I Talked to College Students

So, we just talked to the UVU Wolverine Fund. They have about $500,000 they deploy into early-stage companies. I talked to them about fund management. At least how I launched my funds out of college and all that kind of stuff. So, we're going to roll the clip and you guys can see some of the clips from there. So, we help people doing crazy stuff. We have people doing obviously like traditional VC, private equity, hedge funds, venture capital funds. We have people doing almond farm funds. We have people doing— they're buying scripts in Hollywood and taking those scripts and selling them to HBO, to Netflix. Like very simple arbitrage plays. We have guys in Brazil buying shipping containers from China and they have some arbitrage player, they can get markups on these and sell them very unique, very like bespoke type of offerings, which is very cool. So we help people like that and small funds all the way up to multi, you know, $100 million, billion-dollar funds that have come through our program. So we have now said, hey, what if we invested in those firms? So we do a thing called GP stakes. So we're— we'll go, we'll find out of, you know, 300+ firms, we'll find the best ones we like. We'll give them an offer to sit on their GP with them. So we'll take, you know, 7 to 10% stake with them. We invest in their fund as well, $200,000 to $2 million. And anyways, it's a pretty good offering. It's a new asset, Classico GP Stakes. So we've done 6 deals last year. We're looking to do another 10 this year. So anyways, that's a little— That's good. Is that good? Kind of where I'm at. So I'm still in the game. I'm still actively doing this. I run 2 funds right now. I'm actively raising capital. I've been on pitch calls like all week, like I— and I'm in the process. So I want to— I'll share a few things that have helped me. They may or may not resonate with you guys. I don't know. And I'm just, I'm just someone who's in the game and maybe just a few years out of school that, I don't know, could help. Does that sound fair? Yeah. So I was going to share just a few things tonight, if that's all right. Yeah. At least a little bit on my journey and how I made this— helped me make decisions in school. I was planning on doing the— I don't know, I was at BYU and I was fully at BYU and I did a couple of classes at UVU, but the Sentiment was, and I'm sure you guys have been told this, go to school, get really good grades, go do that sophomore internship, that junior internship, get the experience. Then you'll go and go be an investment banker or go be a consultant or go work for a firm and grind for what, 2 years? I did my internship. I actually, it was successful. I got the offer. You know, like your junior internship. I got the full offer, 6-figure offer, signing bonus. Like, you know, you feel like a million bucks. Like, oh yeah, I got the— like you're one of those kids. Like, I got the offer. And so it was funny. I sat there. I had this offer. We were going to move. I just been married. We're going to move out to Silicon Valley and work for this firm, and you know, do the thing. And welcome in, y'all. Just grab a seat. I a couple things happened. It was during the summer going through like summer end of the summer. I got the offer, right? And I had a number of things happen. Number one, we were I was about to enter the finance. like the junior corps at BYU. I prayed about that. So me and my wife sat down and prayed. We're trying to be very prayerful people, and I got a direct answer like, no, like you should not do that. I was like, huh, okay. Number 2, I prayed. We were trying to buy a house or rent. We felt like we should buy a house, which like I had— we didn't have— like we had some money saved up, but we didn't plan on buying a house. Like that was not the plan. Like, you should buy a house. Like, wow. And then number 3, it was you should start this like company to help people launch funds and I— anyways, we decided. I was like, you know, if God's gonna speak to me like I'm gonna follow and we bought a house. It was like the peak of the market that what we thought. This was 2019 like it's the peak of the market, we're buying the top but whatever, God told us to do it and now like that house is worth way more now like everyone knows that but in 2019, it was the peak of the market. It was like, man, we're buying the top. I'm gonna not join my program. I called my professor like, I'm not gonna join. And he's like, what are you gonna do? I'm like, I'm gonna just take some other classes and we'll see what happens. And then thirdly, we started this little business that turned into Funnel Launch that took off like crazy, which was super scary at the time. And so I guess the first part I wanna share was like being very prayerful was very crucial. But secondly, it was funny. So I was sitting down I was sitting there like, man, I'm gonna get this job offer. It's 6 figures. This is awesome. And I looked at my boss who worked for— I worked for in Silicon Valley. Amazing dude. This guy had worked there for like 10 years. He was making, I would guess, $500,000 a year, which is pretty good. Like, that's pretty awesome. He worked his guts out for 10 years straight. I mean, he lived— that's what he lived was his job. And I don't know what it was. Maybe it was arrogant. Whatever, but I remember looking at him and saying, you know the quote people overestimate they can do in one year and underestimate they can do in a decade. Have you heard that quote before? I remember looking at him like, I bet if you gave me a decade, I bet I could beat that guy, like income-wise. If you gave me a decade to like really go after something, I bet I could make over $500,000 in a year. Now that sounds maybe that's arrogant or too much confidence or whatever, but I said, you know what, like. Give it a shot, and the next well yeah the next year I we broke that, and the next year we doubled that. Like this personal income to me, and we like it was like wow, like it happened in a way faster. I don't want to say that to like brag or anything. What I want to say is like it's possible, and I guess the sorry I'm is this okay? I'm like conglomerating a bunch of thoughts together into one. So then it's like okay the next tier is like all right well I'm sitting here like I'm preaching like. do your own thing or go out and try stuff, right? And maybe I'll tell you a little story. So, I got into college, I was super involved in finance, I went to all the clubs, I was doing— I wasn't on any type of fund like this. But I come to find out my dad is running a huge fund. He was the co-founder. My dad, we grew up in a normal household, nothing great, nothing bad but nothing nice either. My dad drove a car with a, you know, a dent in the door. And in college, I really found out they're managing an $8.5 billion family of funds in real estate. I was like, dang. And he's one of the co-founders. I was like, whoa, that's awesome. Like, tell me more, you know? So he started teaching me about funds. So I went to his house every Sunday night and he taught me about investment funds. We'd pull out the whiteboard and he'd teach me about GPs and LPs and how to raise money and how to be compliant and all the stuff with that. And it's— there's— I don't know, it's a funny thing in life when you start to learn something, you start to like recognize that thing in your life. You know what I'm talking about? Like if you ever bought a new car before, you start seeing that car everywhere and it's not like there's magically more cars driving on the road that are like, you know, a white truck or whatever but like all of a sudden you just pay attention to that thing, right? So I started to learn about investment funds, I started to pay attention to that thing. So in college, I had a— I was working an internship at a local company here in Orem and I saw an opportunity where they needed a fund or funding for the clients that were coming through their business. And I was like, this could be a fund. And I went and talked to my dad about it, talked to the owners of the business. I was like, we could set up a financing product to finance these clients that come through, and I think we can make an arbitrage here and make some money on this. We ran all the models and we were like, this is actually a pretty good idea. And so I was 22 years old at the time. I'm like, dang, this is sick. So I went and took it first person, like to my dad, or I was like, Dad, help me with this, right? And he helped me through it all. And, and we tried to build this little fund, and I, I had this fund ready to go, and I was like, I'm gonna go, I gotta raise money now. So, everything's ready to go. I'm like, I need capital. I'm like, crap. Like, no one's gonna believe in me, right? Like, I'm young, I'm inexperienced, I have nothing going for me besides I have a rich dad apparently who doesn't spend his money on cars or nice houses. We live in a normal house, he drives a crappy car. I'm gonna go pitch my dad for money. So, I went and sat down my dad like a little boardroom like this and I said, Dad, how would you like to be our first investor into our fund? And he kind of smiled and laughed and said, if I invest in your fund, It would ruin the experience of you raising money on your own. But I will show you, I'll show you how I would raise money if I was you. And but he said, no, I'm not investing in your fund. He kicked me out and to this actually as of 3 weeks ago, he has never invested in a single fund I've ever put out ever. But he was a great mentor and coach to help me figure that game out. Does that make sense? And then 3 weeks ago, he just wrote a first check into Founders Partners like ever. That was like 9, 8 years ago, which is kind of crazy. So, I went out at 22 years old. I'm like, okay, I'm gonna go talk to everybody. So, I raised a whopping $49,500 from I think 8 different investors. So, these are like $5,000 checks. I mean, these are like teeny, right? But we filed our Form D, like we did it all right. So, teeny fund amount, we're just doing this debt arbitrage play. We got our investors a 64% return on their investment. So, small amount of money but good return, right? We then launched our second fund. I say we, it was really just me. It was me, my brother had 5%, I had 95% of the company because he was a lawyer and He helped me put the docs together. That next fund, we— I ran that for about 3 and a half years. We did— we raised and deployed millions of dollars out of that fund. We did hundreds of loans. We're doing small short-term debt arbitrage loans. Our cash-on-cash return to investors was 62%, 47%, and 36% cash-on-cash returns for the 3 years. We had a competitor come buy us out. So, in college, I'm kind of running this fund in school. I got that investment banking job like internship thing and I'm kind of weighing these options, right? And I was making okay money running that business. I am— and I'll say this so you know it's possible. I was making 6 figures a year in college, like my last year of college. And I say that because it's possible. Somebody told me that when I was in school, like, there's students walking around you that are making 6 figures right now in school. And I was like, that's crazy. And I was like, I want to be one of those kids. And like, it worked. It was like the first year I made like 2 grand, and then it was like 10 grand. They're like, you know, it leveled up. But— I just want to say it's possible. So anyways, I'm sitting in school, I'm deciding what to do with my future. I still was like, I'm gonna go get the job, work the corporate ladder, get the experience, and then go from there. Does that make sense? But I had these ideas, and I remember a speaker came to the school. He was from Harvard, whatever bigwig Harvard guy comes. So I'm listening, you know, it's like, I don't know, 100 people in this room. He gives this talk He gets done, he goes to the back of the room and he stands there and I'm right next to him and I'm like, I'm gonna go talk to this guy, you know, I'm gonna go chat him up, just see. And because I was really worried about the risk, like it sounds so risky to start your own venture and I was like maybe it's better when you're 35 or 40 or 45 to go start a business, right? Because I knew I wanted to like run a business or be in that space, right, or maybe I work my way up and so I went and asked him this question. I said, hey, I'm thinking about going after this business and I might even drop out of school or, you know, like, but it sounds really risky. Is it better for me to just stay in school, stay the course, and then when I'm 30 or 35 or 40 to start a business, right? What would you say? And he looks at me and goes, what are you talking about risky? And I'm like, well, the business might fail. I might lose time in school. Like, I might miss a year or 2. He's like, So, hear me out. He's like, so your worst-case scenario. He goes, Bridger, do you have— if everything went to like crap and you fail drastically, do you have a family member or friend that you could move in and like sleep on their couch for a couple months? And I was like, yeah. You know, I have a few people in my life like if it really came down to it like I could go sleep on their couch. And he goes, okay. And they would have like food in their fridge and like you'd have AC and stuff like it'd be okay. And I was like, yeah. He goes, we're not talking about the same risk. And he goes, your worst-case scenario is better than 90% of the world lives right now. Like, your worst-case scenario, you have to move in with a loved one who has food in the fridge, AC, and a roof over your head. That is better than 90% of the world lives right now. That's your worst, worst-case scenario. But your best-case scenario is you go crush it, you make millions of dollars, like, you go have a happy life. Right? And there's a concept in finance called asymmetrical risk. You guys have probably heard this before, but asymmetrical risk is what all fund managers are looking for. It's where you have relatively low risk for high return, right? And that's called— that delta is called alpha. You can call it alpha or asymmetrical risk, right? And he goes, when you're in college, when you're young, you have drastic amounts of asymmetrical risk. And I never realized it that way. He's like, if you go risk it all and what, you lose $5,000 in your bank account? Yeah. Like big deal, you know? But your upside is you could go make millions of dollars and go change the world like and crush it. That's why there's a lot of great startups that come out of university because they have such asymmetric risk. They can just try over and over and over again. The downside isn't that far. And he's like, for me, I'm 40 years old. I've got family, I've got a big house, and like if I risk it all, I lose a ton. But you, if you risk it all, you lose like this much. But the upside is pretty similar. Does that make sense? Yeah. And I was like, dang. I don't know, that resonated with me deep. I was like, shoot. And he goes, and furthermore, we live in a society that loves the story of the person who tries. Like, meaning, he goes, if you were interviewing people to like work for you and you had one kid that got a 4.0 and went to school and just Did everything right and you had another kid who also got decent grades but started a business, failed, hired employees, tried stuff, did a startup for 3 years then came back. Who's a more interesting person to interview? Like number 1 would be that person, like the person that tried and failed, tried and failed, like that's for sure a more interesting person to interview and he argued as well, I would rather hire that person than the person who just got the 4.0 and got the grades and just did it all right. And he goes like, you can't lose. He's like, if you, you know, and then— sorry, is this okay? Yeah. This tangent, I'm just going on and on this tangent. The next part, he's like, furthermore, he's like, you don't go to school for a couple of years, universities will always take your money. They will happily take your money. He's like, everyone thinks like if you drop out, they'll never let you back in. Dude, they're running a business. You already got in once. They will happily bring you back, especially if you got some war scars. You went and raised some money, tried the thing out, and even if it failed, They would love to have you back. You're an interesting student to have. So he's like, worst case scenario, you just come back to what you're doing now, you know, with some— a better resume. And I was like, dang, this is crazy, you know. Anyways, and I'll say last one I'll share. Universities always take your money. And he said furthermore, do any of you have siblings that like, or family members that graduated in 2007, 2008? You ever met somebody like that? Yeah. I had a guy work for me. He over and over would always tell this story. He's like, yep, I went to school. I graduated at the worst time ever. I graduated in 2008. There was no jobs in the market. And so, I had to work my way and it was really hard. And have you ever heard somebody say this story before? I have people like in my life, yeah, I just— man, timing. You know, I got screwed. Millennials got screwed. Houses are overpriced and everything sucks for us. Have you guys heard this before? I was like, dude, what were you doing in 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006 when the market was booming? What were you doing? Well, I was going to school. So you're mad that you went to school during a boom in America and then you graduated during a recession? I was like, that's interesting because other people Made lots of money during those years. I mean, you decided your own destiny. You decided to graduate in 2009. Now, I know that's your age group and whatever, but like, you didn't have to graduate in 2009. You could have dropped out and gone in the workforce and made money through those years. And then if the market crashes, guess what? You just go back to school. I've told a few people this, and myself included. I was sitting back in 2018, 2019. I'm like, we are in a booming market. This market's pretty good. It's a great time to make money. And guess what? If the market crashes, if COVID hits— we didn't know COVID was coming, but if something crazy happens, you just go back to school. Universities will always take your money, right? And I was like, man, I'm gonna— I want to recognize the season I'm in. I think right now in America, I think you can say what you think, but with the Trump administration coming in, at least as far as business goes, I mean, every business person I talked to, every fund manager I talked to, he's like, we are about to experience— they believe a boom in America. an absolute golden age in America. Now, you might disagree with that, but M&A activity— Goldman Sachs just published a report— IPO activity right now, everyone is getting very excited right now for deal flow that has not happened over the last couple years. There is— personally, I think we are entering a potential window of a huge wealth generation era, and it would stink to be stuck in a classroom while everyone's out making money. and then you graduate during a crash. I just think it's healthy to think outside the box a little bit, to think through timing of when you graduate, what jobs you're taking, what risks you're taking. You have asymmetrical risk in your, you know, in your life. So maybe those are one or two things. The last thing I'll share, maybe I'll open up for Q&A. Does that sound okay? Absolutely. Everyone's path is different. My— so far it's been a fun path for me, and we've had ups and downs in business, but so far we, you know, we've done decently well. We've done, you know, roughly $40 million revenue in 5 years. I run 2 successful 8-figure funds that have done extremely well so far in performance. Now, that can always change, but so far it's been great and it's been awesome. But even if things like go bad or crash, I don't know, for myself, I like being in the game. I like being a player, not a playee or a pawn in someone else's game. And there's different paths. Sometimes that's the path you got to go to work your way up. And at least for my economic situation, what I was felt like I was born into and I was in Utah County going to these schools right here, I thought, man, I'm in a pretty blessed place to be. I'm in America, I'm in a great time to be alive, I have a healthy body, I'm young, I have a computer, I have freaking AI ChatGPT to teach me crap and YouTube, you know, like this is a great time to be alive. I don't think there's ever been a better time to be an entrepreneur in the world, history of the world than right now and I know a lot of people in our generation like go on Twitter and like our parents screwed us, the boomers had it so great. Have you ever heard like you heard this rhetoric online? Maybe they did, but I don't know. You look back; they didn't have all the resources we have. They didn't have you know, and then if it's funny, everyone like hindsight's always oh yeah, everything was great. If you look back like in the '80s, they had the Cold War. They thought they were going to get bombed like every day. They had oil shortages. You know, you did not have like there was you didn't have cell phones like to communicate with you. You have like you know what I mean? Like there was. Today, it has never been easier to make money as an entrepreneur, I think, in the history of the world. Despite high interest rates, despite, you know, affordability costs, despite a wealth gap dividing. I don't know, I'm like, man, there's a great opportunity here. And I think, I don't know, we live in a— our generation is decently weak, is decently entitled, is decently doesn't really want to work much. And I think our generation, this room, people who want to work, people that want to actually put effort in will stand out like crazy. It's never been easier to stand out amongst your peers and my peers because so many people are lazy, so many people are stuck on their phones, so many people are stuck on Netflix like I just think the field is right, it is opportunity is rich like it is a great time to be alive. It's a great time to be an entrepreneur. There are 1,000 business ideas. There is a— we have convergence of technology going on right now of AI, blockchain, robotics, quantum computing. I mean, you name it. There is, man, there's just wealth to be had and it's a fun time to be alive. So, I'll pause. Sorry, that was a long monologue. No, that was perfect. I have young cousins that like come meet with me and they're like, hey, give me some advice for business. And I like give them this speech and they're like, whoa, okay. Like, I'm like, take it. Anyways, that's a little too intense. I don't know what we can do. We can make it somewhat interactive. There's a little bit of my story. I don't know, tell me about you guys a little bit. Any questions or things that would be helpful? I don't know, I'm still in the game. I'm 29 years old. I'm still doing this. There's ups and downs. I have about 60 employees right now that we have an office up in Lehi. We're a bootstrap business. I don't know, any ideas? Yeah, go ahead. It might be hard to quantify, but when you were— these 9 years of experience starting up, How much of it do you felt like, all right, I'm just going to test this out and see how it goes, and how much of it do you feel like, I have a good mentor or I have a good strategy, this should work? Most of it was test, almost always, yeah. I started 6 businesses my first years at BYU, all sorts of stuff. I did a Chinese tutoring business, I did a website building business, we were building funnels and ads for companies. We were trying, I mean, we tried like all sorts of stuff and For me, I had a great professor teach me this and I love this concept. He said, any business idea you have, you should— he goes, you can validate that idea in a way shorter time than you think. And he gave— he says— he's like, any business idea you have, you should give a timeline and a budget to. I was like, what do you mean? He's like, you should give— his idea was 3 weeks and $500. He's like, if you have a good business idea right now, spend the next 3 weeks, go all in on it, and you have a $500 budget to see if customers would like this, if people would like this idea. And at the end of 3 weeks, you have to either cross it off the list or you have to graduate it and say, okay, I'm gonna spend the next 7 months working on this idea. I have a buddy, a couple buddies. I mean, they've spent 18 months thinking about a business idea. Have you guys known anybody like that? Like, oh yeah, we're gonna do it one day. Like, we're gonna get that, you know, we're gonna go. It's been like a year and a half. We're getting our logo done. Who needs a logo? You don't need a logo to do a business. Like, I feel like my buddies, I love them to death, but I'm like, I could get more done in your business in the next 5 days. If all I spent was 5 days, I would get more done in 5 days than you guys have done in 18 months. Because you're kind of halfway, they're thinking about it, they don't really want to try. I was this for a long time. I'd call it a wantrepreneur. There's many wantrepreneurs out there. A lot of kids in school want to be an entrepreneur. They're going to— they want to talk about business. Very few actually go try stuff. And even if you fail, like, hey, I spent 3 weeks and $500 trying this business, it failed. Guess what? The next 3 weeks and $500, we're trying a new one. Like, if you do that enough times, I think you will definitely succeed. That's how we did it. We did Fund Launch. So, Fund Launch was a 3 weeks, $500 idea. We filmed— we didn't know if people want to learn about funds or fund education. What we did is we built a landing page website that had an opt-in. put your email in to learn more. I filmed 16 ads on my phone. Hey, if you want to learn more, check out below, like click the link, that's all we did. We ran $500 of ads to a website landing page that opted into a training, the training did not exist. After they opted in, we said, whoops, sorry, the training isn't here. We just want to see if they would opt in. Then we had a page that said, we're selling a course for $47 on funds and here's all the details of the course and this is what it would look like. And people would click on the button to buy, they'd check out, and the next page would say, sorry, the course doesn't exist. This product does not exist. We wanted to see if you would buy it. We're going to refund you the money right now. Does that make sense? I have friends that are like, hey, we got to go to China. We're going to get this widget built in China like a prototype. I'm like, don't. Just see if people would buy it. Build a website, see if people put their credit card in. If they buy, just refund them. We— our first weekend, we did about $1,500 in sales on $500 of ad spend. We're like, dang, people like this. We emailed all of them, hey, we'll send you a refund. The product doesn't exist. We just want to see if you would buy it. We were honest with people, you know, and but most people stayed. They said, yeah, we really want this product. So, we went and built it for them, and then they said, yeah, we'll wait 3 months. We said, great, okay, we'll build it over the next 3 months. We built this product for them. So, sorry, long answer to a good question, but anything else on that? No, thank you. Cool. I think there was a— did you have your hand up? Yeah. I'll come back to you if you don't. Yeah, but— You gave a good explanation on what you would do to mitigate like the feeling of failure, but is there a failure that you can remember that really changed your perspective on your career that you've had? Yeah, good question. You know, it's funny if the— I think a mindset or a mental frame that has helped me a lot. We've had lots of failures. I mean, there's problems every day, you know, across the board running a business. But the mental frame that has served me very well is this will be the story that I will one day tell. Like, even if you're going through a failure, like, the best stories are people that fail, right? Like, you hear them on stage and they talk about some big failure. We've had investors call us, like— so we're an open-end hedge fund, people can pull money out whenever. I had an investor this morning call me, market's tanking, I'm out. He wants to pull $800,000 out of our fund. You guys suck, blah blah blah, the market. And I'm like, dude, the market's down 35% in crypto in the last 3 months. I can't do anything about that. I'm so sorry, you know. Great, we can pull your money. Like, it's just like, that's it, you know. We have employees that— I have 3 employees that have left the business 3 different times, have left the business, started competitors to us. They like cut off all communication. They don't want to talk to us. Screw you guys. And then they go start a competing business like a month later. And it's like, man, that sucks, you know. Like, what do I do with them? Do we like sue them? Do we like Just ignore them? Do we like— what do we do with this person that's trying to openly attack us as a business, right? So we've had a number of those. I had a partner in my first fund steal money out of the fund. So we had— I mean, a small little syndication. We had a partner. It was with one of the CEOs of the business I was helping. He's like, I got to make payroll. He didn't tell anybody. He just pulled money out of the account and made payroll. And I'm like, we're missing— it wasn't that much, it was like $15 grand. I'm like, where's the $15 grand? He's like, well, I had to make payroll. I just pulled my part. And I'm like, you understand you just committed securities fraud? Like, you know that, right? He's like, oh no, it's just— I'm just pulling my money out. I'm like, no, you're not, because we have like an investment memorandum in our like LPA. You cannot do that. Well, I'm a partner in the firm. I don't care if you're a partner in the firm. You cannot do that. That's a misallocation of funds. So the money better be back tonight, you know, $15 grand or else. And he's like, I don't have the money. I said, well, you better figure it out. You better figure out the money. And anyways, so I was 22 years old talking to a 45-year-old CEO. I was in college at BYU. I'm like, do you want to go to a lawsuit over $15,000 or do you want to put the money back? You're not going to ruin my career over $15,000 and put me in a securities violation. The money better be back tonight. That's a scary moment, right? That's a big gulp. So, I don't know. Is that helpful? Yeah. Anyways, but overall the mental frame of though, It's fun to be in the game and treat it like a game. And it's— I don't know, for me, that's— this would be the story I'll one day tell. I think it's a good mental frame that's helped me a lot. I think— did you have a hand up? Yeah, for raising funds and doing all of that, especially you mentioned you were 22, 23 at the time, what was the best way that you found that built credibility to people giving you money? Obviously your first one was $5,000, but how have you build credibility quickly with people that are giving you millions or $800K or anything like that? It's a great question. So yeah, I was sitting there, who's gonna believe in me, right? Like, I'm this punk kid, you know, trying to ask for money, like it's not gonna work. So I asked a mentor of mine the same question and this is what he told me and maybe this will help you. He's like, number one, he goes, I would lean into the constraint. Lean into the fact that you're young. And I'll share an example in a second what I mean by that. But he said like lean in. He goes, number 2, focus on the deal, not the credibility of you. And I said, I was like, okay. So, yes, for example, let's imagine we found a Lamborghini Aventador for sale in Billings, Montana. The car is worth $300,000 like to pay. There's a— somebody died, they're putting it to auction, we can go buy it cash. for $100,000 on Saturday morning? Because I'm posing this to you guys. This is what this mentor posed to me. He said, Bridger, could you go find $100,000 cash by Saturday? We're gonna buy the car and the car is legit. It's checked out and we can sell the car Monday morning for $300,000. He's like— he poses this situation to me. He said like, could you go find $100,000 by Saturday? And I thought about it and I was like, I'm like, it's all checked out. It's legit. It's like, it's foolproof. He's like, yep. If you get the money, we will transact. And I was like, yeah. You know what? I bet I could find $100 grand. We're gonna make $300,000, like $200,000 spread. I was like, yeah, I'll knock on doors. I'll call whoever. Like, I'll be up all night. But I was like, yeah, I don't know if— do you guys feel like you could find— or $50 grand? And he goes, why? Why? And I'm like, well, the deal is so good. We're gonna make $200,000 this weekend. Like, yeah, I'm gonna find 100 grand and we'll split the returns. We're like, yeah, I'm gonna— dang straight. Like, I'm gonna— I'll run through a brick wall to get 200 grand, you know? And he goes, why? And he's like, because the deal was so good, right? You didn't think about, oh, I'm in college, I'm too young, I'm too inexperienced. Like, just the deal in front of you was so juicy, it had so much alpha on it that you could go raise feel confident finding $100,000 in a weekend. And so he goes, if you can do that, what's wrong with your fund, right? Does that make sense, that analogy? Sorry if I told it the right way. So he goes, with your fund, number 1, you should have a deal that you feel that confident in, that's that foolproof, you look at all the stuff. Number 2, and I mentioned lean into your constraints. So when I pitched, if I pitched you guys and I was, you know, in college, I still sometimes do this. I will, I like pause the pitch mid-pitch and I'd say, I know you think I'm too young to be pitching you this deal right now. Like, I just call it out, like lean into the constraint. I know you probably are sitting there thinking I'm way too young to pitch you on this, and if I was in your shoes, I would probably be thinking the same thing. So let me tell you why that might play to my advantage. Number 1, in my fund, there's no management fees. If I was 55 years old and gray hairs, guess what? I'm gonna need a management fee because I got a big house and a lifestyle. I've got a withhold. In my fund, I don't make money unless you make money. So 0% management fee, I only make performance fees. And I said furthermore, I live on like $500 a month. I don't need the money. Like, I literally don't. Like, I'm doing this, number one, to get you a return. But more importantly, I want you to have such a great experience investing with Bridger that you go brag to your friends of how good this was. I'm playing the long game. I plan to be in this industry for the next 30, 40 years. So, I'm going to work harder. I'm going to work weekends. I'm going to work nights. Your 55, 60-year-old gray-haired investment professional, they're going to Hawaii. They got expenses. They got a lifestyle to live. They have a higher propensity to commit fraud because they got to keep their lifestyle up. I'm like, me? I got like no expenses. That was— at least that's what I said. That was my— I leaned into the constraints and I think people, I don't know if they were just sad or like pity or whatever. But they at least they closed a couple people. That was kind of the pitch when I was young. So, I leaned into it. I didn't try to hide from it. I think that's our— the last thing I'd say, I think the way you present yourself and the way you talk makes your age change drastically. Someone can be very young in age but very experienced in the way they speak and communicate. Other people can be very old and sound very young and inexperienced. You've probably met people like that before. I think preparation for the meeting and the way you present numbers and data, I think those are all great ways you can approach So good question. Yeah, what was your name? What was your name again? Lucas. Lucas. I'm curious to hear about the evolution of the business. So you mentioned you started the first fund, had great performance using a debt strategy. How did it go from there? Just switch strategies, or what was your approach? Good question. So I, uh, the first 2 funds were the same strategy. We just restructured them. They're all in debt. Um, I sold that fund. I had a non-compete, so I couldn't be in the debt space. My— the way I talk about funds, I believe there's 3 different categories of people that run funds. There's the capital markets, the person who raises money. There's the middle circle which I would call the fund manager, person that's just good at compliance, good at running funds, how can structure the whole thing together and then the last person I would call the expert investor person. This person is amazing at commercial real estate or really good at trading options or whatever. Does that make sense? Yeah. My expertise lies in the fund management. world. So like putting together the fund, filing the documents, being compliant, working with the SEC and so and I will say this like I don't think I'm a great investor. I would call myself an average investor. So I go— I try to go find great investors and partner with them and I say I will run the fund with you. I will do all the documents, the prep, all the work for it and then we will maybe both of us will go raise capital together and I'm a decent capital raiser, that's how I position myself. So I currently run a crypto fund. I'm an average crypto investor. My partners are phenomenal crypto investors. Been in the market since 2013. Had— 2014 had the largest crypto mining facility in the state of Utah. Huge place. So, I go partner with them. They're my CIO. I'm the operations person, chief compliance officer. Does that make sense? Yeah. Same with Fund Launch Partners. We have great people that help and sit on the investment committee. I help more on the fund management side. I think it's a good way to position yourself, right? You're not going to be the Perfect at everything. So yeah, good question. I love it. Other thoughts? Yeah. Was Fun Launch at all inspired by Alex Rose's Gym Launch? So it's funny enough, me and Alex go way back. Yeah. So he actually came boating with us on Bear Lake for a full day. Yeah, it was fun. Him and Layla. So when they were launching Gym Launch, we had Fun Launch. They were a little bit ahead of us. So we actually— we did multiple Zoom calls together. We talked a little time about doing business. They gave us a bunch of ideas and actually helped our business a ton. They took our courses on funds. They were going to— so Acquisition.com, we talked about Acquisition.com. He was going to raise money for a long time for Acquisition.com. And then they sold that company like, well, we'll just fund it ourselves. And actually, they gave us an offer to be an acquisition. They gave us an offer to partner with them in acquisition. We ended up turning it down, Alex, but really good dude. And yeah, I think his content's phenomenal and they've done a good job. Yeah, I have another question. Kind of curious, what's been the most fulfilling part of this journey for you? Um, I mean, there's a lot of dark nights, there's a lot of happy moments. Um, I guess a few things I would say, back to what I said at the beginning, I, um, thoroughly enjoy— I like being in the game. And maybe I'll describe that more, but I like being someone who's a decision maker. I like being, for better or for worse, I might be the idiot in the room, like I'm the stupidest person in the room, but I like being in the room. And I like being the one that discusses the actual decisions that move a business in a market. Most people work their whole career to try to be in that room one day, be in that, whatever that top room is that makes the decisions for the firm. Maybe it was because I was impatient or whatever. I was like, well, I'll just start a business and invite people to the room. You know, like they can come to my room and we'll make the decisions with me. And so I, that's, I think it's the most fulfilling part is being a player in the game. You hear a lot of wealthy people, I use the word the game, Alex Hormozi, his podcast is called The Game. It's because wealthy, I believe wealthy people see business as a game. After you get out of like the poverty and survival, it's like, okay, this is now a game and it truly has game-like Pieces to it. There's moves and counter moves. It's like, it's, it's— you hear wealthy people talk about all the time, like the game of business, and I thoroughly enjoy that. And even if we get our teeth kicked in or stuff happens, I'm like, well, at least I'm in the game. At least I, like, I'm in the decision-making room. It's— I'm learning from this. Like, you know, you try to do all these positive things to make a negative not negative. But for me, that's been, that's been pretty fulfilling. Yeah. I guess in the second part is We've seen transformation in our clients. Like, that's— and I didn't see that for a long time. I don't know. I'll be real with y'all. People have like these mission statements of like, you know, like, we don't care about money. We're gonna go change the world. You've probably heard people say this before, right? And like, if you focus on the money, you're doing it wrong. I don't know. Maybe they're right. There's probably wealth people that are right. I think people say that once they've made a lot of money. The money doesn't matter anymore. For me, like the— if you talk about like the mission of the company or whatever, like the first like 3 years was like the mission of the company is to make me money. Like that's what we're doing here. Like we are trying to make money and get out of poverty, you know, like we are trying to make money. And then now like the last, let's call it last 2 years, like our mission at FundLaunch is to democratize Wall Street and we've actually— I personally have pivoted a ton to like more mission-driven and like we actually are making a like a huge impact in our clients' lives and that's very fulfilling now. To me, like that's awesome. But the first couple years, it was like no, we are here to make money. Like that is the goal of this business. We didn't even have a mission statement. Like the mission statement was like make money, and now it's pivoted, and maybe that's the wrong way to do it. Some people would say differently, but I don't know. It's startup life out of college. Like I don't know. That's just the real real, and it's fun to make money. People don't like to say that. It is really fun to make money when you make your own money too. Like when you make your first dollar, first ten dollars, or first hundred, or first thousand, or first hundred. Like it's like. Wow, like I— we created those dollars like out of thin air, it feels like. And it's just like, that is a very euphoric feeling and very fulfilling on those first couple years, especially when you're trying to come out of poverty. And now that's, for me, that's like less fulfilling. It's more fulfilling to like help clients and move clients' lives and like see the progress in their lives and like what they're doing. So that's just me being real. I don't know if that's the correct, the politically correct answer, but I don't know if that helps at all. Yeah. I don't know how we're doing on time. We're good on time. Few minutes, okay. I was gonna ask a question. So Bridger, on your platform, you've mentioned a couple times that you've had offers in the 8-figure range for others to acquire Fund Launch. And on multiple occasions, you've turned those offers down. Can you talk a little bit about why you had turned those offers down? Obviously, you're still super young. You know, what's the motive there? You know, what's kind of that chase? Yeah, we got an offer last year, an LOI for $40 million, different LOI for $25 million, another one for $20 million over the last 3 years from companies that wanted to acquire us, which is cool to get. It's like, wow, this is a bootstrap business, like me and one co-founder, like we're 50/50. So I'm like, man, I'd get $20 million or whatever if we actually transacted. Now those are LOIs. A couple things coming and doing due diligence. So I'm the face of our company. I've got— we can talk about social media too. I have roughly 300,000 social media followers. And you guys should all start, I think, getting in that direction. I hated social media for years. I like didn't want to do it and I finally did it and we'll talk about it in a minute. They wanted me to stay on for like 3, 4 years. So number 1, that was like hard. Like I'm gonna sell my company to somebody else and then I'm gonna work it for 4 years. Like why don't I just work it myself? Number 2 though, we came back and we saw— I mean we're all like— it's funny, I like to look at people that are ahead of me in time. I didn't share this but When I was trying to decide to do investment banking or what to do with my life, I called a bunch of alumni. So I went on LinkedIn. I think all of you can do this. Go find alumni from UVU that are in investment banking or in the career wealth management, the career you want to be in. I found four or five guys and gals that were let's call them thirty years old. They were five, six, seven years out of school. I called them all, and it was so interesting. I was like, "Okay, you you got to write your golden ticket. You got you got through the two years in the MBA. Like what are you doing now?" 2 of them were like, oh, I left finance. I hate it. Like, I just got burnt out. I'm doing something totally different now. I was like, interesting. Another one was like, I'm still in the grind. Like, I'm still— I work at Goldman Sachs right now. I'm trying to be a VP soon or whatever partner thing they're trying to do. And it's a grind. I just work my guts out. Like, but it's awesome. Like, I love it. I was like, okay. And then the other one was like, it burnt out my family. I got divorced. And like, my marriage is like gone. And I've got kids. And like, I'm trying to put my life back together. Anyways. Very miserable outcomes from that, and I was like, I don't want to be one of those people. They all regretted their past. All five or six of them I talked to, I was like, dang, that's crazy. So I did the same thing with this. I called the number of people that have sold their businesses. Almost all of them started another company after. You see that very common, like they just start a new business, or some of them got super depressed, and like yeah, I went through a big depression spell, and then I kind of came out of it. Now I'm doing this charity thing or something different. And I just thought that was interesting. And I think humans drive a lot of fulfillment from growing. And I thought, man, well, if I sold this business, I would probably try to sell another or start another business just like this. Like, I love this business. So why don't we just keep doing it? And then number 2, I was like, I'm relatively young. My partners are all young too. I'm like, you know, everyone wants to get rich quick, which is awesome and great. But like, I was like, what if we keep— there's a lot of power in longevity. and war of attrition. I'm like, what if we keep at this for 5, 10, 15, 20, like compounding effects? Like we have 30 years left in a career or 40 years left in a career. Like that's a lot of time to compound if we just stick at it. Like I look back like Warren Buffett, you know, he's, what is he, 94, 96 right now? He's had, he started his first fund at 28 years old. Ray Dalio, you guys know Ray Dalio, started at 26 years old his first fund. A lot of people don't know that. Ken Griffin, you guys know Ken Griffin? Started his first fund at 20 years old. A lot of these guys have just been in the game for so long. They've had like Warren Buffett's had 70 years to compound. Like do your little compounding calculator, most of us would be billionaires if you're compounding what you currently have over 70 years. Now, Warren Buffett's amazing, he's done some great things and stuff but like time is amazing. And most people won't let the time happen. So we were sitting there like, imagine if we— let's give ourselves 20, 30, 40 years. We like what we're doing, like our business, we like our clients. Let's keep trying it out. Let's see what we can do. That was kind of the thought process. So even like, look at Grant Cardone. You guys know Grant Cardone? Before Cardone Capital, he was a sales trainer online. He started Cardone Capital, I believe, in 2010. Slow, kind of a slow start. He's been in the game 14 years now, compounding. They're at what, $4.5 billion, something like that, AUM? I think there's a lot of power in compounding a career and being in the decision seat, like having investors, having reports done, like I don't know, can we play the long game? That's what we got down to, so. Super cool. Yeah, maybe I'll touch on social media for a second, is that all right? Absolutely. Anybody have social media and like try to like grow it in some way? Not just like your friends follow you but like you actually do something with it more business professional, anybody? So I did not have social media in college, I mean I just had like personal friend account, like I had a little, you know, just for friends to follow me or whatever. I didn't like social media. I thought people on social media were dumb, like they're trying to be an influencer. I'd always make fun of them. You guys are idiots, like, you know, what do you think you're so cool? So, but then I saw, I was starting these businesses, I was like, dang. I remember seeing the, I was like, actually it was the Kardashians. I was like, it is so easy for them. These girls are so lucky. They already have a following. They can just post whatever and they make millions of dollars. Like, I was like, this is the stupidest crap. It's so unfair. I remember being like, this is just unfair. They're just— just because they're pretty and they're online and whatever, they can just post stuff and make tons of money and I have to freaking grind my face out to make a dollar and I finally said, well, I can either be mad or I can do something about it and so I made— I'm like, you know what? I'm gonna see if I can just grow a following. Now let's just see. So I started a separate business account. I did not tell anybody about it. I called it my Binsta, my business Instagram. And so I had my own Instagram and then I started a Binsta business Instagram. I started to post. I started with, I think it was like a quote account, like quotes, motivational quotes, and then it turned to like memes. And I was like, I'll try different. I just started trying stuff and I started to try to be like, could I get an account that just has followers or just for anything? Like, could I just figure this out? And then over time, it grew and I got better at it and better and we started making ads and then we used my face on ads and I would like— and now we have roughly 300,000 social media followers online. We have stats that track clicks on our social media. I believe last year we made over a million dollars just from social media clicks from people watching YouTube videos of us and clicking and buying or investing in our products or whatever. It's been a huge benefit to my life. I still don't like social media that much. I delete my accounts often. I have other people that help me post and stuff, but it is a huge benefit. I would give you a challenge to at least think about it. Social media has changed last few years as well. It's way easier to go viral, way easier to get views. You used to have to have a following. Now you have to have— you can just— any piece of good content can go viral. I have a buddy, he has a LinkedIn influencer account. He posts interesting things on LinkedIn. That's all he does. He just texted me, he makes $400,000 a year From selling products off that LinkedIn account. He had no ad spend, no nothing else. That's all he does. He makes $400,000 a year. He's my age, 29 years old. He's a data science major at, I think, UVU actually. He started posting data science stuff that was interesting to people on LinkedIn. Very analytical, very technical. Now he sells a small course where he helps people out with data analytics. It's, I don't know, there's a lot of leverage. There's 4 levers in business. Finance is one, labor is the second, technology is the third, and media is the fourth. Those are the 4 only business levers you can have in business. There's books written on this, I won't dive into it, but there's 4 levers in business. The more I've tried to pull those levers, let's pull, like you guys are in finance, finance is a huge lever, money, right, is a huge lever, but that's not the only lever. Labor, like MLMs are the perfect one at labor, like having mass amounts of people follow, like do stuff is huge. The third one is technology where you can actually compound, have leverage in technology. You have code that writes stuff for you, code that solves problems. Then the last one is media which has been around forever, you know, newspapers or social media, whatever it is, is huge. So, can you pull those levers in your business? I challenge you to go at least think about it. Yeah, good questions. I don't know if we have time for, I don't know, one more, anything else? Yeah. Cameron mentioned to me before that you place interns. I'm just curious, like, there are a bunch of students here who are, you know, cream of the crop at UVU. Talk to us about how you might be helpful that way. Yeah, so intern placement. We have all these funds. We have roughly 1,000 fund managers in our incubator right now, all launching funds, and they all want interns. So we just started doing an internship program. We start— it's all virtual. It's 10 hours a week roughly. You can do it during the school year. We started with 10 interns in November, went extremely well. We had a— like, they crushed it, they did awesome. We just— I put a post on LinkedIn, we got 400 applications for interns, which is crazy. We brought on 30 from schools all across the country. I'm talking Ivy League, like any type of school. We just brought on 30, and the interns of the first cohort are leading the second cohort. Does that make sense? So we put them in groups of 10, the previous interns are leading groups of 10. These 30 are Going to be done here in the next 2 months. We're going to take another group. We want to pull to about 100. So, we're going to pull about 100 interns. The past interns will lead about groups of 10 of those interns and we will place you in. So, we train you first for about 3 weeks and then we place you into funds that are coming through our incubator. So, these are private and you can like select like I would love to be in a private equity fund or I'd love to be in a hedge fund or I'd love to be in— these are all startup funds. So, you're there, you're like the 3rd employee or the 4th employee. Which is pretty cool. So, you get to see the interworkings of like launching a brand new fund, which is, I mean, good and bad. It's nice to go to like an established firm sometimes, but also it's pretty cool to see like, hey, we just need this done, or we need like these reports out, or we need these marketing materials. Like, you are in the entrepreneur level of launching funds, and these guys are doing really— these guys and gals are doing incredible things. So, if you're interested, the cohort, we just brought on them like a month ago. I bet in 2 months we're gonna open up another one. So, We'll put a post out and stuff, and I think it's interns at funlaunch.com is where you can send a resume in, and we'll look at you guys. Yeah, thanks for bringing that up. It's awesome. Last thing I'll share, huge caveat: stuff that worked for me might not work for you. Those are a few things that helped me in my career, and it's—I don't know—I—I have a really fun time. Hope you can feel the passion that I like. It's great, and it's fun. I'm only a few years out of school. I don't have it all figured out. I'm still working on stuff. I'm still trying to build stuff and create things, and like we're trying to figure out problems every day. But it's fun to be in the game, and if I could leave you with anything, I would say it's possible. It's more than if I like I'm a freaking idiot, and I like the best thing. I don't know about you in business. The best thing I've ever learned in business is most people aren't that sharp. Like I go to these board meetings and stuff with people that I like. They're just normal people. These are just normal people just figuring stuff out. Like everyone's kind of making stuff up. Everyone's kind of just trying to figure it out on the go and the people that succeed are the ones who just keep figuring out and they have enough perseverance, enough confidence, even enough ignorance sometimes to just keep pushing forward. Like no one's that smart. I used to think like all these guys have like IQs of whatever, 180, like they're just crazy geniuses and like I get to meet them, I spend a lot of time with these people and I'm like These you know really high net worth individuals like they're just normal normal folks. They're just like you. There's nothing special. And so if I leave you anything, you have everything it takes. You got it all. And you got UVU, which is a great platform. You guys are already already working on a fund right now together. Like you got everything it takes. Your downside risk is pretty small if you take a shot and if you take multiple shots and just keep swinging the bat. Eventually you will hit something. You live in the freaking United States of America. It's the greatest country on earth for entrepreneurs. By far, and you're in college, which is ten times better. Everyone wants to help a college student. The moment you get out of college, everyone's like, "Ah, screw you!" But when the moment when you're in college, like you call up people like, "Hey, I'm a college student. Can I get some help?" People are like, "Sure, like I'll help you." Like it's crazy. You have so much leverage right now, and I would just invite you to not miss miss the moment. Don't miss the moment of what we're in in 2025. I think we've got pretty cool stuff going on. So I don't know. Thanks for having me. You guys are amazing. I, uh, yeah, you guys are awesome. Thanks, man.