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00:00So we have some amazing black lawyers that are going to talk all things ownership, your exit plan,
00:06making sure your things are in order. So let's bring up Christopher and Dariki up to talk about
00:11all things law. Give it up for the black men in law. All right, y'all. Knock it out. You're welcome.
00:23All right. Hey, Essence. How are you guys doing?
00:30So as I said, my name is Chris Gilmore. I'm a corporate attorney practicing in Atlanta, Georgia
00:36with Townsend and Lockett. We're an all black owned law firm where we specialize in working with all
00:43companies of different sizes. And I'll tell you a little bit more about the company quickly. I'll
00:47let my colleague here introduce himself. Hey, how's it going, everybody? I'm Dariki Giyuka.
00:52I'm a corporate associate with Townsend and Lockett based out of Atlanta, Georgia.
00:56I've got a nearly eight year career and over a billion dollars in transaction value to date.
01:03So I'm looking forward to sharing some of those insights with anybody here. Thank you.
01:08Phenomenal, phenomenal. So a little bit about the firm. We are celebrating 15 years of service this
01:15year, and we just crossed the threshold of closing 21 billion dollars in deals. Thank you. Thank you.
01:21Thank you. And so we want to talk with you guys about some fundraising. We want to talk about getting
01:27your companies ready for exit. But this is a conversation. While we aren't providing legal
01:32advice to you all, you can ask us questions as we move throughout the conversation. So to start out,
01:38we want to talk about raising money, right? Raising money is necessary for your company to do well.
01:43So for context, the past few years have seen a significant and often concerning shift in venture
01:49capital funding for black founders, particularly for women of color. While there were pledges for
01:55diversity and inclusion post-2020, data shows a steep decline in funding to black-led startups.
02:01For instance, in 2023, some estimates project that black founders in the U.S. secured a mere 0.48%.
02:09That's not 1.48% of all venture dollars, totaling 661 million out of 136 billion, a significant drop
02:21from our 1.4% that we had in 2021. This decline has continued into 2024, with some reports indicating
02:28that the share of U.S. startup funding going to companies with black founders hit a mid-low in 2024
02:33of 0.4%. It's even lower than our 0.48. So Dariki, given the notable contraction in venture capital
02:41funding for black-founded startups over the past 24 to 36 months, what are the most critical strategies
02:48that founders need to adopt to secure their next round of financing?
02:52Yeah, you know, really pressing statistics, and thanks for the question, Chris. One of the things
02:57that I would encourage all black founders to think about is when you're securing investments in your
03:04business, make your business marketable, okay? And don't just think about traditional areas of
03:10securing finance or support from a venture capital firm. There are, you know, many corporations,
03:15Fortune 500 companies, some of them are here, to large companies that have strategic investment arms
03:22that are looking to invest in product that can help them grow horizontally or vertically that are kind
03:28of already in the space of where they're doing business. Another thing I would say is look at family
03:33offices, and for those of you who don't know what family offices are, those are high net worth
03:38individuals or teams of high net worth individuals who will put their money together, and they say,
03:44you know something? I want to find companies and be an on-the-ground partner. I don't want to sit in an
03:50ivory tower, give my money, and just expect a return. I want to, you know, I've built, you know, several
03:55businesses, so I want to go out and build another business that I'm invested in. Another thing I think is
04:00really, you know, a positive point that people don't talk about a lot is that if you are a venture capital,
04:08you know, looking for venture capital dollars, and you have a tech startup, 10 years ago, it was really hard to go to
04:14the bank and get a line of credit because the investments were so speculative that banks
04:19didn't know how to underwrite them. Well, you've heard about the collapse of Silicon Valley Bank,
04:24and a lot of other banks absorbed that business, and they found out better ways to underwrite
04:30companies that have valuable technology but may be pre-revenue, so a traditional line of credit
04:36is more feasible today than it was just a few short years ago. That's phenomenal. Those are great ways
04:43in which your company can get capital in the door, but also make sure you're always being efficient
04:47with your dollars. All right, let's keep it moving. We shared some statistics about the changes in the
04:52venture landscape since 2020, but the venture capital industry does not exist in a vacuum.
04:58Higher interest rates, tariff shifts, an overall tougher lending market on venture capital investments.
05:06Let's talk about some ways and advice for our founders to navigate these macroeconomic changes
05:13in today's climate. Absolutely, absolutely, and I really like this question because here's the thing,
05:18you know, my parents used to say the more things change, the more things stay the same, okay?
05:24It's still business. You want your pluses to be more than your minuses, so yes, you got tariffs,
05:31so if you got a hair care company or a fabric company and you're importing or sourcing goods outside the
05:36U.S., that might get more expensive. Interest rates are higher, so borrowing may get more expensive.
05:42You know, we all know that inflation is here, so your consumer base might be more conscientious with
05:48how they're spending their money, but if you're really trying to attract additional investment,
05:53one thing you really must focus on and be laser focused on is knowing how to speak the language
06:00of the people who you're soliciting money from, and what you want to convince them is, hey,
06:05you got $100,000 that you can go put in an ETF that tracks the S&P 500 or a money market account
06:12or put it in your mattress, whatever you want, but I want you to put that money with my company
06:17because putting it with my company is a better investment for whatever else you got to do,
06:22so particularly as a black founder or a black woman founder, you know how to market to your client base.
06:30You know how to sell to the culture, so to speak, but when you're talking to your investors,
06:35make sure you are selling them on how good of an investment your product is, and you know,
06:42you'll hear people say things like, hey, there's blood in the water when the economy gets bad,
06:45but usually after, you know, any downturn in the economy, traditionally we've experienced a more
06:52positive bounce back, so if you can navigate these tumultuous waters, hopefully there's a pot of gold
06:57for you at the end of that rainbow on the other side.
07:02Phenomenal response. I would add in, too, you know, one of the big things that we hear with startups
07:06when they come to us even as their legal counselor, they'll say, well, here's my product, here's my idea.
07:11What do you think? You think it's a really good idea? I say, listen, your customer has to think
07:16whether it's a good idea, right? I am a vendor to you. The bank is a vendor to you. The investor is an investor to you.
07:25They want to believe in your balance sheet, right? You have to believe in your product. You have to
07:31believe in what you're doing way more than the folks that you're hiring to help you along your
07:36journey. So those are some of the great pieces there. We're going to shift into a conversation
07:42about some of the pitfalls that companies can fall into when they're forming their companies.
07:50One of those is around formation and where to form. If you go online and you look around,
07:55there's all types of information out there about whether you should be formed in Wyoming,
08:01in Nevada, Utah, but your company is based in Maryland or Florida. So Dariki, with that backdrop,
08:08you know, we've had this conversation many, many times. What would be advice that you would provide
08:12to someone that said, hey, where should I form my company based on what these Google results are
08:19telling me? Absolutely. My default answer is form your company in the state where your company is
08:25operating. If you have a pizza shop here in New Orleans, Louisiana, there's a very slim chance that
08:32you need to be formed as a New York limited liability company or a corporation. You know, as you know,
08:39governments are businesses too. They make money from taxes and fees, okay? So these annual registrations
08:49that you would pay as a business owner are a form of revenue for the government. So when you hear,
08:56you know, Delaware putting a lot of money into saying, start your company in Delaware or start
09:01your company in Nevada or wherever it is, that is a government with a marketing arm attracting
09:08their potential clients who are business owners to their state to get that revenue. But here's the
09:14thing. Generally speaking, you can't bring a lawsuit in a state unless you are authorized to do business
09:21there. So if you form as an out-of-state corporation, but you only do business in New Orleans, Louisiana,
09:26or Atlanta, Georgia, you can't usually sue until you, you know, form your company or at least get a
09:34foreign registration there. So for a lot of founders, it ends up being, I have to pay two
09:39sets of annual registration and then two sets of fees. And some states have much more arduous processes
09:45than others. Maryland, very difficult place. Not a fan. Georgia, on the other hand, great place.
09:52I'm joking about Maryland, but they do have a lot of extra filings.
09:55Yeah. So it's something that we hear often. The, I would even almost call it propaganda that's online
10:03that tells people you are safer. You are more protected in this other state. You'll pay less
10:09money in this other state. It's just not how it works. And the additional piece I'll add on there
10:15too is that if you're looking to raise money, sometimes people will say, well, you need to go
10:20form in Delaware, right? Oftentimes that may be true. If your investor tells you that you must
10:26transition to Delaware, but only do that at the time that you raise your money and make sure you
10:32talk to an attorney when you do it. So we're also, we're talking about people starting up their
10:39companies, but also we work on the other side as well, where we do a lot of mergers and acquisitions
10:44work. So this is why we start the company, right? We want to make the money. You want to sell it to
10:48someone. But oftentimes as you're creating your business, you aren't thinking through,
10:52well, what do I need to do today so that I'm in a good position to sell in five years? What am I
10:59doing from a legal perspective to make sure that I don't mess up my valuation down the road because
11:06of decisions I made today? So with that in mind, for companies that are aiming to exit within the next
11:13five years, what are crucial steps that founders should be taking today to build enterprise value
11:19and attract potential acquirers and prepare for public acquisition?
11:24Absolutely. So, you know, I always say, think about your business as a house and you want to sell it in
11:32five years. Now you may have bought a house when interest rates were low during the pandemic, it felt
11:37like you were playing the lottery, right? Because you had to put in the offer really quick and then
11:41you get something and it's appreciated in value. So how do you maintain it? Well, one way, you got to
11:46keep your pain up, you got to keep your lawn there, you got to pay your property taxes. The same thing
11:50goes for a business. You want to sell a pristine product when it's time for you to make what we
11:59call an exit, which is some type of capital event where you take on a major investor that may take
12:04control of your business, even if you keep some equity or you sell it completely, or if you're in the
12:10startup space, you're going through these different rounds of fundraising, you know, whatever you want
12:15to do. So if you're, you know, doing that, you have to put your mind frame in the perspective of the
12:21potential buyer, right? You hear people talk about curve appeal for houses. Okay, well, if I'm looking
12:26at a business and I say, what's your revenue? And you're like, I don't know. What does that tell you
12:33about the business? It says, well, the book's kind of funny. It may have a lot of buzz. There may be a lot of
12:38success theater surrounding it, but I don't know if this business is profitable. So get with a CPA
12:44and have those people maintain your books a certain way. If you have a company that is, you know,
12:51going viral, right? Like, you know, there's a lot of people here who are experts at getting that
12:55organic traction for your business and you got intellectual property, you know, that's not
13:01protected. Well, if I'm going to buy or invest in a business, one of the things I'm going to think
13:06about is like, well, what really am I buying? Is the thing that I think I'm buying actually going
13:12to be mine when the transaction is over? Have they gotten the patents? Have they gotten the
13:16trademarks? All of that stuff. And you can take it a step further. You know, when you start in a
13:22business, you'll hear people say like, you know, I got, you know, I'm going to give out equity to my
13:26employees. You know, I'm going to take care of my folks. I'm going to be a good boss. We love it.
13:30We support it. Chris and I have done a number of transactions where employees are incentivized
13:36by receiving ownership. But does your paperwork actually say what you think it says? What your
13:43employees think it says? What a potential acquirer thinks it says? Or worse, if it ends up in
13:51litigation, what will a judge think your document say? Right? It's common to have vesting agreements
13:58where you get incremental equity over time. But just be very thoughtful about making sure that your
14:04legal house is as attractive as your residential home if you're looking for a sale. So if you think
14:11about it from that lens, I think you'll end up in a really good place. And frankly speaking,
14:16you'll be more organized than a lot of folks who aren't sitting in this audience hearing this
14:20advice from Chris and I today. Yeah, no, it exactly. Actually, I want to tell you guys a few quick
14:27stories of instances when the ownership piece went wrong for someone. We had an instance,
14:35we're working with a company, they're looking to do an exit $20 million, $20 million. They were just
14:42on a hockey stick, their valuation was going up and up and up. And I was on the other side,
14:47I was representing the buyer. Now as the attorneys representing the buyer, you already have signed
14:54what's called an LOI, your letter of intent. There's a lot of high level underwriting that's
14:59already occurred. And they put the value of the company at $20 million. Then it comes over to the
15:04lawyers. Now me and my team, you know what's the best thing that we could find? An issue, a legal issue
15:12that will affect the value. And now my client can buy it for $15 million. Same company, same assets,
15:21but we say $5 million because my legal team found an issue. And we say, listen, we were going to buy
15:27you guys in one month. We got 30 days. This issue, we aren't really sure how to fix it in 30 days,
15:33but we think it might cost $5 million. Do you still want us to buy it? All we're going to give you is $15
15:38million now, right? Various different legal issues. And the biggest one, as Dariki pointed on,
15:44is that equity piece, handing out ownership to people just randomly. We had an instance that we
15:53found out where a client was giving ownership to their employees, but they were taking that ownership
15:59from themselves. Case in point, I own 100%. I give you 2%. You have 2%. I have 98%. Another employee
16:09gets hired. I want to give them 2%. I take 2% from me. Give them 2%. Now I have 96%. One employee has
16:17two. Another one has two. Rinse, repeat, rinse, repeat. What's happening? I'm getting diluted every
16:23time and the other employees are not. Now don't work in percentages. Work in ownership value. Each time
16:32we bring on an employee, it's because our enterprise value went up. That 2% may have been worth $20,000
16:38on day one. Keep it at $20,000. If you let them stay at 2% and they don't get diluted, but you get
16:45diluted, their 2% becomes $100,000, $200,000 while your million or $2 million is going down.
16:53And so this had occurred with maybe 20 employees and we had to come in and we actually helped them
16:58clean it up. Went to every employee and said, listen, you guys are invested in this business. Let's
17:03correct these documents so that when you have your exit, you don't have a problem where your owner is
17:08going to basically lose out on 15 to 20% of their company. So ownership piece is super,
17:15super important. It really, really, really will affect your dollars in a way that has two commas
17:20on it. I always say that. You got something that's a two comma problem, you want to take the time and
17:25hire somebody on the front end. All right. So let's keep moving here. So specifically, as we're talking
17:33about companies being purchased and we're talking about the lawyers doing some review,
17:38usually we call that due diligence. You heard that word before, due diligence. So what legal,
17:44financial, and operational due diligence considerations are often overlooked by founders,
17:49but are absolutely essential for maximizing valuation and ensuring a smooth exit?
17:55Well, you know, there's a lot of stuff that I think companies are going to be looking at. I think I
18:04hearkened on it a little bit earlier with the intellectual property fees. That's one that I want
18:08to keep coming back to because the fun parts of starting a business is getting your merchandising,
18:16right? You know, you see somebody that starts a business and you're like, man, that was Bob that used to
18:20work at the burger shop. And then the next month you see them, they got branded cardigans and hoodies
18:26and pins and all this stuff. It's like, that's really cool. But do you actually have it protected in a way
18:32that makes sense to someone who's acquiring a company? Because they may buy your business at some point and
18:38want to do something totally different with your, you know, intellectual property and what you have it as. So you
18:44need to make sure that it is, you know, itemized the right way. Another thing I would say that's really
18:49important is don't take anything lightly, right? You know, a lot of times people think I can run my
18:58businesses finances the way I run my personal finances. So, you know, in my personal life, I
19:04really like, you know, nice handbags or, you know, nice belts or whatever this case may be. And with my
19:09business, I'm going to have that same attitude when it comes to spending. Well, people who are acquiring
19:15a business are looking at it. And when they're saying, hey, what's your free cash flow? You know,
19:19how much profit are you making? And they see a really small delta between what your expenses are
19:26and what your actual income is, that can make your business look a lot less valuable. So really,
19:35you know, be the person that is really thoughtful about what you need in the office, right? You know,
19:40do I really need to go and get a whole bunch of waiting room furniture that I order from Europe
19:45because I really like the way this leather looks? Or do I need to go to Ikea because I know this is
19:50going to get a lot of wear and tear and in a couple years, I might have to move or get some new
19:54furniture or throw this away or whatever the case may be. Like all of that stuff matters, right?
20:00I read a quote from Oprah Winfrey where she said, you know, up in, I mean, recently, this was like a
20:05couple years ago, she was signing every check in her business over a certain threshold because she
20:12said, yeah, I'm wealthy, I'm here. But that doesn't mean that I'm not an employee of my business. And I
20:18think that brings in another point. You work for yourself, have the same standard for yourself that
20:25you want for your employees. My mom is a small business owner. And that's partially the reason why
20:30I work in business law. When she opened her first group home, she went through several cycles of staff
20:37because she said, I have a standard that I want my business to operate at. And I'm going to be in here
20:42working too. And anybody that's not working as hard as me can't work there. And she takes great care of her
20:47employees. They're loyal. They love her. She's been through a number of market downturns over the past nearly 30
20:53years. But having that standard communicates through the rest of your business and is going to show up to other
20:59people that are looking at it. Absolutely. Having standards are exceptionally important with respect
21:06to exiting your business. A few of the things I'll add too, when you guys are looking to run your
21:12business, but having a view towards your exit is in your contracts. These can be, it's a headache for
21:20everyone. The longer the contract, the more you hate it. But what I like to say, us as attorneys for our
21:28clients, we are your doomsday advisor, right? That contract, particularly if it's a service business
21:35with someone, if someone's supposed to provide you with a service, you're going to pay them some money.
21:40You like the service. They like the money. We're not even going to go back and look at the contract.
21:46When do you pull out the contract? When you didn't like the service. When they didn't like how much you
21:51paid them. When you didn't pay in a timely manner. I call that, that's doomsday, right? You may have a
21:58$5,000 problem. You may have a $100,000 problem. But as your business goes up and up and up and you're
22:03more successful, you could have a $2 million, $10 million, $15 million problem. Do you want your
22:11$15 million problem sitting on a three-page document? No, you do not. On our documents with
22:1730 pages, 40 pages, it's not us just being long-winded because we're attorneys. We're talking
22:23through the doomsday scenarios that may come up and how we want to predetermine how we're going to
22:31work through the $15 million problem. We're not going to work through it live when everybody's
22:36mad. We're on the front end. We like each other. We want to do business. We want to make money
22:40together. Let's jointly decide through our attorneys how we're going to handle a problem like this.
22:46Now, on the exit side, if you have multiple contracts like this and someone's looking to
22:53buy your business, they want to know that your business has a framework if something goes wrong.
22:59They're buying the framework. If you have multiple locations, say you're a retail location,
23:05do all of your leases look similar? Or do I have to buy your business and I have to go negotiate 20
23:12different types of leases? Or did you, as you got your each new location, say, make these all look
23:19the same. Make sure that you invest the money that this document actually speaks towards any type of
23:25issues. Those things, when you're on the exit side, when you have the money sitting there in front of
23:30you, the decisions you made five, 10 years prior can be extremely, extremely valuable. So contracting,
23:38contracting, contracting is definitely one of the areas where, you know, penny foolish, you can be
23:45pound smart. All right. So let's keep it moving. I know we got a couple of minutes left. If you do
23:50have a burning question, go ahead, raise your hand. I don't know if we have another mic that we can hand
23:55to people, but we'll talk through this last one while we do that. So lastly, for our businesses,
24:01we're going to circle back to raising money. What advice do we have on how black-led founders
24:06can counter implicit biases when seeking funding from venture firms, from banks, family offices,
24:14whoever it might be? There are some implicit biases that are in place for ourselves as black-led
24:19founders. And what are some ways that we've seen with our clients that we can overcome those issues?
24:24Yeah, absolutely. You know, I heard Justice Ketanji Brown speak yesterday, and she shared a
24:33re-quote from Toni Morrison where she said, the various, the very serious function of racism is
24:40distraction. And I think that's so important for our businesses to understand. The various,
24:45a very serious function of racism is distraction. We know that when we're trying to communicate
24:51to a non-minority funding source, the uniqueness of black hair or black skin or, you know, black micro-lending,
25:03a lot of times what we understand about the world is from our own experiences. So the person you're
25:10talking to may not understand the cultural nuance or even the benefit to your product because they
25:16haven't had that lived experience. I don't want anyone who's in that situation to over-index on
25:23trying to get someone to connect with you culturally that just may not understand. You know what I mean?
25:29For those of you who are parents who have children, they might live with you, you know, their whole life.
25:34And you're like, I don't know where that boy got that music from, right? You can be very close to someone
25:39and still share different cultures with them. Find the middle ground. And the middle ground always is,
25:44I can make you money. So if you are a black founder, don't get too hung up on all of the shortcomings
25:53associated or perceived. They may not even be real. With your struggle, you have to say,
25:59there's a problem that you actually don't understand as an investor. I do. And that's where the value is to you.
26:08I can make you money. I'm the person that can connect the dots, right? The people that made the most
26:14money during the gold rush were the people selling shovels and, you know, uh, sifting pans, all of that
26:21stuff. Amazon, you know, doesn't really have physical stores, but they are a thoroughfare for
26:27people to do business. When you are a founder who's identified a problem that thinks there's a
26:34lucrative solution to, you are the thoroughfare between the investor who obviously maybe didn't
26:41see the problem or else they would be out there just doing it themselves without you and the issue.
26:46So don't get too perturbed by some of the issues that, you know, you may encounter. Find a way to
26:51pivot, flip it on its head, speak positively and speak the, you know, momentum of, uh, you know,
26:58cumulative compounding wealth and, you know, be honest, obviously, you know. Um, and one other thing I would
27:04say, traditionally, you'll hear people say, hey, I got a business that this overall global market is $400
27:15billion. That's great. But if you're only operating in West Palm Beach, Florida, for me as an investor,
27:24I'm like, what's the likelihood that today you capture $400 billion globally? Very low. What's the
27:33likelihood that in six months you become a hit in whatever geographic area you're in? Much more
27:40likely. So understand your local economics as well as the macro global trends, right? Like everybody's
27:47going to say, I'm going to be the next, you know, Facebook of insert whatever industry you're in.
27:52But not a lot of people can say, hey, in my hometown, I've mapped it out. This is what I could make
27:59right here without having to get on the plane or a train or anything. And your money would do this
28:06if I do X, right? So sometimes thinking locally and strategically is the best way to get somebody
28:14to envision you, um, at a higher level because they'll see the scaling in your process. So think
28:19about six months and five years, six months, five years, um, and focus local.
28:24Phenomenal. Phenomenal. Phenomenal. All right. We got time for maybe one question. If anybody's got
28:30something burning that they wanted to ask, got free lawyers up here.
28:37Yeah. One right here.
28:43Hi, thank you so much for the presentation. So I recently started a business and
28:49congratulations. Yep. Thank you. Um, I'm nowhere near seeking venture capital money. Um, but I'm
28:57wondering if you can tell me just kind of like when I should start to look at that, like what are the
29:03minimum valuation characteristics that I should look for, um, in order to approach a venture
29:10capitalist? And then I can jump in there. Can I, can I just ask a second part to the question? Um, real
29:17quick. So it's also kind of like chicken versus the egg, you know, like you need to have the money
29:23in order to grow the business. And I'm wondering if you could offer, um, any advice to just getting
29:29started and really scaling the business. Yeah. So I will repeat the question if every, uh,
29:35kind of paraphrase it. It's kind of like when you're starting your business, when do you get to a
29:39threshold of when I should be looking to raise venture capital dollars specifically, um, and kind
29:46of even how to go about that, that process. So I'll take a step back. It's actually understanding
29:54the different types of investment dollars, right? And like, what does that mean? Venture capital is
30:00a specific type of money. It is money that a company needs that for that company to be profitable,
30:06they need to hit a certain threshold. Case in point, if you are selling t-shirts, you should be able
30:13to start your business, get 100 t-shirts, make those 100 t-shirts, uh, ship them out and sell
30:20them and be profitable with 100 t-shirts, not too many shirts, right? Or a service really from a
30:27service perspective. If I say, Hey, I'm, I'm cleaning houses. I should make money on the first house
30:33because my, my pricing needs to be that my materials that I'm going to use cost $50. I charged a hundred
30:40dollars, right? From a tech perspective, you have to build out a platform where you can have a million
30:47users on it. You may not be profitable for years, but you need the money to build this platform for
30:55millions of users. And so there you need a huge shot in the arm to, of capital to get your business
31:02going. And so it's understanding what is the type of money that I need? A line of credit from a bank.
31:08Sometimes there is that if I need a big splash of expenses, and then I will have the ability to go
31:15out into the market and sell my product. And I can recoup that and pay down my line pretty quickly.
31:20Some people will use factoring lines of credit or a traditional loan. So it's understanding how does
31:27the cash roll into my business model for what I need to do? Um, so that's just a kind of pre-question,
31:35but specifically there's no dollar amount that there are, there are different types of investors
31:40that will provide money to a company when they may be pre-revenue or that has low revenue or that has,
31:47has a lot of growth. Um, so yeah. And to your second question, um, bootstrapping is great. I mean,
31:54like when you're starting a business, you'll hear people say, I want to quit my job and go start a
31:59business. I wouldn't recommend that. Right? Like you want to give yourself as long of a runway as
32:06possible before you take off. And it's like, this is my whole thing. So be strategic, like I said,
32:12with even your personal decisions so that you can divert money into your business without,
32:17you know, just unjustifiably impacting your personal life. And then really understanding
32:24what your stress points are. I think really good business people are obsessed with their business.
32:30It looks weird to other people. There were times when my mom was good in her business,
32:35when my dad was cooking dinner every night and I didn't see her, uh, you know, before school,
32:39I didn't see her after school, but for a few years, she was in the office for 12, 14 hours a day.
32:45And, and that was, you know, me as a young child, by the time I got to high school, you know,
32:50she was cooking breakfast every day. Cause she was like, I'm back at the house. My business is up
32:52and running. Um, that was also a big buy-in from my dad to step up and take on more of the stuff in
32:58the house. But that business is still, you know, in, uh, business today and it's grown exponentially.
33:04And at one point it had, you know, close to 200 employees. Right. Um, so being obsessed about
33:11understanding how your business operates is going to be really crucial to managing your expenses
33:18because you will see kind of the leaks in your faucet before anybody else will. And you'll be
33:24able to quickly adapt to them. Um, so that would be my advice. Well, thank you guys for coming to our,
33:31our talk back. Uh, we actually have office hours over at the new voices family, uh, area after this.
33:37Um, and if you want to stay connected with us, you got us here at Townsend and Lockett. So
33:41thank you guys and enjoy the rest of Essence. Great. Great. We're on LinkedIn and Instagram as well.
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