Lunch & Learn - Session 16

You.

Hey, there. This is Tom Powell and Candace Powell. We're coming to you with our lunch and learn. And let me tell you about someone who embodies what it means to build with intention. His name is Kevin Peterson, and Kevin's the founder of Growth Stack and a steady force inside sastermind, where he has been a guiding founder with a mix of product, practical systems, thinking, and genuine care for years. Kevin's a rare kind of leader. He has started companies, scaled them, exited them, and learned the lessons that only come from being in the arena. He took all of that experience and created Growth Stack to solve a problem he saw over and over again. Founders were working harder than ever, but their systems were working against them. Kevin stepped in to change that. What I appreciate most about Kevin is not just his background, but his mindset. He thinks clearly, he listens closely. He brings orders where others see clutter. And inside sastermind, he becomes a trusted voice because he's lived the founder journey from every angle. He knows how to simplify, how to steady the ship and help people focus on the work that truly moves them. And most importantly, Kevin is a big skier. As a matter of fact, last week, we're up skiing at Northstar, and I see this gentleman get off the ski lift, and I immediately recognize him. And he and his wife and myself and another friend ski together for the rest of the afternoon, which is great. Or morning, I guess, at that point. So help me welcome Kevin to lunch and learn. And we're here for a special, special talk today. Right, Kevin?

Yes, we are. And thank you so much for the warm intro. That's. It's flattering and I appreciate it.

Oh, absolutely. Well worth it. And I will say this so literally, Kevin and I have figured out that we have probably been on hundreds of chairlifts together. There are so many times our lives and have had to cross where we're literally in the same room and we just never met each other until one fortunate day at lunch a little less than a year ago, and where we connected and we said, oh, you know, and it started that. It led into one conversation, which we're actually going to talk about. That integrates everything that we do in our lives, which is it brings together the things that we love, the people that we love, and the passions that we have. And that is called lift pitch. Right. And, Kevin, this. This started off as your idea, but it also had just been mentioned by another friend of ours, Charles Bird. Right. He had been talking about this, and we. We're like, this is a great idea. So we're going to start with that. But before we even start with that, we're going to talk about who it benefits. And so I'm going to turn it over to Angela to show. Please, please stick with me for one minute while we show a video about who lift pitch is going to directly benefit economically.

And.

And it's the Sky Tavern adaptive ski program. We'll come back and talk about it here in just a second. But please take one minute and watch this little bit from Sky Tavern. If the sound works. You know what I always love about these?

I think Angela needs to unmute is the thing.

Yeah. What I always love is it works great. In pre production show.

We did our test and we could ski.

There it is.

And we didn't ski for a decade. We took care of a very sick kid and I didn't think we'd ever ski again. Last year we had some friends that were doing the adaptive ski program here at Sky Tavern. But they convinced us to go ahead and give it a shot and we came out and I think by the end of the season I'm going to be able to go out skiing with my family again. Jimmy's sister, my husband, me and Jimmy and the Sitski. And we're going to ski together. I didn't think it was possible. At Sky Tavern they didn't just take Jimmy out skiing. They are teaching me how to ski with Jimmy. So instead of this once or twice a year opportunity up on the mountain, they're giving us the skills to ski for a lifetime as a family. That honestly has been the most magical because there are lots of great, wonderful people who can get Jimmy on the mountain. But there's not a lot of places where the whole family is invited to learn and be trained to ski together.

That is awesome. What a great program. So I'm going to give you a little background on Sky Tavern for those because I know we have people around the world watching us now at this point. So sky Tavern is 75 years old. It's the longest running, I believe the largest nonprofit learn to ski program. Also now learn to bike program. And as I affectionately always say, it's like we've got a mountain and what can we do with that mountain? And so I had the good fortune of learning to ski there over 50 years ago. Candace learned to ski there and I coached there. I learned to coach there and then over the years and now I am the proud president of the nonprofit organization, which is great in that Kevin said he was involved on other mountains in their Adaptive program of which is Candace's passion. So we don't just do adaptive. We do all sorts of the snow. Wherever you're sliding on snow, we've got the program for it. But Kevin said he was interested in that. Candace was already involved in it. And so now I'm going to let you guys talk first about the adaptive program, and then we're going to talk about what the lift pitch is, because people are here not for the nonprofit side of this. They're here for founders. And I promise you, we're going to get to the founders here in just a minute. But I want to talk about this nonprofit. Nonprofit. Why does the adaptive program turn your crank for both of you?

I'll let Kevin go first. He's. Kevin's got a long track record in adaptive ski and skiing and ski instructing, and I'm only a couple seasons in. So, Kevin, do you want to talk a little bit about what? Dr.

Interested? Yeah. Yeah, happy to. So this will be my sixth season volunteering as an adaptive ski instructor, and my motivation for doing this ever was truly just give back. Like, I have been blessed with so many, like, more untracked blue sky powder days around the world than I can count. And I am. And for me, so, you know, I'm going to take us down a spiritual path for just a minute. So I was on the phone with my brother the other day, and I was driving up to Sky Tavern, and I was looking up at this beautiful mountain from the Mount Rose highway, and I was telling my brother, I'm like, man, that. Like, that is my cathedral. Like, I know I don't feel more spiritually connected anywhere else than at the top of the mountain, especially with snow on it. I'll take it without snow, but with snow, I feel especially connected. And so, again, I've just been blessed with so many amazing ski days in my life. And so the adaptive program was my way to give back. And it's been more fulfilling and more challenging than I ever imagined. Like, I tell people to this day that it's the most challenging thing I've ever done, both physically, mentally, emotionally, spiritually. And part of the reason is, you know, I mean, first of all, a lot of the students haven't had that experience of skiing ever until they show up at a mountain and they're enrolled in a class as an adaptive skier. Most of the students that I have taught in my life did not have use of their legs or had very limited use of their legs. So I'm trained to teach lessons on they Call them sit skis, as you saw in the video. Actually, my first lesson that I taught at Sky Tavern was with Jimmy, who was featured in the video. I went out with Jimmy and his mom a week ago. It was a fantastic day. And so part of that connection during an adaptive lesson is you're taking someone that is out of their element in every possible way. Right. They're not used to being on a mountain necessarily. They may not be used to being in the snow or the elements during winter. And they haven't had that experience of being out of control. And that's what resonates. There's nothing quite like taking a skier up the mountain who has limited mobility and giving them that experience of being slightly out of control and slightly out of their element and having the sun on their face and the wind blowing by and being out on the snow, there's just nothing like it. And so. And I'll share with you too, like, the first run that I took with Jimmy, we got to the bottom and I asked him how was it and he put both hands up for high fives and. And it still gives me chills talking about it because it's magic. You're delivering magic on a lesson after lesson. And it's just fantastic.

You know what's awesome is Candice, I'm going to jump in there just for a second. What is awesome is Mary Beth, Jimmy's mom, talks about. It wasn't just that we took Jimmy out, it's that we taught Jimmy's parents how to go out. And what that enabled was the parents to get back on the snow. And it also allowed his sister to have a place to go and be safe on the snow. And she's a ripper. And so I got the good fortune skiing with her the other day. And so that's just an awesome thing. But the better part was I saw them at Mount Rose and that's a huge deal. So for those that don't know, again, our local little mountains here, we're one of the highest concentration of ski resorts in the world. And this does matter as founders, because founders typically tend to do all the passionate things that they want to do. It's why we become many times self employed. So I'm out skiing and there's Mary Beth with Jimmy on a Siski that came from Sky Tavern, that was on the Mount Rose, which is an entirely different ski resort. And that is the best thing. But you, you were more excited, I think, when I saw you in the lodge later that day than when you were when you first showed up that morning.

Absolutely true. It is so fun and it's so fulfilling.

So. So Candace, you helped lead. And actually this Monday, while Kevin was out skiing and being a bum and I was doing other things that someone in the office made, you were actually on the lift pitch. So can you tell me how the lift pitch is going to fit into all of this? And why does it matter to hear lunch and learn how does this even fit into there?

Yeah, sure. I'm happy to jump in and I will definitely have you guys jump in as you see fit, because this is really your guys's dream. And baby, and it's just an honor to be a part of it, this is our first lift pitch event, and the idea really stemmed from founders, especially founders, raising capital, need to be able to tell their story, tell the story of what problem they solve in basically the time it takes on. On a chairlift.

Right.

And so the ideas kind of was percolating and I was fortunate enough to be the third wheel on their meet cute lunch date, which I don't know how they haven't met 20 other times in their lifetime because they were in the same places at the exact same time. I don't know. Paul Mark will make a movie about it at some point, but.

Probably true.

But the. They started chatting through this concept of founders being able to get their story and really get that story short enough, compelling enough that on a chairlift, which is not an unusual place to meet a founder or an investor, those. Those things happen more often than you would think. And so this idea was born of doing lift pitch, having investors, having business leaders and founders partnered up on a chairlift. And those founders get the chance to pitch to this person as they're riding up the chairlift. And then the wonderful thing is, is that we're able to utilize this event to give back to the Sky Tavern adaptive program, which is a really important program to us. As my dad said, I grew up skiing at Sky Tavern. My children are Sky Tavern kids, and I, I spend my volunteer hours in the adaptive program. So really close connection to this mountain. And we have really incredible skiing here. So for founders that are excited to come and ski, get some ski time in Miracle, March is the time to come out and get on the slopes.

You know, you say that it's always funny. I'm thinking we start March 1, right? This event is March 1, and it's going to be super cool. You get to ride up a chairlift. And it's called the America Chairlift. Yes, it is the America Chairlift. And in the time that you write up, which is a little less than eight minutes, you will be working on our six secrets of raising capital essentially through that pitch. And we'll, we'll, for the people that have signed up, we're going to have some pre work that they're going to be able to go through. They're going to get time with our team, with Kevin, myself and, and other people on how to actually perfect those pitches. We'll be working with the people that are on the investment side. So again a lot of our investors are founder based investment investors who had an exit. All of a sudden they've got money and they turn around and it is such a high proportion of founders who turn around and make the investments back into the next generation of founders. And so we're working with them on how the six Cs of capital work and how it works for them as well as how it works for this investment side. So there's a lot that's going into this and at the end of the day it benefits the Skytavern Youth Adaptive Program. But it is also in reality it's all about the founders and the founders that are investors now and how do we match them up. And Kevin, you're actually thinking there's going to be some dating, some serious dating that goes on because of these chairlifts, right?

Absolutely true. Yeah. There will be some, some chairlift speed dating here and I would not be surprised if one or more deals actually get structured before the end of the day.

That is so cool. So tell me how you see this coming together. What is the program so far? And there's been a ton of work onto this.

Yeah. So as you mentioned we're attracting founders and funders and giving them a friendly and fun format to. Man, that was a lot of F's in one sentence. Founders, funders, friendly format. All in, you know, all in one day where founders will have one colored racing bib, funders will have a different color bib so they can identify each other and then meet up in the, in the lift queue and have that eight minute pitch opportunity on the chair. And then, and we do have sponsors and vendors and people from the community coming. There will be some media coverage and then in the evening we'll be running sort of a mini banquet to bring it all together and have awards for best pitch etc and recognize the terrific people that are coming together to support this.

Does somebody have to ski or snowboard?

Not necessarily. So there is a stationary chairlift in the lodge where People who don't ski or it's also contingency planning in case of blizzard. If some people go up and ski one run or they go up planning to ski and don't ski because of the weather, they can pitch in the lodge on the stationary chairlift and we will have somebody there with a timer to make sure that they still only get eight minutes. Got it.

Oh, that's super cool. So again, what we're going to be working on is the basics of storytelling and the probability of success in getting funded on that. So Kevin served as one of our sharks. If you haven't seen that, when we did our Capital Edge summit up at Lake Tahoe, we had the good fortune of Kevin. Kevin, how many founders are in your sastermind?

So there's about 130 in the community. Not everyone is active all the time, but, you know, people come and go based on the normal ebbs and flows of their business. But yeah, many founders, some investors. Some investors who are also founders seems to be the common trait that people who run businesses once want to run more businesses.

It's, it's a sickness. But you know what, it's what we love and those around us love it too, in a love hate kind of relationship. Which is why, you know, in the founder's office, we really do work with the founders trying to get them to be a little bit more balanced human beings or at least round out some of those rough edges so that when they do have exits that they actually get that opportunity to live their life and they don't have to wait until they exit. Which is why and how skiing has been such a big part of my family being outside. I think even before we started talking, we were talking about that this four days of work this week are all inside and I'm not actually getting out to get skiing. And immediately my team is like, oh, he's going to be grumpy. Because it really is. I, I live to be in the mountains and be outside. That's my passion. But other people are, they, they want to be, you know, kite surfers or they want to be working in libraries or whatever it is they have their passions about it. It's. We're not just individuals that are just simply doing a business. It just looks like it. So tell me, tell me a little bit more about. And I think, Angela, you popped up the QR codes. Tell me, how does someone get involved in the sastermind? First of all, what, what's the right group of people? People. What are the right people? Group of People that you're looking for in that group and how do you benefit them?

Yeah, so I've been running the sastermind for six years now. It was six years last month. And it really is for founders, really, at any stage. Typically, founders are coming in when they are past mvp, so their product is in market, they've got some revenue and they're looking to scale. And people tend to participate from that level, that kind of growth phase level. Through Series A. I do have founders in my network that are doing nine figures. ARR. Bootstrapped. 100% bootstrapped. Right. Which is fascinating. Yeah, exactly. And then this year, we're actually expanding our horizons a little bit. We just launched a premium cohort of the sastermind that will go very deep on AI and blockchain. So sas, you know, the last six years we were just focused on sas. I don't know if I should say just focused on SAs, but it's SAs, which includes a lot of flavors of SAs, which could be edtech, fintech, some models that are a mix of hardware and software. So there's a hardware component that. That is the leader on the sales and marketing side. And then once the hardware is installed, then it turns into a SaaS product and it's collecting data, so and so forth. So there's always been kind of a SaaS blend model. And now businesses really, like, really any business cannot survive without at least contemplating how to optimize their business and scale with AI and to some extent, blockchain. So we've just launched this new cohort that could open this up beyond just SaaS and tech to include AI and blockchain as well.

Okay, so let's walk through that. And my team is saying we didn't get a QR code up there about how does somebody learn more about sastermind? How do they learn about that?

Kevin, the easiest way to find me on the Sastermind is by visiting sastermind.net okay, so s a a s sastermind.net.

Okay, SO software as a service. Service. But you said it. It is much different than just simply being service anymore. It has everything to do with essentially, which is where we came out of. We, you know, we started investing in this back in the early 90s, before there was ever a term called fintech. Right. I mean, and then as we go through there and we went through the.com 1.0, there still wasn't a term fintech. It kind of came up afterwards there like, oh, well, yeah, we'll call that fintech. It's not just tech. And then pretty much everything is fintech nowadays. There's some financial something to do with it in there about how do you get it through which is, which is great to have it bolt on. So a founder's got an idea. Technology's out there today. We heard this Claude. Programmer Claude. I can't remember what it was yesterday I was talking about it where people are writing in N8N but you still kind of got to be a coder or understand when you're writing in N8N. But when it got into this cloud, all of a sudden you're able to write real live code essentially and put it onto your own web server, use aws. Right. And put this stuff on there. How many people, how's that changing your business? What's that looking like?

Well, I think people are just hitting that realization that they can operate more efficiently and that that could be in terms of you know, labor or economics or you know, service and delivery. They can operate more efficiently with AI and so people are just trying to get their head around like what does that mean and how do I use it? And so there's a lot of that. And actually, and let me back up a half a step here, I do want to share one important component of being a sastermind member. All of our members have to be willing to give. And when I say give, I mean share knowledge and experience and open up their networks to the other members. It absolutely is a collaborative like I, I, I, I built it on this collaborative spirit among founders and investors. And so yeah I, people who, who raise red flags as being pure takers on the, on an intro called Just Don't make it in.

So just sharing that now, you know what? Because you and I belong to a couple other groups together which have been great. Right. So you came down to see Joe Stulte in that group and then we were at, were you at Alex's too or just Joe Stoltis?

I think you just stay for Alex's.

Yeah, that's right. So but you know, Joe Stulte in that. What I love about that group is not just that we're learning about how to implement AI in the current real realm today. And AI is we're going to find a new term for AI because it's just, that's just such non descriptive of what it all is. It's really just, you know, it's, it's now how do we utilize technology to improve our lives? And the coding is at our fingertips. Right. So whether however you want to utilize it. It's going to be so integrated at some point. It's amazing. But the point of that was that group with Joe Stulte and yes, this is a shout out to Joe Stulte as well as Charles Bird earlier. They are not takers, they are givers. And if they are, if they're takers, they don't last very long in the room. So it's the exact opposite of what you hear about, ooh, people that are in business or people that are rich or people are doing anything. Okay, so we do have a question, Candace. I don't know if you can see it over there in there. This might be a good little question because there's probably other people that are on here. Even though we're talking about lift pitch. What. What do we have there?

Hang on.

Can you see it?

Yep. Hang tight.

Well, our first question was, and I already, I answered that, so I put that in, was where, where is the event located? Where Skytown located. So I don't know if you want to answer that more broadly.

No, go ahead, jump in. You grew up there.

So that's actually going to be up at Lake Tahoe. Sky Tavern is our. It's a volunteer mountain. It's a lovely little mountain in Lake Tahoe. It's right near Mount Rose, which is another locals mountain. And those are right outside of Incline Village up in Tahoe.

Yeah. So probably Incline Village right now, especially after California's exodus of billionaires. Incline Village is probably one of the highest now in a small town of billionaires out of the tech industry in particular. So for those of you that aren't following, and I know we've got many people are outside of the US that are on this as well, but California is deciding that they want to put a wealth tax potentially on people that have more than a billion dollars in wealth. And so what it did was it drove recently a bunch of billionaires into the state of Nevada, which we, we reside in the state of Nevada, living even at Lake Tahoe. It's. Kevin's got a place up there. We've had. That's where I grew up. And it's just a great tax friendly area, business friendly area. And so that's where our ski resort is, is Little Sky Tavern, which is great. So Candace, why are you involved in adaptive. You don't have a personal connection to this, but you do this not only on the mountain, you do this at your grade schools and other things. What's the, what's the driver?

So accessibility is a passion of mine. You're right. I don't have a direct relationship to the need for accessibility. I was fortunate to be at a very early age exposed to the importance of accessibility. One of my best friends growing up, her parents were both, we're both wheelchair users. And so that was a very normalized part of my childhood. And then throughout my adulthood, obviously being your child, being active and involved and finding our passion and how we can give back has been a big part of our family. And accessibility just became a very clear path for me is something I was passionate about. I serve on an accessibility committee at our local theater which focuses on making sure the arts are accessible to everyone. Sky Tavern obviously has been a wonderful addition to that as my kids have been skiing and our school system here has a wonderful program called Strategies within our Schools. And I've become just on a very low level involved at my, my child's elementary school is part of a belonging committee. And really that committee is focused on ensuring the integration of that program into the school and really using it as a wonderful opportunity for everyone to experience acceptance and the incredible opportunities that are available in our community. So that's, that's how I got involved and I just, I love it. I think it's incredible. There's a very loyal group of volunteers in the adaptive program at Sky Tavern. We have, I believe, 20 adaptive students in the program. And if you think about how adaptive works, we have to have at minimum two volunteers per se student for adaptive, sometimes three. And so you can imagine the, the passion of the volunteers to be able to give all of these kids a really incredible day. I think there's something beautiful about ensuring that everybody has the same experience at the end of the day. Right. And I, I, I love that. That's kind of the goal of the program is that everybody leaves that day having a really, really wonderful experience.

So, and I am so pleased to see the, the value of the program with adaptive. And it's not just at our mountain. The great thing is, is in the whole Sierras and then across the whole world, adaptive is, is ever reaching. And this is my one last shout out on it. Relative is any one of us, especially those that have been blessed to not have what would be considered a disability at any given time. It is a group of minorities that any one of us can and likely will join. So if you live long enough, at some point you're going to be considered not able to do some function. For me, the first time was something so simple as when I had to start getting readers and Then I couldn't read just normal things out there. And it's the first time I really recognized it. So that didn't still inhibit really my skiing, except it does, because in a minor way, when it's flat light, I go in. I can't ski anymore with the flat light there. It's just really weird how my eyes impact like that. I'm like, what if I really was visually impaired all the time? How would that impact me? And I'd be so thankful for all the other things. So I appreciate the work you guys do out there on that. Kevin, let's go back to the lift pitch. So, Angela, I'm going to have you put it back up on the screen there so people can get it. This is a really an opportunity to do good work and at the same time benefit others. So the good work is that you're doing that for your business and how to grow your business. So if you're looking to make a presentation and find investors, we're doing that up at Lake Tahoe. You're going to be able to ride a chairlift, and if you can't ski or snowboard, you're going to be able to sit in the lodge on a chairlift and make it to investors that actually invest. So it's a real live shark tank tied to. We should call it land shark, Land shark tank. So you're going to be tied to the ski hill there. And we have. Francis asked us tell us the fees. It's a really relatively low barrier to get in. And we have some sponsors who are. I don't know if you can talk about that, Kevin, but can you give a little bit more about it?

Yeah, sure. There is a sponsor page on the lift pitch website, and we lovingly broke down the sponsorship levels by Double Diamond, Blue Square and Green Circle. For those of you who know ski.

Terminology.

And the entry level package on the sponsor side and for attendees, whether they're founders or funders, starts at $500. And that. And. And Thomas, you can correct me if this. If I'm not saying this right, but my understanding is that the. The basic $500 fee at least covers the cost of a Lyft ticket and. And food in the evening.

It does. So we're having a party in the evening. It gives you your lift ticket to get on the mountain. I believe the lift ticket will be available all day for those that want to come out. The event is going to start roughly around 11:30. We are a live working mountain to teach youth and to have adaptive out on the snow sliding around. So we have this mass chaos in the morning where we're getting all the littles out and littles up through high school and we get them out and they're getting with instructors. And by the way, almost every single instructor and many of them at the highest level of instructors that are available in the United States are volunteers on our mountain. So these are certified instructors that can be paid high fees at other mountains or high fees relative to the ski industry. Are there coaching the kids at 11, 11:30, we'll be transitioning part of the mountain to where we'll be taking on and having the program up there. And, and those that price will include a pre kickoff, some swag, the meetings, the introductions that we'll be doing to both the investors as well as walking through our program at the founder's office on how you actually properly raise and to just give you that basic, basic, we've talked about it here, you know, a number of different times. But you start with the challenge always. And most founders, even the ones right now, we're working with a group that has already raised $12.5 million. They're closing in. And Candace, you've said it. That's one of the hardest points to get past is 12 million is a.

Weird plateau for so many founders. It's just a trend we see. And it's like, like 12.6. Almost always 12.4 to 12.6 is like they're, they can't get past it.

It's that next barrier. It's, it's that, hey, it's, it's a change from when you're employee one to when you have employee one. And then the next big change is when you have 50 employees, right? So if you've never raised capital, getting the first check in is always the hardest type scenario. But as you get better at it and all of a sudden some money starts coming in, it seems that that next natural barrier of actually building something of substance is around that 10 to 12 billion dollars. And as Candace says, our analytics say it's about 12.6 is some number. So this group is there and they've made some very successful pitches, brought in some amazing people that have sought, have seen through actually the pitch. Because what most investors are looking for is they've already decided the areas that they want to invest in. They're not going to be told that this is an opportunity and they're going to go, oh yeah, I'm kind of interested in that. Then they'll be learning about it. And the Next time a pitch comes along, they'll probably invest in that one. Right. So in the case of MedTech, let's say as an example, we've, we've agreed that we're allocating part of our money into a med tech solution that has to do with longevity or solving some certain issue. So we've got money that's allocated in that space. These guys make their pitch. We can see through that. It's not a great pitch specifically, but then we start helping them. So their challenge was they're talking about how they solve the problem instead of what problem they solve. And the best way that you start is with the challenge. How do you solve that problem? The second part is then very briefly, how and what does solve that problem? And the third is, what's it mean if we actually solve how big is this market? How much money are we going to make as the investors? What's it going to do to actually cure cancer? And what does that mean economically for the people that came in, both the founders, the founders team and the people that put the money in? Then we need to have credibility that's built in and baked in throughout the story. And you want to make sure that you don't have things that confuse the investors. Right. And then in that credibility also has to be with who outside of you saying this says it. So we actually teach you how to put that together in your conversation, that it can flow naturally while you're riding up a ski lift. Okay. Then there's going to be the call to action. Kevin, what's it mean if you raise that next two and a half million dollars? Oh, it means you're going to actually have a product that's ready to go to the market and you're going to have the first million dollars for marketing to bring in that, that transaction. And all the while, you're trying to get the me too, in that conversation, which is, yeah, I'm already involved, I'm already interested. Because if you're not, then all you're doing is learning about it. So that's really what we talk about. And then we build through the, the probability of success in that you get that for the 500 bucks, you get access to Kevin and Candace and our team and myself. And then you're also going to get a fun time on the ski hill. And you're going to get a time to. You said there's some awards and we do think there's going to be some real dating that comes out of this, right?

Yeah. And Thomas, I do want to Take this full circle with one quick thing. So about a year ago, I adopted a mantra that I am now repeating endlessly to my team, my organization, my colleagues, vendors in my network, which is. The mantra is, have fun, make money, do good in the world. And that's it. If you can just follow that, you're doing pretty well. And so lift Pitch really embodies all three of those phrases in this mantra. Because we are going to have a lot of fun. We are going to have founders who are seeking capital for growth, and they're going to be pitching real investors that are individuals, family offices, private equity firms, some local, some are traveling to be here. I know we've got people coming in from Florida and. And East Coast. There's a number of people coming in from Salt Lake. So we are going to have fun. There is money to be made, and it is absolutely doing good in the world because we're giving back to the adaptive program. And. And quite literally, you know, it's. To say it's impacting people's lives is an understatement. There's nothing quite like. And I said it earlier, but I'm going to say it again. There's nothing like bringing somebody that has limited mobility up a mountain and showing them that they can have that experience. And depending on their skill level and their. And their mobility, they might. You know, a lot of students do learn to free ski where they. Meaning they can ski under the supervision of an instructor, but without the instructor physically touching them during a lesson. It's like they can get to that level where they can free ski. And there's nothing like that feeling of freedom for. For anyone. And that's what makes skiing so much fun. And for somebody that hasn't. That doesn't have those other channels to. To have those experiences, it's just. It's phenomenal.

Well, go ahead.

I mean, Kevin, I'm sure you can relate, but, like, last season, I had a child who had a shunt. They had an inability to control part of their body and getting them to turn by the end of the season and, like, their abs. I mean, I'm gonna cry just thinking about it, because it was just so powerful. Like, it was such a win for them. And they just. They had the best day. I mean, and it took. It took weeks to get there. And it's a team of volunteers working to make that possible. And you think of something as, you know, that's something that my kids don't have to necessarily. They have to work at that turning on their skis but not, not that, that's not a big challenge. They're overcoming and to see this kid dedicate a whole season and the volunteers that dedicate this season to helping this kid achieve that milestone to now they can ski independently. It is, it's unbelievable. And the adaptive program is incredible. It's an incredible piece of a bigger program. Sky Tavern is making skiing accessible to a broad range of people who maybe socioeconomically skiing is out of reach for them as well. Because it's a volunteer mountain, because it's a non profit mountain. We have kids on scholarship, there's gear that's available. This is truly like at its core making, making this beautiful outdoor sport really accessible to everyone. And so obviously, you know, we're all very passionate about it and we're just thrilled to be able to combine what we all do professionally with our passion of skiing and be able to give it back to, to this community.

So we've got one more question, then we'll kind of close this out there. Well, it was a multi part question. Sounds like a regulator or a competitor or somebody else out there, which we play well in the sand with everybody. And this is great, but it's like what would the closing rate be of those who went to the event? We're not tracking that. We really don't care about that. And we're not getting paid anything off of what anybody else does. We may or may not make an investment. It depends upon how it goes. I will tell you this, and this is one 100% certain from my, my experience, which is over 30 years in there, is that if you want to shorten the cycle of the funding. So where do you find the right investor? It generally comes down to be able to do these ingredients, which is again, finding the investor, the right investor, which means they've already decided they want to be investing in that space. Right? That's the right investor because they become a strategic investor. So if you're sitting on the chair and you're just pitching anybody your probability of success in getting that funding is probably not that great. Okay, so, but what you are getting is you are getting the opportunity to ideally ride the chair up with somebody. Now we talk a lot in our capital raising that in most cases the person you first talk to is not the person who you're going to end up marrying and jumping, you know, together on that investment track. It's that they're going to know the right person. Because you phrase it that way, they're like, no, that's not my interest. But so and so. So, like in my case, Kevin and I are looking at something. It's like, hey, that doesn't fit me. Charles Byrd, as we mentioned earlier, that he's like the best person to be able to think of somebody else out there and connect them to their. So that's why you're getting down on this story. You're. You've got the story down. So I can't tell you what the closing rate is going to be. The signups are still open and available at this point. I think we're looking for, you know, somewhere between no more than 80 people total on the mountain and the right numbers, about 40. We'll see where it comes. It's the first year that we're running this event, so we don't have statistics on what it's going to be like. We do think it's going to be a lot of fun. You're going to get out there. And the money does go to benefit the Sky Tavern adaptive ski program, which is wonderful. So you're doing good work there. And the bite size of the investors, it depends upon what you're raising. Candace and I just met with somebody that we met at the last impromptu Shark Tank we did, and he's raising. He got offered a million and a half from one investor from that meeting essentially. And he turned it down and said, no, I'll take 250, because he had learned some of the better things about how to do that. So those are the things that do come through that come in in this piece. So, Kevin, here's your LinkedIn people can. Can reach out to you on LinkedIn, the Sky Tavern youth adaptive program. That's where the video is. And then here is the QR code for the lift pitch event. Closing out. What anything else you want to. Want to talk about within the Sierras, the Saster mine, the lift pitch, or just the idea of getting out there and sliding around on snow and why we love it so much. Yeah.

I'll just add one thing. I mean, I appreciate the question around close rate at this event, but really it's about networking, as so many events are. Thomas, you and I have talked about this. There have been so many times. My wife is kind of tired of hearing this. There have been so many times where I'm on my way to an event somewhere, I sit down on the plane and I start thinking like, what am I doing? Where am I going? Why am I taking time out or investing my time into traveling for this. This thing? And my wife is very good at reminding Me now that, hey, you know what? Every time you go to an event and a mixer, you always come back with amazing stories about amazing people. And that's what it's all about. It's getting, you know, if you attend Lift Pitch as an example, and this is really just one microcosm, if you attend, you're going to be around amazing people. That's one thing that I can guarantee in the sastermind, is something I can guarantee at Lift Pitch. I know Thomas and Candace. I mean, that's. Your world is connecting people and that's where the magic happens. And it's hard to predict when the magic will happen, but we can guarantee that magic does happen when you get around the right people.

Nothing happens until an idea meets up with people that are willing to help go that forward and the people that are willing to take those ideas and actually put them out there. And that's the great thing. I really resoundingly say free enterprise saves the world. It is what's made us great to this point. It's why capitalism in its format works. It's also why we need to have a community that's based off of laws so we can play fairly within there. I do want to say before Candice closes out, there is. I hope it's. It's Helene. I don't know if I'm saying it properly or not. There's some accents in there that I may not get the pronunciation right, but Helene, thank you. It says kidsadventuregames.com would like to be a part of this at the adaptive event as well. So we will reach out to you. Thank you for putting that in there and thanks for being a regular on our show, which we appreciate. And then we also did have the question of how do you get us one of your pitch decks? And I didn't have it clear back from our. Our team, but I was told team at Brehon Group. Brehon Group is our founder, is our office, our family office team at Brehon Group. You can send your deck there and can start working about how you could come on the show and we'll actually do a live interaction with you about your presentation, if you have the mindset to do that.

And that may have been for. For Kevin as well. So Kevin could be somebody get in touch. I know we just put your QR codes, but if somebody wanted to specifically maybe consider joining the sastermind, would they go to sastermind?

Yeah, is a great way to start. Yeah.

Or hit me on LinkedIn.

That's fine. Too. Yep.

And shout out to Clyde here too. Sounds like you've got a great thing in central Missouri with equestrian. We have equestrian here in northern Nevada as well. That has done phenomenal, phenomenal work in the same space. It is for all those people that are out there donating their time and their money and their efforts and just making a difference is just phenomenal.

I think that's exactly the piece free enterprise founders, founders get to do these incredible give backs. And so it just continues to show, based on our Q and A, how many people are finding a way to do this in their own community.

Yeah, it is amazing. You know, it was very interesting to me because I've served on a lot of for profit boards over my career, over three decades of serving on boards and found out that's actually one of the areas of expertise now is because of over time. However, I found out when I was doing that analysis, I've been sitting on nonprofit boards for even longer than I've been sitting on for profit boards. And right now I'm sitting on five nonprofit boards. And I'm able to do that because of free enterprise. Right. And I'm able to bring in the value in the various parts of that. So. And it's also just the ability to give back and be a part of it and meet the most interesting people. And Kevin, you're right. Half the time when I'm getting on the airplane again, I'm like, why am I doing this? I have a lovely home. I just want to be home with my family and everything else. But the adventure is so much fun. So come join us out in the ski hill. Kevin, thank you so much for joining us. Candice, as always. By the way, Candace gets the award for being consistent on the luxury.

I got an attendance award today and I just, it's. I'm going to laminate it. I got an attendance. Angela Gay, always here for you guys.

Angela, thank you for being our producer on this show and for all of our people that attended today. Thank you so much and thank you for the questions and we appreciate the shout outs. Lift pitch, March 1, Lake Tahoe, Sky Tavern and Sastermind. Kevin Peterson. If you're looking to grow a company and want to be in a community that's just awesome, can't recommend them high enough. Kevin, thanks for joining us.

Yeah, thanks for having me on.

You got it. Take care, everybody. Have a great day. We'll see you next week.