Transcript

Building a network of mentors, with Cadre’s Ryan Williams

Free .txt

0:01 The very best founders I know are brilliant at building systems. They connect teams, they remove bottlenecks, and they eliminate single points of failure. And yet When it comes to their own wealth. Most are running a disconnected stack. A tax accountant here and a state attorney there, a wealth manager who doesn't talk to either one of them.

0:22 Creative planning was built to fix exactly that. One integrated team of tax professionals, state planners, investment specialists, all coordinated by a dedicated wealth manager who sees your full financial picture and keeps every piece working together. Proactive tax efficiency, state strategy, investments all under one roof. Creative planning where wealth works together. Learn more at creative planning dot com slash masters of scale.

0:53 Hey folks, Jeff Berman here. I am thrilled to share some of the new names who will be joining us at this year's Masters of Scale summit. This may be our biggest stage yet. Reed Hastings, Meredith Whitaker, Van Jones, Amjad Masad, and more. Will be there with us October 20th through 22nd in San Francisco. If you're building something great, or you want to build something great, We want you there with us too.

1:20 Join us at masters of scale dot com slash apply twenty six. That's mastersofscom slash apply. Twenty six. In the midst of the great financial crisis. I went down to Atlanta with my roommate.

1:39 Visited his neighborhood, and his neighborhood was completely ravaged by More closures. Ryan Williams was still a college student when he saw firsthand the impact of the two thousand eight housing crash. There was the idea and the opportunity right there. I said, Well What if we could start?

2:00 buying some of these homes. They're neighborhoods we know. There. people in communities that may have been prone to subprime predatory lending. Let's give him a second shot at, you know, the American dream and raised money from some classmates.

2:13 Bought a few homes. Brent them back out to people in the community. And ended up selling back one of the homes to one of the previous owners. And from there, you know, my passion for real estate really blossomed. Yeah.

2:29 Ryan saw a way to help the community and gain experience as an investor. This week he shares how he founded a company to take on entrenched competition in the real estate market. What he learned when that business was swept into the spotlight. and why he eventually decided to exit.

2:48 You gotta have incredible talent at every position. It's like this huge push. There are fires burning when you're going out. Can you believe it? And then you go back to this is totally gonna be amazing. There are so many easy ways. I have no idea what to do. Sorry, we made a mistake. But you have to time it right. Oops, working out of a three-bedroom apartment. Ten years later, but well that's just how you do it. We haven't made it just how you do it. This is masters of scale. I'm Jeff Berman.

3:26 Your host. Ryan founded Cadre in two thousand fourteen. It's a tech powered commercial real estate investment platform. And that may not sound like the most exciting thing you've ever heard about. But he sold the business recently.

3:40 It's a sweat driven story of an entrepreneur who started way back. When he was a teenager. Ryan, welcome to Masters of Scale. Thank you for having me. I'm excited to be here. Great to have you here. Like a lot of our guests, you started your entrepreneurial journey early. Can you tell us about Your first four A's into being an entrepreneur.

4:06 Yeah, absolutely. My um Earliest days. We're in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, which is where I was born. And Yeah, Bat Rouge is a city that's divided and historically has been divided physically and economically. But despite those divisions, what I saw at least was

4:22 opportunity and a lot of people who are making the best out of challenging situations. It's so when I think about Entrepreneurship. That's sort of the lens that I always saw the world through, which is there's always gonna be barriers, there's always gonna be Challenge is ahead of you. You know, but I saw so many examples of people prospering despite that adversity and figuring out creative ways to address some of the challenging circumstances they were in.

4:44 And so for me, entrepreneurship is really a a state of mind. I had so many endeavors that didn't work out. I actually tried to start a a local sort of bait and tackle shop up selling worms to people and that didn't work out. Largely because no one knew who this little kid was trying to sell this kind of product. Uh and so the first real venture was my personalized sports apparel business where I was selling these custom headbands and wristbands and again, born out of a pain point, couldn't afford the Nike or the Adidas or the Jordan headbands and wristbands. How old are you when you when you do this? I was thirteen. Okay. Yeah. And so I went to local wholesale garment district. I bought you know these Terry cloth headbands and wristbands initially were just for me because I want to have some kind of design or logos that looked somewhat like the Nike's of the day. But then teammates said, Where'd you get these? And

5:30 I you know, obviously didn't let him know what my my connection was, but I told him, you know, I could Provide same kind of access to them and you know, maybe charge a little bit of a markup and that's what I did and actually made decent money, I mean hundreds of dollars. But It uh showed me that there was a a market here and Find a local embroiderer. decided to start customizing these headbands and wristbands, I'd ask, you know, what's your favorite, you know, slogan or your team name or your number.

5:53 reach out to my embroiderer within twenty four hours have custom embroidered headband or wristband and um I actually started really growing the business throughout the state and throughout the region and caught the eyes of a nonprofit called the National Foundation for Teaching Entrepreneurship or NIFD, which is based out here in New York. They said, you know, we heard about this business you have. Would you be interested in applying to our national business plan competition? You can wear win a grant, you can come to New York City. And did you like go and Google to figure out how to do a business plan? Like how that's it must probably be like Alta Vista, whatever the search engine was at the time, but I I brought the only suit I had. which was uh weird church and ended up

6:30 going through the pitch, the presentation, one first place, one a ten thousand dollar grant. And Most important for me was I got access to mentors. who saw more in me than I saw myself. And it was their urging that led me to Harvard.

6:45 Which uh was, you know, a huge inflection point, first one in my family to go. From there. Yeah, things really took off for me. So let's talk about cadre. If you could explain in simple terms what is cadre. Yeah, Cadre is a technology driven real estate investment platform. I started the business to democratize access to real estate and ultimately alternative investments. And you know, it's a platform where people can log in, they can invest in either single real estate properties or in portfolios that our team curates for them. And the idea behind Cadre came to me.

7:17 After spending time sitting at some of the most well known institutions, Blackstone and Goldman Sachs. seeing how much money and wealth was being created, but for a relatively small part of our global economy and questioning of you know why is this the way of the world? Why can only the one percent of the one percent benefit And so I decided to build a business that would be akin to a Blackstone. but with the tech stack behind it for the masses. It's a platform so that if you're an investor who can't afford a

7:45 twenty million dollar building or a hundred million dollar building, whatever, you can actually do fractional ownership similar to buying into the stock of a company. One of the companies that they arrived a couple years before us, but that I spent a lot of time with early on was Robinhood. And so in in many ways, Robinhood was able to do in the equities market we aspired to do in the alternative space as well. Yeah. And so the origin of the idea, I appreciate the inspiration and being able to see at Blackstone and Goldman how much wealth is created for the one one hundredth of one percent. But why real estate Why this direction? What was the spark of inspiration for you on this? To know why real estate gotta go back to that those college years.

8:26 Financial services. Centre capital. private equity. I started doing a ton of research on those spaces. So what I recognized quickly was that there really wasn't a way for undergraduates, especially those who, you know, didn't come from the finance world. to get smart in these spaces. Um and you know, real estate really resonated with me because I never owned real estate. My family didn't growing up, but it was always around me. And so I had a curiosity about it. And so the more time I spent learning about it, the more I realized that it was the most important asset class to own to build long term wealth. Yet very few people were able to actually Own it.

8:58 Especially people such as myself. And so it was a a curiosity. I built a curriculum. I recruit some Harvard business school professors to teach the curriculum, which again hindsight was crazy. Just to be clear, you are a freshman at Harvard. This is a a very much a fish out of water in terms of like this is all very new for me. I'm not seeing the things that I want to learn. So I'm gonna do the research myself, develop a curriculum, and then I'm gonna just show up. and hang out outside the door of the Harvard Business School professors until I find one who says I like it. Yes. Yes. That's right. That's right. Fearlessness. And and you know, it's interesting because again, it goes back to what my grandfather said. What's the worst thing that can happen? People say no. Um and a lot of people did say no. But you know I

9:40 been in the entrepreneurial world. I was used to being rejected. Right. People said no to your worms at the time. And they said no to almost every other concept that I had thought of. And um it takes, you know, as an entrepreneur a really, really strong will. And so um I I knew all I needed was two to three Professors who say yes. We believe in this concept and we think others should be able to learn some of these concepts so that they can go off to real estate careers and have the same opportunities that people who come from that network. So this was the kernel of the idea for Cadre. This was the kernel of my passion and real estate. Um so this was where I found and I learned how lucrative real estate could be. There's a professor named Arthur Siegel, who was a renowned HBS professor in real estate who taught

10:23 the real estate curriculum I developed. And I'd spend time with him after class. And he would always say, Ryan, the best way to get into real estate is to get into real estate. And it's nice to have the theory, it's nice to understand, you know, cap rates and all the concepts. You're you're not really immersed in it until you actually or investing or in owning or part of a a real estate firm. And uh and so that just stuck with me, you know, and and you know, I was like, I'd love to figure out how to get involved. the next year was the great financial crisis. Um and so you know I believe that Timing is everything. And you know that.

10:56 period of time. Challenges for so many people, but also opportunity. Yeah. And so uh in the midst of the great financial crisis, I went down to Atlanta with my roommate. visited his neighborhood and his neighborhood was completely ravaged by foreclosures. And full of subprime and subprime. I mean his own home was up for being uh foreclosed and had gone to the short sale process and so There was the idea and the opportunity right there. I said, Well, what if we could start

11:24 buying some of these homes. They're neighborhoods we know. No, they're people and communities that, you know, have had a hard go at life in a lot of ways and may have been prone to subprime predatory lending. Let's give him a second shot at, you know, the American dream and raised money from some classmates. bought a few homes, rented them back out to people in the community and uh

11:43 Ended up selling One of the homes to one of the Previous owners. made three times our money. Wow. And from there, you know, my passion for real estate really blossomed. We started buying more homes, thousands of units we acquired. Now this was sort of my night job. My day job was working in finance to pay off my student loans. And I got to a point where I had enough belief and conviction in you know the understanding of real estate. to say you know what, now is time to take the next

12:10 Step in my journey. Wha what was that inflection point? Was there a moment where you said, Okay, I I've got enough confidence, I'm far enough along where I can leave finance and go do this? After after my first year at Blackstone, in their real estate private equity group, I saw what they were doing. thousands of homes, you know, on a weekly basis. I was buying one or two maybe on a quarterly basis. And so I was like, I didn't necessarily have the same level of Believe that the investing that we were doing was going to accrue to the benefit of the community, the same way that if I were to have invested in a community, I know I care about both doing well and doing good.

12:43 For a lot of people in the situation who Made it to Harvard. I've made it to Blackstone. I mean, we're doing pretty well right here. And you've got this drive and you've got this idea. They might say, I'm gonna be an entrepreneur. I'm I'm gonna do this at Blackstone. I've got the security of Blackstone behind me. What gave you the confidence and the impetus to say

13:03 I'm out. Like I'm gonna go do this on my own and not do this here. I decided that, you know, I had done well enough financially. I wasn't gonna optimize just for the next dollar. And instead I want to have an impact. And and also I If I didn't go out and build this

13:18 kind of business. You know, I regret it down the line, number one, but number two, someone who may not have the same goals and mission, you know, in terms of promoting self determination amongst the underserved, which is kind of like my my founding principle. And um and I always said like, you know, in order to get unconventional outcomes, you have to do unconventional things. So you're at Blackstone, you see this opportunity, and what are the steps you have to take to actually jump you know, the next step for me was to figure out, you know, how do I build an MVP? How do I build a product where it's easy for people to log in and invest in real estate projects. So my second year Blackstone By night, you know, I was building out my business plan and building out the first version of the product and an MVP. And so did you have a technical co founder? Are you coding I don't wanna uh hype up, you know, how dynamic it was, but they were very uh immersive dynamic wireframes. But yeah, the first version of the product and the platform I built.

14:09 The first Actual asset. was an asset that I was able to secure vis a vis a relationship with Jared Cushner, who was one of my earliest partners as well. And then the investor base those who are buying fractional stakes from my network and then from friends and family who I'd gotten to know as well over years. So we kind of built proof of concept.

14:29 And uh you know, at the time too, this idea of technology, which is hard to believe'cause this was twenty fourteen, but the idea of technology changing real estate was still crazy to a lot of people. Pop tech, fin tech, these were still, you know, slogans and phrases that people sort of laughed at, you know. And so in a lot of ways we were very early, which is probably one of the reasons why the folks at Blackstone were were supportive that I was not going to a competitor and instead, you know, was taking this moonshot. But I think in a lot of ways it it was eating at some of the core. Principles of the business of the time. More with Ryan Williams on his decision to exit Cadre.

15:04 In just a minute. Yeah. Hey listeners, Bob here. If you listen to Rapid Response on Masters of Scale, you may be missing half the show. Because every Friday we release a second Rapid Response exclusively in the Rapid Response feed. The guests and topics are just as compelling and timely from Ford's CEO to NASA's administrator to the lessons from The Devil Wears Prada. It takes about

15:43 10 seconds to find, just search rapid response wherever you listen to podcasts and hit follow to make sure you never miss an episode. I hope to see you there. Humans will never be more intelligent than AI. There's gonna be two types of companies. Those were great at AI and those that went out of business because they weren't. How do we build a future? That is human centered.

16:09 I'm Rana El Khayubi. And on my podcast Pioneers of AI, we answer that question and so many more. As an AI scientist, entrepreneur, and investor, I know what it takes to build AI that works for everyone. Every week, I sit down with the pioneers shaping our future, and we take you behind the scenes of the AI that's transforming our lives. Find pioneers of AI wherever you tune in. Welcome back to Masters of Scale. You can find this conversation and more on our YouTube channel.

16:44 I wanted to hear more about how Ryan built Cadre's client base. He had a much more complex offering to market than say a consumer product. The B to B. Which is really what I

16:58 And in the B to B as C business as well. Yeah, it's a it's a very different playbook, especially when the underlying industry is one that is used to everything being analog offline relationship based. And so my approach to scaling the business was a little counterintuitive, which was start at the top. Of You know, the um

17:19 customer pyramid, if you will, like with the most sophisticated, discerning, analog offline potential partners, but also the ones that have the most gravitas and the most trust. What's an example? Goldman Sachs. And good example. Right. Exactly. And so you know, you think of Goldman, you think of this behemoth, and you think of this institution that is relatively slow moving in the scheme of technology companies. You think of, you know, a lot of domain understanding and expertise and investing. And what I wanted to do is build a a moat. Around some of these highly sophisticated partners from a distribution standpoint, get them to buy into the concept.

17:54 get them to distribute our product to their clients. And from there, I thought you could then go down the kind of customer pyramid, if you will, to a wider, you know, range of investors that uh maybe didn't have all the quote unquote sophistication. all the infrastructure that someone like Goleman had but would look at Goldman as a you know social proof point. Right. So that meant the sales cycles for getting some of these partners to bring their clients onto our platform to invest were much, much longer. So as an investor V C, you've got to be willing, you know, to understand that this is more of a marathon, a fast marathon. It's not a sprint. And the rewards from a lot of that investment early on in building, you know, an infrastructure that

18:34 Is trusted, credible, um, that has all the safeguards you would want in place, that's a well curated platform will pay dividends down the line. And so after a lot of conversations with folks like Goldman and JP Morgan and Ford Foundation, some of these bigger institutional clients. We ended up Winning if you

18:53 contracts and we were able to strike some partnerships in less than two years since I started the business with some of the biggest names in the financial services world. And once we've got those investors to say, you know what, this is a really unique way to give our clients access to real estate at smaller fractional bite sizes with liquidity. than being able to go to independent advisors and direct to individuals became infinitely easier.

19:18 But the muscle that you've at least we had to be able to build was you know, we needed to have a really clear playbook. for these longer sales cycle. meetings and engagements where we knew what meeting one was gonna need to look like to hook these investors on the the concept of what we were looking to do, the value proposition. We knew that we were need to meet them in person, you know, because it was very much relationship business. We had one shot at

19:42 technology demos and giving them a view into what this would entail because there's already skepticism. And then there's an ongoing client relations management side of this as well, where we had to bring on domain experts who could cultivate those relationships. And so we we spent the first few years building a highly concentrated base of significant whales, if you will. I like to use the fish and whales analogy. Um and we were able to get those investors to say yes, we believe in this business, we believe in the product, and it really differentiated the brand. Were the Goldmans committing minimum dollars to be invested as part of these deals? And then they were passing on the opportunity to their clients and they just knew that they could fill up to that number. So what we do with Goldman, which

20:24 As far as I know, hasn't been replicated. We secured a two hundred fifty million dollar commitment from Goldman. You know, the institution. Yep. And then they had about a thousand Subadvisors and clients. bel beneath that commitment. And those were the individuals that ultimately owned fractional stakes in the uh the properties or the portfolios that we built for them. Right. And so um I would say, you know, it was really building that critical mass of high impact. you know, large enterprise like clients that gave us the ability to then

20:53 open up access, you know, to a wider range of folks from a position of trust. One of the most unexpected challenges Kadre faced was around media attention received during the first Trump term. Because one of its earliest investors was Jared Cushner. who suddenly had a role in the White House. Which might have created conflicts of interest.

21:12 We got a lot of attention. Wasn't necessarily for w what I thought the reason would be. And I guess taking a step back. Josh and I were in school together. He's a couple of years ahead of me. And Jared had been really supportive in one of my real estate businesses and also on a personal level. And so I got to know them in a very different context in the world. has seemingly gotten to know them, they were still relatively early in their careers. And so when I was thinking about partners and um thinking about the kind of people I want to work with, No those two off the bat.

21:41 checked every box. And so my experience with them has been incredible. I never anticipated the geopolitical focus on the business. I always made it clear to Jared and to Josh that You know, I had certain principles and values and you know, those values Or

21:58 for me, values I would never forsake and I would never concede on in any way, shape, or form, respect, integrity, transparency, empathy. These are all things, you know, that I was raised with and in all my experiences and in in times with them. Th there was a genuine respect for those values. We didn't always agree on everything. Um and I don't even think, you know, Jared and Josh agree on everything, but what we did agree on was we wanted to do what was best for for Cadre and to move the business forward because it was a company we all had a deep passion for. And so, you know, it led to You know, everyone in a lot of different ways making selfless decisions. You know, Jared extracting himself from the business when he went down to DC when he had, you know, brought so many of his relationships under the tent. Josh Encouraging me, you know, to

22:44 Find my voice and speak truth to power when there were things that I saw that I didn't agree with. Especially in light of George Floyd's murder in twenty twenty. And uh I would say overall, like our company and our team grew from that experience and from having so many connected, politically connected partners because it wasn't just Jared and Josh. We also had the Soros family was one of our biggest backstop partners and Mark Cuban who I communicated with on a weekly basis. So we had the whole full political spectrum, but Jared and Josh were there from the early days and for me, my relationship with them preceded, you know, all of the media focus. How did you deal with some of the negative attention that this has brought to you? So first thing I would say is I I was very naive.

23:25 About the media world. Yeah, I probably in hindsight could have gotten ahead of some things earlier, but you know, you can spend all your time managing media and then, you know, the business suffers. And so I uh I had some incredible mentors who I went to Whenever there was a a story on the horizon. Who were some of those mentors? Um People

23:43 Uh Like Vinod Kosla, you know, who I would I would talk to. Uh and Vinod was great in that he gave me this advice That still resonates with me today, which is The most important attribute in his mind of an entrepreneur is who do you listen to for what advice and

23:59 Um, that's a muscle as well. Right. Take time. Um because early on, you know, it's sort of a uh trial and error. You you listen to one person who gave you certain advice on on one concept or theme and And you realise it was not the right person to listen to. And so when I did was I I built, you know, I guess a little cadre, if you will, of of advisors around me who I knew would be great, you know, for certain challenges. And Vinode was super helpful as it related to managing the team and

24:27 keeping everyone focused in house while you know there were media stories in the business. I spoke. and spent a lot of time with Michael Ovitz as well. And seen his share of controversies he's had to deal with. Right. And Michael was great as well with Making sure I kept my head on straight, you know, and I focused on the main thing, which was making sure our business continued to scale in a cheap product market fit. And then I actually talked with Josh

24:51 Kushner a lot as well, too. And Josh, you know, had a very unique perspective, obviously being in his seat, but was incredibly supportive throughout. And so I again I consider myself really fortunate that Yeah, th despite all of the the craziness that came with being a CEO and a founder plus at that time. I had this network of people around who cared about me. One of the things I learned from that experience is um

25:15 You can never overcommunicate. to your key stakeholders. And so I had to get in front of it. I had to stand in front of the company and say, Hey You know, tomorrow This is gonna be something that's out. Here's the truth of the matter.

25:26 Let's stay focused. I'm carving out six hours of my day for one on ones. If anybody wants to talk with me about, you know, anything that's bothering them or they're excited about, I'm here for you. And that was like a a leadership. evolution that I had to to develop. And it's it sounds deeply consistent with your personal values. Transparency, openness, right? And you know, you were creating opportunities for yourself to talk to the people you wanted to get to, and you're giving that opportunity to your team to say, I'm here. Right. The list of advisor names is a is just a who's who Is there a a a a secret that you want to pass on to people about how to build that level of a set of advisors? What I would say to people that want to build that kind of cohort of of

26:08 Domain experts. it's got to be a symbiotic relationship. You know, you there has to be something you're bringing to the table. You can't come with your your hands open every single time asking for something. So for me, you know, as I thought about some of the investors, other than investing in the business, which is great It was also keeping people Close to certain themes and trends that I saw in real estate or alternatives. You know, sharing with them insights that I saw that might be helpful for them.

26:33 Sharing perspectives. about other founders, you know, that were emerging that I had gotten to know that I thought would be interesting for them interesting for them to get to speak with. And then just making sure, you know, you deliver on what you say you're going to do. Um so for me it was Uh following up the communications uh what those were Weekly email updates on how the business was doing. ask that I had of people, but then also insights I wanted to share. It was just about being consistent and

26:58 you know, ensuring you held yourself accountable as well in those in those dynamics. And then to the extent that you deliver on one those engagements, it becomes like a snowball, you know, and this person's, Oh, I really would love to connect you to this person and this person. And you know, before you know it, you're you've been able to build a a really strong group around you. But I I think so often People look at those Dynamics as

27:18 transactions in a lot of ways because they're like, Okay, what can I actually bring? And there's a lot, you know, that you know people can share that you might not necessarily think is valuable to hear, but you know, some of these Folks who who are in kind of high places actually enjoy learning about. So you you mentioned landing the cadre plane in a way that was successful for your investors and your your stakeholders. Why did you decide to sell the company? So I um it was one of the toughest decisions, you know, I've ever had to make. It was challenging because

27:48 I I I think that in so many ways, you know, your identity can become inextricably linked with what you do in your profession. And for me, I saw that. Certainly happening. So when I started the business the vision was

28:01 Democratizing alternative investments. Real estate was the beachhead product. The pandemic was sort of a a shot in the arm in that It um showed me the importance of diversity and diversification. And so the question for me was How do I most efficiently diversify our business such that we have multiple business lines that can endure

28:21 on any market condition. So there are two paths that we could take. One was we could go out and we could raise additional capital to build other mini cadres, you know credit and uh private equity and you know farmland and infrastructure. Or we could partner. And The building path in my mind uh was a much longer path. It was a more expensive path just given where the the markets were. And it was a a less certain path in a lot of different ways. The partner path was really interesting because we had so many inbounds from

28:50 large institutions that were interested in, you know, what we were building and in doing, um in acquiring the business. And we had interest from other fin tech and consumer tech platforms as well. What I wanted to optimize for was a partner that could allow us to diversify our product offerings as well as a distribution. And a partner that had mission alignment because yes, we could go work with, you know, you name your big institution, but you know, at the end of the day, it's it's not necessarily a guarantee that why I started the business would be uh what they were. You may be selling your soul along with your company. Exactly. Exactly. You probably are. And so fortunately for me, I'd engaged with company Yield Street. many, many moons before I got to know the the founders really, really well. And we both had alignment on the mission. We both cared about broadening access to alternatives. They took a different approach. They focus much more on the retail investor base from the outset. They focus much more on sort of credit and debt oriented products. But it was a perfect compliment. And so after spending some time with

29:48 The founders, some mutual shareholders and investors, we agreed to join combined forces and technically sell the business in what at the time was the largest transaction of that year in FinTechland. I'm proud of the team who really led a lot of the blocking and tacking and of getting what was a a complicated transaction done in an environment where there really wasn't much MA happening. I'm really grateful for all the investors that believed in me and and had conviction despite, you know, some saying, stay the path, stay standalone. But it had been a decade, you know, since I started Cadre. You know, this was a a really great way for me to um you know leave an impact the market ultimately

30:26 uh fulfill the promise of of why I founded the business. So what's next? So Landed that plane. I'm just starting to think about takeoff for my next journey. It will be Uh a company.

30:38 That is um Yeah at the cross section of financial services and technology. I'm spending a lot of time now. Speaking with. Potential clients, customers, doing all the fun due diligence, as well as prospective investors in the business.

30:51 You know, I'm I'm excited about applying the learnings. A lot of people are like Ryan, aren't you gonna take some downtime and you know, it's it's actually somewhat therapeutic to be able to apply the learnings from decisions I made that work out and that didn't into what's to come next. And I wanna focus I'm working people that I um I share values with that I I care about that have the same incentives, you know, as I do in terms of you know financial as well as mission, you know, and build on what you know I've been able to do. But I'm an entrepreneur through and through and to your point earlier, that that's where I feel most fulfilled, that zero to one phase and and you know I I love to

31:27 be in the midst of ambiguity and absorb it. You know, and to me that's uh that's the essence of entrepreneurship. No, we can't wait to have you back on to talk about the new thing. Thank you for having me. Appreciate you. Thank you. Ryan's resilience and drive have already helped him scale one business from scratch. His story is a testament to the power of building and nurturing a network. When you sit in person with Ryan, you can feel this energy. It's different with some entrepreneurs than others.

31:59 He exudes it. You want to root for him. You believe in him. You're excited about whatever he's talking about. I can't wait to see what he does next.

32:12 And hopefully have him back on Masters of Scale to talk about it. I'm Jeff Berman. Thank you for listening. Masters of Scales A Wait What original. Our executive producer is Eve Tro. Our senior producer is Trisha Bobida. The production team includes Tucker Legersy, Masha Makatanina, Brandon Klein, and Timothy Lou Lee.

32:54 Our senior talent executive is Stephanie Stern, mixing and mastering by Aaron Bastanelli and Brian Pugh. Original music by Ryan Holiday. Our head of podcasts is the tall Molad. Visit masters of scale dot com to find the transcript for this episode and to subscribe to our newsletter.