The Secret to Fund Raising for Entrepreneurs | Thomas Fisher of Global Catapult - Ep 170

0:00 Dr Steve: Everything's good. Dr Steve: Hey, hey? Hey, hey? Dr Steve: It is podcast, day. Again. Dr Steve: welcome to the make, the great experience podcast, your host, Dr. Stephen green, my guest today is Thomas Fisher Dr Steve: from global catapult, was kind of a cool name, catapult, global catapult. Dr Steve: Tom's got a cool chapeau. You know what that word means amaze a Mis Francais, but we got some serious business to get into, so let me enter. Let me tell you a little bit about Thomas, and we're going to get right down to it. Okay? So Dr Steve: Thomas Fisher, chief capital strategist for global catapult.

0:42 Dr Steve: married to his wife Janet. They have 7 children between them Dr Steve: that's got to keep him pretty busy. Huh! He's a serial entrepreneur and has spent nearly 4 decades working in entrepreneurs and sales teams always achieved above average results. This guy's a producer. He's an earner, as they say Dr Steve: today and his wife are working this founders across the United States, or sorry working across founders of North America Dr Steve: help them realize their visions, and acquire funding necessary to make this happen. Dr Steve: So I met Tom in a business meeting. Dr Steve: We had good simpatica. We had a nice conversation. I think he's got a lot to offer. Thomas welcome to the podcast. How are you.

1:23 Thomas Fisher: Great thanks for having me, Steven. It's awesome to see you. Dr Steve: Yeah, yeah, hey, listen, my pleasure. The whole goal of this podcast is value. The whole goal is taking people that want to have success. Dr Steve: and giving them as many tools as we can, so as many experts in the field as I can bring in as much wisdom Dr Steve: and sagacious commentary that we can convey the better it is 4 decades working with entrepreneurs. You must learn a few things. You must help a few people. Let's start out with this. Let's start. What is global catapult. Dr Steve: maybe. What's a typical client that you have. So people get some idea of. Dr Steve: you know, kind of the the clay you're molding into the the David.

2:05 Thomas Fisher: Right excellent. Well, you know, it's funny. Use the word, David. That's kind of where the the idea of global catapult came from was David and Goliath story. You know we're Thomas Fisher: We're a company that wants to work with small to medium sized entrepreneurs that are are looking to build their business and build their vision and make them become reality. And what prompted this was is, as you said, I have over just over 4 decades of Thomas Fisher: of sales and sales management and and executive management. Some expertise and my primary roles have always been in business to business, some other than retail. I worked in the auto industry for just shy of 10 years and in all functions not gonna lie. My favorite function of all was selling the cars Thomas Fisher: engage with the customers. I was not your your normal auto salesperson. I had a marketing plan. I had billboards I had.

3:04 Thomas Fisher: I had placemats and restaurants, partnerships, and I very rarely took any fresh traffic towards the end of my career. The only problem was, I wasn't in a big enough city there, just you know. It was a pretty small pond I was operating in, but I managed to make a pretty good living. Thomas Fisher: but I didn't like the environment, and that's 1 of the reasons that I really like. What I'm doing today. Auto industry, environment is, as you know, it's it's pretty much negative from the get go right? It's. Dr Steve: I I prefer the word. I like the word challenging, but. Thomas Fisher: Challenge. All right. We'll use that word. It's challenge. Dr Steve: Challenging. It's it's true. Nobody's gonna argue that. Thomas Fisher: You've got a you've got a a battle of will, so to speak, in the beginning. And what I really really really liked loved about it was was when the customer was Thomas Fisher: went from being cantankerous or not, not confident in who you are or what they're doing, to leaving Thomas Fisher: with a competent purchase, knowing why they purchased it, knowing what they purchased. So when I looked at that and then went to my executive management career and started training salespeople across Canada Thomas Fisher: I met a lot of entrepreneurs, that's all I did. I spent day in, day out, 30 to 40 entrepreneurs a day interacting with them for a solid 6 years, and Thomas Fisher: one of the greatest things that I've ever that for me that ever happened was Thomas Fisher: met this company, a manufacturing company. They had about 8 employees just getting off the ground they're launched. They've they've got a grant from the Government. They're fired up.

4:35 Thomas Fisher: and you know they we have a great meeting come back a year later to do a renewal with them to renew their their membership Thomas Fisher: in our organization. And it's a completely different story. Thomas Fisher: They're demoralized. There's just the owner or the founder, and maybe a couple of employees, and the manufacturing facility is not as robust as it was when I was there a year prior start talking to the founder? What happened? What's the story here? Thomas Fisher: They couldn't find funding the banks wouldn't give them any more money supply. They just had a number of things happen. But the big thing was they couldn't get investors, and I met a lot of entrepreneurs throughout those travels throughout those years, and I met a lot of, but I also met some high net worth individuals. I've dealt with a couple of BC. Firms as members, and I also had some family houses that were connected to some of the investors I knew.

5:32 Thomas Fisher: So in 2,023, I decided that I wasn't fully inevitable with our with our wood packaging company, you know, moving pallets and wood and crates just wasn't exciting me. Thomas Fisher: It was just it was a, you know, pretty. It was a stressful, but it's stressful. And it was. But it was very transactional. Thomas Fisher: very limited interaction with with anyone. It's just email and yes, go here, here's the order, and I was just missing that, and Thomas Fisher: friend of mine was started up a company in it, and he's a big big project, and he was raising its 450 million. Thomas Fisher: And one day I woke up, and I just got this nudge where I should be helping him.

6:17 Thomas Fisher: So I reached out to my investor friend that I know that was just winding down his company and exiting his company at 8 figure business, and I said this, I got this crazy idea. I kind of give him like a sketch of what it looked like. Thomas Fisher: What do you think would you want to. Would you want to? Would you want to be one of my lead investors? He's like. Thomas Fisher: absolutely. I'm on one more. Let's do it. Let's help entrepreneurs. Thomas Fisher: So here I am. Here I am. Today. We've we've got a year and a half in, and we've got a deal flow of over 32 deals, and 4 or 5 deals are are in due diligence, and one is beyond due diligence and into some final stages of and with institutional investors 2 big banks in Canada are interested in it. So Thomas Fisher: we really can't complain about where we've gotten to. But it's all through Thomas Fisher: understanding really what the nuances are of the nester Thomas Fisher: and the entrepreneur right? 2 different mindsets, 2 different brains.

7:12 Dr Steve: Well, yeah, because the investors want they both want to make money Dr Steve: right? They're doing it very, very different ways. The investors typically want to be passive. The entrepreneurs need to be fully all in doing it. So in a distillation. Dr Steve: You have kind of 2 pools you got pools. People who are are looking to invest in entrepreneurial based businesses or businesses in general. And on the other side of it you've got those businesses, and you're you're kind of like a matchmaker. Thomas Fisher: Right bridge builder. I didn't call myself a bridge builder. Dr Steve: Yeah, a bridge builder. There we go, a bridge builder. I like that. So you need to understand the business. And I think, importantly, you need to make sure the business is ready for that step.

7:52 Thomas Fisher: Right. Dr Steve: Because a lot of entrepreneurs Dr Steve: don't have. They're missing something. There's a lot of elements that go into preparing a good Vc. Round or good Vc pitch. You gotta have sales got to have revenue. You got a profitability. You got a plan. Sometimes they got 4 out of 5 or 4 out of 6, but not the other 2. Dr Steve: so, and you say you got about 30 deals in the working, which is, which is significant. In a year and a half. That's. Thomas Fisher: I don't know 2 or 3 a month right. Dr Steve: Is there a certain type of entrepreneurship? An entrepreneur is listening to this. Dr Steve: What would you say? Are, the must have things like like if they came to you and said, Hey, Thomas, can can you get me with a Dr Steve: with with a Vc person? And you're going to say I need to see blank, blank, blank, blank.

8:43 Thomas Fisher: Right. What would as a checklist, what would they be? Thomas Fisher: Well, that's a great question. And and one of the things I would say is, it depends on the stage and the phase of rounds of it. Dr Steve: Let's just let's just Dr Steve: let's just assume they think they're ready. Right? They're saying, we're doing this. And this, we're not Bootstrap anymore. We got with this and that, and you're gonna say, I need to see blank, blank, blank. What? What like a business plan is that one. Thomas Fisher: Right. So the most, the most important ingredients to to an investor engagement package. Dr Steve: Yes. Thomas Fisher: Is number one, you're gonna wanna have very a number of materials. So you'll want to have a business plan and a 2 pager, or what I had to call as an invest an executive summary.

9:29 Dr Steve: I hear you. Thomas Fisher: Of your. Dr Steve: Business plan. So the entrepreneurs you listen to take notes. You need a full business plan. Thomas Fisher: Right might want to consult some kind of somebody like Thomas to help you with. Dr Steve: Right. I help you with that. Dr Steve: You need an abstract which is what I call but yeah, 1, 2 pages. That's the nitty, gritty, skinny. This is what we do. This. We do it for this. How much we've made is what we owe. This is what we're. Thomas Fisher: It has to. Yeah. And it has to be from the you have to think. And this is where we come in. You have to take your entrepreneur builder sales Thomas Fisher: marketing hat off. Dr Steve: And you've got to put. Thomas Fisher: Has their hat on exactly. Dr Steve: Yes, yes. Thomas Fisher: To speak to the investor. So we have. We have a formatted outline of what a 2 pages should look like. We also, the next thing would be a pitch deck, and we have a formatted outline of what an investor pitch. And I say investor, pitch deck, because there are there are different pitch decks involved in a in A, in a venture State stage company.

10:24 Dr Steve: Okay. So we got 3 things, business plan. Thomas Fisher: Right short, abstract 1, 2 pages right back. Thomas Fisher: and then you've got to have a performer right? And what a performer is. Dr Steve: That's like Latin. Nobody says it's gonna be Latin here. Thomas Fisher: Exactly. A performer is a financial modeling of where you are today. So a snapshot of financially where you are today sales revenue, even if it's not any, doesn't. Dr Steve: Joshua, it's cat! Dr Steve: Oh, you're right, right. The whole. Thomas Fisher: Exactly. So you're basically doing a profit loss statement. But you're not doing a you're not there yet, but a pro forma would go year one year, 2 to year 5, if you can. And the idea is you're going to outline the modeling as to how you're going to go from where you are today, to what your, what you feel your pre money valuation is because you're going to need to justify that valuation right?

11:14 Dr Steve: Absolutely so. This. Thomas Fisher: I don't. Thomas Fisher: Yeah. So you're coming in. And you're you're kind of. Dr Steve: Massaging. You're kind of helping the entrepreneur coaching a mentoring. Call what you will to get all these things at a point to maximize the probability that the investor is going to. Thomas Fisher: Exactly sleep on. Thomas Fisher: There's 2 more in the ingredients. I really want. Dr Steve: Yeah, yeah, this is important. Go ahead. Thomas Fisher: Number one. The 5th thing that is often overlooked Thomas Fisher: is you've got to start. If you're going to be raising capital, you've got to really take your corporation seriously. Thomas Fisher: What do I mean by that? Thomas Fisher: You want to have a price offering otherwise known as a cap table that outlines what? How many shares are outstanding. How many shares you have as a founder, and what you're valuing those initial shares at, and what these events we call them. Significant events were like, let's say you, you build you. You've got your Mvp. And you're you're going in to get.

12:15 Dr Steve: What's that? Mtp, what's that? Thomas Fisher: Minimum viable product. Thanks for doing that minimum viable product. Now, you're gonna start getting orders. Dr Steve: Business jargon. Here. Right? Okay. Thomas Fisher: Right. So now you're going to get orders. Well, that's a significant event that might cause you to raise the value of your share right. Thomas Fisher: because when you're offered. Dr Steve: Go ahead, keep going! Finish up! And I got a couple. Thomas Fisher: Because when you're cause you're asking for an investor, let's say you're looking to raise. Thomas Fisher: I'm going to do simple math. Let's say you're looking to raise 3 million dollars. Dr Steve: Okay, 1 million. Okay. Thomas Fisher: The the investor is going to want to know Thomas Fisher: what the valuation is. How many shares am I getting, or what's the value of the shares I'm buying. Dr Steve: To evaluate. Dr Steve: If it's a much. Is the company worth total.

12:55 Thomas Fisher: Right, based on what you think. The events are going to be cumulative or total, what you think it's worth and sometimes we we overvalue our company because we don't have all kinds of money when we're starting up. So we don't go and get a business valuator, because that's really not the value. So you've got to put this model, and that model's got to make sense to the valuation right? Thomas Fisher: So we help you. With that we help you I've got. I've got a 20 year finance corporate finance expert that works with me that will work with you to ensure that you're not wasting tons of money with accountants and lawyers, because Thomas Fisher: business. Dr Steve: Like you can't just show up and say, Hey, it's me. I'm Steve. I got a little solo you need accounting backup. You need legal backup, maybe more than one lawyer in different aspects of what your business is doing. You need somebody who's kind of got you back like Thomas here.

13:50 Dr Steve: and and any raise is significant. Right? Because remember, you gotta give to get you want to raise 3 million dollars. They're gonna say, well, we want X percentage of your company. Thomas Fisher: Or they or you have a safe note that's got, you know, a good size, good, valuable warrants attached to it, or, you know, a good solid interest rate. But but the last point I want to make on that is. Thomas Fisher: it's important for us. We do it. It's it's included in our in our fee of what we do, and we're not going to give you the financial advice. We're not going to make that. But we're going to give you a structure to go to your lawyer and your accounts with, because the guy that I work with has raised capital and is an entrepreneur, and thinks like a business person, so he's got business acumen.

14:33 Dr Steve: So you 2 nights not spending $7,000 on legal bill when you only need one little thing. Thomas Fisher: Right. You can go there and say, here's a formatted outline. And now they just got tweak. It's a lot cheaper sorry, a lot less expensive and a lot more business with business. Thomas Fisher: I'm not. Dr Steve: So I'm gonna so honestly, what you're talking about isn't for the guy or woman who started a little thing out of their kitchen, where they're. Thomas Fisher: No. Dr Steve: You know, selling. I don't know sunglasses, you know, over the Internet on something. This is for people. This is entrepreneur at the level of having a more, much more substantial business. And they're trying to level up. Dr Steve: maybe to internationally. Okay.

15:15 Thomas Fisher: And that was my. This is my last point. That was a lot you're going to my last point. Dr Steve: Go ahead! Thomas Fisher: The last point is, we work with accredited high net worth investors. Thomas Fisher: We don't. We're not. And our minimum check size is 250,000 Us. Dollars up to hundreds of millions. And the reason we we do that is that's where that's where we feel our value is best placed in helping entrepreneurs reach their vision. Dr Steve: What? Okay? So let me ask you this, and I want to get into maybe one other direction of this before we run out. Dr Steve: By the way, Dr. Steve Green, here, my guest, Thomas Fisher, global catapult. Dr Steve: Tom's got a lot of experience. Entrepreneurs. Listen up, because this will say that you know your most valuable commodities, your time, your capital, your human capital, your talent.

16:04 Dr Steve: Anytime you can save significant amount there, or just be more efficient. It's a plus. This is why you need mentoring. This is why you need experience. Dr Steve: So stay put. Now, now let's let me ask it to you this way. Dr Steve: I'm I'm listening to what you're saying. I'm thinking. You know, I got a business. I'm not ready yet. I know I don't have all these things yet. Dr Steve: At. What's the point where you would take on a company that you maybe see the potential in like how close they have to be halfway there. 60% of the way 40% of the way 10% of the way there. How close do they have to be to that point where you feel they're a viable suitor Dr Steve: for a Vc. Right as opposed to them being in a post Bootstrap. Maybe the you know Genesis Revenue stage.

16:51 Thomas Fisher: For us. We we want to work with a company that's at or close to minimum viable product. Thomas Fisher: Okay. Thomas Fisher: they've already done a founder or a friends and family round of raising. Now I want to put a caveat in there, and I also want to talk about our unique process. That is important. But. Dr Steve: Go ahead! Thomas Fisher: One of the caveats is, even if you're not there, if you've got, if you're if you're trying to get friends and family, and you've got friends and family. You think a pool of those that you think will invest in your company. We have no problem, no issue at all. Starting with you at that point, and actually being a part of that process, helping you. Thomas Fisher: helping you develop your materials, so that when you go to a friend's family. They're getting the same. You're going to treat them the same way that you treat the Vc. Firm or the high net worth of the family house. Why? Because it's practice. One of the best thing I can tell you as a salesperson, when you get really good at sales is when you practice enough where you don't have to think about what you're saying, and it flows smoothly.

17:51 Dr Steve: Yeah. Dr Steve: So you basically you. Dr Steve: I don't. I don't think it's a stretch to say you're you're basically partnering with these businesses. Thomas Fisher: Exactly. Dr Steve: You're a service. You're a fee for service, but once you commit to somebody, it's in your best interest. Their best interest is all the way through to the end. Dr Steve: Where you going, Steven? Dr Steve: Yeah. Yeah. Well, look. In a perfect world. Nobody needs funding. But funding is typically an accelerant. Right. If you ever watch, like the shark tank shows of the world. One of the questions they'll ask is, what do you need to raise for, or what do you need to. Thomas Fisher: Right whatever. They're asking. 300 grand, 50 grand! A 1 million. Dr Steve: And you know it may be to increase inventory, it may be to increase social media presence. It may be marketing. There's a lot of reasons that people might need money.

18:31 Dr Steve: that they just can't generate quickly enough through sales. Thomas Fisher: Yeah, and and institutional, and the institutional investors like Banks or or somebody. Dr Steve: We don't want to take the risk right? Thomas Fisher: They don't, they won't! They won't. They're not looking for that type of investment. Dr Steve: Gotcha Dr Steve: Can you give me an example, maybe, of a specific case study. Dr Steve: If a company, maybe you got a pet project or you got one that just really stands out of all the times you've been doing this of these 32 deals, you know that you think was just really went well, flowed smoothly, really proves the motto of what you do has a really happy ending, because same thing. I'm not sharking sometimes, and Dr Steve: in the middle of the show they'll have like a flashback, you know. This company made a deal with so and so, and now they've sold 800 billion dollars of these, and but they never, you know, that's always the happy ending ones. But give a case, say, Oh, people really understand Dr Steve: how important this can be to a business.

19:31 Dr Steve: Love it. I love it so, Dr. Steven. The. Thomas Fisher: The best case here I can study. And this is great, because I really want to explain. This explains exactly what gives global catapult an edge. Dr Steve: Okay, go ahead, go ahead. This is important. Thomas Fisher: Met with a met with a business owner, and this is back in November of 2,024, Thomas Fisher: and they had a business running, and they it was. It was doing fairly well, but they wanted to go into a whole new line of business which would be involved with the Department of Defense and Aeronautics and different, and they were going to be making composite metals Thomas Fisher: when I met with them. They didn't have Thomas Fisher: any any revenue yet any sales yet, and the big, biggest obstacle and their biggest barrier to entry was they needed a machine. They need to buy the machine, a few machines to get it off the ground.

20:22 Dr Steve: They needed capital. Thomas Fisher: Right and. Dr Steve: Capital. Thomas Fisher: Right. So the so the company that made these machines wouldn't lend them any money because they didn't have anything to attach it to. Thomas Fisher: So when we met with them, we started to work through their pitch deck, their 2 pager, their business plan, their pro forma. They didn't have any of that. Thomas Fisher: And what we did is we said, these are vital before we can do anything. Thomas Fisher: and they're believe me, you're wanting. You're an entrepreneur. You want to get going, and you don't want to hear that, and you're trying to push back. But it was the best advice we ever gave our client. Thomas Fisher: So throughout the last 4 months we've worked on. They've got a performer that makes sense. They've got to build a business valuation that makes sense. But the most important thing I had them do was Thomas Fisher: they raised money with a with a family friend round.

21:10 Thomas Fisher: and I need to raise a half a million dollars, I said, before you can go any further. Let's get you a half a million dollars so that Thomas Fisher: the investor sees that you're you're gonna sit in the game Thomas Fisher: so that. So they went, and they did that, and they only did that because we had the performa. We had business plan. They they went to this, these investors with a investor package. So we built it for them with them. Thomas Fisher: Then I said, Okay, now let's go and sell some Lois. Thomas Fisher: because now you've got a commitment. They put a deposit on the machine. They had a runway. Thomas Fisher: Well, they went out and got Lois for 1 point. Something 1 million dollars. Dr Steve: Loi meeting. Thomas Fisher: Oh, yes, sorry letters of intent, and they also got some pre-orders.

21:53 Dr Steve: So Loi would be a company saying, Yes, we will purchase from you. We intend to purchase $300 worth of service. Thomas Fisher: Exactly. Dr Steve: So it's not quite an account receivable, because the work hasn't been done yet. It's more sort of like a promise to have a receivable. Thomas Fisher: Right, and they also got some pre orders which brought in a little bit of cash. Dr Steve: So that's the next step would be a pre-order. Nice. Thomas Fisher: So so here we go. Now they've got all these ingredients. So I and they've also the biggest problem that we had was Thomas Fisher: they didn't have a proper corporate structure. Thomas Fisher: painful, painful, because they already started. We had to get them to restructure their whole cap table, their sub agreement.

22:37 Thomas Fisher: and but you know what they got there, and now, as of 2 weeks ago, we introduced them to our 1st layer of investors, our key investor and our investor is intrigued by the project and is interested in it. So not say we're getting the money. Thomas Fisher: but we've got them into a round of discussions with investors. Dr Steve: If they had tried to do this all by themselves. Dr Steve: No, a. Do you think they would have had a chance to be successful? Just yes or no? Thomas Fisher: Unlikely. Dr Steve: Okay, it's close enough to know how much, how long would it if, even if they could have been successful? How long will this process have taken, if they've done it on their own. And I think you see where this line of questioning is going.

23:21 Thomas Fisher: Would argue more than more than 18 months because it. Dr Steve: One to 2 years which they are now still struggling through revenue? Right? Dr Steve: Right? Dr Steve: 3rd question would be, would the quality of investor that they might have attracted on their own, be as high as the quality investment that you can bring to them. Thomas Fisher: I love that question not not lately, because and here's why. Dr Steve: Okay. Thomas Fisher: We take ownership of. We're like, and you got you outlined what we do. We're like. Dr Steve: These questions, go ahead. These are great. These are very leading. Thomas Fisher: We're like a fractional sales team for you. Right? You go out and do your business. Get your business ready. Do all the things you need to do, and let us get all of the things ready. Get things warmed up so that when the investor comes to the table they know who you are, why, they're meeting with you, and we're not sending your pitch deck, saying, what do you think the pitch deck is for the investor and the founder. The founder is going to Thomas Fisher: be shining in that moment because they're going to be able to answer questions, interact, engage with the investor on a level where they're going to be talking to what they've Thomas Fisher: sent them on a 2 pager. And then they found, and the founder is going to be with the founder. We're gonna say, we're meeting with this investor. Here's some of the questions they're going to ask. Be prepared. Have your performer ready? Be prepared to speak to these different things, so that when that meeting happens and we're there, we're with them so that we can quarterback and steer and make sure that it's a warm and a friendly discussion, not a not a sales or

24:52 Thomas Fisher: or is it awkward. Dr Steve: Here's the 4th question. Thomas Fisher: Yeah. Dr Steve: The fact that they have engaged with you and global catapult. And your team. Dr Steve: would that number one increase the likelihood of them getting with the right people and getting funding and taking way less time. Thomas Fisher: On the 1st 2, I would say absolutely, we would get you high quality investors. And we're not going to just flood the market with investors that don't care, but the last one I can't speak to timing, because timing is always you never can. But I can tell you this. Thomas Fisher: generally getting the to the investor engagement and and interaction phase to a proper investor, much much higher likelihood of it being shorter for sure.

25:37 Dr Steve: So listen. Dr Steve: listen, folks spoiler alert. When you get to a level in business, whether you're an entrepreneur, whatever you are, there's some challenges. Dr Steve: but the key here is the take-home message is, you don't want to go it alone. Dr Steve: because probably it's the 1st time all these business owners went through this if it was their 7th business. Maybe they got connections. Maybe they got the experience. But 1st time through Dr Steve: it's it's like a parent sending a kid to college for the 1st time. They don't know how to do sat. They don't know how to do anything. Dr Steve: but by the 3rd kid, if they have them. And you got 7 kids. It's like the it's like the cliche, you know, by the 5th kid, there's no pictures of them, right? So. But when you're talking about kind of new babe in the woods business people. They're so busy trying to get clients trying to perfect their market niche, trying to perfect their product line. They don't have time or the resources to have professional counsel with this Dr Steve: until you come across Thomas and his deal. So is there something. If there's people out there that this resonates with you want to learn more about this. Is there something you can offer to them? Do you have a consultative experience, or.

26:44 Thomas Fisher: Right. Dr Steve: Kind of a sit down. And and, by the way, if you want to learn how to do this, look in the show notes typically below what you're seeing here. What would be if somebody wanted to reach out to you and have a conversation? What would you be willing to help them with, or what can you offer them at least as a jump? Point. Thomas Fisher: Well, we have globalcatapult.com which outlines our process and our personalized funding solutions. And there's also a schedule call button on there T. Fisher. Thomas Fisher: with no C. So TFSF. ISHE. r@globalcanibal.com. Dr Steve: Nice. Thomas Fisher: And I'm gonna give. Give them a pre-funding audit summary which gives them a checklist of all the things that are needed for Thomas Fisher: fundraising in order right.

27:32 Dr Steve: I see. Thomas Fisher: And I want to leave you with one last anecdote. Thomas Fisher: So when I did my market research, I talked to an investor. Thomas Fisher: and I said, what's the biggest frustration you have Thomas Fisher: when you get when you get deals sent to you. Thomas Fisher: they get frustrated because the pitch deck doesn't give them enough to understand. Thomas Fisher: It's too long. They're gonna spend too much time trying to figure it out. Thomas Fisher: websites, websites. If the website doesn't speak to what you do and doesn't have a clean flow, and it doesn't really tell your story. Thomas Fisher: You're better off to just have a spas page, because that can be frustrating, too. And they get frustrated, because Thomas Fisher: when they meet the investor, when they meet the founder.

28:16 Thomas Fisher: they feel the founders are ill-prepared. They can't. They don't answer the questions. They they don't have access to the information, and they can't explain their story in a consistent way for them to say, Oh, I understand this. I get it. And then on the founder's side. When I interviewed a few of them, what they Thomas Fisher: what was almost like investor fatigue, I set my pitch deck out, had a few investor meetings and never heard from again. Nothing happened. Thomas Fisher: This is why we're here, because both those stories don't exist in our world Thomas Fisher: because both parties are ready prepared and know why they're meaning and who they're meaning and and what they're meaning for. Dr Steve: Yeah, that's exactly the whole purpose of this right? This is beautiful. And to me, you know, one of the big things in my world is clarity of communication, succinctness of communication, and not taking, you know, 17 paragraphs to say something you can say in 2 sentences. That's where a lot of things. I counsel and mentor in this space work with right. Hey? This I got to be honest. Relatively speaking, this was this was higher level stuff Dr Steve: compared to some of the other guests. I've not not better or worse at all. This is super valuable, I think, more to somebody who's maybe in the business a little more established than a lot of the startups that I know are in our listenership. But still, what's everybody's goal? What's everybody's goal is to get from Bootstrap to sustainable, to growth, to throttle, step to the big step which is the venture eventually, maybe to the exit or the acquisition.

29:47 Dr Steve: And you need. I'm telling you. Everybody here is listening. This knows how I feel about mentoring. It is the best investment you can make in yourself and your business. It will accelerate your time. It will lower your cost to get the proper advice. Dr Steve: Don't cheat yourself out of that advantage. So you got people like Thomas here. Dr Steve: you know, things like this. Is there anything we did? We're gonna have to wrap up in a minute or 2. But is there anything we didn't get a chance to get into. You want to just share with Dr Steve: with the listeners and viewers here before we cut down. Thomas Fisher: Yeah. The only I appreciate that. The last thing I'll just say is this. Thomas Fisher: if you've got an idea, and you've got a business that you really feel is a game changer. Marketplace is going to be a differentiator, is going to maybe alter or change the the market that you're in.

30:38 Thomas Fisher: Don't. Don't sit on that idea. Don't wait. Start talking to people. Start putting together, and if you want to start early. Thomas Fisher: we can start earlier with you, you know, and we'll work with you. Our biggest goal is to help entrepreneurs get and realize their visions and reach their dreams. And the reason that is is because Thomas Fisher: entrepreneurs are the are the most awesome people I've ever worked with. I every day I'm excited to get to work, because you know why Thomas Fisher: you want hope. Talk to an entrepreneur! You want faith, talk to an entrepreneur. Thomas Fisher: you want, you want energy, drive, determination, perseverance, persistence, talk to an entrepreneur.

31:20 Thomas Fisher: You cannot. You'll never leave a conversation with an entrepreneur without having those things. That's why you're so important in the ecosphere of building, and we we want to be a part of that on all fronts. Dr Steve: Love it, love it, love it, love it to the 4th power. Dr Steve: Hey, Thomas, this was great. Dr Steve: clearly like, I believe, like me, you're bringing some passion here. Right? You will get excited about this. I love that because business can be dry, business can be frustrating, and you gotta want it. You got to wake up in the morning wanting it, hey? Dr Steve: You want to play our everybody's favorite game on my, podcast the fave 5, you got a minute left. Thomas Fisher: Yep.

32:00 Dr Steve: Alright, here we go. I'm gonna I'm gonna give you a topic. You tell me your favorite thing in this topic. Dr Steve: Okay. Thomas Fisher: Okay. Dr Steve: Yeah, ready. Come, these are easy. This is chill. Okay, favorite color. Thomas Fisher: Orange. Dr Steve: Dang! I don't think anybody. Thomas Fisher: It'll be fire, orange. Dr Steve: Philadelphia flyer. I like that favorite food. Thomas Fisher: Wow! Rock of lamb. Dr Steve: Lack of land. Dang! Dr Steve: That would be sort of like shish kebab, or like gyro cut, or like sort of the Greek way, or whatever. Thomas Fisher: On a bone. Nice little tiny medallion! Oh. Thomas Fisher: and a nice nice au jus with.

32:41 Dr Steve: You're not, that's look at the culture here. Oh, Jeezue, you have a favorite song, favorite kind of music. Thomas Fisher: I'm a India electronic is my favorite genre. One of my favorite bands is a group called Satin Jackets. Dr Steve: Satin jackets. Thomas Fisher: I have never heard. I gotta tell you that's a new one to me. I will look it up. Dr Steve: Yeah favorite place. You go on vacation. You got kind of your little yeah. Thomas Fisher: My wife, much to my wife's chagrin. Thomas Fisher: Vancouver, British Columbia is probably my favorite place to to hang out. Dr Steve: Vancouver got a hobby something like you do in the.

33:23 Thomas Fisher: Although I was, I will say this, La Fortuna Costa Rica would be a very close second. Dr Steve: And offer tuna. We'll put that there. Dr Steve: Okay. Opportunist. Cr, you had a hobby. You had a little, you know, something to do when you're not Dr Steve: saving the world for entrepreneurs. Thomas Fisher: I like to cook, obviously. And I I play golf. Dr Steve: Cooking and golf. There we go. Dr Steve: you ready for the toughest one number 6. Thomas Fisher: Great. Dr Steve: Your favorite, podcast, host. Thomas Fisher: Dr. Steven Green always every day, all day. Dr Steve: Yeah, I don't think anybody ever said any of the other 5 that you said. But you got the 6th one right.

34:05 Dr Steve: my man, Thomas Fisher, I appreciate you coming on, folks. Why do we do this? Podcast it is to level up, to give you information, you need to level up, to increase your likelihood of success, to increase your toolkit, as it were. People make business go right. People. Business is a people Dr Steve: game. It's who you know. It's how you work with them. It's the relationships you build. It's where you get the advice. It's who opens the doors for you. It's who you meet when you're in those doors. Never forget that right and everything I can do to help people open those doors, get in the right rooms. All that is purpose of why we do this right. Please share this. It's not for me. It's not an ego thing. I think the more people to get this information Dr Steve: more people we can help the better. Okay. So we got a couple. I got a couple of guests scheduled the next few weeks. I think you're gonna like, maybe not as much as Thomas. But I think you're gonna like them. Also.

34:59 Dr Steve: I got some solo ones coming up. I'm doing a big product launch people look out for it. This is for my little kind of lower level entrepreneurs, I guess. Starter upper kind of look for it. I got a great deal going in July. I think you might want to take advantage of. Look for that in the emails. Look for that in the social Dr Steve: and all those other places. Dr Steve: Thomas. This was awesome. I appreciate it. Everybody look in the show notes, you know. Follow up, get with him, especially if you need help. Dr Steve: and that's all we got for today to make the great podcast Dr. Steve Green Dr Steve: make the great experience. Podcast we are moving on Tom, they want the last word here. Thomas Fisher: Great to be here in Iceland. Don't give up, never quit. You're one. Call one conversation, one interaction away from the, from from everything. Turning around to the in the direction that you want to go.

35:50 Dr Steve: There you go! Dr Steve: Alright. Everybody see you next time. Thomas Fisher: Thank you.