, like return, right? They're evaluating the scale of the deal, right? What I mean by that is like, there's certain people, they're not even gonna look at your deal if they can't put $5 million into it, right?

Yeah.

It's not the right size for them, right? Okay. So, they're looking at that. They're also looking at the timing, right? Where are you at in timing? of course, their comfort with you. So, it can have the right risk and reward but be the wrong time for them.

Hmm.

It can be the right risk and reward profile but not the right size or the scale of the deal. So, understanding your audience and your actual offer is very important too whenever you're looking at how you're going to craft this. So, if you've got a fund that you can do $1 million and you're gonna raise $1 million or $500,000, Like, you're not bringing it to family office. You know what I mean?

Yeah, it's just not— sorry, scale, the size of it's way too small.

Yeah, it's too small. It's just not worth their time. They need to be 8— like, if I'm— because here's another breakthrough, okay? Going back, getting started, I started processing through the idea of we had a minimum investment, $250K. So my focus was, well, I got to go out and find $250K, right? And so the amount of time I spent on $250K is the same amount of time that I later found out was the amount of time I'd spent on $500K. Then I realized, like, started getting people that want to do a million. Some people ask about $5 million. Some people asking about, I won't even look at it if it's— unless it's $15 million, right? And you just realize that You know, I remember, remember a while back, I was looking at a year period, we're looking at doing $50 million in a year. And I remember getting on the phone with a guy who was with us with a huge fund. And we were talking through some things. And he was on the capital raising side. And he's like, you know, hey, I'm super busy right now. We were just talking like, friend of mine. We're traveling a lot. Let's get together at this time. It's crazy. We're trying to close up $2 billion in the next 4 months.

Hmm.

And all of a sudden, I was like, wait, what? $2 billion in 4 months? I was over here thinking about $50 million in 12 months. The target changed. All of a sudden, I realized that in a fund, your opportunity is unlimited. And if your focus is only on the smaller things, you will only find the smaller things. So, set your targets appropriately so that you can scale appropriately. Right? So, be clear on how you're going to outline and grow. If you're targeting people with $25,000, that's what you're going to find. Hmm. If you're targeting people with $250,000 or $1 million or $5 million, that's what you're going to find. Now, you have to be prepared to steward it appropriately and have the right structuring for that audience, but crafting that and understanding that ahead of time Will save you so much time and, and allow you to leverage your long-term potential.

Boom, Zach.

Holy crap.

I love that. Boom, baby. Seek and ye shall find, right? I love that. Um, and I love what you mentioned about a fund of— it is the most scalable vehicle on the planet. It's just how big do you want to go?

Yeah.

Um, and oh, I, I seriously love what you just mentioned at the end there. I— we're getting close to the end of the hour. Um, a few last things before we wrap up. Um, I want to ask about your— you guys have a lot of stuff going on now. Um, you have a new podcast coming out, things like that. What are some ways that people can find more about—

more—

what are some ways people can find more out about Boren Capital, your podcast, what you guys are doing, all that kind of stuff?

Yeah, I'd say the best thing they could do right now is go to legacy. boroncap.com, legacy.boroncap.com. And that will allow them to quickly get connected with us, learn more about what we're doing, and actually see how and where we're structuring. And congratulations, you get a little bit of a look into our online marketing when you do so.

Yeah, maybe luckily get caught up in your, uh, your retargeting ads, see what you guys are doing there. Yeah. Well, awesome, Zach. Thank you so much for, for coming on this. Seriously, a fantastic hour we just had. This is very valuable. Um, thank you so much for coming on here. I think we're gonna probably bring you back in the future, have more insights and questions for other people, but we'd love to have you on.

Yeah, very good. Let me know what questions come from this and we can always come back and do it again.

Okay, sounds good. Thank you, Zach.

Thanks, Bridger.

Yeah.