Charles Michael Yim - From two exits in Silicon Valley to making history on Shark Tank

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Kasey Adams here. Welcome back to the Rise of the Young podcast. On today's episode, we have Charles Yim here with us. Charles Yim is a successful entrepreneur who has sold two companies by the time he turned 28. Charles has been able to attract top mentors including the PayPal mafia, Virgin founder Richard Branson, and Shark Tank investor Mark Cuban. Early in Charles career, he joined FordFi a year later. In 2010, Ford Fortify software was sold to Hewitt Packard for $250 million. From there, Yim went off on his own and launched two startups, which one was called Chatterfly, which sold for $15 million in 2011. Charles has been on Shark Tank over 10 times and during his time on Shark Tank, he actually raised money from every single shark, making Shark Tank history. So before we get started, please take a moment to share this episode with a friend. Charles story is absolutely amazing and I know you will truly enjoy it. That being said, let's get into the show.

All right, what is going on everyone? Casey Adams here. Welcome back to the Rise of the Young podcast. Today I have Charles Yim here with us. Thanks so much for coming on the show, man.

Thanks, Casey. Been waiting to do this for quite some time.

I appreciate it. So we first met, I know we were connected on Instagram, but you're in the venture capital world and you're someone that I've always looked at on social where I'm like, he has so many projects going on and when we first had our first meeting, I was amazed by what I learned about venture capital. But for everyone that may not know where you currently spend your time, what would you describe as what you do?

No day is ever the same. Like today. I showed you my calendar just now, did a couple investments, advised a few portfolio companies, worked on some of my portfolio companies. Personally Visited a friend and then now I'm here doing a podcast with you. So every single day is different and I think that keeps things fresh and really stimulating. And that's my life now, so I can't complain.

As a venture capitalist, how are you looking at companies? I know you have a lot of different types of companies that you invest into and what do you call it? You call it venture.

The venture studio.

Venture studio.

That's a joke. Yeah. So for me now I have CMY Ventures. Basically it's a hybrid. It's both a hybrid of a studio which deploys a new concept every three months and then the other part of it is basically a fund. So I'll capitalize form the team, potentially I'll be interim CEO. And at the right time, it hits escape velocity, I'll switch out, like I said to you earlier, place a CEO in place that's actually had an incredible amount of experience and a great background. Then I'll pull out, take an executive board, chairman, board role, and I'll let that horse kind of run its, you know, run its course.

Very cool. So where did this all start? When it comes to the venture world, how did you end up getting into that space?

Yeah, so long story, but I'll make it short. So basically I was raised by my single mom. My mom immigrated from Hong Kong actually with just a couple hundred bucks in her pocket. It didn't work out between my mom and my biological father and so she had to take care of us. She was on welfare, food stamps. And so my brother and I saw our mom struggle at a really young age. And that's hard on two boys.

Totally.

And it kind of gets to you mentally, right? And emotionally. And so just that, that kind of, that stemming, just deep hearted, rooted situation really reflected, you know, and impacted us in a certain way. And I remember my, my bigger brother, he was a little taller than me at the time, he's two years older. And he's like, taps on my shoulder, looks down at me and says, hey, let's never let mom ever be in this position ever again. And so I remember that. And fast forward, you know, my brother's done very well. He's one of the founding engineers of Beats by Dre. So my brother's doing fairly well now. And for myself, you kind of know my story, but I'll start from scratch. You know, my mom got remarried and my stepfather is the, was part of the early team of Oracle, Larry Ellison, an early team with Steve Jobs. And so, you know, he had a lot of influence on me kind of in my later years as teenager. He said, hey, you know, I was pretty much born and raised in San Francisco. And he said, hey, Silicon Valley is right in your backyard. Why don't you give software a chance? And that's what I did. You know, I got an opportunity at Oracle because he worked at Oracle at the time Google. But they were both kind of mid stage and a recruiter actually knocked on my door. It was a company called Sportify Software. I was an early employee and long story short, it was enterprise application security. And what they did was they basically analyzed all the code for banks like Citibank, and there's this boring thing called PCI compliance, right. And the whole bottom line with that business is that they made sure that all the hackers, Russian hackers, that were literally stealing 150, 200, $300 million at a time just within minutes.

That's insane.

They would basically analyze the code and they'd come to realize that hey, there's a vulnerability. So they'd patch it up. So that's what the company did. Within a short one year stint, we're at about 125 employees sold it for a quarter billion dollars HP. So I was with HP for a very short stint after the acquisition. I came to realize that corporate wasn't for me and I acquired the majority of the soft and hard skills. But yeah, the, the board itself, it was made up of one individual who was PayPal mafia. And I'll always thank him to this very day. His name is Chuck Geiger. He's the cto of eBay, PayPal alongside Meg Whitman. Pre and post IPO.

Yep.

And so he put, basically took me under his mentorship for about five years. I started my very first startup. It was called Chatterfly. It was the first iOS app for mobile loyalty. So think of a buy 10, get one free card, a digitized version of that. And it's called Shatterfly. I rolled it out. We were in a majority of the 10,000 Main Street Americas in the United States. I ran that for three years. I hired the director of engineering out of Facebook, Karthik, and he built the Cassandra project for Zuckerberg. So I pulled them in. We had a long, you know, nimble, I would say team and software engineering team. Eventually brought in my CTO, Jackson Hole. We got that acquired for roughly about $30 million in total value, cash in stock. I own a good chunk of the cap table. Yeah, that set me up pretty, pretty nicely. And by then I was about 27. Okay, so I was a multimillionaire again, first at 20, 23, 24, then again at 27. But all on my own.

Yeah.

Company I founded from start to finish, three years in. And so I was pretty happy with that. Got into kind of a golden handcuffs, as you say. I got into a one year Aqua Hire contract with the company that acquired us, which was Plum District. It was during the Daily Deal era and Plum District was the Groupon for Moms, backed by Kleiner Perkins. And I was VP of mobile and design there for about a year. And by then when you get a company acquired, basically, you know, you, you have time to kind of cruise, right. You're doing your work. But I was already thinking about the next thing and I came down to four ideas I won't ever forget. It was Instagram for video, which was Snapchat now. Yeah, didn't go for it. Second one was kind of silly. It was Whisper, which is kind of like anonymized kind of rants and comments. But you're anonymous. Yeah. So it's kind of like a rumor mill. I didn't see much utility to that, thank God, because the company Whisper, that did do it, raised like 25 million. Crashed.

Yeah.

The third one was Uber for, for house cleaning. It didn't sound too sexy. But I look back, I mean, the company's called Handy now, it's got a multi billion dollar valuation. Unicorn did really great. You know, props to the founder. Didn't go down that route. But I chose the fourth idea, which was inventing the smartphone breathalyzer. And the interesting story about that was I was with. And while I was at Plum District, basically I was out with, I was out with my engineering design team. We're at a bar, we're doing a bonding session, right?

Yep.

And then the team, you know, started having too many, few, you know, too many beers. Long story short, I was always the designated driver back in college and you know, kind of put two and two together because there was a square dongle on the bar, you know, on the counter at the bar. And I was like, why couldn't I swap out that, that sensor inside? So I called my brother actually and I said, hey, you know, hardware, and I want to go into hardware, right. I want to learn that game too. And I asked him, I said, can we swap that sensor out? And. And so within 24 hours we made contact with the Japanese sensor supplier. They said, hey, there's an off the shelf sensor. Here you go. Plugged it in. We had a working prototype in two weeks, got it on Indiegogo. I was one of the first crowdfunding pioneers on Indiegogo. Acquired 4,000 customers, knew that we had procta market validation and what have you. That got the attention of. You have Clay New Bill and Mark Burnett of Shark Tank.

Yep.

And then so that landed me on Shark Tank. It's interesting story there in a nutshell is they called me actually and they gave me a secret password, Constantinople. And they said, we want you to fly down to Hollywood and you know, do the casting. So there was like a thousand plus entrepreneurs in line. I walked right up front and I had the barthometer shirt. Kind of corny, I have to admit. And anyway, walk. And I feel really bad because I was like, I'm cutting in line. Da da. They're like, we've been waiting for you. So I was the first person literally to film film that day.

Really.

They were waiting for me and I went in front. I had nothing on me but my shirt and the device. And they're like, they bring me in the room, everything's open, like empty. I was like, what do I got to do? They're like, tell us your name, your age, where you're from and what's, you know, what's your company. So I did exactly that. Pulled out the device, did a breath test, did the demo and they called me basically a couple days later and said, we want you on the show. So I went on the show. I honestly was aiming for Mark Cuban because he's only a tech oriented, you know, shark on there. Lo and behold, you know, outside of just a marketing opportunity, I ended up with all five celebrity sharks on the show. Everyone invested, everyone invested, made history on the show. And yeah, been on 10 times since behind the scenes, collaborated with other, you know, shark entrepreneurs, Shark Tank entrepreneurs, and the rest has been history. I think that kind of kick started things because I did Richard Branson's version of Shark Tank and out of 20,000 startups, I ranked number one.

What is that called again?

It's called Extreme Tech Challenge.

Okay.

And yeah, I got funding out of that as well. And now I'm friends with Richard and I can't be more thankful. Looking to have him potentially even endorse my new book that's coming out. I'll drop it on this, on this, on this podcast. My new book's coming out. It's kind of segue, it's called Art, the Art of the Shark Tank pitch. But it's the A to Z in terms of how to crafting crystallize the perfect pitch. Regardless of whatever your product or service is. So that's coming out in a couple months and as well as the podcast that we've been kind of collaborating on. Yeah. So just kind of fast forward. That company's still around. Probably going to exit the next year or two. Actually now working on a COVID 19 breathalyzer.

Really.

Which I think is probably the billion.

Dollar play that is. That is great opportunity.

Yeah. And it's helping the world.

Right.

And so now I'm 37, you know, I'm now focused more on passion projects and I'm not doing it because it's fun. I'm doing it because there's a real genuine cause and that I can really change the world. And there's a new definition of a billionaire. Right. It's impacting a billion people, not making a billion dollars. Right. And so I'm now focused on sustainability. Anything that I knew, no health and wellness hardware, medical device, consumer generally. So I have a plant based superfood company called Vitable. Right.

We see posting about it. It looks amazing. That's right.

That's. Yeah. If you've heard of. You watch the documentary Game Changers. Netflix.

Yeah.

That's kind of what kind of inspired me to do that outside of now, you know, living kind of this new healthy lifestyle. And then secondly I have the co living company. I have a Joshua Tree project with the mineral water and that, you know, whole eco friendly solar pod kind of experience. So that's fun.

You have a lot going on.

I have an AI company. Right. The Dance off app I'm about to release. I'll drop that on.

Yeah, we've been talking about it for a while now.

Yeah. Yeah. It's actually about to launch in the Apple App Store in about a week. It's like Dance Dance Revolution in your pocket. So I'll show that to you later. But anyway, I have my portfolio under my studios and I also personally angel invest into very cool projects that I think that are very relevant. But overall the kind of the revolving thesis that I follow is anything related to similar to the United nations initiatives. So sustainability. So it's clean water, clean air. Right. Anything with health and wellness. Right. Anything that can improve a human life. So it's more about giving back now. I'm very fortunate to be where I am today. I have a lot of mentors, whether it's Cuban or whether it's Richard Branson, you know, so I'm just kind of trying to give it back and pay it forward. And you got young guys like you crushing the Game much younger now. And I just noticed the Gen Z, I would say demographic versus the millennials, the Gen Z are coming up a lot quicker. They're learning fast. And I think because of COVID things are changed. Right. The educational paradigm shifted. Working. Remote learning, remote colleges. Yeah. College degrees. Do they really matter? You know, I took, you know, a lot of my education from Stanford. I'm alumni there as part of the Stanford StartX accelerator. And I look back and it was great education. I wouldn't change it for the world. But does a Stanford degree really hold that much weight like it used to? And I'm speaking from experience. It doesn't. And I think it's only relevant if you're a scientist or a doctor. But if you're not, you know, you got to go ahead and acquire the skill sets and the education. It's. You can't be experienced. Yeah, right. Just doing it. So, you know, for the entrepreneurs out there, just go out there, just get it done. Find mentors, find advisors. But that's what I did. And we're all still learning. I still even also have an executive coach myself.

How have you been. Been able to find all these mentors? I know I look at you as someone in my network where it's like, if I want to get in touch with anyone in Silicon Valley, you're the guy. Right. And I know that you, you have so many of these amazing relationships. Where did that start? You know, because there's a lot of very successful entrepreneurs that have done great in business, but they aren't with the Mark Cubans and the Richard Branson. So how have you been able to build this network while building your companies?

Yeah. So, you know, a good portion of it is intention. Right. I also, part of my book covers how to utilize LinkedIn as is a great solution, great tool. Right. I believe because of LinkedIn, no one's unreachable. So if you don't have a network, you can build it starting today, build out a really expansive LinkedIn profile and then start linking with the right people.

Totally.

If you're in the glass industry, if you're in the shoe industry, if you're in the podcast industry, there everyone can be reached. And if you need to use social media like Instagram, Facebook, just be smart about it. They always say your network is your net worth.

Yep.

And I wholeheartedly am, you know, breathing version of that. And so I, I spend the time to cultivate my relationships and you. And then those people know other people. So it's kind of a ripple Effect. So I love that. Yeah. So it's kind of organic, but at the same time it was a little bit of luck.

Yeah. When it comes to being a venture.

Capitalist, how are you managing your time.

And how do you analyze deals? I'm sure you have dozens of deals come across your plate every day. How are you looking at them and what makes you on one versus saying no?

Yeah. There's a book I read recently, it's called the power of saying no. And it's really being able to dilate. Right. And create a vernacular, a lens in terms of what are you passionate about? So I was talking about myself in terms of I'm focused on sustainability, I'm focused on health and wellness. All consumer, all of its only consumer think. Going back to Fordify, it was a very boring job, boring startup, some enterprise, long sales cycles and it was security of all things. Like learned very quickly. Consumer is what floats my boat. I was always kind of that lemonade scan stand kid. Yeah, I was always a hustler and entrepreneur. But then within tech, I focus on specifically things that really resonate with me. So because again, I'm on this health kick, you know, plant based superfood, Vita Bowl, Vita juice, Vita bites. Right. And then co living, right. I have the X Men of co living cohabitation. So that's something that really garnered my interest. And so I said, it doesn't exist, I'll build it. Right.

What is that exactly?

So cohabit basically take co living, but it's the X amount of co living. So they live in mansions and there's these super entrepreneurs or super VCs. Like a place like this, right. You know, you got maybe, you know, 10 rooms and you got 10 very, very intelligent super successful entrepreneurs or VCs. And I guarantee you within a year's worth of time, you know, you'll have 10 beautiful companies that come out of that. Right. And it's just because they're living together, eating, breathing, the same thing. Yeah. So I built that company based on personal preference. So I follow my passions, I do my due diligence, I do focus groups, I talk to the potential customer. If they say I'll buy, I buy, I'll buy in. You, you have a business.

Yeah.

Right. Then the next question lies in can you scale it? So just what resonates with you? Create a thesis. Some people are really hardcore into gaming.

Yep.

Some people are really right. Like you can develop services around your passions.

I love that man. When you're saying no to deals, I mean for anyone that's out there is looking to pitch an investor. What's your advice to them when going to raise capital?

First of all, know your shit. And the book that's coming out tells you. Know your numbers, right? Know your business inside out. Anticipate the questions that are going to come to you. Do research on your investor. I mean, you need to know what they ate for fucking breakfast. Pardon? I don't know if you should be cussing on your show, but yeah, you need to know everything you know, in and out, right, about them and what they're looking for. So when you're literally, whether you're on set in my case, or you know, you're meeting them at their house, you know exactly what questions that you know or anticipate the questions they're going to ask. Know what you want to ask. It's a two way street, right? It's a marriage, right? You have every equal right to ask the questions of the investors they're asking of you. But know your shit inside and out, right? Know your market, know your customer, right? Know your product, right? And if you can, if you actually have something to show that you can, demo, always demo your product. Demo, always demo. And, and the art of the Shark Tank pitch. I hit on this so much, if you'll notice, on Shark Tank, when I was on set, I did very little talking. 45 seconds, had everyone hooked in and boom. I took out, busted out my smartphone, breathalyzer. Lori came up, did the breath test, obviously set it up with the champagne. Yeah, she clocked 0.04%. They were sold. At that point, it's like, let's negotiate, let's get the deal done.

Love that. So having, having the product to show them is the most critical thing, 100% right. Love that. If you're going back in time, you know, during time 2020, and there's young entrepreneurs out there, what's your advice to them? That having all this experience that you.

Do now, that's a fully loaded question. I would say it's really based on your age and where you are in your life. Like, you're like you, you're young. Take, you know, a big fan of Gary Vee, like, take every chance, every risk you can and follow your dreams. I think as you start nearing your late 20s, early 30s, in my opinion, you know, I'm pretty hard on myself and my friends and my family. Better have your shit together. Like hopefully you have some level direction, you made some level of, you know, accomplishments. But when you're in your 30s, like myself, you should Already start, you know, having success.

Yeah.

And. And that's the point where you start really kind of dialing in to exactly what's your. What's your niche, what's your vertical, you know, what are you really good at? None of us are good at everything, so just get good at one fucking thing. You're amazing at podcasts. Right. That's why you're interviewing the best of the best for me. You know, I love tech, I love hardware, I love software. I'm really good at consumer. I understand the consumer psychology.

Yeah.

So that's my bread and butter. Everything else I say no to. I leave it to the experts. Right. So just specialize in something. Figure out what your passion is. But when you're in your 20s, experiment like hell, 30s, start doubling down 40s, hopefully you're retired, you know, some island. Yeah. Or, you know, you're happy wherever you are in your life.

I love that. When you are on Shark Tank, I think this is fascinating. You've been on there 10 times. What makes a deal work versus not? And what would you say about, like, the whole experience of Shark Tank? Right. I've watched this show for years now. I'm sure there's a lot of entrepreneurs out there listening that have watched it. What was your just entire experience with the show being on there? The after effects and everything that came from it.

Yeah. So I think in terms of, like, the purpose, pitch and making it work, it's multiple kind of check boxes.

Right.

You have to have the right product, the right service, it's got to have product to market, fit. Totally. Hopefully before you go on there, you have some level of traction. So for the ones of you that want to jump on the show, there's a timing aspect there. Like, if you just have an idea, don't go on. If you're still testing the idea, don't go on. But if you actually deployed it or you've done an Indiegogo campaign, you've actually started doing something, some product beta testing, and you see some proof of traction, you see people willing to pay for it, then that's probably kind of the litmus test. Right. But then when you go on there, make sure you're able to pitch it in a very articulate manner. Again, know your numbers, demo it if you can have an emotional hook, if you can connect and know everyone that's going to be on set. But it's nothing really that much different than doing in real life. You know, when I went on there, I held my own because I had thousands of board Meetings. I already sold two companies by then, so I have my shit together. But for the ones that are the up and comers, especially the Gen Z, just make sure you check all those boxes off and you know your stuff. You got everything lined up. It's like a homework assignment.

Totally.

Or you're doing your dissertation. You're not going to go in there empty handed. It takes a lot of studying, prepping and grinding. Right. There's no substitution for it.

Love that. When you sold your first company, what was that feeling like? And you know, what happened on that day?

So when I sold Chatterfly, it's the exact opposite kind of, I would say, experience that you would think I had. Most people will probably be like partying and what have you. So majority of my team members, they went out, they had drinks, they're calling me like, Charles, come out. I was actually at home sad and depressed. I was really sad because it was my first baby psychologically. I almost felt like someone took my kid from me. Yeah, it was my baby, right? So, you know, yeah, I had, you know, good amount of money in the bank account and I was, you know, cheerful. I'm not gonna say I'm completely depressed, but I, you know, I cashed a check, right. I made a big deposit, but I went home, I was laying in bed, I was kind of just like, you know, rolling around and like, what do I do from now? What do I do from here? Right? I let go, completely let go of control of my baby. And so, and it's no longer mine, but for me, my first experience. Experience is good and bad. You know, became a multi millionaire, stoked about it 27. But the sad part about it, I was like, okay, what do I do from here? But it's like I put three years of blood, sweat and tears and like what's I? A lot of founders fall in this trap, like your baby or your company is your identity. And for the first time I detached myself. It's almost like I ripped my identity. So. But then once you go through the second time, the third time, you just realize your company is a company and it's a, it's a, it's an external entity than you and you don't want to get too emotionally attached, but it's kind of a, you know, a double edged sword because you want to be passionately connected because that's why you're building it. So you just need to learn how to develop the mental maturity, the emotional maturity to know that that might come and at that time, that day in time if it does come, know that you got to kind of taper and peel back. Right. So it's experience. I go back to experience. There's a difference between someone in their 30s and I have mentors in their 40s, 40s and 50s. You have every phase of your life, at every stage of your entrepreneurial career. There's new sets of skills and kind of a new psychological development that you can build on.

What's your advice to people that are looking to sell their company, that have the setup to do so? What have you learned from acquisitions and selling companies?

Yeah, great question. It's all about timing. For instance, take Covid, right? Had people know Covid was going to hit. There have been millions of companies, you know, probably getting acquired and sold. Yeah, some are still able to do it during this time, but it's all about timing. Mark Cuban sold Broadcast.com to Yahoo at the right time. Months later, dot com bust. Everyone lost out. Right. Timing. Just know when to pull your chips off the table. And for me, you know, you just got to look at the signs. How is the economy? How is your actual respective industry market? How is it faring? Are the numbers going up or down? How, how many competitors are in the space? Is it a saturated market? How's your product selling, selling through? If it's hardware, it's a service, and is it recession proof, Is it long term? So there's a lot of variables you want to analyze in terms of just understanding when is the right time to get out. At the same time, especially Gen Z versus Millennials, I think we're getting more and more impatient in terms of how much money we want. A lot of the younger kids like yourself, they want the nice fancy toy toys and houses, whereas the later generations, like the baby boomers, they're patient, they waited till their 40s or 50s to really like, you know, buy their midlife crisis sports car.

Right.

You know, I think there's a balance there. You know, we're in the kind of economy sharing, you know, kind of era now. So it's not about owning things as much these days. Don't get me wrong, a nice car is a nice car. Nice house is a nice house. But I believe we're in the era of having beautiful experiences. And your wealth, your health is your wealth. So wealth goes good health. Compare, you know, kind of paired up with, you know, experiences and adventures. That's being rich, that's being wealthy. It's not the Ferrari that you have. I've had a bunch of supercars. I have nothing right now, at least for now. Can't say for the future.

Yeah.

On my next exit. But for right now, man, I triple down on, you know, being on Richard Branson's private island, which I go to all the time. Necker Island. Then having a Ferrari that sits there and I drive around LA like.

Yeah.

You know that to me doesn't, that doesn't say shape my appetite. Yeah, I like building shit. Being around really smart people like yourself, innovating, adding value to society, adding value to the world. Don't get me wrong, I like my fancy, my nice fancy things night now and then. But don't, don't complete immerse yourself to the point where it's like it makes you shouldn't be your identity.

Love that. What have you learned from being on Richard Branson's private island? Obviously it's private for a reason.

I mean, look, I'm fortunate. One of the few that's been on the island. Probably going back later this year or two if you want to come. Hey, you're more than welcome.

Yeah, I would love to come by.

I put a bunch of catamarans together and we have, you know, we go island hopping and we all get to meet Richard and see Richard. So that's cool. But outside of that, you know, I, I, I'm used to it. Right. He's got his lemurs. Small fact. He actually has a majority of lemurs. That's a kind of a dying species, you know. Yeah. It's near extinct species.

He like owns the species.

He owns a majority of the species.

Wow.

Hurricane Karina went through it decimated unfortunately half of. Yeah. Of the population. Anyway, he saved a majority of them. Thank, thank God. But yeah, it's like literally you're living on private island. It's like a little mini zoo. It's got flamingos on there. Yeah. Obviously it's got like so many pools and views and you know, we all get to go kiteboarding.

So cool. I see. You know, I'm sure a lot of people have seen it like I have and it's like it sounds like that dream island that it's like, like whenever you get there, that's an experience we'll always remember.

Dude. We'll make it a reality, man. Let's go make it a reality.

Two more questions before we wrap up. How do you spend your time?

Right.

You have so much, so many projects going on. How do you spend your time on a day to day basis? I know you said every day isn't the same, but what does Your daily schedule usually look like.

Yeah, I showed you my calendar. No day is ever the same. I will credit and Natalia will love me for this. I have a amazing chief assistant staff that's been with me for about, you know, almost close to eight plus years now. We've known each other for almost 10 years, but she's been incredible. So I leave it to her kind of to help me manage my schedule and kind of, you know, think for me. Right. Do these things these days. Line up this podcast with Casey today, you know, and then you can rest tomorrow. So I really lean on having a really strong bench team and a staff that enables me to do what I do. So it's. It's all about team and then knowing how to manage your time. I can't stress for a lot of you guys, like put everything in your calendar. If it doesn't. If it's on my calendar doesn't exist. I literally, I'm not see about my calendar. You'll see like everything's booked out. I know for the most part separate of COVID times. Right. Things are a little different now. But try to plan out ahead. Months ahead, you know, weeks ahead, days ahead. But the calendar, use your Google calendar, man. Yeah, look, live by it. It's your bible. Time efficiency and make sure you're spending meetings with appropriate people. There's a lot of stuff these days we can just do by a phone call or zoom call. You don't need to drive and spend 30 minutes to go somewhere unless you're doing a physical podcast. But just be smarter with your time.

Love that last thing before we wrap up. Where is the best place for people to stay in touch with all the projects you have going on?

Yeah. So I'm on Instagram. Arlesmmael is my middle initial. Yim on Instagram. It's the same. Same on Facebook. CharlesMichael Yam. I'm on LinkedIn. I'm on Twitter. I'm very accessible on Instagram. And I have a big Shark Tank fan base. So, you know, I interact. I always give out tips. I'm always, you know, willing to mentor and help out. It's all about giving back.

Totally.

Especially to the younger kids, you know, so the ones especially that remind me of myself, you know, I'm always willing to help. So I love that.

I'll make sure to link that down below so that everyone can check it out.

Yeah. And just one message. You know, I. I've gone through a lot of turbulent times as an entrepreneur in my past. You will have hard Times like I'll give you an example. Prothometer. I had a product recall way back when, you know, got knocked down with, you know, the FTC for 5 million bucks got back up. It was, you know, it happens. Fitbit had a product recall, Jawbone had a product recall. Samsung had a product recall. Philips even did. So it happens. But the point is whether it's funding, whether you know you're not going after the right customer, whether you have a big, you know, mistake or a blow up in terms of the team or the founding team because a lot of founders always fight. Something's always going to happen. Or maybe your board wants to take over your company which has tried to almost happen to me once. You need to just persevere, stay focused, have faith and have passion, right? To just kind of see it through. So the ones that are maybe down on their luck and especially during COVID times, right. I mean my buddy of mine had a 6 million dollar funded travel company that, that was out of Y Combinator zero revenue. So they're trying to now to fire sale it. Right.

That's insane.

There's nothing that she could have done to fix that or prevent that. Unless you have a crystal ball. Yeah, right. Or you're clairvoyant. So look, you know, think about, hey, that's the first one. There's going to be a new company, a new product and the next thing. And I have some techniques and tips in terms of my book on how to come up with the next idea, the same system I use. Right, right. And you guys can buy the book if you're interested when it comes out. But otherwise just persevere, stay passionate. Don't get down on your luck. I've fallen a thousand times before I got back up. And just trust the story. Don't trust rumors, don't listen to bullshit. Just stay focused on what's at hand and don't let people, especially strangers because there's a lot of social media bullying that happens these days. Right? Screw them. Fuck em, right? Dtf, right? Right. Don't give a. But you know, just stay focused on your mission and believe in yourself and you know, have a surrounding, you know, kind of circle of mentors and, and follow through man. Do what you say.

Love that. Thanks so much, Charles.

Sounds good, Appreciate it. All right man.

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