Episode 08: Empowering the Underdog and Making Dreams into Reality with Armond Davis
(00:00) Hi adventurers we're back this episode I am thrilled to introduce you to Armond Davis of the Paragon group he has an incredible story to share he has amazing expertise to share with you and I cannot wait to dive into his amazing wisdom but before we get started I'd love to tell you a little bit about family family
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(01:21) to learn more about family and get this offer it will be in the show notes or on our website at adventurous cast.com so all right Armond you're here yay I'm so happy to be here I love the conversations that we have had offline looking forward to having another great one here today likewise yes we met
(01:42) through the Sutton Capital little Community which is very yes I've met some great people there so far so I'm excited to meet more so share a little about yourself our mom has a very interesting background because he like all these C's didn't come into VC but quote unquote typical way I don't even think there is a typical way but so
(02:01) share a little bit about where you came from tell us about your journey and what inspired you to become not just a venture capital investor but the type of person who is a venture capital investor that you are that's a that I have never had the question phrased that way well yeah it makes you know it makes
(02:22) you think about it from a different perspective but you know as you said nobody comes to venture to the traditional way there's just a handful of people who actually came out of business school worked at a big BC fire did deals on behalf of that firm and then just left and raised the fund and started doing their own firm a lot of us
(02:43) come from different places so I'm no different I was born and raised in St Louis and loved my family and left my childhood growing up I went down to Florida a University for to get both my undergrad and my MBA in finance and then after that moved to Atlanta I worked for Goldman Sachs for a while I
(03:05) worked at SunTrust Bank for a while as well which is now truest but around 2005 or so I started to really think about what I wanted to do for myself and so it was that was really the in Patterson meeting in the beginning of a really long journey so my first instinct was what I wanted to do was start a hedge
(03:32) funds was 2005 2006 I was getting really into technical analysis and I saw this huge Head and Shoulders top forming and I said you know what I really should I should leave and I should start hedge fund and I should short the market and a moment of true and really a moment of doubt I really thought to myself at the time
(03:55) you know I was 27 years old nobody's going to give 27 year old black man that doesn't have an Ivy League education 20 million dollars so if you can short the market and all coming off one of the biggest bull runs in history and you know the truth is that I I convinced myself that this was impossible
(04:19) and I never even tried I never even asked anybody for the money and it was a tremendous lesson for me that you know when the universe puts something on your heart put something in your mind you already have the tools to execute on it and so you should just move and you'll be amazed at how the universe will open path rearrange itself
(04:43) that's right that's right the universe doesn't want any of us to fail yeah right and so when you're given an idea it's because you have the tools to actually turn that from something that's in your mind to something that actually exists and so that was a huge lesson for me in that moment so instead of
(05:07) trying to raise a hedge fund what I did instead was did my first M A Deal went and bought a small construction business and I would say that in 2000 that was in 2006 late 2006 I did that 2007 it was a fantastic year I thought I was the smartest guy in the world every story starts with this like I
(05:32) thought I had this no listen you have to be classic a little bit especially in VC right you have one obviously by nature is an optimistic practice right because you are you're investing in something that is in one state with the confidence and the optimism that is going to be better it's going to get bigger it's going to get
(05:55) better right and so yes I absolutely in 2007 thought I was the smartest guy in the world and then 2008 happened that I was no longer the smartest guy in the world you and many other people anywhere Yeah Yeah by 2010 2012 I was on the verge of bankruptcy I had I lost my home I lost my marriage
(06:21) and really was just at a point in a place where I was just going to go and file for bankruptcy and go crawl over the hole somewhere and die and that's really kind of where I was with things and I drove to I pulled my last few dollars out of my bank account to give to the bankruptcy attorney to file for me and drove to the bankruptcy
(06:44) bankruptcy attorney's office and when I parked and got ready to open up the door to get out and go in I just couldn't move I just I was totally paralyzed and I literally sat there in the parking lot of the bankruptcy attorney's office with my hands at ten and two staring Straight Ahead out the windshield one hour
(07:04) and just could not move and so after an hour I really just couldn't continue to sit there and so I said you know what I must not be meant to be here so I need to go home and try to figure this out and so I did I went back home and I at the time everybody's getting laid off and
(07:30) companies are laying people off but I went the opposite way and what I did was I empowered my employees I told them hey each of you guys have a business that's really just under my business so if you guys can create you know Revenue opportunities if you guys create savings cost savings opportunities I'll share
(07:46) all of that with you and I'm happy to say that we came out of the recession stronger than we went into it and not only that but I never laid anybody off never had to let anybody off that's a great story that was it was really rewarding but it was something that you know in those moments you feel
(08:04) like man why is this happening to me yes why is all this happening to me but it was all things in preparation things don't happen to you they happen for you right and so fast forward I don't own it operated a couple of other businesses ranging from import export to content creation marketing Consulting but
(08:22) always wanted to get back to Investments and so in trying to merge my investment knowledge and experience with my operating knowledge and experience Venture was a natural segue for me and so I launched a paragon group last year we invest exclusively in female and ethnically diverse Founders and so our
(08:46) thesis is very straightforward is that those two groups are the most oppressed by current Society the most disadvantaged by current Society therefore they will lead in The Innovation that will move Society to more Equitable systems and so if you can invest in them at an early stage then you'd make above market returns I think
(09:09) it's very straightforward I think the data bears that out the data does bear that out and it's funny that we have to call them groups because we're actually the majority but it's underrepresented and female is actually the majority but it is true and you know I remember back when I first started a Loan Fund a nonprofit back in the
(09:28) day called accelerate fund this that we were trying to tell people that women were not receiving access to funding who Venture fundable women who were running opportu you know companies that were Venture fundable were not getting access and people didn't believe us yeah yeah this was you know now it's you
(09:48) know over headlines and everyone knows it but back this was you know six or eight years ago or something we had to prove it so we actually had to start yeah it was just I don't want to go into all of this but yeah we people didn't believe us and so so yeah so tell us a little bit about you know you're doing this really
(10:06) incredible work with Founders and and you you know you've got this origin story here of you know how you coached yourself out of a difficult time and was able to turn that around so you know when you're working with Founders and you know you're investing in seed as well you know these are some of the hardest times
(10:23) for an entrepreneur requires intense amounts of resilience and and most VCS that I know don't provide coaching and resilience and this type of mindset you know so share with me a little bit about how you work with the entrepreneurs and and what kind of experiences you know that you have had doing that work with
(10:46) them yeah well I think that really the key is especially as you mentioned you're talking about pre-seeds and Seed stage businesses are heavily founder dependent right and so one of the things I say to the founders that I work with is you know your business can't outperform you so if you could only function at a level
(11:06) four or five as a person your business is going to function at a level two or three and so the key to really unlocking value and an early stage business is to have a Founder who's functioning optimally and so we can talk about ebitda and we can talk about AR and we can talk about P L's and I do all of
(11:31) that and we work on all of those things we can do that but the real key here is the founder and that's why I say I'm very founder driven and so that's the most important part of things and so I'm working with Founders on overcoming things such as imposter syndrome you know survivor's remorse unresolved childhood traumas that you
(11:56) know for those Big League fans that of course you have upper limit problems and so we are really working on when those negative thoughts come into your mind develop a system develop a process or how to challenge those thoughts because it can't be something that I'm always you can't I can never scale
(12:17) enough right with the business if every time that happens you have to call me and so it's about arming the founder with the tools to be able to challenge their own negative thoughts why do you think this now why do you think that you don't belong in this room the evidence that if you really step back and look at
(12:36) it it's completely to the contrary you deserve to be here the greatness is in you and so that's a huge part of my Approach in terms of working with Founders and no idea I did I'd coach myself a little bit but no there were always people that were there that were pouring into me and were really helping me and believed
(12:57) in me in those really dark moments and so I really try to be that for especially for underrepresented Founders yeah I really try to be that for them and in return I do also require that if I invest in you then you will you will Mentor another founder who is either in your geographic area or in
(13:19) your industry because we're all really just trying to be vessels here and pay things forward so it's interesting you talk on resolved childhood traumas and I find sometimes people always just kind of want to think like business is exempt from you know the other emotional aspects of life you know we can examine
(13:39) unresolved childhood traumas when we're having relationship problems we can examine those traumas when you know there's some people who have like relationship with food and those types of disorders but when it comes to business we should all be just like very of course you know it's nothing personal
(13:54) right it's just business it's nothing personal yeah and I just find it's that's so silly because this is actually one of the most emotional things that you can do especially as entrepreneurs because we are creators and we put ourselves into a business just as much as we put ourselves into our relationship and I see a lot of
(14:12) stuff about imposter syndrome of course and you know I feel that a lot myself and people will just sort of say just tell yourself you know you deserve to be here and you're like yeah so that doesn't so it takes doing the inner work of drilling in why do I believe this why and you get down
(14:31) to it and you're like oh my gosh when I was a kid my parents told me you know and like you know but if you don't yes I think there's even more of a block in business for people going there and I know I recently had to share a couple of things that were sort of going on with one of my investors and he was like oh why
(14:50) don't you tell me and I had to be like well to be honest my mother taught me when I was very young that you know like you you always take care of your investors and you never come to them without a solution so I didn't want to come and tell you that I had a challenge but I didn't know how to fix it because
(15:10) I was taught at a very young age that you have to like fix it you know and so it's like a childhood thing that was keeping me from communicating what I should yes and he he was like oh yeah now I see that yeah you can come to me when you don't know the answer and I'm like but still have all this fear about it yeah
(15:33) well and that's the look that's the reason why in my opinion especially as a founder and contrary to published you're a Founder too you're just your startup it's just a startup that invests in other startups if you're a family it's like you're a Founder too right right there's layers and levels to it I'm a
(15:54) startup that's another startups to start startups yes yeah listen listen but you go through a lot of the things that Founders go through right and so it's important to understand for me as an investor my whole purpose in being here is for you to come to me and say I'm really struggling with this and this is really
(16:19) challenging and I don't have the answer can you help me and find the answer right and so well because you learned more from your failures than you probably got from your successes successes are like cool we're gonna buy a nice bottle of champagne at dinner tonight it's going to be great the success the failures are what make you
(16:38) so wise and so resilient and I will often tell Founders I don't know how to make you successful I think it's luck so we're gonna work really hard and we're gonna do everything we need to do to make sure that we are in the best possible position to get lucky but I can tell you how to fail and I can make sure we don't do the things that
(17:03) will definitely cause failure but I can't really tell you how to be successful it's like hey let's grow let's get customers let's but will that get you know will that get you to the acquisition or whatever that is we sure hope so but you know at the end of the day don't fail is the first you know
(17:19) well of seeds cookies don't fail well you know one there's no such thing as failure right there's only lessons and blessings we say yeah right only lessons and blessings so no such thing as failure two what you said is so important because it is the word that it goes to and points to its process
(17:44) and so when I'm working with Founders when I'm looking at Founders one of the things that's important to me is I want a Founder that is results oriented but not results driven what I mean by that is if you are just looking for the outcome the positive outcome sometimes you get a positive outcome even though your process your
(18:08) process is flawed and if all you care about is that you've got the outcome you wanted you don't actually pay attention to the flaws in your process and what happens is as you grow in as you scale if you continue to have flawed processes they will eventually rear their head and it's much harder to correct those things once you've gotten
(18:31) to a certain size right and so when I say being results oriented you want to be building a process that aims towards a result that doesn't necessarily mean that you always get the result that you want but you but your goal is to absolutely try to perfect the process whether it be client relationships whether it be
(18:58) investor relations whether it be how you analyze or assess your risk develop a process be process oriented and what you'll find is that that process over time will put you in the position that you described when you're in in the position to be able to take advantage of the opportunity and they say that luck is when preparation meets
(19:21) opportunity you know I think that was a hard lesson one of my hard lessons of 2023 so far is that you know there was something that happened before we had the fund before I had processed before I had structured before I had some of the support that came to light and I was like wow that's a that was a massive
(19:42) flawed process like whoa was out of law I didn't know at the time but it was a flaw and I had to one try to have Grace for myself and say I did the best thing I could at the time with what I knew the information I had and the support that I had now I know that was real bad and now the problem has to be fixed and
(20:06) it was not easy to fix but it really showed me you got to pay attention to this stuff and that's right your processes your support your structures your team and just think about risks at each stage and so it's almost you know I we're optimistic we don't like to think that things are going to go wrong we only like to think that
(20:28) things are going to go right and most of the time they go well you know but this was like a really hard lesson in realizing not everyone is your friend I guess everything is going and you need to protect yourself and I think you know I see a lot of early stage companies you know I do a lot of cap
(20:46) table work with startups where I just look at it and I'm like this one thing Could Happen which is relatively likely to happen and it will take down the whole company yes and you just want to be like let me help you you know and sometimes they won't you know and sometimes it's very painful to watch that go down
(21:06) I have it's really hard it's really hard I have that's a huge another Factor so I'm talking about the factors that we kind of are inadvertently going into my process right in terms of when I'm meeting with Founders and looking at Founders is are you coachable do you actually want to learn or do you just want me to give you
(21:26) a check and get out of the way are they saying the words they think you need to hear in order to get the check so that they can move on yes yes absolutely and you learn over time as an investor to discern right and you I recognize those phrases and those words where you're just trying to get me to give you check
(21:46) and get out of the way versus someone who's really Earnest about trying to learn and trying to work through these things because listen we all come to the table with trauma it's a part of being it's a part of The Human Experience right and so I'm not looking for someone who's trauma free because there's no
(22:04) such thing and someone who actually would present themselves as such it's not being very genuine right and so it's about how you think it through yeah right so I'm curious A Tale of Two Entrepreneurs right let's say you're hearing two pitches today first one comes to you and sits down similar to this format and they what is
(22:24) that interaction like where you immediately think to yourself pass because this person's not coachable they only want the money they're not they don't like all the check boxes that are a big no and then the next subsequent one is what would make you say we're going to the next step right so the first the what
(22:45) they want if you haven't done any research like you don't even really know who I am yeah you know what I mean like you just I'm just like I'm just a guy who could write a check basically so you don't know who I am you didn't listen to the podcast I did with Genevieve last week like you didn't you know you didn't you
(23:03) know it's the website and see that you invest in other words anything along those lines right number two a huge part is like I said think about the process have you thought about things I tell I'm the anti-vcvc so I tell Founders all the time like don't take PC money is extraordinarily expensive the first shot of heroin dude
(23:32) once you start to take it you can't stop taking it because you need it to scale in order to provide the returns to the people who were in early and so you need to build your business from the end back to the beginning yeah if you're building the business as you go from the beginning now it's a pass right because if you're at a point where
(24:01) one I'm gonna say capture all the low-hanging fruit that you can possibly capture the best way to raise capital is to grow Revenue so let me see that you have actually thought about all of the ways that you can capture Revenue without VC money and have you attempted those are you trying to do those things how are those things
(24:26) going for you okay then from there if you've done that and you're at a point where to take the big leap right you do need this million dollar check from the BC then you really have to think about how you're going to get that money back yeah right because on a multiple I was just like the truth
(24:47) is if I give you a million dollars today then I'm expecting you to write me a check somewhere in the neighborhood of five million dollars within the next five years that's the truth right if you only give me let's just say this is how challenging BC is if I give you a check for a million dollars and in five years
(25:07) you give me a check for two million dollars fail we don't have another fund where people don't realize I'm out of a job that's right I'm fine there's 2x that's right I'm backing up I'm starting a pop stand in Mexico because I have no future in this industry that if people don't know even if I produce 3x it's like I'm
(25:25) gonna have to do a real song and dance yeah and that's even I probably am still at the popsicle stand no-no and that's especially true right for a female fund manager or for a black male fund manager like me right we have to outperform you've got to outperform and so if I give you a million dollars
(25:46) right you need to write me a check for five million dollars within the next five years and you need by the time you ask me for that million dollars you need to have already thought about how you're gonna get that to me I understand that it's not going to go exactly lucky player right but I need to see that you've
(26:02) thought about it yeah yeah and it's not just I need your money today you know what you're talking about is the methodology and the practice that we taught at Expo Dojo which is revenue first if you've got the revenue the investment will come and doing the exercise like you're talking about future back what's the future of this
(26:20) company right and what are we doing now in the next and how does that break down weekly tasks monthly tasks in order to get to that because fundamentally to get to a billion dollars in evaluation you need to have you need to grow average 12 percent month over month right so you know really what we want to
(26:41) see is a more increasing ramp in the early stage you know because that will you know level off a little but when you say okay so to get to that much growth or you know let's say we decide we want you know 100 growth month over month or whatever it breaks down to fundamentals and if people can't think through that then why
(27:02) do you have a business you know right how many calls do you need to make how many emails do you need to send you know it really comes down to those simple things and when you bring that up and they're like well excuse yeah oh my God this isn't gonna work right so that's a huge red flag then we go into like I talk about the
(27:21) mental aspects of it because like I said like you said those are quantitative like you gotta make it make the calls you got to do the emails you got to think through the numbers you got to go through the revenue you want to hit a certain multiple you know but it's it really is how are you approaching
(27:41) your life as it pertains to your business so what kind of questions do you ask when you're Drilling in with people to find out so it varies yeah yeah it varies depending on the founder depending on the business because one working with underrepresented Founders almost always
(28:04) have created the business not as well I see that there's a whole bunch of people doing this and I think I can make a billion dollars it's almost always some type of personal meaning or reason for it you know I say all the time that's the same in health too even if they're not under yes yeah yes absolutely and so one of the things
(28:26) that I do is I try to lead with empathy myself as an investor I understand that there's really no such thing as a business decision when you're talking about a startup and you're talking about a precede even a seed stage business all these decisions are personal decisions because your life is
(28:47) on the line your livelihood is on the line you know there are times that you're making choices not to spend time with your spouse and your children in order to work on this business so there's no such thing really truly as a true business decision all of the decisions are personal so have you thought about that are you considering
(29:06) that are you suppressing your feelings or your emotions in order to try to make those decisions or are you allowing your feelings your emotions to completely take control of you and that's what I mean when you find people that are just lurching around lurching from result to result instead of focuses on focusing on developing the
(29:26) process so there are ways that you ask questions without asking questions is how you answer how you answer how you respond to me saying are you willing to be a mentor to another founder that lets me know whether you are Community oriented that lets me know whether or not you are a multitasker because you say no man I
(29:46) just got so much stuff to do trying to run my business I don't have time to talk to anybody else well okay every everybody when you understand the importance and the significance and the impact when you understand the reward that lies in helping someone else and being a being of service to people then that indicates that you kind of you
(30:09) get it right yeah and you should start your business with the purpose of being of service to people whether it's a product whether it's a service that you're offering you have to be the best the reason for its existence is to be of service to a consumer and so those are the kind of questions that I'm asking but those answers that I
(30:29) get answer three four other questions that I don't ask yeah it's almost like are you in Integrity do you know like if if you're are your actions and what you say aligning with who you are in the world and is what you are in the world aligning with what you're producing because if ithere's anything that's out of Integrity
(30:51) it almost always comes out somehow and if you then try to suppress it and try to pretend like it's okay or sweeping under the rug then it then it blows up my mother has to say had a saying that she said all the time that I've adopted she's used to say you might get by but you won't get away oh that's interesting experience
(31:14) you might get by but you won't get away so you might not you might be saying all the right things right but eventually your true Integrity right will reveal itself right you might you might you might tell this little white lie over here right to get to the next step and you might get to that next step but
(31:40) eventually the universe will move into a way that reveals your true character and you won't get away with it so you might get better that was your grandmother who's my mother you're my mother so my favorite quote tell your mom this one I I think about this one a lot actually it's Warren Buffett and he said
(31:57) and I think I've even said it on this podcast but he said when the tide goes out you can see who's been swimming naked oh and he kind of refers to like the markets and you know like what's not strong you know yeah it kind of also means that like when the tide goes out literally figuratively in markets in
(32:15) your life you know whatever's not really there yeah it's out in the open you know so let's talk about that let's talk about that from the perspective of all the corporations and all the entities that were out there they were saying over here for we're here for female Founders we're here for female oh gosh
(32:35) we're here for diverse managers let's get in let's get into it so okay now we have and really we started to see it last year actually yeah you know people yeah I see you're watching because it's great PR it looks great on LinkedIn you know yeah and so people are like well are we going to have a recession and I
(32:59) and I always take the point when people ask me that to point out there's privilege even in that question because if you're a female founder if you're an equity diverse founder you've been in a recession for at least a year always been a recession it's always on a recession like I told you this I have a founder and when you know
(33:19) the whole thing came out and YC send out their emails to everyone telling them to stop buying you know all the Herman Miller furniture and return the Bugattis and you know all those and cut the burn rate and everything like that she we're in a bar at a conference and she was in tears and she's like oh no you know
(33:35) reading all these things and I said this doesn't apply to you like business as usual for you because you're already running lean generating as much revenue as you can exploiting every coin and the couch cushions in the office that comes in like you're already this is for the people who were swimming naked yeah yeah that's
(33:58) true she's going to come out of this thing very strong and those companies are gone and yeah you know it's just it's it's like the only noticed thing that I've noticed different about the markets is things are a little slower right that's all yeah yeah it's just a little slower but like like we talked about the beginning
(34:23) the data is showing that we outperform the underrepresented founders out before and that's only going to be more true because we know how to do more with less well and you know the best businesses the best startups and you know the best fund managers are minted during recessions yes I believe
(34:40) that the funds that are vintage of this time are going to have the highest returns because not only did the manager who started them but also the entrepreneurs who are you know investments in those portfolios are gonna outperform and especially if they are underrepresented and you know if they're not and then yeah
(35:01) they're returning Capital actually in many cases which is a little nerving but you know one of the things too about the underrepresented investing VC conundr is the people who are talking about how they support underrepresented entrepreneurs they are still systematically doing things the way that they've always done
(35:25) them and the issue of access to capital for underrepresented entrepreneurs and underrepresented fund managers is a systemic problem absolutely so if the people at the top are making nice PR and maybe even having some good intentions but they don't systematically change the way that they invest I mean case in point minimum check
(35:49) size yes then they're only proliferating the problem and you know it's only it's been a couple times when you know I've explained this and they go oh I didn't realize that you know a 10 million or 20 million dollar minimum check was going to be too big for a first time underrepresented fund manager it just
(36:08) sounds like the silliest thing I've ever heard in my life right because I'm just like first time underrepresented fund managers including women do not raise 100 million dollar funds that's right we do not that's right or or right we could if you would write the 10 to 15 million dollar check and then first but then
(36:30) that's right yeah that's right or if you but then you want to say well but I I don't want to own more than 10 of the phone okay so then right well then yes I have to have 100 million dollar fund yeah we get your concentration problem you know it's diversification all those things but I just say I get that you don't want
(36:49) to come in and do the work on due diligence to write a five million dollar check I mean you could do that same work on due diligence and write a 100 million dollar check but the thing is that dude you are feeding into the problem because that hundred million dollar check is going to traditionally white male
(37:08) Founders who are this investing in traditionally white men traditional you know and at least in my industry you know Women's Health and health for babies and things like that is like it's appalling sometimes the Diagnostics that don't exist and the treatments that aren't there that I know are completely possible they wouldn't
(37:33) even be breakthroughs if they were invented but they're just not invented and I've sat on calls with Founders pitching like a women's health diagnostic and all the investors on the call scratching their head confused about why women need this when it's the number one reason that women visit their physician in the world and they go home
(37:51) they say I'm gonna go home and ask my wife and it's like I I I completely flabbergasted by the inexasperated by that one of my portfolio companies mother of fact is owned by another fact yes he's on my schedule for next week nice yeah so she was introduced to me through one of my LPS not even you
(38:15) that's fantastic listen that's awesome that's awesome so Emily is amazing you're gonna enjoy have a great conversation with her but her business is literally about getting Access to Health Care for Women particularly prenatal that struggle with it with such common conditions such as gestational diabetes
(38:39) which is wildly common right and is a huge contributor to morbidity mortality for pregnant women particularly in underserved communities her business is a complete total market so much money to be made of course yes of course that's an impact but when you pitch that to a room full of white men they're not going to understand it right
(39:03) people invest in things they know which right is you can't fault people for that it's Human Nature because I'm old because there's a ton of stuff that I don't know but I'm always like oh I can learn something over here or oh I can learn something from over there I agree with you it's a blind spot and I believe with
(39:25) great power comes great responsibility yes and as an investor that it you know you have great power therefore you have some responsibility now how you choose to take it or exercise it you know we can discuss that all day long but you have some responsibility and I think that the old school way of thinking is
(39:47) my responsibility ends with making sure I'm compliant with regulations and laws and making sure I return to my investors but the new breed of venture capitalists so you and Alicia Hamp and you know all these people we know love Alicia yeah we know that yes we have to make returns of course we have to follow the
(40:07) loss you know we have to do all those things but our responsibility is to create a world where it's better to live in like up you know business I think I was talking with Blaine Bartlett earlier he said something like business is the possibility of the creation of a better world especially Venture yeah just by just
(40:27) what is our business that is your business right and so you think about the Fortune 100 at one point almost all those businesses were startups and there was someone who said I think this could be really big and impactful right and they it was that was the venture capitalist right seems to me that over the past decade or
(40:57) so that it's kind of gotten warped a little bit maybe not even a little bit it's gotten a lot worn and it has been almost like a real estate approach to flipping houses right well okay I can buy this house I could fix it up put some paint put a paint job on it put some crown molding
(41:16) in there and I can flip it you know Brian at expert Dojo calls it the microwave meal yeah like why would you prepare an amazing meal when I can pull off the plastic pop into the microwave got a meal fruit and I'm like it's true he's like two minutes I'm like and that's Venture Capital right and that's what
(41:37) has become that is not what we want to allow it to continue to be but that is what it has become well and the truth is right over time you keep eating those microwave meals you're going to have some bigger problems yeah right and then we have people throwing lime bikes and bird scooters into the bay
(41:57) right that's the microwave meal yeah yeah evaluations fast and growing and it's just like some of these things are just wild and there's a reason too it's like we have all these satirical shows now about Silicon Valley and it's like because this whole thing is such a Ponzi scheme in a way it's like satirical and
(42:15) it's turned into that yeah yeah so no but yet so that people like you you should mention people like Alicia we you know we are determined to bring this back to where it's it really is a calling it's a vocation right it's not a job yeah and if you have the ability to help Founders whether it be in healthcare
(42:43) whether it be like me I'm industry agnostic whether it be no matter where it is but you have something that you bring to the table that is in addition to your investment dollars to help people to unlock their potential then that's what your role is and we're going to see a shaking out of those who are just check writers
(43:05) you know you've got to bring something else to the table you got to be able to and that's why being an operator is so important now I'm not going to go because I'm gonna you're gonna get shouted down we're going to cause a issue on Twitter here if I go and say you must be a great operator in
(43:22) order to be a great BC so I'm not going to say that but I do think that having been in the in the role of a Founder you know I read something the other day that said there's two kind of people in the world those who had to make a payroll and those who have it and it completely changes you when you have to be looking at looking at your
(43:47) accounts and saying okay I need to pay so and so I need to pay such and such I need to get such and such paid and sometimes you don't get paid sometimes you don't eat so that they can the founder is always the last one that's right yeah that's right and so when I I'm like I said I was proud that I didn't lay anybody off you know many
(44:06) many weeks that I didn't get a check yeah I've been through that same experience and you know it's hard too because no one thanks you for not taking a check no no no no no thanks for taking one for the team they all say well why didn't why am I not being paid more you know when you're like yeah it's it's it
(44:25) is an extremely extremely tough job and you know I think I don't think I think my greatest failure is what made it makes me able to help entrepreneurs and you know everyone on my team has been an entrepreneur before and I don't actually really connect very well with people who have never done it because it's like
(44:45) it's almost like we're both talking about business and startups but we're on two separate planets when they haven't actually done it before there's a glint and a recognition in the eyes between entrepreneurs who have really really been through it that you don't get when you talk to someone who hasn't
(45:03) yes 100 my wife I was blessed as I lost the marriage and session in my that was my first marriage I'm highly blessed to have gotten another chance and now my second wife what we bonded over entrepreneurship and she's an entrepreneur as well and some people say man said you guys got a household imagine nobody's getting a
(45:30) consistent paycheck you're like well you know but there's things that we just we don't even have to speak about that we understand about each other and we understand the why that we're working in our passion and we're moving and walking in our purpose here and that's really important yeah yeah that's amazing we could have a
(45:55) whole another topic about relationships entrepreneurs we should do another podcast about that because I too got divorced back a long time ago I was in my 20s you know and it was the startup and you know I remember he said to me I'll never forget he said I don't want to be married to an entrepreneur and I don't
(46:12) want to take backseat to a startup and I was like this is who I am this is who I am yeah and that's what I mean sometimes I wish I wasn't because it's listening easier yeah but that's what I mean when I say it's a vocation right and from a Founder perspective that's who you want to have investing in you
(46:32) right not somebody who's like well it's super whenever I walk in a room and I say I'm a VC like everybody sits up and you know pays attention to me because as soon as you're a VC it's like you can I can get into any event I can get it anywhere I want now and I'm like this is weird because yeah range but yeah yeah
(46:51) and there are people that are in it for that reason right and so yeah I think it's the one guy like he wrote a post or something he had made a business card that said Ventures and he went to South by and he got into all of like the events and the parties that he couldn't get into with his business cards
(47:10) wow yeah yeah yeah I think that it's important we talk about resolved trauma as we talked about developing a mindset and I really worked with Founders and really talking about developing on my set of abundance as opposed to a lack mindset because a lot of us don't come from money and so we we have a different relationship
(47:34) right with money and so you know I think about when you get to your birthday card when you're 10 years old and it's got ten dollars in it what did they tell you to do with it don't spend it all in one place right save it put it away they want you to put it somewhere where even you can't remember where it
(47:54) is right but this is right this is the antithesis of what successful people do with their body and so let it flow be a vessel for everybody money's a tool just like a hammer you know Blaine Bartlett said the same thing this morning I think there's something in the air going on right now he was talking
(48:15) about letting he gave the same example of the dollar don't spend it all in one place and was like you know let it flow let it flow and you know he was best friends with Bob Proctor and some of the great thinkers in you know personal development and this is something that I just feel like there needs to be more
(48:33) conversations had especially with entrepreneurs because we are conduits VCS especially but entrepreneurs we wear conduits to abundance we're creating abundance in the world whether that is money or whether that is opportunities or whether that is you know your access to healthcare vaping
(48:50) and you're putting in more plants I don't know what are you doing but we're all of us are in the business of creation and expansion I have not met a single entrepreneur who's in the business of Destruction and contraction if I have I probably don't like them but yeah exactly well I would love to
(49:08) Point people towards where they can connect with you Armond so yeah where can people find you where can people look at your stuff look at the Paragon group where it's LinkedIn is easy it's all about a-r-m-o-n-d Davis you can connect with me on LinkedIn my website is paragoninvestment fund.com you can
(49:35) get Twitter and Instagram I'm on don't send me you can follow me on Twitter I am accessible so it's not like oh I could only I could only get to you through Twitter like that's yeah but yes Instagram is I am Arbonne Twitter is at Arm Davis but yes and I'm always looking to me tell even if it's
(50:04) not a fit in terms of investment I recognize that really what we are in is in the talent the collection business right and so I just want to meet and interact and get to know as many talented people as possible awesome well thank you so much for coming on today and sharing your wisdom with our
(50:30) audience we call them the adventurers here okay I'm gonna go ahead and post all those links into the show notes you can find this episode of course all major podcasting channels YouTube or adventuristpodcast.com and that is our final episode or final what's on the final episode that is that's a rapid of this episode okay
(50:56) you missed it at the end and we'll see you guys all on here for the next one [Music] thank you [Music]
Check out our episode on Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/adventureous-podcast/id1649818194
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