The Achieve Podcast - Tomas Milar (Eqvista)

Welcome to another episode of the Achieve Podcast, the show where we highlight leaders, creators, and entrepreneurs, those who are building meaningful businesses, shaping their industries, and having an impact. I'm Taylor Baker Baker, your host, and excited today to be joined by Thomas Miller, the founder and CEO of Equivista, and you can find them at equvista.com. A.com. Now, first, Thomas, thank you for joining us today.

Thank you so much. We made it. Thank you so much. Yes, we did.

We tried a few times, so I'm grateful we can make it happen.

Yes, yes, yes. You never give up, right? That's the, that's the, uh, that's, that's the, that's the goal.

Exactly. That's how you make progress every day, a little bit. So for those getting to know you guys, getting to know you, give us the backstory a little bit on how you got into this space and who you're currently serving.

Yes, yes. So Taylor, we started back in Hong Kong, 2010. We were incorporating companies for startups. You know, Hong Kong is the best jurisdiction in Asia to launch a business. Common law, company ordinance, almost the same as we have in the UK. A fabulous place. You know, in any Asian states, countries, it's really hard to set up a company. So that's why people start in Hong Kong because, you know, that's the Western, like, law. And you can set up a company in 2 hours. So we were incorporating companies very fast. We became pretty much number one on the market and we were managing a lot of spreadsheets, a lot of cap tables back then in the PDF document. We would call it members registrar or shareholders registrar, you know, simple lines where you would put a date, shareholder name, how many stocks they own. If you would be, if you go a little bit more fancy, you would have common or preferred stocks. And that's pretty much it, right? So that's where, you know, where the whole thing started. But unintentionally, we didn't know that this is the precedent. For us to go to the equity management. 2017, we acquired one of the largest incorporation service provider, registered agent in United States, IncParadise. The acquisition was very successful. Again, the company was even older than the one I launched or started 2010. The company started in 1999. And yeah, they were setting up companies, businesses. So practically our product, equity management, cap table is, what we have, 1999. We are looking a lot, 27 years of experience. Wow. So that's how it started. There is this history. Currently we have 23,000 companies on the platform. We have $300 billion asset under administration, not management, administration. There's a difference. Management, that's when the money, when you manage the money, but we manage the equity for founders. What makes us special, I think we did quite well. We focused on valuations. I think we have one of the most experienced team, valuation team on the market. We value companies from $2-3 million market cap. Well, market cap is a term for IPO companies, valuation valued companies, asset or let's say company valuation all the way to a couple of unicorns where the valuation reaches $25-30 billion. B, not million, B. So we have roughly $8 billion in clients' asset valuations monthly. And yeah, that's our story. And obviously, we would like to become the single truth of price, stock price. That's, I think, the most important for any market to understand what things cost. Everybody's chasing liquidity. Everybody is trying to open a multi-billion dollar fund to capture the market, right? But the money is never a problem. The technology is always what needs to support the decisions. And the result is the pricing, transparent pricing. So that's our job to give founders transparency pricing when they issue stocks. And yeah, that's pretty much it. How we started, what we do, and how we can founders help to distribute stocks even though there are 3-5 members of members shareholders company, you know, 2 founders, 3 employees. We start as, you know, in that stage. Where the company is very, very, very small all the way to 300, 400, 500 stakeholders.

Wow.

Wow.

So how big is your team in your organization right now?

We have over 50 employees, 50 colleagues. I don't like the term employees. It sounds feudalistic. So I'm more like, hey, colleagues. Yes. Over 50 professionals.

That's awesome. And what would you say is driving growth for you guys right now?

You know what? I think we did the right thing. We went through the rabbit hole and I think we have an amazing story, right? We really became the pioneers of real-time stock pricing. So you can see the stock price of your company in real time as you would be a publicly traded company, even though your revenue is $1 million, we can build a chart and stream your stock price to your dashboard. So you can see the graph, you know, the number, the stock price blinks. So You know, that's quite important to understand what actually your company is worth. Same thing with the bank account, right? It's important to understand how much money you have in the account.

Yes, every day you want to know what's going on.

Every day. Yes. Yes. So similar thing, you know, Taylor, the thing is that CEOs, founders, CFOs, they're not really ready yet to understand that this is very important. And I think we are with that product a little bit ahead of the time, but we can see quite a big enthusiasm from folks who are from our industry, you know, they can immediately, immediately, immediately get it, right? So yes, so that's what actually drives our, our growth now.

Okay, that makes sense. Now for you, looking back, what turning points have had the greatest impact on how you think about and run the organization?

You know what, I think It was early stage when I was launching my first company and it was revenue. You know, I moved to Hong Kong with $3,000 in my account, right? I took a— now we call it sabbatical, but back then it was a paid leave. For 1.5 months from the company I was working for. It was in Beijing, 2010. And yeah, I was able to actually get profitable in 4 weeks. And I think that's— I'm serious, 4 weeks, 4 weeks' time, you know, we were generating $6,000-$7,000, right, in gross revenue. And I was the only employee. So that was practically the profit, you know. So I think that was the number one, and the revenue. And number two, I understand how to scale a business with my money, my own money. And at some point when the company was doing really great, I would spend 3%, 4% of my profit. So I was able to actually save 97%, 95% of my money. So just think about the scale, you know, I had.

How are you able to be that effective? That's impressive.

You know what, like, at some point I would just work. I would sleep, work, sleep, work for 6, 7 years. I wouldn't even wash my clothes, you know, like I would buy new stuff. When I met my wife, when I met my wife, I would have 80 pair of socks, and I would have like 4 or 5 boxes of socks. So that was my beginning. It was hard, but as European building something amazing in Southeast Asia, in Hong Kong, It was a very romantic moment.

Building a legacy, like there's a time to focus and dig deep.

Yes, yes. Yeah, you know what, the focus, it's, I think it's overused word. In reality, it means that, you know, that there's a lot of distractions. You know, a lot of distractions. It can be anything. It can be, you know, going out on Wednesday, Thursdays, having one or two drinks. You know, I always saw that as a distraction, right? Like this, all these things. Because, you know, like, if you have money, if you have money from investors, yes, that's probably something you can do, right? You can hire people, you can hire better people than you, you can build a very big organization in short time, right? But if you haven't raised much money, then your mind must be super, super sharp every single day. Yeah. And I can't really imagine that the focus wouldn't be there. You know, it's even though you have a dinner with a partner, you know, if you go to a conference, you go back, you get back at 11 PM without drink, right? Like no drink at all. It's still hard to wake up at 5 AM, you know, and do the same thing what you do every single day, you know? So the discipline and Focus is just very important.

Yeah, and you have to have that vision, that passion to keep that going, that drive. So when it comes to your outreach, your messaging, your marketing systems, what's been working well to attract and retain good clients?

Um, you know what, I think we, we understand how to build the message to the audience, so we have a All our current clients are inbound, inbound. They come to us. So again, I was always on the more pull marketing than a push. You know, I like the pull effect where you build a super product, like amazing product. So it starts from the product and the pricing. And again, we haven't raised much money, so we can keep the prices low and just pay employees, not the promise of the future revenue to the investors.

Okay.

That's probably the key here. You know, our competitors have a massive disadvantage. They raised a lot of money. And they obviously have to reflect the future growth, future revenue by charging clients more, you know, so that's, at the beginning it didn't look like a strategy, but now I can see that it works well.

I like that. I like that you're doing that poll, you're creating a phenomenal product. Attracting people. What have you done to get the word out so people are aware of it? When you first were building this, they're aware, they want to come, they could find it.

They're just online, regular online marketing. Nothing, nothing really, nothing really special. Uh, what we definitely can do better, it's, uh, outbound. Um, okay, that's, uh, that's something we are, we are looking into now.

Okay, so when it comes to your sales and marketing, is that where you want to put more, most focus?

Yes, yes, that's what we do now. Yes.

Okay, that makes sense. Now, you had mentioned earlier with all the AI and automation, where have you guys found ways internally to utilize some of those tools?

It's in the pricing discovery. So the— so Equista, if you Google Equista real-time company valuation or company real-time valuation, we have a great a thesis where again, we think that the pricing discovery, it's very important for any company. And to answer your question, we are currently the largest valuation model for private companies on the market. So we value constantly for a trillion T $4 trillion as we speak constantly. So that's where the AI plays the role.

Wow.

So the price discovery, so it's the automation, data scraping, benchmarking, choosing the right formula for different companies because, you know, deep tech or pharmacy or, I don't know, SaaS or space, you know, all these companies have to have a different approach. So that's why the AI plays the role. We have a lot of calls, a lot of tokens running. So yes, that's—

The numbers you've been throwing around, billions and trillions, like, yes, they're so large. It's hard to for us to compute in this.

You know what, I don't, I don't really, I don't really understand the numbers either, you know. So it's always hard to comprehend, but that's, that's how the private market grew, have grown past, you know, 15, 15, 20 years. I can give you an example. Do you know when Tesla went public?

Tesla? I guess, I don't know, I would guess 2014.

Yeah, very close, 2010. You know what was the market cap when they IPO'd?

I would guess $500 million.

Very close, $1.8 billion. Okay.

Oh wow.

And, uh, 15 years later, uh, we have SpaceX, same founder, coincidentally, coincidentally. Uh, it's, uh, the, the stock, the one company, um, it's 1 point— what, 1.8, 1.9, uh, trillion. Yeah. So, so, so again, that explains why I'm throwing out all these numbers, right? Seed round. What was the largest seed round pre-revenue seed round? Do you know what it is? But do you know, was that like recent? $2 billion.

$2 billion.

So we live in crazy, crazy times. So, yeah, you know, so the numbers don't come from us, you know, like 10, 15, 20, 30 years ago. We would be talking about, you know, lower, lower billions, you know, uh, 100, 120, or 2015, or 20 billions probably. But now it's, uh, it's exponential, um, the abundance. Yes, if you just put it into the perspective, you know, like with SpaceX, trillions, uh, Tesla 15 years ago, uh, billions. You know, so we, the humanity is really, uh, rushing.

You hear about like national debt and you hear about some of these numbers that are thrown around with billions and trillions, and then you hear them enough that you kind of think you understand them. You think you can compute how big until you see it and somebody puts in like a 3D model and you're like, oh my word, that is so much money and an astronomical number.

Yes, yes.

2 billion for seed money, 1.8 trillion.

Yes.

I like, you're like, seriously?

Yes, I know.

Where are you growing from that?

I know, I know, I know.

And you compute all that information and you're giving them real life.

Yes, yes, yes. We compute, we compute, we compute all this, all this information.

Yes.

Yes. Thank you so much for being excited because, you know, I'm so excited about it.

It is, it's fascinating. Like the amount of computing to, like to get real live data. I mean, you think about just controlling your own bank account like you had mentioned earlier. It's like you have your own bank account. What transactions do you have going on and trying to audit that? We just barely had tax season. You'd go through your bank for the year. Well, with what you're doing, not just thousands or millions or billions, and now it's trillions of transactions.

Trillions, yes.

All these details that you have to keep track.

Taylor, you know what? That's why everybody's chasing the private market now. I think the next thing would be the transparency, how all we can agree that one particular company has the right price, the stock price. I think that's going to be, and that's on us, it's on the KRISTA. That's what we would like to actually figure out and distribute the pricing to the audience, audience market.

So share what you can. I'm personally very curious about this. What are some of the key factors a company can do to increase their value? Like, what are some of the main things? Like, do these little things, these will help the most.

You know, there are two types of approaches, right? Like one is the deep tech where, you know, you have a founder, 155 IQ, and he can really go like super deep and build amazing, amazing product, like super deep tech. Tech. That's the value. That's where the value is created. And then you have the traditional model and that's the revenue.

Okay.

You know, so you cannot do, you can't do, you can't do both at the same time. You know, you either are really deep tech or you are revenue-driven. The problem starts when you pitch to investors that you are deep tech, but then you just come up with very poor revenue. You know, we have multiple companies, you know, where the valuation is again in billions and they failed on revenue. Or even on the tech, you know, as they present it. Wow.

So, Thomas, if you had to pick one constraint to focus on and solve over the next 90 days, what would it be?

Secondary market. That's actually what we do. Secondary market. Yes. Yes. Yeah.

Yeah.

Because again, the private The private market became so large. I think it deserves more attention from us founders and the pricing discovery, pricing distribution. And yeah, then the liquidity follows. So that's what we would like to solve in the next 90 days. Obviously, the product is going to take a little bit longer, but this is what we are focusing on right now.

And what do you anticipate? So how do you— like, what value— what are you guys doing to solve? Like, how are you bringing solutions?

You know, we have a lot of employees, or even though investors holding the positions or the stocks for 4 or 5, 6 years. And especially for employees, it's hard. They were working for salaries, they have $2, $3, $4 million or even though half million dollars in agreements, right? Not liquid, not liquid asset. And they have to go through a really hard process and sell the company stocks on the secondary market. And we would like to make this more easier for the stockholders to liquidate or to actually sell the stocks for good price. Now it's really hard for some to understand what's the stock price, and I think we should solve this.

Gotcha. Okay, so looking at your own journey, Thomas, when you think about the wins, the mistakes, what lessons stand out to you?

Uh, less or the more, the most?

Which ones stand out? Which lessons?

I think that, uh, I think that, uh, it's, it's about the pressure, you know, that You know, we go through a lot of pressure as a business operators, owners, or entrepreneurs. So worry less. That's probably the most important lesson, you know, because people always worry, right? Like there's so many, and nothing happens actually, you know, not much happens, you know. If you think about it, even though you're Taylor Baker, right? We all have our worries, right? But they barely fulfill, you know.

I like that.

So I think that's probably the biggest lesson. You know, I'm a victim of this because I don't learn from this. I know that it's hard. But I think that's the most important thing, just to handle the pressure well. Super well.

I love that.

That's the lesson.

Really love it. It's just simple things. So last question for you. When you think about the next stages of the business, what are you most excited about?

You know, it's the 90 Days answer. Same thing, secondary market. That's what I think deserves our attention.

Okay. And is there anything you feel like has to go right or has to be lined up for that to happen?

Not really. I think we pretty much understand what needs to be done. So it's just to go faster. You know, that's my only It's my only wish at this stage. Go faster, go hard and go faster.

Go hard and go faster. Get that outbound clients, get the word out. So any final thoughts for our listeners, for those on a similar journey?

Just work hard. It's not easy. That's pretty much it. We all have to wake up at 5:00 5 or 6 or whatever, you know, and work while we are awake, you know, and fit in family, right? It's also very important because that's the reason why we are building it, right? The legacy should be for our future generations or generation. And that's pretty much it. Just work hard. I never give up. Yeah.

So for those who want to learn more, again, eqvista.com, Equivista, and LinkedIn, anywhere else you want to send them.

Yeah, they can, they can, you guys can email me at tom@equivista.com, any, any business-related questions. Happy to answer. So good luck, everyone.

Well, thank you so much for coming on and sharing your insight and knowledge and the expertise that you bring to the table.

Perfect. Thank you, Taylor Baker Baker, for having me.

Thank you. And thank you to our sponsors of today's episode, Achieve Fractional. They provide fractional executive leadership for growing businesses. And if you enjoyed the episode, share it with a friend, with a colleague. If you're wondering what your true value is, reach out to Thomas and the team, and they'll help you see it, real-time data, and get that clarity. So reach out, and we'll see you all in the next episode of the Achieve Podcast.