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Most businesses don’t fail because of bad ideas.
They fail because they run out of capital.
Unbankable is a business podcast for entrepreneurs who don’t wait for permission - especially from banks.
I’m Alex Shvarts, Founder & CEO of FundKite. For over a decade, I’ve worked directly with thousands of small and mid-sized business owners across the United States, providing working capital when traditional banks said no.
On this podcast, I sit down with CEOs, founders, operators, and leaders in alternative finance, fintech, private capital, and business growth to talk about what actually builds durable companies.
No hype. No guru talk.
Just real conversations about:
• Scaling a small business
• Working capital strategy
• Alternative financing
• Risk management
• Hiring and firing decisions
• Cash flow discipline
• Profitable growth
• Leadership under pressure
• Building partnerships that last
If you’re a small business owner, entrepreneur, startup founder, operator, or executive looking to grow smarter - this show is for you.
We talk about what happens when banks say no.
We talk about execution.
We talk about capital.
And we talk about building something real.
Subscribe to the podcast, leave a review, and share it with another entrepreneur who needs it.
When banks say no - there is FundKite.
Learn more about alternative business funding at 👉 https://fundkite.com
Build smarter.
Scale responsibly.
Stay unbankable.
– Alex Shvarts
I think the future gazillionaires in this country are electricians. I love it. It's all about technology. AI. People forget that there's still necessities that people are buying and it's a good business. I don't know anything about furniture. Like my background is tech. I'm an entrepreneur. I'll figure it out. You just made furniture glamorous. I did. You're avoiding the question. Failure sometimes a thinking process of what the [ __ ] am I supposed to be doing? Said, "Hey man, I need to make 50k in like 30 days. What can I sell the hospital?" The hospital had net term, so I had to get the money up front. Could have called Lee. Oh, [laughter] dude, I need to make 50,000 next week. What can I sell to who?
Welcome to Ibankable, the podcast for entrepreneurs who won't take no for an answer. I'm Alex Schwarz. Well, sometimes I'm confused. I don't know if I'm Schwarz or Schwarz, but today I'm going to be Schwarz. Anyway, today we're talking about something that hits close to home. how entrepreneurs break into legacy industries that aren't or weren't built for them. Because here's the reality. Some of the biggest opportunities exist in most traditional relationship-driven businesses. But you need more than just talent to succeed. You need strategy and therefore let's drive in. Today I'm joined by Terry Tavali, a serial entrepreneur, investor, and creative operator who has spent his career building at the intersection of business, design, and technology. After founding an existing adventurebacked technology company in 2013, Terry made one of the most unexpected pivots you'll hear about from tech to furniture. Not just furniture, a portfolio play inside a nearly $700 billion global industry that most people never see coming. Today, [music] Terry serves as a CEO of Tunnel Spaces, a nationally recognized commercial contract furniture dealership with reach all over the country. While simultaneously building the Tavali brands, a holding company that spans furniture, building materials and media, AI ventures, consumer products. Inside the ecosystem lives everything from M&A to role of strategy to our cultural movement bringing together art, music, fashion, and furniture and a design built company. Wow. This is like the longest introduction I've ever made. Have to read the whole introduction. Holy crap. [laughter] Wow. Oh my god, I don't think we need to talk about anything else. This speaks here. Anyway, the guy is here. Let me just finish. Let me just [laughter] finish. And a design built company giving him full control of over how spaces are conceived, built, and furnished from the ground up. Very welcome, man. Really great to see you. Right. Um you you're definitely Mr. Miami right now with the shorts. I'll tell you that much. And you're you're Mr. Records, man, cuz your record collection is crazy. Well, thank you. Thank you. It's um it's a hobby which I I really enjoy and it it um brings the best out of me. Music touches a lot of the different elements of my emotions, my mindset. Like you know, I'm not normal. I'm wired differently. Thank god I'm still wired. But um you know, it just helps me um get a balance to what I'm doing, what I'm doing, and and how to get that. All right. You've done many different things, right? And I'm sure you had some failures, right? Of course. Let's talk about your last failure. Yeah, last failure, man. I think they got to understand where I come from. Like, honestly, you know, young kid, single mom family, come from projects, you know, didn't have the start that a lot of people have in business or legacy stuff like that. My first business was collecting cans out of a trash can, right? That's the business, right? And it's interesting because tell you my first business later, you're going to I can't wait to hear it. I can't wait to hear it. And I tell people all the time is just you learn in business that you know sometimes when you have customers, you know, sometimes it's it's easier to make money off existing customers. So I knew what client got drunk every every weekend and we'll go back to that trash can and go dig and collect it and then we would go recycle the cans. But that was my You go fill the cans up and sell it to the same guy again. You go sell it to the [laughter] same guy. Why not? Yeah. We just take it to the the the recycle place. But yeah, man. My my mom was really my hero in business. She always made sure I had something candy companies. I mean we always try to figure it out but going back to last failure man I think just still figuring out everybody's figuring out business you know figuring out what lane I want to create legacy in you know when you're entrepreneur and especially now with so many opportunities you get fooled in so many areas and you know what do you want to what do you want to do especially when you feel like you can do a lot you can do everything you're avoiding the question [laughter] that that's you got to tell me to fail my biggest I've had a lot of failures no so so have I success is a bunch of little failures I I'm more than it's a lot of companies from little small startup companies I tried to do to it's a lot I can't it's so many I can't even think it made you what you are today who I am like the failures build so that's what I say to you know people listening to this and watching this that don't be don't be afraid to fail it's okay to fail don't get discouraged oh yeah I realize that it's not working and move on right background education selftaught man went to college for two years I had to go to the the school of life to figure it out, you know, and working, you know, when I was in college, I was working at UPS and then, you know, UPS like the boxes would go up. You know, you familiar with UPS and get up for 5:00 in the morning [ __ ] all the time. Where's my cat food? [laughter] But back in the day, want to laugh? Want to laugh? All right, let's let's laugh. All right. So, the other day, you know, um, uh, Bezos from Amazon, you know, so he's got the the Teimu, uh, the Teimu spacecraft, you know, Musk has got the real ones and Bezos is, you know, copying Musk and so Bezos spacecraft left landed on a ship somewhere and he put like a little Instagram post of his spacecraft landing on a ship in the ocean, you know, like the self- landing spaceships now. Some wild stuff going on. So, I looked at this and I'm like, gee, let me look at the comments, right? Like, I already read the comments and it was the most hysterical thing cuz the comments like, "Where's my cat food? I'm glad you're playing with spaceships. I have missing my delivery for a week." You know, people just making fun of Amazon. It was just kind of funny. So, yeah, I do know what UPS is. Yeah. And um So, you worked there? Yeah, worked there while in college. Um and then also was a security guard, you know. So, you know, I would go to UPS early in the morning, like 4:00. I think at that time we worked like two hours or three hours in the morning go to college security alarms and then I would go work be a security guard for Wacken Hut I think for me so like going into ADT sales I just kind of led into sales and then entrepreneurship later but and those are big companies right you know big companies aren't designed to produce entrepreneurs you know that right they're designed to keep people they give them some kind of stability and they tame them and it's like they They they they they they're designed to get you to stop kind of thinking of the bigger picture because that paycheck is it's a very good security. And you know people who might have aspirations to be entrepreneurs if they get into that job and a role man they before you know it days life's over right so so you did all that and you did that am I right my wife laughs at me all the time cuz all the jobs I've had before entrep before I got full-time like entrepreneurship I mean I I was a manager for check cash in place I worked sold windows and sighting I worked for Sears sold Sears I've I can go on and on and did insurance have to be They don't even know what Sears was, right? Know what Sears was, right? Sears, man. Sears was huge, man. My first my first job was working inside of Burger King. Um, actually, no, my first job was working for a a secondhand shop and then Burger King was my first real job. We have a lot in common, you and I. You know what it is? I've I've I've done a lot of different things. I've I I'm never afraid to get my hands dirty. I was a buzz boy. I was a waiter. My first business was I think it was fifth or sixth grade in middle school. I figured out that all these kids what what do kids like? They like candy, right? And I've told this story before, but I mean I had three lockers full of candy. Every morning I'd walk in, buy a shitload of candy, sell it four times the amount. You know, guidance counselors hated me, so I had to give some candy M&M's to the guidance counselors so they would leave me alone. Was shaked down from the guidance counselors. Had to pay them off, right? So they they'd let me work. But that's what I did. But but that was my own first thing. But my first real thing was working with my dad at flea markets when I was nine. So, I've done it all. I've I've worked for uh restaurants. I I've worked in malls and jewelry stores. I mean, I've I've [laughter] I think it was called Bedangles or Beazzled, whatever. There was some chain back then, right? Um around 12 years old, my parents I don't know what made them think [snorts] that I'm a model kid, like I could be a model. Okay. Okay. So, my parents convinced me. I see it, man. You see it right? Yeah. Yeah. Okay, man. Like, okay. So, my parents like they, oh, our son is beautiful. Like, he's he should be a model, right? So, they take me to this place called Barbazan Modeling School. Oh, wow. That was a big name. It was a It was a scam. It was a scam. It was designed to take money from people who thought their kids could be models. Okay, dude. Me and a model is like me and spaceships. We're completely on two different trajectories, right? So, I go to this Barbazon modeling school. Of course, they, you know, yeah, your your kid. Forget about it. You know, like I'm going to be, what am I going to be advertising? I was a chubby little kid. What am I going to advertise? Like, Cheerios? Like, they're going to remove Bruce Jenner. That's right. And put me on the cereal box. And it was hysterical, right? Anyway, they then I come in for this photo session. I'm sitting I'm really starting to believe I'm going to be a famous model at 12 years old, right? Cuz Barbara was a scam. It was designed to make parents believe that their kids were going to be models. Okay, true story. I'm still traumatized for it. Every time I see a camera, I remember Barbara's on modeling school. Anyway, so that was really I don't know why I just remembered this freaking that happened. Our stories it do seem very similar. And I was a shy kid. I was I was like I'd held my mom's hand till I was 14. I think I was very shy kid. I didn't kiss my first girl till like maybe 17. Maybe I touched a girl earlier, but I kissed my first No, no, I'm just saying to you I was like, "Hi." Like that, you know, like on the shoulder and that was the extent of it. Oh, man. Well, you do a great job. You're killing it. But these are experiences like these are like your life experiences of doing all of these things, working at different places, having to answer to someone, and now you answer to yourself. How is that? I mean, I love it. I think, you know, early trying to figure myself out my whole life. Still figure I mean, dude, to be honest, man, I'm I'll be 47 this year. Still figuring it out, right? You know, so for me, and I'm not afraid. I thought you were a little older, but [laughter] I love it. I'm messing with you. I love it, man. I love it. I love the energy, man. Um, yeah, man. I I think just never not being afraid to figure it out because I have failed so much and trying to figure it out. You know, I tell my kids whose son is behind the camera now, it's okay to figure it out. We all make all make mistakes. It's part of life. He said makes us who he's really paying attention. Like I'm watching now. He's very proud of his father. I'm proud of him. Yeah, that's good. You got him a job at UPS. [laughter] I should send him. He's starting off in sales. That's where he's going to start sales office. Yeah, he's going to still in sales. Yeah, he should be. Are you a good salesman? Working on it. All right. Good. He's going to be a great man. You know the best thing about being a good salesman? Working on it. Every good salesman needs to work on it. It's never easy, man. It's a craft. It's an art form. It is. It's very much. Are you a good salesman? I believe so. But Andy Elliot makes us feel like we're not Oh, he's a great So, he knows you know anybody knows Andy Elliot. Great great incredible sales teacher. Incredible. Is he like a motivational speaker? He does that strategy. He's just really really good. But I I used to follow the Brian Tracers of the world. all the different closes, the Dumbo closes, you know, the feel fell founds and all the good things that we could find that, you know, make some money. Any of those really helped you? Very much so. Really? I've never found one that helped me even in relationships. You know what I understand how you feel? My last wife felt the same way until she found No, I'm joking. Just [laughter] you're comparing me to your ex-wife right now. [laughter] Uh, no. But I'm going to tell you why. Like I I have a hard time with these motivational speakers because unless they've really accomplished something like I mean people selling courses who haven't built something to me but look there are great speak but you know what I do watch and I've taken a lot of courses FBI negotiators I heard about they're trained to read people they're trained to negotiate in a in a very like bad situation hostage situations and they they you know so I've I've learned a lot by the way that they cuz they're they're actually negotiating Right? If there's a hostage situation, they're negotiating, right? They're negotiating for lives, right? Which is a lot harder to keep people alive and safe and get a guy a lunatic with a gun to drop his gun and walk out. Man, that's a real art form, right? You know, that's a lot harder than getting a guy to write a check or selling, you know, the next sofa to someone, right? It's a lot harder, right? I've done a lot of reading about body language and and verbal skills and things like that. And so a lot of times I meet with someone and sometimes I might be on the phone with someone but I'm able to close my eyes and visualize what this person is saying, right? Cuz you can tell a lot, right? The energy and so that helps me. But I I uh and there's great motivational speakers and you know they all got something to say but um hasn't worked doesn't mean that it doesn't work for you. Uh for me I like to follow people that have actually like like I can see okay they built this. I want to know how they did this and what their thought process is. You know, when I you when I look at Alon Musk and you know his his calendar is 5 minutes at a time, that to me is like impressive. How do I get my calendar at 5 minutes at a time because I'm multitasking all day long. I'm sure you are too, right? And so things like that. All right, that's cool. So tell me about the furniture business. People would think the furniture business is boring and we've provided at Funkite a lot of funding to a lot of furniture companies. In fact, it's one of the I'd say top 30 industries that come to us for for funding. Um, you know, look, a lot of furniture stores have a hard time staying in business because the onlineers kill them, right? Amazon today, you know, you can get anything delivered relatively quickly. So, how is the furniture business? I mean, how do you find it today? Yeah, man. To me, you know, I haven't had those issues and I had these conversations all the time. You know, I didn't get into it traditionally to be honest. You know, two years ago, I was in a financial situation. Called a friend of mine who I used to sell during CO days. I sold and made a lot of money during CO and I called a friend of mine who was over a hospital and I said, "Hey man, I need to make 50K in like 30 days. What can I sell the hospital?" Couldn't figure it out for a week. And he called me back a week later and said, "Hey man, if you can get me a hundred patient recliners, it'll solve your problem." Wow. And I said, "Bro, what are you you talking about? I don't know anything about furniture. Like my background is tech. I'm an entrepreneur. I'll figure it out." Uh, make a long story short, we figured it out. Brought in a partner of mine cuz the hospital had net terms. So, I had to get the money up front, right? So, partner of mine. Oh. [laughter] So, we figured it out. Make a long story short, I net profit at 130,000. Wow. On my first uh deal. And then when I went out there, chairs were good. The recliners were good. Yeah. Yeah. We went we went through a friend who hospitals don't want good recliners. They want bad recliners so the patient stays there longer and they they want good. They want quality. You know, it's a good good depends on the hospital system. How did you get in 30? How many was how many recliners was it? 100 recliners. You knew nothing about recliners, right? Like seriously, especially for hospital, it's probably like a certain type of a recliner, right? It's got to meet like certain coding. I I would assume, right? Hygiene coding, whatever. And so that's wild. That's impressive. But we had I had to figure it out, man. I got a family. I have seven kids. [laughter] You know, we're a blended family for context. And you only brought one today. He's on he's on a college tour. No, he's on a college tour. But uh but no, man, we we we did that and but we went through somebody who had terms with a with a company called Drive Medical. So, you know, they So, you went after medical recliners? Yeah, medical recliners. And yeah, my buddy said, "Hey, man, you know, you can exit at 21,00 bucks. We don't care how much you get it for, just as you can exit." So, I got it for 500, exit at $18.99ish plus. Wow. You know, installation. And then that's how I met money. And then I flew out to Did you install the recliners yourself? Well, we hired a company. They did. So, we made money off the install as well as I learned. But anyway, I flew out to Virginia and met the CEO and she said, "Well, what else can you do for us?" And I'm like, "Well, um, well, what do you want?" I'm thinking about getting into waiting room design. I just threw it out there cuz I saw a website for like 5 minutes on waiting room design. So, I just blurted it out. Waiting room design. No, waiting room. Oh, waiting room for for hospitals. Waiting room design, furniture [clears throat] and stuff. And uh she said, "Well, we could start you out with one." I'm like, "Know nothing about it, but it's entrepreneur, right? We figure it out. We throw it out there. We figure it out." So then they just started You just made furniture glamorous. I did. Yeah, man. You just like the story is freaking amazing. The guy knows nothing about furniture and he's selling furniture to hospitals overnight cuz you need it to feed your family. My family. But again, that's part of my journey of having to figure it out. Yet you talked about failures. The failures of figuring it out. So when you said one where's the latest the failure is always having to figure it out. It's not just the one business. It's the strategy behind. It's the thought process, the failure. Sometimes the thinking process of what the [ __ ] am I supposed to be doing, right? So, for me, dude, I need to make 50,000 next week. I'm trying to think what I what what can I sell to who? No, I'm just kidding. But it's pretty impressive, man. That's wild. I didn't expect that. Thank you. I didn't expect that. And for me, it's not even, you know, even when you say it's impressive, I don't even still think about it. It's It's a better story than that. Well, it continued to grow. I mean, I I had to I didn't even know what it was called. the CEO, she kept ordering more and more furniture. I was complaining to my wife that I'm, "Baby, I'm making money selling furniture, but I'm a tech guy. What the hell is this?" And um I didn't even know what it was called. You know, I learned later that it was called a commercial contract furniture dealer. I didn't know what it was called. I was just making money. And uh so I went to an event in June, Chicago. It was called Neocon. That's where all the manufacturers kind of got together and I went there to go network and pick up what I I didn't even know it was called, dude. Lines, right? I didn't know it was called furniture. That's right. So, uh, so I'm on more on the commercial side, not retail. So, I'm still kind of like, it's still like arbitrage. It's still like drop ship. So, you know, I'm able to sell in bulk. So, I don't have to carry inventory, right? So, we're going out, we go after big accounts. So, if I go get a big, you know, and I use my relationships, my seuite relationships. I called all my friends and said, "Hey guys, don't laugh at me. I'm selling commercial furniture, but we can make a [ __ ] ton of money, right?" And I called my friends who I knew had relationships with procurement officers. I knew I wasn't in the business for a long time because as you know most people these are legacy companies they're passed down they're doing you leveraged your relationship friends to get going and and you said hey we can and what you just said is we can make money we can make money together cuz I knew my friends and everybody's about making money right it wasn't like I can make money by my [ __ ] we No we can all make money and we is what opened all the doors all the doors absolutely and we just kept growing growing growing you know year one we did like 3 million in sales which is cool but you know 15 million in our pipeline started learning more about manufacturing I manufactured started manufacturing my own recliner you know so learning about and then the margins in commercial furniture is incredible huge it's it's it's insane you know so as a dealer I get 40 to 60% off list price you know but as a manufacturer I manufacture OEM bring it from China 90% well I mean you have other costs right operational cost you know and but not much really because we outsource all our operation. So, what about warehousing? What do I have to warehouse? So, you're only buying to fill orders. You're not carrying any inventory at all. Oh, I love it. I get the purchase order. I get it financed from my finance company. They pay the vendor or manufacturer, you know, they give me once the product delivers, I get 85% of the PO. How big is your team? Um, less than five. Wow. We outsource the Philippines. So I found out that there's companies in Philippines who've been supporting legacy dealers for years, right? So again, I was still I was learning. So I'm traveling going to all the manufacturers facilities all around the country. They're teaching me. They knew I was young. Not a lot of African-Americans in commercial furniture. Talk about that. Not a lot. It's less than 1%. So it reminded me of when I got started in tech back in the day when there wasn't a lot of African-Americans in tech, you know. So um yeah, just interesting story, man. We don't have time on your podcast, but my story is is really interesting. Really interesting story, man. Again, I'm watching you. I'm listening to you. And you broke into stuff. You broke into industries that weren't the typical place where people try to find success, right? You went into furniture. Like, who thinks today about going into furniture, right? Unless you're third generation or, you know, something like who thinks about selling furniture or recliners to a hospital? Like, nobody, right? People try to, you know, it's all about technology, AI. People forget that there's still necessities that people are buying and it's a good business, right? What they call ugly businesses, right? But it's still ugly. Are pretty cool looking, man. [laughter] But no, man, it's really interesting because, you know, that's why I call my friends and said, "Don't laugh at me. We're selling furniture." Because they knew my background, you know. But, uh, it's the most rewarding, you know. So when I went to that event in June, I saw that, you know, it has they have their own designers. I was like, "Oh, it's like the fashion industry is just furniture." I remember meeting this one guy and he looked like Steve Jobs and he's pitching furniture. I'm like, "Why does this guy look like he should be at Tech Crunch Disrupt in Silicon Valley? Why is he here pitching this furniture?" So I said, "Hey man, you must have stock in this company." He said, "I acquired it." I'm like, why is this, you know, Steve Jobs looking guy here selling commercial? The the what do you not the beard? No, no, the the turtleneck. Yeah, the black turtleneck. No, he had the height. He looked tall anyway on I don't know how tall Steve Jobs was, but he looked tall. Yeah, he was just skinny. So, he looks taller. Skinny people always look taller. You noticed? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I try to. Yeah. Me, too. I try to. [laughter] I try to be skinny and I try to look taller. Right. So, if you're selling to corporate America, I mean, a lot of times you got to deal with net 30, net 60, right? So, on the one hand, you're you're making a sale, but you're not getting the money right away. On the other hand, you've got to pay your vendors that want to get paid. So, how do you manage that cash flow? And this is important to our audience. How do you manage that cash flow? Well, yeah. So, it's a balancing act, right? Yeah. So, for us, we we still got to remember you got a family to feed, right? Of course, you can't take money off the food, you know, you got to manage. And a lot of people do that. A lot of people make a mistake on how to manage cash flow, right? You don't get a medal for paying your bills early, right? Nobody gives a [ __ ] Just don't pay them late, right? So, tell me. Yeah. So, we we have a finance company who they take care of our vendors. So, when we get a purchase order, they pay our vendors and then I get 85% of the purchase order once I deliver the product. So the finance company's taking 15% off the top. No, no, no, no. It's like a factoring. Well, yeah. It's basically PO factoring. So for the audience, so basically the funding company pays my vendor, right? Um once we deliver the product, the purchase order factoring company pays us 85% of the commissions, right? Of course, they take back their fees or whatever. But when the hospital pays out, you know, that's when they pay out the remaining 15% minus their fees, right? Right. So, we don't have to front any money. I don't have to carry any lines of credit. Um, which is good though. I I I we could, but we just kind of You're you got a solid business where your exposure is limited. Now, what happens to you if the hospital never pays? We just haven't had that. Thank God. Right. Right. But if that happens, do you like look really well into the hospitals you sell to or like are they major? Uh cuz you know there's some a lot of hospitals go bankrupt too. You know we've had hospitals to come to us for funding and uh it's a tough business especially hospitals that are like private small hospitals with emergency rooms. They're like a disaster. They cuz they you can't turn somebody away that walks into an if you have an emergency room you've got to treat that person for sure. And there's a lot of small hospitals around the country that are private, not part of a big network or chain, and they have these emergency rooms, and man, like they they're in trouble. Yeah. So, they get rid of the emergency rooms. Got it. Well, we kind of lucked up, man. Our our hospital there 35 big chains, you know, big chain, big operations, you know, but we expanded. So, now, you know, we're doing hotels, we do affordable housing, furnishings for developers in New York, we do senior living, you know, anywhere there's commercial space, big business, huh? Yeah. you know, so anywhere it is commercial players in the senior living space, they do really really well. Yeah. So again, we just use our same strategy, who knows who, where, we still use that versus traditional sales. So we we even call private equity companies who are acquiring companies who, you know, they want to keep their bottom line tight. So you know, we try to be a good partner with them, you know, offer, you know, dependability, right? You know, across, you know, where they are. So again, we're just doing what we're good at and what we've learned that worked for us in other other sectors. So what do you tell a young kid who's uh working at UPS right now because it's stable, but you know, he's got dreams. Do you do you tell him go chase your dreams or stick to stability? He's got medical insurance. He's got a good job, you know, checks on time, no risk, right? The only risk is, you know, he may be delivering a package and a, you know, German Shepherd might be chasing his ass. But besides that, [snorts] it's stable. It's a real job. Nobody's firing you as long as you're doing good. But, you know, he's got a dream and he wants to do more and he wants to make more. What do you tell him? I would say he's nervous. He's nervous. Yeah, man. I I mean, when I was younger, I messed up. You know, I I had like the school of thought, man. Again, coming from the project trying to figure it out, man. Like everybody had ideas on what I should do. I didn't know what to do, man. So, I just I left work and as a young man and I made it harder for my parents because I felt like, oh, mom, I'm trying to chase my dream. I'm failing here, failing there. You're supposed to believe in me. You're supposed to come out of your pocket and help your son figure it out. Wrong way because I caused more problems for my family and me trying to figure it out. What I would do now is just use that job as your first investor. Still, you know, work on your dream. Like my son told me, "Hey, dad, I want to build my skills. you know, learn sales, learn AI, learn whatever skills to make yourself valuable, you know, into and create something until it maybe takes over, you know, your income, you know, just now. Or what I would have done if I wish I would have had a mentor that said, hey, instead of trying to do something from scratch, how about I teach you how to buy a business, right? That's what I would have done first. I tell my kids that let's buy something that's been around. Maybe we go SBA, you know, that's maybe your world, you know, maybe we get seller to finance some of it. Let's acquire a company. That's where my mind is now, man. Like I I wouldn't just That's what I would have done, but nobody I didn't have a mentor or anybody to tell me that or teach me that then. But now I'm obsessed with trying to acquire cash flowing companies. Wow. Good for you. If you like what you're listening to or just, you know, need a nice recliner, hit some comments, hit subscribe, let me know what your thoughts are. Um, you know, I try to bring in people that have an amazing story that we can share with business owners of all ages, no matter what they do. Help them get faster to where you want to get to and avoid the pitfalls and the mistakes. You're still going to have your failures. That's you got to have some failures. You got to be wrong sometime. But, um, you know, but, uh, fascinating story. Yeah. Wow. just I I I would say like to your audience at least for me what's worked for me is creative thinking and you know what I learned early is look at what other people are doing and sometimes do the complete opposite and a lot of even when I got in tech you know in the world of tech man you know when you we we would raise capital the whole hype would be around raising money but not really making money is not what you make right yeah which is and I got caught in that crazy bubble like oh we raised this like nobody gives a yeah at the end of the day man What what's your business? Making money does nothing. It's making money. It's making money, right? It's not raising, it's making. Yeah. So, I would say be creative. Like the way I raised money for my first business, I went to a multi-million dollar company and said, "Hey, if I created this app, would you distribute this app to a million of your sales reps around the world?" They said yes. I got anou from the CEO and I took it to a group group of investors. I got my first quarter million dollars. I didn't even have an app yet. So, again, that wasn't it didn't come from a tech person. It didn't come from an accelerator. that came from coming from where we came from having to figure it out. So for me it continued to furniture. That's what failures. We didn't have the tools that people today to figure it out, right? Yeah. You didn't We didn't have Yeah. We didn't have You didn't have all this internet, all this technology. And that's the thing that people need to take time to get the answers on questions or procedures or processes or how to get things done that they're not sure about. Take some time out. I say people look take a break. Take slow down because you're going to go too fast and you know you're going to hit a wall because you're not taking the time to plan and strategize and there's so many tools out there today. There are certainly technology tools, internet, but there are also people I'm sure that if a young entrepreneur called you and said, "Hey, Terry, you know, I'm thinking of doing something like this." You wouldn't give him 5 minutes or 10 minutes and listen to him out and give him some advice? I'm sure you would. Of course, I would. I do it all the time, right? And that's about giving back, right? This is This program is about giving back. Amazing. Amazing. We need to give back. We need to help people succeed, be happy, cuz you know, success actually brings happiness. You're not you're less angry, right? And you know, I want everybody to do well. I'm sure you do, too. I mean, I I could see that in your energy, you know. Um, okay. So, you've got this really successful vision business. Um are you do you have days that you're you know you pinch yourself and say is this still real or I mean you know like are you how do you keep it real because you have to be grounded because you know fast growth and success sometimes distorts the reality and that's how people really get in trouble. So how do you keep yourself in check in balance to make sure that you're moving forward but you know you're you're you're not risking what you've built. Let me tell you, man. Brother, am I phrasing this wrong? No, that's good. Let me tell you. I I've had so many failures. I'm not even impressed by money anymore. I know it sounds weird. It is It's just not, man. I You know, people that know me during lost so much. We've been homeless for a minute. Like, imagine you're a sports guy kind of, right? You say not really kind. Really? You know, one of my buddies Mo knows Kino Moy played in NBA for 11 years like a big brother to me. He always said he saw himself, he already seen himself in the league. Yeah. And so when you see yourself there, when you actually get there, like you're supposed to been there, right? So it doesn't the money part is just like we're supposed to have this. When I teach my kids, you know, just like if you came from a family who had wealth, right? So if your kids, you know, again, I don't know your money. I'm just saying if you worth $100 million and your kids are used to that, right? They're not going to be My kids work hard. Yeah. I I didn't come from money. We're we're immigrants. We all had to work hard. Like it's I mean 9 at 9 years old I was working at the flea market with my dad to make ends meet when we came here. So no I didn't come from money. No I wasn't saying you know I know but I'm just saying that and that's the problem. Right. Because a lot of people today didn't go through what you and I went through. Right. Right. So they don't they can't you know relate. They can't relate to hard times. Hard hard times builds character. Failure builds character. what you do with your failure really. You know, some people never rebound and stuff like that. Yeah. You know, when we were living in the in low-inccome low-inccome housing, I seen my mother. My mother painted on the oil trucks to provide for us. My mother just didn't take, you know, the the handouts. She was out there. She was an artist. She used her hands to make money. So, my mother taught me the value of going out there and and figuring it out. She was like, "Son, figure it out." Do you think um for the young people that might be watching this or what industries would you tell people to stay away from today? What do you think is oversaturated? Because there's stuff that I see that you know everybody's going like right now everybody's oh I got to build some AI technology this this this like you know there are trends there are phases right and people neglect the stuff we really need like furniture it's crazy like I say what's the best business being an electrician or HVAC man everybody's going to need their water running or the light bulb on 100% I mean I think the future gazillionaires in this country are electricians Yeah, people don't understand that. Yeah, I think I think one of the things I would say that we probably could be doing instead of just going off on the AI rant is to find the type of companies you just mentioned and then maybe put AI inside of those companies. That's why I like the whole acquisition or rollup concept, put AI inside of that. Okay, what are private equities companies? What are they buying? So, let's build something to our own portfolio and then maybe, you know, sell our portfolio to the private equity companies. So that's why I said I to me I'm I'm more of a strategic guy, right? Even if I'm raising capital for me is if I'm pitching a business, I'm going to call every private equity company and say, you know, what are your boxes? So I'm not going to just shoot anything. What are your buy boxes? Where are you investing in? Then I'm going to go find the thing. It's just it it's buy it's supply and demand. The opportunity supply and demand opportunity is really there, right? You got to go just ask the right questions and get the answers. And then if you have that cuz if you could what you're saying is somebody's giving me a blueprint. I just got to ask for it. People don't know that. Yeah. Just go ask what are you investing in? What are you buying? Okay. If I go find the thing, will you buy the thing? Right. Like to me that's how simple it has to. See what you're saying is let me find the buyer first and then I'll go find the thing to sell them. Right. A lot of people create stuff and then they try to sell. Right. You might not have a pretty amazing approach, man. You might, you know, again, you just have to be, again, that may not work for everybody, right? Right. Again, this is from just my line of time. And my wife would be like, "Baby, you're spending too much time on this thing." Now, how do we figure How do we make sure this is something people want, right? Because again, you know, I'm in a different situation. I'm not a young guy. I have I have a family. Oh, stop. You're a young guy, man. Please. You know, you want the You know, I got grades. I just got the black stuff in here for the or something. You're a young guy. You got good energy. You got a long life ahead of you. I appreciate it. And uh yeah, I appreciate it. I want to thank you, man. This was really amazing. Never in a million years would people think that furniture business can be very profitable or any business without having a plant, without having a warehouse, without having anything but just bridging buyers and sellers and getting the right funding to help support that. And you're like, you could do a master class on that now. I appreciate it. Thank you so much for my guy. Thank you, man. This is great. No, thank you, man.