July 4, 2023

#164 Solving the Equity Split Puzzle with Mike Moyer

#164 Solving the Equity Split Puzzle with Mike Moyer

Get ready for an invigorating conversation with seasoned entrepreneur and professor, Mike Moyer. We dissect the common traps new entrepreneurs fall into when navigating the maze of equity splitting. Allow Mike to guide you with his wealth of knowledge gathered from years of hands-on experience, and empower you to say goodbye to the pitfalls of fixed splits and the myth that any agreement signifies fairness. This chat is a must-listen for anyone embarking on the startup journey, eager to avoid common equity-splitting mistakes, and keen to understand the benefits of safe agreements and convertible notes.

 

Listen closely as Mike reflects on a past project that didn't quite hit the mark, turning it into a valuable lesson for future endeavors. We delve into the importance of meticulous market research before pouring resources into a venture and unwrap the intricacies of LLC agreements. Get an introduction to Mike's brainchild, the slicing pie method—an innovative approach to equity splitting, and hear about his much-acclaimed book, The Slicing Pie Handbook. This guide is a lifesaver for entrepreneurs looking to navigate the choppy waters of equity splitting.

 

We also discuss the importance of accurately tracking your equity and contributions within a startup, where Mike graciously imparts invaluable advice. Glean insights into bootstrapping your startup for as long as feasible and get a glimpse into the merits of understanding the industry whilst working for someone else. If you're an aspiring entrepreneur, Mike's advice on setting goals and cultivating a passion for your product is sure to strike a chord. So, sit back, listen, and let us do the hard work of getting you the wisdom of the business world straight from the horse's mouth!

 

Learn more about the Slicing Pie here: https://slicingpie.com/

Learn more about Mike here: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mikemoyer/

 

Sponsors:

S3M Security, the leading provider of Network Access Control & IOT Security. Check them out at https://s3msecurity.com/

Transcript

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0:00:02 - Speaker 1
Welcome back to a new episode of the CTO show with Mehmet. Today, i'm very pleased to have with me a professor who is specialized in entrepreneurship and startups. I have with me today Mike Moyer. Mike, thank you very much for being on the show today. Can you just tell us a little bit more about yourself and what you are up to? 

0:00:27 - Speaker 2
Sure, i live in the Chicago area just north of Chicago, and I joined a professor of entrepreneurship at Northwestern University, which is in Evanston Illinois. Later I teach principles of entrepreneurship, marketing for entrepreneurs. I taught a new branding class this quarter And besides that I operate a couple of companies. One is a technology company where I do software as a service, and the other is a camping gear company And I do sporting goods and things like that, and I basically spent my career kind of going from real job to startup job to real job to starting job. Eventually, about 10 years ago, i disconnected myself from that cycle. I just do random startup jobs now. 

0:01:11 - Speaker 1
Great, great, we'll come again to the show. Mike, i want to start with the book you wrote, slicing Pie, and I know it's considered a valuable resource for every startup founder who's getting some co-founders with him in splitting equity in their startups. Can you discuss some of the most common mistakes new entrepreneurs make when dealing with this issue specifically and how you came up with the Slicing Pie model? 

0:01:44 - Speaker 2
Sure. One of the things that I noticed early on in my career is that this there was sort of a false sense of value created when a startup was made. So you create a startup and then all of a sudden you think it's worth millions of dollars And so if I give you 10% of it I just gave you $100,000 for doing nothing, so it's so if I feel very generous doing that. So when I dole out chunks of equity in the at the outset of an event here, before any work is done, i'm doing a total of fixed split. When I give you 50%, for instance, i'm assuming that you're going to do half the work going forward or half the value that's going to be created by you or whatever else. I'm assuming future events and we can't predict the future. Startups are the most volatile ways of doing business ever. This is no way to predict what's going on. So in my life I've been down that path more than once where I've given away too much equity and regretted it, and I've had too much and I've been receiving it and having too much equity. 

I was in a deal once. I had a five year vest in my equity package for others managers at my level and we sold in nine months So I bested immediately. People who had been there for five years Got the same equity that I did. That wasn't really fair, but I benefited from it. So the other thing that people make mistakes are on is they just think because they agree to something, that it makes it right. They agree to it, it makes it fair. So if you agree on what we think is fair, just because we agree to it doesn't make it fair. So the mistakes are going to be doing fixed equity splits out in advance of the company being formed and then thinking that because we agreed to it, it must be fair. 

0:03:24 - Speaker 1
Yeah, so does this model, mike, works only between founders, or can it be applied also for you know, when they go and do kind of fundraising? So can it be applied in the same way? Because sometimes when they start a founder goes to an engine investor, probably they will ask for equity also as well, so can they apply the same thing? 

0:03:50 - Speaker 2
There's three kinds of investors for the most part. The first kind are people that are in the startup. They're forgoing salary and reimbursement of expenses in exchange for equity in the business. They're start up their founders or their partners that people are starting the company. The second type are people who invest their own money in amounts that are too small to fully fund the operation. These are called mom and dad and angel investors. 

And the third type is a professional investor who invests other people's money in amounts that are large enough to fund your operation, and they're usually called VCs. The problem with giving a fixed equity amount to an angel investor who didn't give you the money to fund your operation is you have given someone a fixed, you've limited someone's exposure to whatever they invested, while your exposure is left unlimited. So I might have to keep working and keep working and keep working, and I don't know if I'm getting paid or not, where you get a set amount and you give me a set amount of cash. So the right way to do it is to do a convertible note or a safe note for the angel investors, so that they will convert it at the same terms as the VC, because the VC is assumed to invest enough money to fund your operation. So what you don't want to do is leave parts of your operation unfunded and parts funded while you're giving very fixed chunks of equity. As long as the work investment is unknown, you got to keep it at dynamic. 

0:05:18 - Speaker 1
Yeah, so do you think like safe agreements are like kind of a solution for this dilemma, like about how much equity I would have and how we will split that later? So that would be the solution. 

0:05:34 - Speaker 2
Yeah, so a safe agreement or a convertible note will kick the can down the road, push the decision off until you're a serious investment or you reach a break even point where you're going to have a reasonable valuation. I don't think they're the best things in the world, but I don't concentrate on them so much. All I know is that the state of the art with angel investing which you want to avoid, though is giving them a set amount of equity. 

If you give me a hundred thousand dollars and I give you 10% of my business. I have implied that my business is worth $100,000 or $9 million. 

I'm setting a price for my shares which, if I give additional shares out to that point, could be taxes income, for instance. There's all kinds of problems with that. Also, when I spend the million dollars and I have no more shares, i got to invent more cash. It just creates a lot of problems. Coming to produces no revenue or no technology or no customers isn't worth anything. We can't apply evaluation by giving chunks of equity away. 

0:06:40 - Speaker 1
From a valuation perspective, how to do a fair valuation, especially if we are still in pre-revenue phase. If you have some revenues, maybe the formula will become easy If you can explain also that as well. If I'm doing a pre-seed fundraising or I'm looking for someone to be partner with me, what would be the best way to evaluate? 

0:07:09 - Speaker 2
Certainly if you have revenues, those revenues can be extrapolated into evaluation. If you have assets hard assets, real estate those are going to be resuming value. If you have intellectual property that can potentially be valued, probably not If you have a crazy marketing snowball effect, like Instagram had the acquiring customers like crazy, even if there's no revenue that can be valued. But if your company is just starting and just producing the expenses, not producing income, then it's worth zero. People need to understand that companies are worth nothing and you can't divide zero by anything. If I give you a million shares in my worthless company and I take a thousand shares, i've given us the same amount of value. You might feel wealthy other than me, because you have a million shares, but for the most part it's worth nothing. 

What SlicecPie does is it allows you to divide up zero in a meaningful way. Once your company has evaluation through after VC or break even, then you can divide up the company based on the dollar amount. If the VC buys in a dollar per share, you know it's a dollar per share. That's the reasonable amount that you can willingly tax on it because it's a negotiable price. But in the startup phase, when you're at concept idea stage, through break even or through series A. most companies are worth zero and should be comfortable with that. We just need a mechanism for dividing up to zero. 

0:08:31 - Speaker 1
Yeah, do you think, founders, they have some egos when it comes to that? 

0:08:42 - Speaker 2
Oh yeah, i can remember thinking. I'm a paper millionaire. I did a deal with an angel investor that under certain circumstances, I'd be worth millions of dollars when I first ventures And I saw how cool that was I went to the startup in Seattle and my equity package shot up to over a million dollars and my sold it. It was worthless. So there's this idea that we are creating values through our thoughts. 

I think, that this is a good idea. I think I have an idea, so it must be worth millions of dollars, because I thought of it. I have an idea for a single polarity magnet that can produce endless energy. That's a fantastic idea. Now I got to go to the engineer and patent it and build it and produce it and distribute it and market it. So our ideas, our thoughts, are not worth anything. Our actions can be worth something, but maybe not anything. So we got to get over ourselves to not have to say that what we're implementing is more implementing. 

One thing that's an important aspect of slicing pie is the understanding of what a fair market value is. In business, unlike anywhere else in life, everything is quantifiable in terms of dollars and cents. We can determine the fair market value of anything. This mouse has a fair market value. This little cup has a fair market value. This pen has a fair market value. Your time has a fair market value. Everything has a fair market value. I'm not magically worth more because I have deep thoughts. I'm not mad at you because I invited you to my team. It's the only worth what it's worth. 

0:10:18 - Speaker 1
Right, and I think we need, as you mentioned, clear metrics to get this valuation. So it's either number of sign-ups, users which could be later becoming revenue, or if they started to sell. So we need some numbers there. right, we need metrics to basically do the valuation. 

0:10:36 - Speaker 2
You can't value thin air, you can't value thoughts. 

0:10:40 - Speaker 1
Yeah, yeah, like. You've been part of wide range of industries like yourself, like from outdoor clothing to luxury wine. How does this broad experience influence your approach when investing yourself in early stage ventures? 

0:10:57 - Speaker 2
Well, you're right, I've been in too many jobs. I've been in RV chassis, divine wine, the senior living communities, the camping gear to vacuum cleaners. What I notice about these industries is every industry thinks they're unique, they all think they have unique problems and they need unique solutions. 

They're all exactly the same. What's most surprising to me when someone says that is they've been in the industry for 20 years. How do they know you're unique? They don't know that they're unique. I can tell you're not unique because I've been in all kinds of different industries. 

People just want to figure out how to market their products. They buy inputs, They put them towards a product idea and they try to sell it. Their business is the same They buy pretty much always. So what I look for are people who are focused on generating revenue and focused on the production of their product, and less on thinking and less on big, huge concepts and ideas. If you can produce your product and get out the door, that's the biggest problem. I think a lot of startups spend a lot of time trying to build out their ideas before they start selling them. They can spend a year building their prototype and investing in their software and building software and without engaging customers or generating revenue. I think you should get the revenue as fast as you possibly can. 

One thing that people often overlook is marketing. People say, oh, the marketing guys don't have any job until the software is done. Well, that's not true. It should be the opposite. The software guys don't have any job to do until the marketing guys are done, Unless there's demand for the software or the product. Then go build it. Don't build it before you do it. So it's important that people can see that marketing is the most important thing. Go ahead and do a blog and social media and see if you can generate interest in your product idea. If you can't, then don't build it. 

0:12:45 - Speaker 1
Yeah, and also yourself. you started many companies in such diverse sectors, such as product development, marketing technology and online portals. What inspired you to do all these startups? 

0:12:59 - Speaker 2
So my inspiration comes from whatever Shiny knew that day. 

And the last company, i started was I took my kids skiing and we couldn't carry our skis all over the place. This is a big headache. So I invented a particle of Schlepp ski which helped you carry your skis. And before that my son was in Boy Scouts And so he went to camp And I needed a mosquito net. So he invented a mosquito net tent for Boy Scout camps that sells fairly well. So that's when I run into problems in my own life. I saw them and say, hey, maybe other people want this too. And I tried to develop into a product. Some things work, some things don't. The mosquito net tent is taken off and sells. These are the thousands of units The Schlepp ski product didn't sell single one last year. 

0:13:44 - Speaker 1
Yeah, you touched base on marketing a little bit And, as someone who has had senior marketing positions in various companies, what's the most important piece of advice you can offer to startups regarding their marketing strategy? 

0:14:03 - Speaker 2
You've got to build a brand and a system that generates word of mouth. People have got to. It's got to grow beyond itself. If you can't grow beyond your arms, reach your own marketing. People have got to talk about it. They can't talk about it. They won't talk about it. You're never going to get anywhere. Marketing depends on word of mouth beyond what your efforts are. 

Otherwise you've got to buy every customer And it's not sustainable. You've got to make sure people are talking about it. That's the most important thing. So your reviews, your interactivity, your technology you've got to build some kind of communication reason for people to talk about it. So at the mosquito net tent, for instance, we put some little cartoons on there and made it cool and funny. And it looks cool when it's installed. And so if one kid at camp has them, they all have to get them because they don't talk about them. So now, five years ago nobody had them. Now everyone at the camp has them And if you don't have them you're left out. So you're in the club or not. So that's one of the things that I teach, one of the things I always emphasize you've got to get people talking about your product. If they're not going to talk about it, then it's worthless. 

It's got to be marketing. 

0:15:18 - Speaker 1
And does that apply? I mean the same thing between a B2B and B2C? is there any specific? Because in B2B usually this referral thing is not something common. What's your take on that? 

0:15:36 - Speaker 2
Well, i don't think about it as referrals so much, just think about it as something worth talking about. So I don't really worry too much about B2B or B2C. They're just people doing stuff, people buying stuff, and if you make a product worth talking about, then it's going to work And a lot of times it's just about adding some personality to the product. It's just instead of making it really boring. When I was at Eastmore for a financial services technology company and one thing that our people were interested in, our buyers were interested in, is investing. It was all gambling. So gambling was interesting. Las Vegas was interesting. Horse racing was interesting. 

Dog racing was interesting, so we actually had a dog trainer. The company was called Hyperfeed Technologies, so we got a dog trainer to change a dog's name to Hyperfeed And then we started promoting Hyperfeed's success within our software And that was really remarkable. Here we have boring technology Every once in a while. Hyperfeed update will update Hyperfeed. So it's about giving a little personality to things. That will go a long way And people say, hey look, have you checked out Hyperfeed Next thing you know they're talking about to their colleagues next door. 

0:16:57 - Speaker 1
Yeah, yeah. So again, like continuing on the marketing thing, and based on your experience in both marketing and entrepreneurship, how do you approach the sales pitch? What insights led to the creation of pitch ninja? 

0:17:15 - Speaker 2
Pitch ninja was a process I developed when I was a graduate student at University of Chicago And I wanted to get into a business plan competition class called the new venture challenge, and the way it works is you write a proposal for your idea And you give it to a panel of judges and, based on the merits of that proposal, they let you into the class or not. Then you go on to compete for, you know, thousands of dollars. 

0:17:41 - Speaker 1
And. 

0:17:41 - Speaker 2
I'm kind of introverted, quiet guy. My proposal got cut from the first round because it sucked, so I begged to get in the class and begging an entrepreneurship go hand in hand. So they let me into the class as probably the first and last year they were letting the class. that didn't deserve to. But I knew that I had to find a way to come out of my shell, to force myself to interact with the audience and become more lively. So I practiced really hard and I won first place. And the following year a guy who watched what I did did what I did and he won first place. The next year I coached a team and they won first place. So the next 10 years, every team I ever coached won first place in the venture challenge. 

It was such a fair advantage that I told them not to tell people that I work with me, because I didn't want people to be able to fly. 

And then I was a teaching assistant in London and the professor said don't teach individual students what you did. I want you to teach the entire class what you did. So I sat down and scratched my head and I said what would I do? How do I coach these students? And I wrote down a framework called the super awesome presentation zone program, which divides the room into three different zones An intimacy zone, an excitement zone and an information zone. And within each zone there's a certain kind of eye contact, body language, arm movements, tone of voice, all kinds of non verbal stuff. And so the pitch ninja teaches people how to present the non verbal aspects of a business plan or a sales pitch And the basic premises action is more fun to watch than non action. 

I can stand still and do my pitch. It's boring to watch, But if I move in my arms and if I move around the room in a logical way, then it's more fun to watch, more engaging. I can pace back and forth. That's not many fun, But if I move in a logical way it really brings things to life. So I do a lot of pitch coach. I always got back from Dallas last week doing four sessions of that. It's one of my. One of the things besides Slices and Pie that I really enjoy doing is getting out of the office. 

0:19:33 - Speaker 1
Great, that's nice. My give my guy written extensively about entrepreneurship and have been directly involved in variety of startups Like how do you see your writing feeding into your entrepreneurial activities and vice versa? from an author perspective. 

0:19:50 - Speaker 2
So I basically write about things that work in my businesses. If I find that worked, i write about it. So I used to be do some trade shows. I used to do a lot of trade show marketing as a manufacturing company Even today I just trade shows and I developed a trade show formula that really worked. I was at this hyperfeed technologies I told you about and we cut our eight of our budget by 80% and we had to buy a new booth and I had to somehow conjure up leads out of the small budget when we'd never actually actually actually capturing leads. But we figured out a system that captured hundreds of leads and I applied to my next company and it really worked. 

My next company really worked. So I trade show Sam rise about a trade show floor engagement process that really worked. So I basically just wrote down what worked Pitch and NGOs that work. So I just wrote down the book about what worked. And Slices and Pie was about what worked, and so I just wrote what worked. So I haven't developed a lot of things that work, but the things that I have I write down in books. 

0:20:52 - Speaker 1
Great, great, actually. This is what my second question Can you tell us about one of your ventures that didn't succeed as expected, and what lessons did you learn from it and how it influenced your subsequent endeavors? 

0:21:08 - Speaker 2
Well, i had an idea for a commenting app We could comment on any website And I hired a developer, gave him 35% of the equity for doing this And he took months and months, and months and months to work on the software And finally he said I can't do this, i don't want any part of it, and so I took the equity back and had no product. I guess it was delayed six or eight months. So I found another developer to do it And I thought this is such a big project that he needed a bigger truck of equity. And he said I need 70% of the equity to make the product for me. And then a week later he came back and says it's done And he was done. 

So I give this guy 70% of the business and I had to do all the marketing, all the investment, all the sales, all it. So I had to do all the all the work. I only did is make the software. So I was no longer motivated to work And I hadn't done any of that marketing And I hadn't done any of that business development stuff, so which I should have started months ago. So the company just sort of stalled right there And I I had to sell that product and that product. As far as I'm concerned, it was not long after Google came up with it was exactly the same So there's no traction anyway. 

That's why I realized I shouldn't have been marketing all along. So before I invested any money or time, i want to make sure I have there's actually a market from what I want to sell. Google's product launched and didn't do very well and run out of business. They they can do that Cause they have such a huge audience. But I needed to make a market first. I should have done a fixed equity split. That was a mistake. So these days I play much more attention to what the equity is, what the technology looks like. I'm not a technology person, but I know enough about technology. I have a rough idea how long things should take and I can tell someone's doing a good job or a bad job, and so I can look under the covers and have a reasonable life station. But that was an experience that really put me on a path to making some better decisions. 

I was also in a company once where the CEO was changing the LLC agreement every time somebody joined the company. Every time someone joined a new company they'd sign the LLC agreement and they'd make changes, and I had to sign it too, and we raised five million dollars on a business half-read business fan and a PowerPoint deck And I left the company on a good terms, in which case my shares would vest, and my shares did vest in the company. But he had one clause in the operating agreement that allowed him to buy a bank for basically nothing, and then he turned around and sold it for probably millions. So this is something we agreed to. My lawyer looked at it and we agreed to it. It doesn't make it fair, and so experiences like that we really get burned, either by making bad decisions or making stupid decisions and allowing somebody else to benefit at your expense. So I don't want that to happen to me anymore. So I make sure I don't do those kinds of deals anymore. 

0:24:12 - Speaker 1
I want to go back to the slicing pie. If someone wants, I believe is the book enough, Mike, for implementing the slicing pie method, or like do you run some workshops for that? 

0:24:27 - Speaker 2
So slicing pie for me is a model that works, and I spend most of my time educating people on how it works. So the book is the slicing pie handbook. There's a book called Slicing Pie that came out in 2010, 12. 

And a few years later, the slicing pie handbook You can read that book and get everything you need to know What's it clicks in your brain. It makes a lot of sense. But I don't have a hard time. But there's online courses and tons of videos online. I have free guides and if you can't afford the book, give me a call. So the model is free to use. which would cost money is the legal implementation and stuff like that. But anyone can learn it and use it freely If they want to learn exactly how things work. For instance, we're talking about certain types of payments and different types of how to pay people. There's all things you can kind of think about and learn through. So I help people walk through the process. But the book is a good place to start and you could do the whole thing with just the book. 

0:25:30 - Speaker 1
And I think there's an app also for that, mike, am I right? 

0:25:33 - Speaker 2
Yes, several years after I wrote the book, people were using it a lot and said you should make an app to track all these contributions. In Slicie Pie you have to track your contributions. You track your time and your expenses Just like in every company. You track your time and expenses Every company that works. But startups typically don't track these things because they don't have to, not spend any money. They don't keep tracking this buying stuff. But Slicie Pie software helps you track the things that you don't spend money on and keeps in real time how much equity you personally will have it. 

0:26:10 - Speaker 1
And that track even like some expenses that usually people they don't count, i believe. 

0:26:17 - Speaker 2
Yeah, the number one thing people don't count is their salaries. So they'll start for startups and then they won't count their salaries. Well, you want to get paid, or people don't work for free forever, so eventually you want to get paid, and when you do get paid, you want to know what that number is. And just because you're not getting paid doesn't mean you don't deserve it, so that that non-payment of salary will translate into equity later on, and so you got to keep track of what that is. One thing that if I find is very common is you might think you're worth $100,000 and I might think you're worth $25,000. And that's a big problem when you get to the time to pay part of the company. So we got to reconcile that right away. People that have a very wrong view of how much they're worth. I was talking to a guy last night who's the top salary he'd ever received was $125,000. But he thought he was worth $300,000. 

You know there's no the fair market value for you is probably closer to 125, not 300,000. Just because you think you're worth that doesn't mean you are. That It's like, but I'm pulling the team together, it's my idea, it's like that's great, but clearly nobody in the world wants to pay you more than $125,000. 

Yep So that's your fair market value. It's not a bad thing. You can still do well with that. It's just, you know, not worth that much. Another person thought she was worth $500,000 a year. She was in her business for three years, i realized. I said you realize you spent $1.5 million and unpaid salary trying to figure out how to make $1.5 million in salary. 

0:27:46 - Speaker 1
If you're worth $500,000 a year. 

0:27:48 - Speaker 2
You should have gone a lot faster than that. 

0:27:51 - Speaker 1
Yeah, now the question that maybe it's a traditional question, but you know I like to hear different opinions on it When is it good idea to bootstrap the business versus going and raising funds? From your perspective, with all your experience you have? 

0:28:15 - Speaker 2
You bootstrap as long as you can, no matter what the business is. You bootstrap as long as you can and you build as much value during that bootstrap time as you possibly can, and SlicingPy gives you a mechanism for doing that over long term. 

The only reason you would raise outside funds and use equity is if you had a sphere, if you thought I wasn't gonna work. Equity means I don't think this is gonna work, so I'm gonna distribute my risk. If you knew it was gonna work, then you'd just take that out. You'd take loans out. If I knew my business was gonna work, i'd mortgage my house and sell my cars and drain my kids' college savings and I'd put it all in. But because I think there might be a chance that it won't work, i wanna spread my risk out. So do as much bootstrap as you can to know it's gonna work out, to have a good feel for whether it's gonna work or not. And then, once you know it's gonna work or not, then you can spread your risk out appropriately. 

Go out and run, raise to raise money, and that makes them kind of stupid. I told you earlier I raised five million bucks and a half in a business plan and a PowerPoint deck. That was too much money. We raised too much money. Our next closest competitor raised $150,000 and did much better than us. So it's a bootstrap as long as you can and try to convince yourself that you're onto something before you raise money. 

0:29:36 - Speaker 1
Yeah, that's great insight. Any like we're coming to the end, mike Like what you can tell fellow entrepreneurs, young entrepreneurs, who they just want to start now. They are very excited. So what you tell them at this phase? they are just coming out of college, maybe they dropped and they found a good idea, so what do you tell them? 

0:30:05 - Speaker 2
Well, i'll tell them what my elders told me when I was that age that I didn't listen to, is to go learn on somebody else's dime. Go learn the business. So if you have an idea that's in the automotive business, don't start your idea. Go join an automotive company and form relationships. And for getting to know suppliers and buyers and investors and get to know people first, learn the business on somebody else's watch. And then when you know everybody you know the suppliers, you know the bankers, you know the customers then go start your company. 

So I didn't take that advice. I thought, well, i can do it better than anybody else, but I had to go out and find the suppliers, go and find the buyers, go and find the people first. So make sure you know the market first. Make sure the market is easy to reach, either because you can call them on the phone or you've got their email list or you're part of the market. But my uncles and advisors tell me go take a job with a company that did what I wanted to do, and that's what the advice I give them. So go work in the industry you want to pursue And if your startup idea is good, it'll be there when you're done. 

0:31:16 - Speaker 1
Yeah, so at least they will build the network right So they can start to find audience later on. Yeah, i think that it was very insightful. By the way, where people can find more about the slicing pie Mike? Again, i put that link in the episode comment, by the way, Slicingpiecom Oh that's easy. I will put guys this link in the episode description. Mike, i have at the end a very funny question. What have you wished that I asked you, and how do you answer it? Anything that you wished I asked you. 

0:31:57 - Speaker 2
I wish you'd asked me how slicing pie has changed the world. Yes, please. So in the 10 years as I published the first slicing pie white paper, i first started getting some interest on it, and then I wrote up the first book about slicing pie And I had written other books before I told my wife. I said this this seems like it's going to be a thing. It's not just an idea, it's not just, you know, a tactic. It's a thing that could make a difference in people's lives, and since then I've had probably 30 or 40,000 startups use slicing pie. 

It's been used all over the world. It's been translated in all different languages. I've never once heard a company fail because of slicing pie. I've never once been an equity student failing because of slicing pie, and it sets people free in terms of how to manage their equity and partnerships and gives immense clarity to what that problem is to solve. So if you're facing a startup company and you're struggling with how to divide equity, slicing pie will give you the complete, honest, fair answer, and it's really been amazing to watch it to make a difference in people's lives. My challenge now is getting the word out, and podcasts like this are helping do that. 

0:33:13 - Speaker 1
Yeah, that's great, fantastic, i would say, because you know like, really, it's like making impact and I can feel you know your, you know your passion about it because you are able to save startups, you know, from going in a wrong direction and thrive right. 

0:33:31 - Speaker 2
Artic lives matter. 

0:33:33 - Speaker 1
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. That's great, mike. Actually, it's just for the sake for the audience, whether you are watching this or you are listening to this So we are planning in the future like to have a separate workshop for the slicing pie with Mike. So stay tuned for this. We will announce it, i will put it on my social media very soon and you know also, you'll hear about it, you know, through the podcast also as well. So stay tuned for that, mike. 

Well, thank you very much for being on the show today. I really enjoyed the discussion. Tons of experience you have And I'm sure that everyone. I advise you to go and read the slicing pie guys. Like it's a method which is really when Mike told me about it, it was like first, you know what was this one, and when he, you know, tried to explain to me and you know I got it immediately. It's really something mind blowing for someone who's just starting up. So you will save your money, you will get more insight about you know how you can manage the finances of your company and your startup. I would say Well, as usual, if you have any question for me or for Mike, you can reach out to me and Mike I will put his social media handles, like the LinkedIn profile. 

I will put the link for the slicing pie also as well. If you have questions for us about this episode, you can reach out to me or to Mike, and if you have feedback about the show in general, you can also reach out to me. As usual, i say by email, linkedin or Twitter, and if you want to be guest, also like Mike today, you can also reach out to me. I would be more than happy to discuss this. We can arrange satellite time and they date, and then we can do a recording similar to this one And, as usual, we will meet in the next episode. Thank you very much and see you soon. Bye, bye. 

Transcribed by https://podium.page