Building From Scratch: A Conversation with Venice Music President Suzy Ryoo

The reason I was saying that is even more disrespectful than the number. And the number is 1.9 of like trillions of dollars. 90% of startups fail.

Yeah.

So 90% of startups fail. That's just a statistic that is there. And women still can only muster the support of 1.9% of all funds when 90% of them fail.

So this is.

So it don't matter if you're a man, woman, whatever the case may be, 100% of it fails. And so that's why it's like if, let's say 90% of them was successful, it was like, if it ain't broke, don't fix it. Right? Like if 90% of startups was successful and it was all supported and majority of them was men driven, right. It would be like, well, you know what I mean, right. It's the conversation about NBA versus wnba.

Right? Right.

It's like WNBA should be making more money. I agree. But although I do agree the NBA should invest more. They should invest more into the experience.

Right?

But when you look at the black and white aspects of it, it's like more people choose to watch wnba, the NBA, the NBA. Right. If the same amount of people was watching and it was equally split resources, right now, you will have more WMA teams, you will have more. The players won't have to wait for three years because they don't have enough teams to even allow you to go to school one year. Right. But even in that asset, so you get even better games. If they had more money, you get more opportunities.

Yes.

But the thought process of it, the point I was making is women's sports are gonna keep seeing rising because now women's sports is so based around social media. So you're gonna see that gap change because it's already happened in soccer, it's happening with college basketball. It's gonna eventually trickle up to wnba. Right. Where more people gonna wanna take chances on starting WNBA teams. Right. But if they get the same level of commitment that the NBA is giving to like NBA Africa, but they take another commitment to say, hey, we're gonna give our sister company that same aspect so that it can grow at a faster pace. But the reason I brought that up is people can have an argument and be like, the fans are the fans, the fans don't want to see women playing basketball. Right? They can make that notion, they can manipulate the numbers. But in this case with startups, there's no way you can manipulate the numbers. 90% of all startups Fail. You know what I'm saying? It's almost like if the most valuable team in the NBA was the same value as the most valuable team in the wnba. Like, yo, why y' all not investing equally if y' all got the same value proposition, right?

Facts.

But like, on the startup side, 90% of the shit fails and women still can't get, you know, and it gets way worse when you say black women or like women of color, it gets that number kind of shrinks even more, right? So today, you know, we are.

Going.

To speak towards that more.

And we're back with another episode of fuck you, Money with Ty and yo, I'm yo, that's my man Ty. And we have a special guest today with us. Can you introduce yourself, please?

Yes. My name is Suzy Ru, and I'm the co founder and president of Venice Music.

Now, how do you know Ty?

Oh, my gosh. I just had a visceral memory, the photographic image of the day that we met. And you were definitely wearing like a neon. A neon track jacket. It might have been like a neon yellow or a neon green. I think it was yellow. But it was that. It was at my co founder Troy's home. And Troy set the meeting up by saying, I really want you to join for this meeting with a very special person. And that was Ty. And we had an amazing meeting. And what was also more amazing about that meeting than Ty, who's amazing, who's great, is that Ty brought Jane. And from. From the first moment, Tai introduced Jane as his partner about how boss and how exceptional she was, not only as an executive, but as a creative and as a human. And I thought that he made it very clear from moment number one that this is a person that you want to pay attention to and keep in touch with and build with just as much as you keep in touch with me. And that type of allyship in a partnership, I thought was. It was very reflective of even the relationship that Troy and I have, but it was very intentional, which I appreciated.

You remember that, Ty?

Yeah. I want to say that was, I think early 2019 or late. It definitely was before COVID Yep. That was my first time coming to Troy house. I remember. I remember Troy probably be embarrassed by me saying this. I remember walking down the stairs to one layer of his house to the other side. And I was on the video. I was like, yo, you gotta understand, this shit's crazy. We gotta get. We ain't working hard enough. I'm at Troy house. This shit got a whole nother different.

Side you know, I'm like, I'm showing James, you know?

Cause I had been to Troy before. No, that was my second time. I think I had been there on. But that was my second time there. And it was one of those type of meetings where the business that me and Troy and J. Irvin had already always done, it was on handshakes.

Right.

This is in 2018. Right. And then learning about Susie Troy, I don't even think he told me that she was gonna be there. I think. I think he just like, hey, come out of the house. Let's meet. And I think this was before Venice was officially launched. And there was something that was, like, building up. This was still working with human resources and trying to figure out those different things. I think this was actually during the time when nobody really knew what Venice was.

It was just like it wasn't. It didn't exist yet.

Yeah, right. And so I remember that meeting. I don't always remember, like, how passionate or aggressive I might seem by women being supported, because it's almost like me remembering how much I breathed two days ago. Like, I don't know how many breaths of options and I took because it's just so of a normal thing for me, but silence.

Some shit.

I say.

I do want to ask you about Venice. Before, it was something. Susie, entering a company that has no, nothing, like, just complete nothingness. How is it building something from scratch?

Wow. It is scary and fulfilling at the same time to have an idea, and to have that idea exist out there in many different forms and fashions. But to think. To have, like, the audacity, to think that you could do it, but you could do it better, and you could not just borrow other people's technology or their infrastructure or their resources, but that you could actually spend the time and learn and do it yourself, it's pretty tremendous. You have to have a lot of courage, a lot of belief in yourself, and a lot of fearlessness about the other side of the unknown. And then to actually go through the process and then to make mistakes, to set goals and intentions, but then, like, to face failure every day. Every day, Every day, every day. And then to realize that then you have people, you have staff, you have teammates who believe in you, believe in the vision and the mission and want to make a change and want to dedicate themselves to the company and the cause and try to create something that's, like, bigger than themselves is a big responsibility. And so, you know, before there was Venice, there was Q and A. There is Q and A. There was Human Resources. There is Human Resources. And so we. And before that there was Atom Factory, which is the company that I met both Troy and Jay Irving at. And so, and even before Atom Factory, if you go way back into the archives, there was Irving Wonder, which is Troy and Jay's first company together when they were babies. They were, you know, early 20s, probably mid-20s. And so there is a decades long history, a decades long friendship, brotherhood, camaraderie and a vision to build something that lasts. And for me to come in with in 2015 with zero experience in the music industry and to face that, you might call it imposter syndrome. But then for leaders like a Troy and Ajay to put me in rooms and in meetings with people like Ty, people like Rodney Jerkins, people like Andre Harrell, like one of my first, first month, just lunch with Andre and just to have that context and to kind of have that depth of relationship from. And then to build on top of that for years. Then in building Q and A, I think, and then in launching Venice, which was just In January of 2021, there is a deep foundation there and a mission that has been consistent from before any of these companies existed. So it's scary, but it's fulfilling at the same time.

Now, correct me if I'm wrong, but before you went to Atom Factory, you took a 70% pay cut. Yeah, tell me about that.

Yeah, so I started my career in finance, in business, and it was basically the most prestigious, most high paying job that I could get at the time. And that's what I thought I wanted. But quickly in that job, I realized that, ooh, this is not for me. And you know, bless, bless those people and bless that company. But I was essentially an Excel monkey, that I was pretty good at it, but not the best at it. There were people who were just, wow, really good. And they're meant to do that. That was not me. And I think I knew it. I think my bosses at the time knew it. And I was like, something's not right here. And then lo and behold, we realized that that wasn't going to be a right long term fit. And then I had to kind of deal with that failure as a young professional of this is not the role or the company I was meant to be at. A year, year and a half has passed into my professional career. What am I going to do next? And so my parents, this is another wild story, but my parents had started running marathons at age 50. And I was like, if I'm 21 years old and my 50 year old parents are running marathons or fun, then it is time to accept the challenge and go big or go home. So six months later I ran, parted ways with my company at the time as a financial analyst and signed up for a marathon training program and ran my first full marathon and called it my 26.2 miles of change.

I love that.

And so what happened then was I left that company without a job lined up, no kind of backing, nothing to come back on, no plan B and just kind of having to have a faith in myself that something we'll figure out. And I took two interviews, got two offers, but the offers were like $32,000 with overtime, which was at a baseline comp, a 60 something percent reduction in my base salary. And to be honest, I accepted gladly because in that interview, which was for a digital strategist role, I was passionate about the Internet, passionate about the evolution of digital economies, creative communities, what could happen on the Internet. And I accepted because I thought that this was a role that I could learn and I could use my skills, but learn about commerce and culture and content in a way where advertisers are funding with advertising dollars. Businesses, startups, companies. And I thought, I'm being paid to learn and I'm walking into a creative office with surfboards and an indoor park and dogs running around. I was like, oh, this is the environment that I would like to be in. And so I gladly accepted that $32,000 and over time assistant, digital strategist role and thought, at some point, I'll make it back. At some point, if I work hard enough, I'll make it back.

Yeah, that's how you gotta view part of that. What's interesting about the story is that it speaks towards anybody's journey who wants better for themselves. No matter what your race is, no matter what color you are, like the work market is like if you're a financial analyst, no matter what you're male, female, if you go and you work as a junior digital strategist, the pay cut is still the pay cut, right? It might be a difference of like, okay, you're a male, you might make $10,000 more or $5,000 more a year. But that realness of that pay cut and the realness of the realization of knowing like, I don't got fuck you money right now, right? I think it's very, very important to say what I have witnessed for women such as Susie who are successful is that they don't always buy into that. There's only one spot for one woman, right? Which is the reason why she would leave that job. Because if she believed that it was only one spot for one woman, then this financial analyst role, this is it. And I'm already at the top of the totem pole if the thinking is like that, right? And so we get into this concept of, like, the role that women play in the growth of commerce globally versus the credit they get, not only just from a standpoint of awards or just credit from their peers, but, like financial reward, you know, financial investment, right? And so when I was talking, we was in. You know, I recently had. Went to Davos, right? And I'm looking at every. All the different panelists, and there was a very, very strong sense of more women need to get this education, right? And me personally, I think women are the ones that's gonna save the world. I think men have fucked it up long enough. They need to get out of office or out of leadership and, like, just be followers, right? That's just my personal opinion. And so when we're talking about, fuck you, money, we're talking about wellness, we're talking about finances, we want to really dive in and focus on, okay, women.

Are.

Just as smart as men, if not smarter. They more educated, right? A lot of times more brave, you know, just naturally. But through the. Through the process of, like, trying to get opportunities or trying to work into these different pockets, you get pushed out of the boys club, right? So one thing that really stood out to me about working with Susie is that. And this is gonna be for every motherfucker that asks me why I work with Venice. I'd be having everybody be like, what did Venice do? I sat with a CEO named Cat from Athletic Greens, right? Company that's doing extremely well, right? Sat down in Atlanta, and we was talking about just life. And she told me that she took that job, and she was not going to take it if they didn't allow people that did not look like them to invest into the company. And she said. And I had called Susie, and Susie was very instrumental on making sure that we brought people to the cap table, right, that was gonna probably would never have got that opportunity, right? So I was one of those people. Along with our other company, there's another company called Seed, right? And I remember Susie vividly calling me, saying, ty, we have this opportunity, but there's only one thing Jane has to invest into this, because women need to invest into these type of opportunities. Obviously, I ain't really care. I was like, cool. I just want to get into it. I ain't trying to Stop.

Nobody else.

Opportunity, right? And so I know that I know at least three women from that investment only was their first time investing into a company. And you know, probiotic, prebiotics, all these things was things that would help women in general. And these three women was literally, I was like, oh my God, the product is amazing. I bet they probably still take it to this day. Right. But one of the reasons why I want to do this interview is that it was a very clear to me that Susie is in her position, is not treating it like I got to be the only one. She's constantly, probably even to the point where it doesn't feel good trying to bring women up. Right. And I've witnessed it. Right. And so that's why it was really important to have this conversation and really talk about, about women in executive positions, women that are founders, you know, and how do we go about continuing to support them. Right. And getting that message out. Because if you raise a, if you, if you build a successful business and you run it in a very, you know, efficient way, oh, you got fuck you money. And you can, you can design your life how you want it to look. And that's really what the conversation is about today.

I love that you mentioned that about Athletic Greens and Seed and the women at the leadership of those companies. Kat Cole from Athletic Greens, who's in Atlanta, and Eric Katz, who's the co CEO of Seed, those companies are going to do incredibly well. And the people that you mentioned that co invested with us and by the way, technically I did not invest in Athletic Greens. There was like one opportunity and whatever happened happened, but I got that opportunity for you and you said yes. And long story short, my opportunity passed. And I was happy because you got the opportunity to invest. And no matter what the check size was, it doesn't even matter what the check size was. But the opportunity to build a relationship with an incredible woman like Cat Cole is worth the check and more. And in speaking with both ERA Katz and Kat just over this holiday break, Thanksgiving to Christmas, the way that they are going about building these companies and thinking about exactly what you said, both their customers that are from diverse backgrounds, but also their teams, their leadership and their cap tables, as in their investors, their capitalization table, like who funds the companies to make it able to exist. They were just so intentional from the early days. Like Cat, what's it called ERA has a story of putting her nanny on the cap table.

Wow.

Because she was like, without my nanny, I cannot build this company because my children need to be taken Care of. And I cannot give the full. And so my nanny is going to get a piece. She doesn't even know what that's going to be. But if I can do this right, and if I can build it right, it will be a life changing outcome for her and it's not guaranteed. But if we do this right, I'm gonna need her help and everyone's help and we are gonna go to the moon and it's gonna be a big win for everyone. Which, by the way, the many cases, that's not the case and goes to zero. But in the case of this company, it's not gonna go to zero.

So, niggas. That's why I let Venice discriminate. My music information, that is just fake. Far beyond distribution, right? For opportunities. That's far beyond distribution. And these are not. Like, it is true that money cannot buy you everything. Right? Partnership can, though. Partnership can allow you the opportunity to be involved in some of the most wildest things in your life that you would have probably never, ever, ever, ever. Guess I remember I was telling people, I'm going to Davos. I don't even know. I didn't know what the fucking the World Economic Forum was. I got invited by a bunch of black women. They was like, you gotta come. I was like, okay, I'm coming.

You know what I'm saying?

And through that experience, I was just like, blown away. I was like, this has been here for this long and people that I grew up with have no clue what this is. And it wasn't nothing but the high level executives that knew or somebody that worked at a company in the C suite long enough to have had friends or their company participated in it in any different way. And so being there at that place created. I'm walking you back. The women that invited me there, they run a. A fund called a cultural leadership fund. My interest on wanting to invest alongside the things that they invest into was the reason why I was invited to divorce. The reason why I'm investing into things the way I want to invest into it. Because I learned and I got the bug from Troy and Susan. So me just being like, wait a minute, so you can do this. Me just learning that opportunity created something that they had nothing to do with it at that point. That just was the seed of me finding deals and be like, oh, that likes something good. I would invest into that. Sometimes I can afford it, sometimes I can't. But I go and listen to all of the deals and look at all of the pitch decks and that moment was a very, very clear moment on why I was there because of information that I got presented back in 2019. Right.

Almost five years ago.

Five years ago. So those are the type of seeds that. And I say that because that's what Fuck youk Money really is about. Funky money is not a get quick, quick scheme. Right, Right. Fuck youk Money is about comfortability in the consistency of a process.

That's a word.

And now we've, now Ty and I, we've probably invested in 10 companies together. And this is not, mind you, it's not like ginormous checks. No, it's manageable. It's manageable if you budget. And also it's like if you don't spend on other things, AKA budget and if you have a belief that it could all go away to zero. So if you're being mindful that it could go to the moon or it could go to zero and we'll just see. But what's more impactful is actually the learning that comes over those five years because some of these companies are going to take another five years to have any kind of outcome, whether they fold or they do very well, get acquired, ipo, whatever that is. And the opportunity to see that journey is incredibly valuable.

Right.

I want to be able to lean on you because I want to use this platform for more women that are founders to be able to talk about their experiences. Right. Because one of the things I'm doing, what I'll show you off grant this year, right. Is this is the fourth annual and when I was in divorce, I met, I knew Troy through text message, Troy from Earn your Leisure and Rashad. But this year I reached out to them to say, hey man, would you be down to help promote this thing? And million dollar worth of game. Already signed up last year. They're going to do it this year. And what I'm trying to do is build more men to be intentional about promoting things that really, really affect women. Don't really, really. They don't really get no benefit from it from that perspective because I know that it's something that they are interested in, but a lot of times it's not enough conversation around it amongst men. Women gonna always say what they feel like they should deserve, which is completely what they should be doing. Probably a little bit more. A lot more in my opinion. But I'm making this initiative every International Women's Month so that when we roll out these grants, no matter if we're doing 10 or if we're doing 20 or however many we're gonna do that. There's platforms that are ran by men that are saying, hey, if you are a woman and you're black and you're trying to start this, like this particular grant is programmed for you and just to get the word out more and more. So I want to use Fuck youk Money platform to do the same thing.

I love that. I love that so much.

Yeah.

And anything I can do to help.

Yeah.

Suzy, do you remember the first business you invested in?

With my own personal money. And that's different because I am an investor, and I also have invested other people's capital. That's called a venture capital fund, but as an angel investor. Yeah, I remember exactly. The first company I invested in. It did not survive.

No, but what inspired you to invest.

What inspired me to invest in that company was the female founder. The founder that happens to be a woman that had already gone through a massive. A previous company of hers that she had started with no capital funding. It was a E commerce business, and it was a cult favorite. And so it had already grown like crazy. And then investors wrote her checks, wrote her decks for her, and gave her a lot of money. But it went through like this, and then it fell like this. And I decided to invest in her second company because she wrote a book about the experience and started a movement around women having the audacity and the courage to start something again. And she had just gone through.

This.

Experience roller coaster and the fact that she could have the daring nature to start again. That's why I decided to write a personal check. I remember she hosted a conference, and I remember watching her speak and she said something that really resonated with me even to this day, where she said, I want to shake in my boots at the potential of what I could build and start. And for me, I was like, I want that. I want that too. And for her to put herself out there like that again with all of that rejection and negativity that came from her first company failing. And so what's really fascinating is that the. That second company ultimately failed too. But this book sold a Millionity copies. Million plus copies. And it started a movement, and it started many women starting companies and daring for themselves, maybe not even starting companies, but taking that next job that would lead them to starting a company or to dare to dream. And now, oh, my goodness, she's now started a coaching program and a business to help those women and then also a fund to invest in those women. And so again, she has put herself out there, and that's that relentlessness I admire and appreciate so much in that she cannot be stopped. Like, she will fall and then get back up again and be entirely gracefully ungraceful in doing so. And that is a incredible, incredible human trait.

I mean, the investment into the human seemed like it worked. The investment of the company was where the re triggering of it as. Cause that's how I look at investment. I'm investing into the purpose person. Because the first company might be successful, might not. The second one might be successful, might not. But I think that if you can be. If you can invest into a human that gives them the courage and somebody that believes in them to continue to be that version, it needs to multiply, right? So you have to keep seeing it over and over and over again. But I mean, that's incredible. You gotta have a lot of grit when you wanna. Like, you started off with the question. You gotta have a lot of grit to start and build something from. From the ground up, right? And even with me, a lot of the times, I'm still unaware of, like, the things that we've done in music from building from the ground up, because I'm not. I didn't do nothing first. Like, it wasn't like I started something and it failed. And a whole bunch of people invested money into me. That was like our first thing of like, building something, that impact, right? And so a lot of the times I just be walking around.

Not even.

Understanding what that impact might be 20, 30, 40 years from today. You know what I'm saying? So the building from the scratch stuff, if you always gotta think about, like, you know, your employees, your staff. One of the things that was very vivid to me is that I would have probably made about 3 to 4 million dollars if I would have invested into crypto, right? When I saw it, when it was March 17th. No, no, it was March 13th, 2020. I think Bitcoin was like 13 grand. But I was so conscious of our employees. I was like, I don't know what this Covid shit is gonna. I don't know where it's gonna go. So I'm not gonna do this. And I'll wait. So I waited all the way until like, August, September, fall, I started. By that time it was back up. I would have made like 8x10x just if I would have did it at that time frame. But I thought about the humans, right? That was there. And that's another part of building from scratch, where you got to be risky, but you got to be calculated at certain risk, right? Because you don't Know if that's going to turn around, especially Covid. Everybody was losing their job. We was blessed that we. We didn't even qualify for pp, whatever that shit was. We didn't qualify for it because our business exploded during that time frame based off of the sentiments of us building stuff that we own.

Right?

So starting from scratch, having a founder, that's like relentless to be successful, because that is a successful human. She sold a million books. So just so we click, she sold a million books.

A million books based off of a time. She failed. Not because she succeeded, but because she had to start over. That's impressive.

That takes care of her failures.

You know what I'm saying? Most people would be too embarrassed. I think I'd be very embarrassed to admit that I failed and put that in a book and ask her to.

Buy it from me. Someone who did not see me, and.

I should just give her love and credit because, by the way, I didn't say I regret. I don't regret.

I didn't get that energy from you at all.

I saw her yesterday in Miami, and her name is Sofia Amoroso, and she wrote this book called Girlboss, and it was a bookseller.

You did her podcast?

I did her podcast.

That's a good episode.

Yeah, that's the episode where I revealed that I took the 70% pay cut.

But I didn't know that the podcast is based off a book. I didn't get that.

Yeah, the podcast was based off a book. After the success of the book, it was turned into a podcast. It was turned into a nonprofit giving grants. It was turned into a Netflix TV show.

She's booming, she's successful.

It was turned into a conference series, but still, that company actually didn't make it. And now it's onto her new fund. It's called. Her coaching program is called Business Class. Like, almost like an airplane reference business class. And then her investment fund. Her investment fund is called Trust Fund, so also very good. So shout out to Sophia.

Nah, Shout out Sophia. That's an amazing story. You know, I love hearing, like, those I'm not gonna stop. Right? Those I'm not gonna stop stories. It's like the best thing smoking to me. You know what I'm saying? I've been reading a lot lately because I want to say 20, middle of 2022, I started. I changed my sleeping habits where I.

Would go to sleep at 10, I.

Wake up at 5. Then I got away from that. Like, 2020. Like, pretty much all of 2023. But when I realized I Wanted to read more. That was like the direct thing.

I was like, I'm not going to.

Sleep early enough because I'm going to sleep late thinking I'm working and I'm getting things done. But I'm like, ah, let me just go to sleep earlier and wake up earlier. Then I can start the day off reading. I read this book called the 5am Club, right? And I can't remember the name of the author of the book, but it had this concept of 20, 20, 20. It was like 20 minutes of exercise, 20 minutes of meditation, 20 minutes of reading, right? And I was thinking I had woke up and it was probably at 5:45, I mean like 4:45. And all I was thinking about is that there's people that are in the club at 5am, like the nightclub at 5am, right? And I was like, just thinking of like the 5am Club. It takes a lot of. It's a different level of dedication to get up every day at 5:00am, right? Like, so sometimes you just gotta know when you kind of built differently because the switch just for me, it just switched, like. And so my first night I went to sleep at 10. I woke up at like 9:45, I mean, 4:45. And then the next day was like Sunday, right? So I went to sleep Saturday. I went to sleep Saturday at like 9, like 10pm I woke up at 11am the next day, like 12. I slept like 11 hours. But it's Sunday, so it ain't like I had no work to do, right? And I woke up super refreshed and like, you know, energized. But reading the five reading 5am Just taught me, it retaught me how important it is to start your day as early as possible because your brain is functioning at such a high level. And if you're doing global business at five o' clock in the morning and you on the west coast, it's already like new in London, right? It's just levels to those different things. And I never knew that when I.

Was in high school.

Nobody ever said, hey man, if you ever want to do business globally, you should be aware of the time zones, right? You should be aware of how that could affect your business, how fast the day ends over there. If you're trying to do business over there, if you're trying to close deals, they gotta go up a chain of command, they gotta get approved in Asia before they can do something in la, right? And so it's so important through this platform, through these conversations, for us to speak about information that don't cost us money.

It don't cost money for me to learn.

Waking up at 5am in the morning in LA gives me a better opportunity to connect with business people in London. Right. And it creates a different type of practice. And now that 66 page trust agreement that I need to go through, I can do that in two days because I'm doing it before my day even starts locally. And so, you know, how has time zones helped you because you've been traveling.

A lot more recently.

I can't start with me, I gotta start with Susie. Global expansion, like what have you learned from working toward building out global companies in music and in tech?

So I'm on the sleep at 10pm train as well. And I wasn't like that. I was a night owl in high school and in college and I was on that burn at both ends and just team no sleep and work harder than everyone else and don't come in first, come in last, but then leave last as well and come in on the weekends. And I was that person. I would outwork everyone else but what that did to my brain and my mental health was not good. And so, you know, it adds up, it compounds. And so I would say over the last couple years, influenced by a few key folks in my life that I saw exemplifying a different path, I also joined the Sleep Early, Wake early club. And it's transformative, It's a real club, it's transformative. And you know, even just like during the winter break, Christmas fell on like Monday last year. And so we had this nice, you know, the music industry shuts down for two weeks. So we had this nice week where you could just ease out of your work. So I'm still working. And then like a week of the week of Christmas you could be like fully off. But that week we were easing off of work. You know, no real calls coming in or emails, no meetings getting set. So I took that opportunity to do the meetings that don't get done for the rest of the year. And what those meetings were, were colleagues, friends, connections, business. Business contacts in Shanghai, Taipei, Dubai, Tel Aviv.

Yep.

Singapore, like all over the world of how was your year? What's going on for you? What are you looking forward to in 2024? What could we be doing together?

Excellent.

What could I learn from what you did and what you're going to do? The Middle East, Southeast Asia. Asia. And how could we build a better game? How could we build a bigger game for ourselves? And so sleeping, because of the time zones, no problem. You want to meet at 6am my time, 6pm your time? Or Dubai, like 9am my time is 5pm your time, no problem. And so to be able to have. It's such a luxury to be rested and fresh that then you can create the space of being accommodating to the other side of what. What's going on in their life. Like they might have. They're chasing after five kids. Yes, Ken. Running a full family while running. Running a business. And so how can you be conscious and thoughtful about their culture and how they do business and how they live their life and create not just transactional business, but like an authentic relationship that whether it's an opportunity to work together next week or next month or next year or five years, that that connection is real.

Yep.

I think traveling expands your consciousness of how other people live. That's something that I wasn't aware of before going to la. I didn't think about the time zone in la. Cause I'm in Atlanta and I'm worried about time in Atlanta. It is. I was getting a haircut the other day and my barber said he's never been to la. So I was like, oh, you must never think about time being three hours behind. You know, you don't think about that because you're not there. But when you're there and you feel it in your body, then it makes you more conscious of what like, lifestyles for other people are. And this is in America still, right? I'm not even talking about leaving the country. This is just people who live five hours away by flight and they live in a different time zone than you. So when you're working with people that have kids or they have other responsibilities that's vary based around their time, you have to be cognizant of that. And I think that has been something I've learned since really working with Ty and traveling a lot more, is that, you know, I just have a sense of time that's more global than what I have just sitting in my room.

Yeah, 1,000%. I think it's outside of the takeaways about women being supported and how important it is for opportunity and education, how important it is to have. One of the biggest takeaways that I'm taking from this is that like the 5am Club is transformative.

It is.

It really is. It's like, I've always known getting up.

Early.

Helps you, but I don't know if it's because I'm getting older or if I'm like trying to be more productive. Now I'm waking up and it feels so normal. Like it literally feels normal. It doesn't feel. It's not a struggle. It's not like I'm grouchy, it's not like I'm mad.

I'm up, I'm up.

And it's like the same routine. Wake up, work out. Mine's a little different. I work out first, then I go meditate, I read, then I like decompress before the emails start, right. And now I'm still. I didn't change my meeting strategy. I still take meetings between 10 and 5, right. Pacific time. And I make exceptions. I will make the exceptions.

But my assistant know that that's my window block.

But if I'm talking to Susie like, yo, can you take a 8 o'?

Clock?

Yeah, I can take 8 o', clock. But I'm keeping it still controlled while giving myself the opportunity to lead time, to make a decision.

I just had a meeting with a.

Guy at 9am who named Martin that I met in Davos, who's an investor and he's in like Russia or like, you know, and it was 5:30 there, right? And I'm up, lively, awoke and just like being able to be sharp versus being like, oh man, it's like, sorry.

Man, I just rolled out.

Right? But Susie, I want to really thank you for coming and join us on our fucking money journey.

It has been amazing. You didn't get a chance to ask her the question you wanted to ask. What was the start, the one about the number? Did you ask her that?

Oh, what's the number of women that's been invested into from the start? Yeah, yeah, we talked about it when we first started.

Okay. I just didn't know if you got it. Okay, cool.

Yeah, we talked about it when we first started.

That's how I want to talk again about it. Because I don't know if it was that it was rolling, but I don't know if it's going to be like.

Yeah, I just wanted to make sure we got that.

Yeah, yeah.

So walk through that, in your opinion.

Oh, yeah, it's. It's ridiculous, it's outrageous, but it is what it is. And so it's going to take many, many years to change that. But just the systemic inequality and systemic inequality exists in so many different parameters and shapes and forms and it is what it is. And so all of us have a responsibility to work to change that. But when it comes to funding and capital, resources and venture capital for women that are founders of their companies, it is A abysmal, abysmal stat, that one. All venture capital funding in 2022, it was 1.9% went to companies that were started by female founders. And that was something along the lines of $5 billion. And so if that's 1.9%, then there's a lot of money being put into companies that have male founders. And I think 2023, obviously the pandemic, had a lot to do with that and shrunk hitting those numbers. Maybe we were on a little bit of an upswing and then. And then it crashed again. But I think the number in 2023 was $2.4 billion for the first nine months of 2023 being invested into women starting their own companies. And that's just really unfortunate because 90% of companies fail. And so the road to the starting block has been truncated and shut down to a point where there is no starting block for women. And so then women have to figure it out. If they're going to get it done, they're going to get it done. And so if venture capital funding is not going to be accessible, then they're going to have to figure out loans, crowdfunding revenue, customers, and just build it without relying on other people giving them money because they don't believe in them.

Which is just I wonder, I wonder if there's a study that can be conducted where it takes that 1.9% that was invested into women, treat that as 100%, and do a survey on how many or how much of that pool was successful and not successful. Right? And compare that to the bigger pie, right?

Like a sample, sample study a couple years ago, the statistic on black women getting funded in aggregate more than a million dollars for their company was also abysmal. Like maybe a couple years ago, I think it was like 2019, but the stat was like, 17 women in the United States had been funded, 17 black women had been funded with more than $1 million in their companies. And I'm sure that number has doubled, tripled, 5x by now, hopefully. Fingers crossed. And there have been great outcomes. But that is dire, dire. So it's got to change. And what is required for that change is men, women, black, brown, white, everyone. To recognize that this inequality exists and not just invest, because the known fact that that inequality exists, but actually seek out the opportunities. Don't just give charity because, because you want to change the statistic, but go the extra mile to find the gems, the diamonds that are, pass all parameters, pass all checks, but still happen to be coming from a woman of color that is absolutely resilient about their business. So don't do it just because you want to say that you did.

Yeah.

But because, like, it passes all the checks and create the allyship and the support and the mentorship. Like, make that business happen alongside that entrepreneur.

Yep.

Honey pot.

Exactly. Exactly. I bought some. I'm a customer. Honey pot organic feminine care.

Y Cool.

Thank you so much, Susie.

Thank you, guys. Awesome.

And that was another episode of you money.

Thank you, money.