The Mistake That Killed My Startup Deal, and How to Avoid It

But don't trust anyone. Maybe you could share with people. Don't trust anyone. Don't trust. Don't trust anyone. Don't trust anyone's word. You can trust people, but get it in writing. Don't trust someone's word. And always look out for your own interests first. It's I never wanted to say that, you know, how ruthless you've got to be. And I don't want to say you've got to be like the Koch brothers, you know, Carl Icon. These are ruthless businessmen. You don't need to be that ruthless, but you need to be on top of your stuff. That's how what I always envision in business. Now, when I'm doing something with someone, know that other person might be

out to kill you. But they should also know you they you could kill them, too. But you're not going to you're not that people. Don't go that road. Never go that road. Don't go on the dark side and start screwing over people. That's how societyy's deteriorating. We should be able to trust each other and we should be outstanding citizens and trying to help each other. But just know that if they can get ugly that you can keep pace with them and you know their moves, you can preempt. You know, always use lawyers. Do not ever think that you can handle it on your own. No. No. Chad GPT cannot. I promise you. I promise you.

Hey everyone, welcome to Ambition Aligned. I'm your host Devin Kum, CPA, MBA. And today I'm talking to my old friend Nicholas from Sea Sun, who's also an MBA from UCLA, who has started his own real estate shared space business called Connected. And today's going to be a really valuable podcast for those of you who are looking at starting your own business because we're going to talk about some really practical elements of how to be prepared, how to get ahead of ruthless partners, and how to navigate

tricky relationships in business along with some other things that could go wrong that you can preempt yourself from. Nicholas was really brave in this and really helpful because he was sharing some real lessons he learned from stumbling blocks across his journey of building this business out. Really respect him. I'm going to add a bunch of links below for you to follow his business and let us follow his journey and support him. And I think you're all going to get a ton out of this episode. Please watch, please subscribe. And let's get straight into it. I've always admire people like yourself who went and became entrepreneurs and you started

this business connected if I pronounced it correctly. I'd love for you to talk today about what it was like, like what made you go out on your own, what the journey has been like after college and just uh encourage anyone else who's kind of thinking about starting their own thing and encourage them and also kind of teach them along the way some things that you step into that you could have avoided. Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely. Um it's it's been quite a journey. Um I will say off the bat um don't just jump into

entrepreneurship. Give it a lot of thought. I mean, you know as well as I do. Um, it's it's not an easy feat. Um, it's not an easy journey, but it's worth it. So, you know, I don't I don't discourage anyone. Just make sure you give it a lot of thought and and and make it a an informed decision. Um, you know, that's separate from planning the business itself. That's a given. That's an obvious. That's that horse has been beaten to death. You know, um, if you, you know, fail the plan, you plan to fail. So, I won't beat that dead horse. But give it a lot of thought before you decide I am I an entrepreneur? am I

going to go down this path? Um, I come from a family of like entrepreneurial, you know, we had a family business that my grandfather started, then my dad took over, and then my brother just recently took over. So, um, it's kind of always been in me. Um, so I started thinking about going out on my own while I was working for a firm um that I actually got the job while I was still finishing undergrad. uh went to work for a cyber security firm and um we were me and one other person were launching a brand new division of managed

services and so that was uh kind of really where I got my first foot I had really never done the corporate thing. I was working for my family business, you know. Um, so my first step into the corporate world, I was I had a lot of autonomy. Um, it was very entrepreneurial because we were building this thing, you know, from I don't want to say scratch. It was just a new division of a of a already established business, but we were like building it from scratch. So um I got a lot of experience there you know learning how

to build something um with limited resources and you know with limited time and and all of that and it was a great experience. Um unfortunately that was during co so there was a lot of stress there were a lot of um you know problems and um it turned out to just not be the right fit for me to stay with that organization and it just made me realize that I really do love working for myself. Um I love building my dream. I love working 16our hour days knowing

it's for me and that's what entrepreneurship is. You don't make your own hours. You just don't work someone else's hours. Um, but you don't, you know, the whole thing I I make my own hours. No, you don't. And you don't work for yourself technically. You work for your your team because you got to keep those people employed and all that stuff. So, um, it's what's interesting first off, maybe it's a good place to pause where a lot of people don't see it this way and you did already a really good call out and some people call it entrepreneurship or I've heard other words, but a lot I think that's one of the best ways to start in

entrepreneurship is in another business. Like for me, I started with a recording studio that totally failed after a couple of years and I lost a bunch of money. Uh but it I tried it again entrepreneurship when I was at Deote and I won a client on my own like on my own efforts and then I had the firm supporting me building out that kind of little practice of building up my own client in the firm and I did that at every other company I went to essentially other than

Google because I don't know what I'm going to sell from Google and so there is a real value to and and it's a lot of overlap with entrepreneurship ship and entrepreneurship of like building out a practice inside a firm. And so I mean it sounds like that's what you did to actually go into entrepreneurship other other than it already being in your family and you having a family business but you actually practice those skills inside another company. Is that is that Yeah, because with the family business it was we were a very small family business. We didn't you know we didn't expand like we could have. So you know I didn't really

do a lot of like I said there was not a lot of corporate I wasn't building you know necessarily like building the business. I was, you know, building initiatives and trying to build out marketing stuff, but it wasn't the same. So, yeah, like you said, that entrepreneurship where we were basically like building a little mini startup within this large organization because it was something that was not just new to the uh corporation uh to the firm, but new to the to the industry and new to the business um was that managed services piece. So, yeah, you're absolutely right. you get to learn a lot

um with a little bit of a kind of a a fallback or you know a safety net because it's obviously it's not your money. Um but you get to learn the processes and everything that goes into basically starting something and then you've you got to just make that connection of um okay if I go out on my own the financial resources are going to be different so take that into account but still learn how it all works. So yeah, you're you're absolutely right. It definitely gave me um you know a strong

understanding of what has to go into it. Um you know being able to look at things in a 360deree view um because things will come out of nowhere and then you know being prepared for bad stuff. um we were using, you know, pretty cutting edge technology and we were installing these systems um in some in some cases in pilot programs with um huge databases and it was um it was challenging and we

had some things that you know didn't work right which is part of why I was working 16our days was to fix stuff. Um, but you you learn the process there on how to get through that crisis and and whether it's getting through a crisis alone or leading through the crisis or asking for help. You know, that's the biggest thing that I think a lot of entrepreneurs make the mistake of and I do too is asking for help or rather not asking for help. Um, you know, a lot of people get that mentality and I am the first one to admit it. I this is one of my biggest challenges is you get this

little voice inside your head that says if you need help you're not doing it right or if you need help you're you're not cut out for this or and it's a stupid voice. Everybody needs help no matter what level you operate at. Everybody needs help. So it also gave me the opportunity to learn to not try to just take on everything myself by doing that with an organization because if you try to take on everything yourself um and it doesn't work out, you've got someone, you know, barking at you. So it

kind of instills that, hey, if you need help, ask for it. Whereas if you do that in entrepreneurship and you don't ask for help, you don't get someone yelling at you. Your business is just done because you waited too long to ask for help. So yeah. Yeah. I mean I think that's a great lesson of intra and entra or anytime you're doing your own venture so we avoid all the in and outs of of the word. But anytime you're doing your own venture asking for help and that's so key not in just work but just life. Like I can't tell you how many times as I get

older I I my pride goes down my humility goes up and I just ask other parents like hey are have your kids done this? How how would you navigate this situation? I feel like I might be doing it wrong. getting perspective, realizing there's always more to learn and someone has a different vantage point than you can completely change the game. Like if I had a finance person in my team early on in my business when I didn't have that knowledge, that could have probably saved me from the business going under. I just didn't understand that side. So, um I think a great takeaway is like you

learned it's interesting, right? is you learn how little you know or your scope of your domain of knowledge and the ability to reach out outside that domain of knowledge is a real skill, right? Like, oh, this is the extent of what I know. There's some risk outside of this and I better reach out to somebody for some help or I'm going to screw myself. Yeah, absolutely. I mean, it's um you know, there was a I'm not going to I'm not going to quote it correctly, but you know, Henry Ford, you know, he he used to he used to say, "I don't know everything. I don't know how to do

everything, but I got these buttons on my desk that's going to bring someone into my office that doesn't. And so that's the perfect example of even if you are I mean a pioneer of the a for the ages, you're you're in the history books, you still asked for help. Um so yeah, you're it's it's absolutely critical not to get yourself in that mindset um that you that asking for help is it's somehow a weakness or something like that, you know. I don't know I don't know if you ever took Dr. Walker. she became a really um good friend and mentor of mine. She was a marketing

professor at Sea Sun. Um and she had this thing she had uh one of her, you know, sayings was ask for help and say thank you because both, you know, asking for help is not a bad thing. It's how you succeed. Yeah, that's beautiful. And that's simple. That's super simple. Asking for help, you make you make friends and mentors and employ you we you win in the process. And just being polite and compassionate through the experience is just the rising tide will raise all boats. Yeah. And you and so

yeah, I was say and and and you get a you get an additional benefit from this. Sorry, my headphones just keep slipping. Um you get an additional benefit um from asking for help is that you make someone else feel good. It's because it's just human nature to be helpful and feel needed. You know, it makes you feel good to feel needed and feel like you're contributing to somebody else. So, it kind of is twofold is you're getting help and you're also showing someone, hey, like I look up to your knowledge. I look up to you. I respect you and um I could really use your help. Um you know,

it it says a lot to that other person as well. So, you kind of build that connection in addition. Yeah, I completely agree. We I've made some of my best friends by asking them strategically for help. Sometimes you should ask for help even when you don't need it just to make someone feel good, right? Absolutely. That can be really helpful. I think Benjamin Franklin did some of that supper in his old like poor man's almanac. He's like, "Ask your neighbor for a cup of sugar even if you don't eat it because then you'll be friends with your neighbor. They'll feel good that it triggers that reciprocity." So, I'm I'm curious though. Let's get

more specific. It's really interesting. You graduate college, you go to this cyber security firm, you somehow enter into this entrepreneurship and starting your own venture within the firm. Uh, and then you decide you want to move on to something bigger. Yeah. Right. what what made that decision or what was that catalyst that made you figure out no this this still isn't enough I'm going to go go do my own yeah so so I mean ultimately it was it was a venture that I was leading but it was still that company's venture it wasn't my idea wasn't my dream wasn't my anything I just came in to build it from the start

um so you know after you know the I left there in November of 2020 so after you know the eight months of COVID um things were challenging and trying um and I I just wasn't aligned with leadership within the company. You know, the higherups, so the CEO, um, who who was great, you know, gave me opportunity in industry that I was new in. Um, although it was related to my family business, which is in the, you know, construction and contracting. So, it had some a lot of parallels, but, um, it just it it

started to look like it just wasn't a good fit. There wasn't necessarily the room for the growth that I wanted at this firm. And at the same time, a real estate development opportunity came along. So, not quite connected yet. Um, but an opportunity to to get into something I've been wanting to get into, um, which was real estate development. So, I left the firm, I did that, um, finished that out and then was looking for my next project. And during that time, I was getting my, um, MBA at UCLA.

So, um, of course, we are the, you know, we were the they they say we got our Zoom BA because our first year and a half was on Zoom. And um so you know I'm doing this real estate venture while getting my MBA finished the real estate venture start looking for the next development and that was the time when the interest rates just skyrocketed and so because I was still a new developer and didn't have deep deep pockets the debt service was wiping out any opportunity for profit um because I

couldn't you know fund it in cash so it became more and more challenging so um I started asking people around about this about connected kind of getting people's feedback getting people's ideas and I was just getting incredible feedback all positive and I decided I was going to go ahead because I had I had done well with that real estate development um I had some money in the bank I had some other people interested in investing so um you know I decided hey I think now's the time um I had been thinking about it and

developing it for four years at the time because in 2018 while I was working for that firm um at they were a remote firm So pre-COVID and that just did not work for me. I you know I know it's been a while since we were in class together but if you recall as I was not an introvert I was an extrovert. So sitting at home or you know wherever alone all day every day just didn't work for me. So I started looking for you know other places to go work get out of the house but we're a cyber security firm which means I can't use Wi-Fi that's public.

So Starbucks doesn't work. I could only sit there an hour or two. Um, and I knew of co-working, but I figured it was just overpriced for what my CEO would approve. And that triggered the thought of connected. So, that's what made me decide um, not necessarily to go out on my own because I had already made that decision, but that's what made me decide to take this incredible leap and risk everything was I need to serve my own need. And when amongst talking to all these people, they were like, "Yeah, that's a need everybody's got." you

know, nobody wants to pay for something that they may not use, which is what the traditional co-working model was. So, it just got my brain thinking and I started developing it and in, you know, 20 mid 2022, I went for it and started seeking locations. But I think it was working for someone who um didn't have the opportunity for me to grow the way I wanted to grow was what drove me to to make that leap and fully go out on my own.

Well, I respect that, right? There's something to There's many people who are very talented who get stuck in professions because of the paycheck. And it takes a special something to realize, hey, the pay it's worth more to me to pursue what I want to get out of life than the stable paycheck. and I'm willing to take that risk to have a more meaningful life and to build to pursue things that I'm passionate about and that I'm I'm confident in and that could add value to society. And so it'd be helpful to talk

a little bit about what was your real estate investment and what what is connected like what is your idea there that you got so excited about that it led you to make these big bold risky moves? Yeah. So, so the real estate development was, you know, for for simplicity terms a house flip. Um, most people in that business hate to use hate to use the term house flip. Um, especially at the how I operate in my opinion, a house flip. And now this is

just my own opinion. And I'm not a, you know, I don't want to say that this is how all house flippers are, but most time when you think of a house flip, it's get in, get it ready to sell, and get out, you know, don't worry about anything else, you know, and and in some cases, corners are cut um and things like that. It's, you know, the cheapest way possible, typically speaking. Um, but anyways, it was a house flip, but it was a high-end house. Um, it sold for over $2 million, so it was a high-end house flip. Um, but we we went all in on it. We gutted it um not all the way to

the studs, but pretty close. In some places it was to the studs. We did a little bit of remodeling, knocked down some walls. Um and the timing was just perfect. It was 2021. The market just was to the moon. Sold it right before the market flattened out. So things went great. Um and then like I said, when I was looking for my next development, I was looking at properties to build multi, you know, multi- single unit homes. um single family homes or multi multif family homes and I just like I

said earlier I just it wasn't feasible because I didn't have the deep enough pockets to cover you know debt service and profits um so during my thesis project so my masters or you know the project you get to choose you got your MBA so I'm sure you got to choose either consulting research or create a business so we do I do the create a business I work with another team um on a different product but every time I went out to do those personal interviews for my thesis this project. I asked if that person had an extra 10 minutes for me to pitch or just

discuss with them connected. And that's when I was getting all of that positive feedback. And that's when I said, you know what, I've got some money in the bank. I've talked to some people who are interested. I'm going to go for it. So, I started seeking out um, you know, locations. But what triggered the idea for connected, like I said, was back in 2018, me needing a co-working space that was more conducive to my schedule and my usage, and that was sporadic. You know, your typical co-working space or flexible workspace is you pay a flat monthly fee for whatever type you're

going to use. So, hot desk is come in, find an open seat as many times as you want in that month. Then there's office, private office, and so on and so forth. Well, there were going to be weeks, multiple weeks in a row where I'd be on a site, you know, deployed um um on a project and uh my CEO is like, I I don't want to pay a monthly fee when you may not go but once that month. And that was the first trigger of okay, well, there's got to be a better business model because this is

still a great concept. the co-working itself was a great is a great concept but that business model that pricing model um was just not ideal. So that got my brain thinking and it just evolved and it turned into what connected is today which is um it's you know it's just a suburban it's suburban it's a suburban located um third space to work and it's it focuses on the modern uh way we work. So, it's in suburban shopping

centers because nobody wants to drive 30, 45 an hour to get to their work. Why not just drive 10 minutes? And it's in shopping centers because, well, when you go out of the house, you want to get more than one thing done. You don't want to just go to work. Well, how about there's a shopping center with the grocery store and the Target, all of that stuff. So, um, I just wanted to, you know, bring it all together so that people could go back to the office because, like I said, as an extrovert and just human nature, working in your own little room all day, every day for the rest of your career, it's just not

healthy. Some people can do it and some people will thrive on it, but I'd say in my experience, the majority of people psychologically that's taxing. So, go back to the office downtown LA 5 days a week, not necessary. never ever get out of the house. Not ideal. Um, so we wanted to find that in between so people could eliminate the commute, get more stuff done in a day. Um, and have the option to only pay for what you use, which is what I created with the credit system. So, you buy a package of credits every month. Whatever credits you don't

use by coming to the space or buying something, they roll over to the next month, to the next month, to the next month. If you don't come for a whole month, all those points rolled over. Um, so that was the very first differentiator that I found. And that was because I was like, what if I could find something where even though I pay the same every month um knowing that my usage is going to fluctuate, I could have a very low plan. So I start with a low plan that keeps low points because on the months I don't go, those points will accumulate. So if next month I go a lot, I'm still

covered. And then the pandemic hits and it develops and evolves into now what it what connected is today. um you know which is [Music] um the 20,000 foot community workhub ultimately. I've got podcast studios, photo and film studios, on-site child care. Um we have scooters so people on their lunch break can go, you know, hit the hit, you know, lunch or run errands, do some shopping without have to get fully get in their car or or do the

walk. So that's where we landed. Wow. Uh it's it's incredible that you know all the things we learned in business school you kind of just nailed right it's like hey find a need and every I encourage anyone who's listening to this who's trying to figure out their own business mainly when you figure out those needs they start with yourself it's like hey what what am I missing that I can't find and you you like hey I'm trying to find a location where I can work based on usage that is

reasonably like reasonably located so I don't have to drive to some downtown giant like an a giant office space that's a pain to get to and you have to figure out your parking and you have to get to the 20th floor and then all that stuff, right? It's you're figuring out something more convenient. And so you're trying to solve that problem and that's where if you have the problem and you figure out that other people share that same problem, that's a great place to start a business. And you took something pretty conventional of like working spaces, office spaces, but flipped it on its head with the with the way you're monetizing it and selling it and where

you're locating it. And I mean it's that all sounds great. So talk uh but you also did it at a really tough time on the reciprocal like the the interest rates start skyrocketing right around that time. Um everyone's already in real estate and they're extremely high valued um overvalued in my perspective like especially in Los Angeles and California. Like real estate some of the most expensive in in the world. So what did that look like? How did you go around building your first structure and getting fundraising and and all of that? Yeah, give me one

second. For some reason, my power strip is not on, so my battery is dying or something's wrong. Okay, all good. I'm plugged in, but it tells me it's going to go to sleep. There we go. Um, so, um, so no building, um, just TI's, so finding an already existing, you know, building in a shopping center. um you know down the road of course it's on our road map if we can own a shopping center and then we then the business is just taking a small piece of it uh or one of the you know one of the sites on a full location um

that would be you know definitely part of the plan um but it was challenging uh most people were turning me down because I didn't quite have enough you know backing so I see out more investment and found someone that was you know looking that that was real bullish on the idea um I wasn't keen on the location, so it wasn't it wasn't really going to necessarily happen. Um but he convinced me because there was um he was bringing in he said he was bringing in this big

giant like entertainment um tenant um that was like geared toward not entertainment in the sense of like movies and stuff like that, but like physical on-site entertainment like for kids and teenagers and things like that. um but wouldn't he said they hadn't full they hadn't um the company hadn't publicly stated that they were going to be there. So, he said he couldn't release the name of the company. But that, you know, the conversation we had in person and the fact that this was going to be a big anchor tenant um was kind of what that's what put me over the

edge and said, "Okay, you know what? This is much further from home than I wanted to be for my first location, but from a business perspective, it is a big shopping center. It's in a a prominent neighborhood. Um, and you know, he was willing to work with me even though I didn't have the capital stack that you know, these other landlords wanted me to have. So, we went in, we negotiated um, your traditional 10-year lease and we got started on the construction process. So, talk Yeah. Talk to me about

Keep going. Talk to me. What did that What was that like? Yeah. What was that like to That must have been exciting first off, right? like, hey, yeah, you've your dream was moving forward and maybe not your ideal vision, but now you're now you're breaking ground. That must have been exciting and nerve-wracking at the same time. It was um it was both. It was exciting because I have lots of experience in construction, so I had no problem managing that. Um and and you know, I brought on a team obviously, of course, to help um with everything. Um, so, so yeah, it was exciting,

challenging, stressful, nerve-wracking, all of those, um, adjectives all at the same time. Um, we started to run into some challenges with the landlord kind of right off the bat. So, that added to the stress. Um, but was also a great learning experience on, you know, what to expect. When I was working in the security firm, all our clients were high-end highrises, hospitals, camp, college campuses. But with the high-rise environment, um, you know, those

property managers, they treat the tenants, you know, like next level priority. They're always polite. They're always on top of things, great communicators. I found that in the retail world, it is not so much. So, that was a little unexpected. Um, so those kind of challenges arose. We had some challenges in the permitting process. It's a very difficult process. Do not underestimate the challenges that you will have if you're going into any kind of construction. Do not underestimate the city and the challenges that they will create. Whether it's intentional,

semi-intentional, or ignorant, the city will create challenges. Um, so we had those right off the bat. Um, slowed things down. We couldn't even start construction in for eight months. Um because it took a while for the architect to get the drawings done and then it took forever to get through city planning which was I mean frustrating because it was nothing major. We weren't building a building. We were doing TI. There was very little structural engineering. The rest was cosmetic and you know fire life safety. So, it was

mind-boggling to me the length of time it took to get through plan check given my experience in construction and knowing what you've got to look at, what you've got to check, and what you've got to prove. Well, finally when I get to the bottom of it, I find out that we just happen to get unlucky with the people we were assigned. We were assigned people who were not customer service. They were not diligent. They went on vacation a lot. It seemed like every time our project was ready to move to the next person in the plan check, that person went on vacation right when he was supposed to start. So that's adds

another week or two and then the next time another week or two. So those are huge challenges that I think if you're going into any kind of construction project, you want to make sure that you're prepared for. And I was prepared. Well Oh yeah. And it's not just Yeah. It's just not construction, right? I've seen I know restaurant owners where they're going to kick off a restaurant, they're doing the renovations inside, then things get delayed for a couple of months and that's all their cash flow and then they have to rush a launch opening and then they get bad Yelp reviews and their business is done because it all the root cause of it is city planning or and then if you go one

step further, it's because you didn't plan for the worst like the people didn't plan for the worst case scenario. like did it really take fixed loans for a year to look at some documents like Yeah. Yeah. Unfortunately, it does and that could cost you a ton of money if your landlord's not on on the same page with you. So, that's really challenging. So, um so thanks for sharing that. I know how frustrating that can be. Yeah. So, I learned but I learned a lot. So, that that you know that's what I can say. It's it's been very challenging. Um, we actually ended up having to leave that location after, you know, doing a substantial amount of the construction

and, um, getting pretty far along, getting through some of the challenges. Unfortunately, we couldn't overcome all of them. So, we had to vacate that location and we're currently now kind of almost starting over, unfortunately. Um, but it was I learned a lot. I got burned, but I learned a lot. A lot. Um, so there's definitely, you know, some positives that come from it. Um, it's not the way you would want to learn, but you definitely need to look at it as

learning. Um, you know, so um I I think there's a Yeah. What are some of those things? Yeah. What are some of those things that you like? So, don't trust anyone. Maybe you can share with people. Don't trust anyone. Yeah. Don't trust anyone. Don't trust anyone. Don't trust anyone's word. You can trust people, but get it in writing. Don't trust someone's word. Um, you know, and and always always look out for your own interests first. It's I never wanted to say that, you know, how ruthless you've got to be. You need to be diligent. And I made a mistake of of

trusting someone's word agreement. Um, that didn't materialize. Um, and I think I overestimate I also overestimated um, you know, the city. I said I said you know even even um you know three months I thought was long and it took almost six. So that was a mistake that I made. Um and um you know you're the people around you. You definitely want to make

sure you have the right people around you. I I lucked out and and I had the right people around me except for who I partnered with on a business perspective was you know a landlord that was you know less than transparent, less than straightforward and less than truthful. Uh so yeah, I think the the biggest lesson there is is anything that you anything that someone agrees to get it in writing. Even if it's as simple as an email, you know, because while while the contract avoids, you know, usually a

contract is e makes it easier to avoid a extensive legal battle. Um, even something in writing in an email will protect you once you have to go down that road. It it won't it most likely just an email, you know, saying, "Yeah, that they agreed to this." It probably wouldn't avoid litigation, but it's going to give you what you need to to come out on top and show that you were right. You they did agree to this. Um, even though it wasn't necessarily contractual, you're like, "Hey, you said

this. I relied on it." Otherwise, it's, "Hey, he said this." and that person says, "No, I didn't." Um, so I think that's the biggest lesson is and I should have known that. That was to, you know, that was foolish on my part. Um, you know, to not get it followed up with, you know, clearly in writing. Well, that so it's it's actually a really interesting place and I'm sorry you got burnt like that and I've been burned like that more than a handful of times in my career. So it I think anyone who's done their own thing has been burned by more than a few people. It's part of the earning your stripes

unfortunately, right? And it's it's really and when I say unfortunately it's really unfortunate like it being in it and being betrayed is one of the worst feelings right partnership's almost like marriage like you're really taking a bet on somebody and you really have a dream together with someone and then when they violate that it's like a betrayal at almost the marriage level is it's very extreme and very like disorienting because a lot of what you've based your future on is with this other person and

when they suddenly become become someone else than you understood them to be. It becomes just where well where are you and what were you and who who were you during this whole place. It opens up a whole can of worms. So, I've been there, but I but I think it's really and I'm sorry you went through that, but I think it's a really helpful call out to everyone where there's this balance of I'm a big proponent of reciprocal generosity. Like, be generous, be compassionate, look out for other people, don't expect something in return. And when you're giving services,

that's really true. But there's also I it got it's got to be balanced with what you just said, like the ruthlessness. You got to be a bit of a monster. You got to be able to be dangerous so that when other people are partnering with you or playing with you, you can have if if they get dangerous, you can get dangerous, too. Or you don't partner with those people. Like, you need some kind of leverage over their heads. And I've I've had more than a few times. I've had times where I was working on a real estate deal. Real estate's pretty tough, by the way. Real estate itself,

people are pretty sharky. Real estate's ruthless. I was working on a real estate deal. Real estate and Wall Street are the two most ruthless. Yeah. Not a question. They um there was a real estate deal where someone brought me in. They want they wanted a CPA to look over a business plan for for a veterinary hospital. And they said, "Hey, I'll give you what we can't pay you your fee, but we'll give you a percent of the commission, like a 10% cut of the commission check when we're done if you help us validate all this plan." And I even got it all in writing.

And then after they sold it, they wouldn't pay me. And they're like, "Take us to court. We don't care. Like, take us to court. Um, but like you you waste your time on it. We we don't care and we'll just hire lawyers. We'd rather hire lawyers because it was such a big deal then have to deal with you and we don't think you can compete with us with the lawyers." Yep. And it's just like I had stuff in writing and they still screwed me because I they were right. I'm like, I'm not going to pay tens of thousands of dollars of lawyer fees to try to get a $20,000 commission check. And so they called my bluff, but it completely they violated trust in

writing. And so how do you how do you get around that? Or I've had times where someone promises me a commission, firms have promised me commission verbally, and then when they whenever people want to separate with their money, they suddenly like honesty becomes a big issue, right? Yep. And so what are practical ways around that are just to to be a bit of ruthless yourself, but also to in an honest way, right? like, "Hey, here's what we're agreeing. I'm putting it in writing. Here's the conversation we had." It's something I do now. It's like, "Hey, just so you know, we had this

conversation. Please confirm that you agree that I we said this." And have something an email even if it's not in your contract that can help that can really help protect you so you can at least point at that and be like, "Hey, I did say that we did have an agreement there." Right. Any anything else you recommend to people who are kind of in that space of wanting to trust somebody but and maybe not nervous enough or maybe just not aware of the danger. Have the bigger bank. No. Um unfortunately I I don't want to be, you

know, pessimistic because I'm not by nature. I'm a very optimistic person, but it's unfortunate that if you're not sure who you're getting into business with, it's going to come down to who's got the bigger bank. You had that experience. I just did. They called my bluff also. I started out I was gung-ho. Dumped a bunch of money to my lawyers to start the lawsuit. Um and unfortunately they have the pockets to take it all the way to the end and they know that I don't you know and so I'd say um you

know have it have the internal ruthlessness like don't let that go. keep that shark inside. But just know that you still are working with these people and you still want to try to give them the benefit benefit of the doubt as you work with them. But you know, always use lawyers. Do not ever think that you can handle it on your own. And no, no, Chad GPT cannot. I promise you, I promise you, Chad GBT can review some basic stuff, but if you're going into business and there's any substantial amount of risk or money on the line and

you don't use a lawyer, you get what you deserve or you deserve what you get. You have to use a lawyer. It's a shitty system we have, but it is the system. So, that's the first piece of like make sure you use a lawyer and spend the time to go over the draft, the document yourself. try to understand everything about it yourself, not just rely on the lawyer. Um, and then, you know, you know, be vocal about like, look, hey, I want a long-term partnership. I think there's a lot of money to be made here.

Um, and and in my opinion, so maybe I'm a little too transparent sometimes, but I tell now I tell people upfront, hey, unfortunately, I have to protect myself down to every dotted eye. So, I'm going to review this contract. You're going to get track changes. we're gonna have a convers I'm going to clarify everything that is even the slightest bit ambiguous. So that's another piece of advice is clarify everything that's even even a little bit ambiguous. If you're like there is even a slight bit of gray, clarify it. Add a sentence, whatever

it's got to do, make sure there's no ambiguity in your contracts. Um, you know, and then in the case where you didn't get your commission, that's a tough one to avoid. um is is spending the time to do due diligence on the firm itself. It sucks that we even have to have this conversation that I've got to do diligence. I got to do due diligence on just the firm, how the firm behaves, their reputation. That's crazy. Like you're a professional firm. I we should

have we should be able to basically assume that you guys don't [ __ ] people over. You know what I mean? Yeah. Exactly. But nowadays, you can't even make that assumption for any firm. So you like now I'd say if you're going to get into business somebody that you've never been in business with and they're big and they've got much deeper pockets than you, there's a good chance that they carry that mentality that that firm did with you. So just spend a week, a few days, check them out on LinkedIn, check them out, check out their

employees on LinkedIn, see what kind of, you know, conversations they have, what kind of posts they make. You can tell a lot about people based on the kind of posts they do. You know, it's anecdotal and I won't take too much time, but some guy posted something that was wildly anti-Semitic in my opinion on LinkedIn the other day. It was a picture of two um acidic Jews. So, they've got their yamas. They've got the, you know, a bad I'm a bad Jew. I forgot the name of this the strings that hang. These are they're clearly Jewish in the picture. They're their identity is not it's not hidden.

and he goes into this tirade about how horrible and scummy and barbaric and animals they are for doing this thing to their tenants. That part I don't agree. I don't disagree with. If you do those kinds of things to force tenants out because they're under rent control, you're doing inhumane things, you are a pretty shitty person. However, they chose a 10-year-old case, which which wasn't even the most extreme case of a landlord [ __ ] over their tenants. But he chose and he chose this particular picture that clearly shows

these are Jewish men. He knew what he was doing. He was doing it inflammatory. So, I posted I and I called him out on it, but I was very professional, very respectful. This guy responds in a way that blew me away. profanity just unhinged, spiraled, not even coherent to what I said. He, you know, he says, "I work for myself. I say what I want. You could [ __ ] off." I'm like, "Okay, cool. I didn't tell you you can't say what you want. I just said, and then, you know,

he tells me, you know, you're you're a kiss ass. I'm not." I'm like, "I don't know whose ass I'm kissing and what I posted." Like all he did was respond to your clearly inflammatory and anti-semitic post when you know these guys they didn't even he said that these people should rot in prison. They didn't even go to jail. But a case more recent than that one the guy defrauded for millions of dollars was fined tens of millions of dollars and did go to prison. But he decided to choose the one that showed the Jewish men as the evil people instead of a more recent and more

severe case. But what blew me away was his response. And so when you see those people's responses, you can glean a lot about them. I would never do business with that person. Even if I wasn't Jewish, I could tell this person doesn't have morals and ethics. He just doesn't. So those are the kinds of things that unfortunately nowadays we've got to do just to go into business with somebody is you've got to do your research on that company. Are they upstanding? Do they do things ethically

or or are they known for screwing people over? Yeah. Well, and I think so it's an interesting idea that I totally resonate with of there's something about like the word since you're Jewish, I have the biblical background. I'm a Christian. The the whole I the whole idea of like the meek will inherit the earth. Biblically, it's not meek like the word actually in Latin means something more like someone who's extremely dangerous but doesn't act. Like imagine like a jut like a really juted warrior or someone

who's really like like that person you know like that black belt in jiu-jitsu who's walking down the street you know they could kill somebody but instead they're helping the kid out right it's like that per and so that's what you need in business that's how what I always envision in business now when I'm doing something with someone be like know that other person might be out to kill you but they should also know you they you could kill them too but you're not going to you're not that pe don't go that road never go that road don't go on the dark side and start screwing over people. That's how society deteriorate.

We should be able to trust each other and we we should be outstanding citizens and trying to help each other. But just know that if they can get ugly that you can you can keep pace with them and you know you know their moves so you can preempt. Yeah. It's all like you said like it's part of the strategy. Yeah. And the and the best way that you could do that like you said is that for me the way I approach partnerships now are so inflammatory upfront so I can understand people and like you said like I think this last partnership I I just

structured with some of my friends at a firm that I'm I'm I'm helping out is uh and great firm but we had probably hours of conversations where we're like near yelling at each other and we needed cooling off periods because we we iterated and went like what happens if you screw me here and You tell me what happens if I screw you there. Like something happens when I get sick and now I can't fulfill my end of the partnership and then what happens if I really succeed here and and you now don't want to pay me. And we went down every iteration and we needed cooling off period. So we're like, well, if that

happens, if this 1% thing happens and you act this way, I I don't want to do this partnership. But that that's what we we worked through that for maybe a month and then we came and put that all in writing where we were like we can feel good about what this relationship looks like holistically and it was like a 15 20 page document of all the iterations of things that can go right or wrong but that's what you got to do like kind of upfront in order to show the other person I'm serious I'm not playing games and and get the any clarifications from that subsequently in

writing and not enough people do that. if you're not willing to do that and before you go into partnership, you shouldn't go into the partnership in the first place. And and and you make a good point with, you know, so you know, like you said, the the person who can but won't, you know, I think um you know, for if anybody listening is familiar, Achilles, I think, you know, is a a pretty well-known historical figure, but he was that he was the one he could kill and he was the greatest warrior, but he didn't want to he didn't like going to battles that weren't his battle to

fight. But if he had to fight, you were going to lose. So that that that that's a great example of like you said, you know, know that this person can strike just as much as you can if they have to. Um, but I think you make a good point where you said, you guys hash that out for a whole month. So, you know, you think about the project or the, you know, the financial implications of whatever you're getting into. If it's a $10,000 contract, are you going to spend, you know, a whole month, you know, hashing that out? Maybe, maybe not. If it's a $2,000 contract, you're

definitely not. If it's a $100,000 contract, you definitely are. So, you got to think about that balance of is it worth it? I, you know, if I don't spend this month, you know, hashing this out and then I spend the next six months on a project that I'm going to end up getting totally screwed over, then, yeah, it was worth that month. So, I think that's a, you know, that's a a great way to go about it because you guys are now you're even closer with that person. So, you have a a much more solid understanding. You've got a a strong camaraderie because you guys

raised your voices to each other. You had some contention. You hashed out where, well, I wouldn't do that. I'm not that type of person. I am not either. But we got to protect against either of us becoming one of those people. So, you I think you you build this, you know, camaraderie and connection by hashing that out. And in the end, it was worth that month. I mean, obviously, it wasn't a full 160 hour month, you know, but it was over the course of the month. A couple hours, but it was over the course of the month. So, it was worth and it was worth it. Um, because what what I think a lot of people don't realize is

that how long things take in business and I'm one of those people. There's there's times when I'm like, "Ah, that shouldn't take no time." And it takes forever. So, understanding that things just take time and if you're not willing to, you know, spend the fraction of the overall to make sure that you accomplish the goal, it can hurt you. and I've made the mistake and I can you know you've shared that you've made that mistake and you learn from it and that's that's what business and life is all about is learning and growing and trying not to

make the same mistake twice you know if it's you know person and it's the best things it's the best things in life that I've learned is like I wish I learned these things earlier but I'm glad I learned them now it's like if you don't I know people that never learn them and you see them still stumbling at 60 or 70 and having fractured relationships right I've lost friendships over partnerships that I didn't structure where I I wish we had more contentious fights up front because it might have fabed the relationship which was more important than the business venture right and it's

just and it's by no means of anything like hey if someone has a kid and you don't plan for that like what does that look like for a partnership that's a big change in life and if someone has a kid or someone gets a really lucrative job what does that look like for your partnership and someone else was banking on that partnership it can be a real struggle if you didn't think you're if you didn't think about it up front. So, it's it's worth the effort. Same in marriage before you get married. Really wise to talk about if you want to build a family first or else that's the kind of stuff that really like causes contention later on. Um man,

I could talk to you forever. That's I'm having a really fun time chatting, but I know we both got to jump. Um I'm curious, what are you doing next? And then I would love to have you on again just to see how your journey is going and if you could tag on where people could find you and how people could my audience could support you, we would love to. Yeah, absolutely. Just uh one last point. I think whiteboarding, I'll just close out that last topic with whiteboarding is is a great way. You know, it's super simple. You whiteboard it out because then you hash things out. Even if it's like on an iPad or a real whiteboard, whatever, helps you hash out

those ideas and then dial them all in, you know, funnel them down. But, um, so we're we're, you know, connected is still, you know, obviously the, you know, the issues now I have drove me to, you know, get back into, you know, regular job doing some consulting. Um, but we're seeking out a new location. we've we're going to pivot into a um slightly different style agreement with landlords rather than traditional lease. Um but we're still charging forward. We're still, you know, same um same plan, same idea. Um we just obviously

have to make some changes um to how we approach it um and find some new investors and things like that. Um and you can find me and the company all over the place. Um on LinkedIn, it's Nicholas Violin. You're gonna have to probably put that in the um podcast notes because my name is spelled a little differently. But um if you just search connected Oh, it's muted. So, but connected but with K's. So, instead of C's, swap them out both with K. So, K O N E K T E D.