Pitch Anything: 5 Secrets to Raising Money for Investment Funds, Startups, or your Next Syndication

Oren is the Managing Partner of Intersection Capital and the Founder of OK Stone.  He’s raised over $400M throughout his career and wrote all about it in his books Pitch Anything & Flip the Script, which is 2 of the most ground-breaking books in Capital Raising.

What this means is that Oren is about to walk us through what's working today on Raising Capital, Finding Investors, and Closing the Right Deals to make you a titan in this industry in your pursuit of Making Billions.

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[THE GUEST]:  Oren is the Managing Partner of Intersection Capital and the Founder of OK Stone.  He’s raised over $400M throughout his career and wrote all about it in his books Pitch Anything & Flip the Script, which is 2 of the most ground-breaking books in Capital Raising.

[THE HOST]: Ryan is a Venture Capital & Angel investor in technology and energy. He achieved market-beating placement growth in his first 5 years in the industry.

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Transcript

Ryan Miller  
My name is Ryan Miller and for the past 15 years have helped hundreds of people to raise millions of dollars for their funds, and for their startups. If you're serious about raising money, launching your business or taking your life to the next level, in the show will give you the answers so that you too can enjoy your pursuit of making billions. Let's get into it. 

If you want to start, grow or exit a business, you will need to raise capital. So in this week's episode of making billions I have the most legendary capital raiser and my dear friend Oren Klaff. Talk about what it takes to raise capital. So the question is, what will you do differently to bring life changing capital into your business? All this and more coming right now? Here we go. 

Hey, welcome to another episode of making billions. I'm your host, Ryan Miller. And today I have my dear friend and legendary capital raiser, Oren Klaff. Oren is the managing partner of intersection capital and the founder of ok stone. He's raised over $400 million throughout his career and wrote all about it in his books, Pitch Anything and flip the script, which are two of the most groundbreaking books in raising capital. So what this means is that Oren is about to walk us through what's working today on raising capital, finding investors, and closing the right deals so that you too, can become a titan in this industry. So Oren, welcome to the show, man.

Oren Klaff  
Well, I really appreciate that warm welcome. I've really liked being part of this making billions community and I'm just excited to be talking to the fans in the the listeners of making billions you know, the only sad things I have to talk to you, in order to talk to the fans, if the listeners were just here, we could bypass you to go direct to the people. So thank you, I'm really enjoying being part of this community, just authentically appreciate the chance to be with you guys.

Ryan Miller  
That's awesome, man. It's privileged to have you here, brother. And yeah, you're a man of the people. I love it. How did you become an expert in this industry? And how did you even get started in this?

Oren Klaff  
I don't think I think I got started, I got stopped. Like, you know, whatever the song is, I follow that I you know, I fall down, I get up again, that's how I got started. Right. I fall down, I get up again, it's a great question. By the way, this is a professional podcast, like I have a podcast that I do from time to time, where we started to hear in the studio, and and I started my podcast in the following way. What what's our subject today can't. So this is very professional, and I enjoy being part of it. So let's, let's, you know, let's deliver the heat. 

Here's how I got started in this, I had a guy that I worked for colleague of mine, and a friend and he started being extremely successful in acquiring real estate and companies to the point where he needed some help, right. And he said, I need somebody who's fast on their feet is good at, you know, the silver tongued devil can do math, and I can, you know, bring in to the to the business without worrying about him. So he brought me in, and he showed me the kind of deals he was making. And and so what he was doing is he was looking for an asset to buy either a company or property. And then what he would do is he would line up the debt. So he would line up, say $12 million of debt. And then of course, you know, you need to show up with some equity. So be my job to get the equity and, and so tying up the asset, and getting the debt and getting the debt commitment to the bunch of money and he wouldn't he would front all that money. The problem with all that is he would leave me no time to get the equity like 30 days, he's like, You have to show up with $4 million of equity in 30 days, click just like one of these iconic guys, that only text in all caps, five words, right? And then call it like, you know, almost like this Charlie's Angel, shadowy character never met in person. I was a good guy, but a little bit quirky. And then he would just go, you know, you have 30 days to show up with $4 million. Click, what, what, what are you talking about? Right. And so then I had to figure out, so most teams, most teams where his teams has, like a 90 days to collect that amount of money as a team. And so in a cold start. And so I just figure it out. Because there's so much pressure on me, we would probably have between $250,000 and $750,000 up hard, like so if we didn't show up with equity, it lose it. So then I had to figure out how to raise equity quickly baptism by fire. And we just like, like, we're just talking about like Kirk Cousins, the Vikings quarterback like, you know, maybe not a great quarterback. Definitely all but he finds ways to wins gains. So maybe that's what you could call me like old and not great, but found a way to get it done. So every deal, I would find out figure a way to get the 4 million 12 million, 6 million 8 million of equity. And that's really where my skill set came from is being under the gun to find real money to close deals,

Ryan Miller  
man phenomenal. So how did you transition into I would say mastery, like what happened to this guy? How did you move and become the guy

Oren Klaff  
so I think we talked about a little bit before but so we were on a deal. And I've really needed the money from the closing. I was trying to buy a house. I hadn't made any money and you know, because there's a long spaces of time when you work on deals between you you make no money. So I really needed the Money on the deal. I think my my part of the deal was probably quarter million dollars. Right? And, and so my cash reserves are dwindling away. We had everything going on the deal. And the other the counterparty, the guys selling it were being difficult on the closing, right? We just there was daylight between us we couldn't get it closed. But I was pretty confident like we were going to get it there. And so I was using Outlook then. And I remember I never forget one thing, and I see an email from my partner all caps in the subject line, lose my number three words. And I'm like, Okay, well, I gotta see what you know, what's in this email? Nothing in email, no, no, buddy, just subject line, lose my number to the seller, right. And so I came from a fit my dad's academic, I came from a pretty traditional business background, almost, you know, sub lawyer in my training, very linear, traditional conservative kind of business training, an in a deal in which millions of dollars are moving back and forth. And I am going to make $250,000 or zero, I just see an email all caps lose my number, I'm like, this deal has died. And right. And then like, I am so young, just wanted to get my head rocking back and forth, talking to my girlfriend, and then later became my wife. I'm like, we're like we're toast, you know, find find a refrigerator box that we can move to because that's where we now live. And so as I'm as I'm groaning and moaning and being like, why, how did I knew it? I knew this was gonna happen. I hear another dang thing, right? I'm like, Okay, here's the FPU How dare you, you know, email coming through from the other side and their email. So the subject line is still lose my number. But they've now put information in the body. And so what they've written is, and I'm like, here comes here comes the knife, you know, the silver tip knife to the heart of the vampire, and I'm dead. Right? Here it comes. And they right, we're so sorry. Like, really appreciate your patience as we sort out stuff on our side. No problem. You know, we're going to close we'll release escrow, we're going to close the deal. Right? And so we're excited to be in business with you. Like how did we get there from lose my number two, we're sorry, my God. This is as you know, like I said, Camden earlier I was like, I reached in the back of the closet to grab a sweater to put on through chilly outside, I saw a little door, I slid the door open. And Narnia was back there Flying Tigers and spaceships and magic and you know, dragons and Castleton. Like, what what is back here, and I slipped through there. And, and so the partner I had was just a very unusual business character. And a dozen things like that happened, right? were different, all different in nature and like, What is he doing? You know, how do you tell somebody lose my number? And then they reply, I'm sorry, right? Let's close this $12 million deal, where you make two and a half million dollars. So that's how I got into this world of being able to do it the way I do it, because I was an understudy to somebody who was a natural at closing deals,

Ryan Miller  
man, phenomenal work and good for him. He sounds like quite the character too. So you certainly baptism of fire on that one man. Holy smokes Jesus.

Oren Klaff  
You know, and not not everything he did was was was perfect. So it wasn't like I could just follow you know, just call him, you know, John around and be like, oh, you know, he gets coffee with like, creamer in it. Okay, great to do making Oh, you know, he drives around in a Rolls Royce. We live in a little beach town in Southern California. Right? Like, it's basically every single Car is a Toyota four runner or a pickup truck. Because that's, you know, what's a beach town? We have a foreigner, you know, and so he's rolling around. And it's like, you know, ghost Greene Rolls Royce. Like, it's so weird, John. So you can't just follow him around and do everything. Like you have to pick and choose the things that are working. So for example, when we like we would go up to Vail or to conferences or whatever, it would talk to everybody, right? Like, what are you working on? And just and just randomly, you know, bumping on the ski lift? What are you working on? Yeah, let's change numbers. Right? We talked to 300 people like that, and never did a single deal. That's why I don't like I don't randomly talk to strangers on trains, planes, ski lifts, bars, anything like that, because my experience is what we do is so specific, we never do a deal with somebody we meet like randomly, but you know, so So I learned, you know, not to do that. But he did have some incredible, incredible business tools that I absorbed and then later they became part of Pitch Anything, which is now part of, you know, American dealmaking culture and that's, I think there was a question in there somewhere. Yeah, the answer was longer than the question but somewhere in there is something

Ryan Miller  
Yeah, no, I absolutely love it and I appreciate you telling that story. So I'm getting visuals of this guy so lucky you and yes, if you're following him around getting the same coffee and driving the same cars that's a little more than understand. 

Oren Klaff  
Yeah, we close the deal. Like the list of things not to do with longer than the the list of things to do by the way so I give myself credit for like finding the gems of what what I learned to do from from following them around So he we close a deal and he bought an Aston Martin DBS like a V 12. One of the one of the first ones that came out those would have been like 2005 2006. But right but he ordered it in his custom like bamboo, baby shit green, bamboo beige top with like, I'd say maybe like, like accustomed bamboo dashboard, right? And like, ugly. What is this right? And so he drove the car for one day and hated it, like waited one of those things like waited nine months for it to be built, shipped from England, you know, serial numbers. 3333 baby shit green. So a buddy from O'Gara, Beverly Hills, one day thinks back to them because I hate this car. Right? And they're like, yeah, we'll give you like, 60,000 for it, like, it's baby shit green, like, what do we do with it? So it's like, I don't care. Like, whatever, just take it back, give me $60,000. So then they take that car, I'm gonna land the plane here ready? They take that car, and they give it to entourage, the TV show. And so the Aston Martin, you see driving around Entourage is you don't care about the color because it's right. That was our car, right that we had for one day. And they had so little money in it. Right? It's 60 grand in it, they gave it to the show entourage and got all the promotional on the end of the show, scroll, right? And on the bragging rights of being on entourage. So that's where that car ended up. So those are the things not to do. There were a lot of good things to do.

Ryan Miller  
Awesome. Well, the success of entourage, we can owe it to one of your earlier mentors. But you know, that's just where you got started. And you did all these things. But now let's talk about a little bit of Oren Klaff. And his his empire of finance empire, we'll we'll say what are some of the things that you're up to? I mean, bring it bring us up to speed brings in your world?

Oren Klaff  
Yeah, so we run a finance group, if you run a finance group, right, mainly, what you do is you go to conferences, you make very serious phone calls, you network with people, you go to networking events, you make, you know, stoichiometric economic presentations, to small, you know, to business groups, right. And that all sounds wonderful and enjoyable. Except I hate that. Right? So what I like doing is hanging out with celebrities having a beer driving, yeah, you can't see it here, but I can flip, you know, flip it over, I have a pretty big car and motorcycle collection. You know, I like doing that. I like going to motorcycle rides with Jay Leno and doing fun, you know, automotive related stuff, my son plays hockey, like going to his hockey game, they do not like going to business conferences, and you know, making presentations on economic predictions that don't happen anyway. So what I do is I help companies understand Pitch Anything, how to do the things in Pitch Anything to help them drive revenue, when a company drives revenue, right? Then they, because of the things that you've showed them how to do so if the revenue is stuck, as you know, and you help show them some things to drive revenue. They aloft you to godlike status, right? And you're very important to the company, and then they go listen, you know, and these are 2030 $40 million dollar companies, there's a did last summer $25 million company, I help them drive revenue, and they go, can you help us raise some capital for the growth because now we're growing, you know, if you're in a capital efficient technology, kind of business and you grow growth requires, you know, generally requires capital, you just don't have technology companies, you know, sell funding and grow. So can you raise us, you know, 510 $15 million, and I go even better than that, I'll raise your money. And I'll put some money in myself, right. And I'll acquire a piece of the company. So went out to someone called wrote up the deal went out to some colleagues, in 20 days, got $20 million dollars for the company, we closed from, from a dead stop to putting $20 million. And we did it in 30 days, acquired a significant piece of the company, and you know, downs, like a feather, you know, so those activities I do is help get the trust and inside a relationship with high quality growth companies by helping them drive revenue, right, because that's really the only way you can earn, I feel like trust with somebody very quickly. Then they asked me to do something in capital markets, and they go, Hey, I'd like to put in some my own money and be part of the deal. Because they have this good experience with me before they're like, great, I go find the money in a small unionized consortium, we put the money in on a piece of the deal. And then and then try and continue to help them company drive revenue to look and go public or exit. So that's what I do. If that made any sense at all. Yeah. Yeah. So I know what you're saying is like, hey, you know, do you do one a week? Yeah, pretty much. Yeah. I want to, you know, to $20 million a week is about my page. Except no, like, you could do like two a year. So so I closed that one last year. Um, at the beginning of this year, I started another deal with with a $400 million Italian company. We formed a joint venture. It took me a while to like, study the deal, understand it, get inside of it have a relationship with the CEO to six year old company, just in Venice, just outside of Venice, technology, manufacturing technology. We inked a deal. And then in where are we now so Your August in on July 1, like I announced the deal to my network. And like on July 2, I got a $5 million commitment. So, you know, Inc that deal got that money in. So anyway, like, I'm blocked, but that's the stuff I do is find deals, build a relationship from my credibility and credentials, and hopefully integrity and track record and blah, blah, blah, and, you know, funny jokes and nice person, and then I go find money for those deals out of my network, once I have enough money in my network, and the deal is stabilized enough, then I can go outside to outside capital, and, and, you know, take in more capital from cold outsiders, once my, you know, my inside money is in the deal, improving the quality of the deal. So that's what I'm up to. I think that was probably too long an answer, but the that, you know, that's how my business functions. But I think what's in there for people, if you want to take away is like, trying to get into deals cold with a small amount of money is very difficult. You've got to figure out how to build this, like very high quality relationship with management, and the shareholders if you want to show up with a small amount of money or no money and get into a deal.

Ryan Miller  
Brilliant. Yeah. So for those who listen to the show, and follow me in Oren, we talk about the philosophy is through my own experiences, it's similar to what Oren talked about. And we boil it down into something not to restate, because nothing needs to be restated, the only spin on this is what we talked about the two most valuable assets in your possession of any fund manager or entrepreneur, it's your reputation and your relationships. And so as you enhance your reputation relationships, much like Oren does, I mean, you didn't put it that way. I certainly did. But what he's saying is like, I've built this reputation, this relationship by Integrity, these aren't things that I've done by accident, I'm totally putting words in your mouth. But what he's done is he leverages those, and building reputation, building relationships allows you to navigate through these deals. Now he's gotten there. And Oren is, you know, one of the legendary Ascended Masters and capital raising will say, but you know, in all seriousness, what he's done is he's put together these principles, written them in a book that you can see behind me here, he's written them in two books, Pitch Anything and Flip the Script. And through those, a lot of them and I've read them, a lot of them do outline many things. But at the core, I love how you filled in the gaps of saying, it's really reputation and relationships is really how I prime the pump on deals. So when I make a call versus someone going in cold with no reputation, no relationships, no money, it's really, really tough. But if you follow a lot of the things that Oren teaches, then we start to move it up in a very different and unorthodox way. And that's why you are who you are, and you break away from the pack. So absolutely inspiring.

Oren Klaff  
The benefit of that as well, you know, we have a new guy here, and he's like, Hey, can you teach me your CRM system? You know, like, where you keep all the leads, right? And I'm like, Well, I just look on, you know, if I'm looking for new business, I just looked at my Gmail and see what's in there. He's like, Yeah, but you know, you get there, like I did 30, 40, 50 Gmail today, like, what happens if somebody's asking to do business with you, if a lead comes in and goes below the fold? Oh, my God, blah, I don't know, then I don't do it. It's like, well, no, that's not like, it's not possible. You have to like, keep your leads, and like know, if they want to work with me, like, I don't, I don't get to I get an email back. Right. So so he's like, No, but like, Where? Where does that go? I'm like, I don't know, called Gmail, I know what the fuck it goes. Like. It's like, below where I can see it. It goes into the internet, I don't know. The benefit of, you know, having that reputation is that people want to work with you. And so I'll extend that a little bit further. So so I'll get an introduction from you know, so I helped a guy close a deal out, the guy sells company for $42 million, a couple years ago, you know, and he, he loves the work that I did. And so he sends over a referral. And they say, Hey, Dave, said, You did a great job for him selling his company want to sell my company very interested. Can you tell me a little bit about yourself? Well, you know, is it well, what do you mean? I'm like, you don't have the internet, like, just just type Oh, in, like, your browser, and it will autocomplete Oren Klaff. And then you can like, half the internet is already about, like, if you can't, like you came to a phone call, like, honestly, God, you came to a phone call, right? I'm the easiest guy in the world to diligence, right? And like, I don't work with lazy CEOs and executives that you know, who don't do any basic diligence and want me to do their work for them is a horrible way to start a relationship. So no, I can't like tell you anything. And then I'll throw some frosting on him. Like, also, like you can't, can you afford a microphone? Because you're like, you're on your laptop on the Zoom call? And it sounds like poor like, what is that even? What is that laptop? Right? And they're like, I'm so sorry. Like, my, my Mac is my assistant has it. And this is the old Dell that I'm using. So you know, they're apologizing to me like, yeah, I should have looked you up. Like, yeah, like if you want to do you want to just reset this call next week and do it professionally? And read? Yeah, yeah, I'll you know, I'll do some research on my laptop. Yeah, there's a guy running the $80 million company that thought he was gonna come in and show me what time it is. The point is, I think maybe there's no point maybe the point is Oren Klaff is a big asshole. But But I don't think that's the point. I think the point is that you When you have a reputation, and you have integrity, and you have a belief system, and then you have values, and you are integral to your values, and people come in, and they immediately are playing the game outside of the way you like to live your life, you should be comfortable calling them out, like who, you know, who doesn't come to a phone call, you know, and experiences like, Hey, guys, really great to be at the meeting, you know, very interested in working with you. Oh, did you read the brief? Oh, no, I want you to start at the beginning didn't have a chance to go through it. Right. And so 90% of people will go, okay, great. Let me pull it up, we'll talk you through it, you know, but in your heart, you're like, why would I work with these guys? Like I prepared a brief Senator over a week ago, right, put a lot of work and energy into it. They asked me to do that work. And then they proceeded to not read it. And now they're wasting the time that we have on the call, in which we could be making progress asking me to read them the brief that I prepared their request, who are these jerks, right? And so then then you can clarify and you go, Okay, well, my value system is I don't call people during training and say, hey, just want to check in like, did you have a baby, which I understand, you know, did your house flood? So because I understand that, you know, and things happen, things happen to me, I miss calls, I don't read briefs, but it's just like who you are. And if we work together is this just like you think you own, you know, you're the you're the customer, you put $1 into something we're doing together. And now you think you own us and cannot read briefs, waste time and phone calls, reset stuff? And I'm going to see and be seen as behavior for the next two years, until we fire each other? Or is this just like a one time thing that got torqued up? And so that's what you really want to say, but you're afraid to say it. But if you have a reputation, you have integrity, you know, your values, and you're known for something, then you can say these things from a place of honesty, right? Because then if somebody says, Well, yeah, I mean, that's what we do. Like, we don't read, we ask for briefs, we don't read them, we come to cause late, we order around, we pay you $1, we expect you to work 40 hours a week on only our account, and then eventually we get so frustrated, we just fire you and you make no money. And you're like, Oh, well, okay, then I probably won't want to work with you. Or if they go Yeah, man, I'm so sorry. We had a baby, you know, which, like, people have babies all the time. Like, yeah, I know, it sucks, I have babies, you're up at night, you forget to do things that, you know, that's one thing I learned from, you know, John is have a set of values. And that's what lose my number was really about, right, it's like, you have pushed me beyond my breaking point. 99 out of 100 people, you know, will be like focusing on the two and a half million that we're going to make and be like, Hey, wait another day, no big deal, which 24 Hours Against against, you know, $2.4 million. But what John taught me is like, if you have values, and you stick politely, and honestly and authentically with integrity to those values, then you can always be in control. And now you now you don't have the illusion of control, you have actual control. And that's the big thing that I help I think I help people do is have control of every deal, not control of people, right? Because if you don't want you can you control people? Sure. Can I show you like nine things to control somebody? Sure. What's the joy in that? Right? What's the joy in control and forcing somebody back in them into a corner making them do a deal, I can do that all day long. No fun in it. No, join it. But what I do want control of is is the deal, right? Because you can ask me, and I'll you know finish up here. But you can ask me to bend over backwards, you can ask me to lose money, you know, or spend money, you can ask me to delay, you can ask me to do all kinds of things which I can acquiesce to, and but you can't ask me to be a bad business person. And you can ask me to bend or break my values in order to do business with you. And if if I hold those two things as my anchor, then I control the deal.

Ryan Miller  
That's absolutely right. And so coming from a place of value. So the two takeaways on on this Oren, number one is be very clear on your values. And that also, I would arguably say that that ties into your reputation is a function of where you value. The other one is be careful who you work with, and be smart about it, man. So there's people that will just as I like to say, they'll run your clock that waste your time, they'll drag things out, they won't read briefs, they'll do all these things. And you're like, Come on, dude. And then you with if you value integrity, that typically means you show up on time you do what you're asked in all these things. I've had experiences man, even recently, where people talk about, I know how to tank, the company, and I'm going to do all this stuff. And I basically told them to eff off. And it didn't make me a lot of friends. But I slept great at night. And so folks, I want you to really reflect on what Warren and myself are talking about right now is that your reputation, and more importantly, your integrity, especially in this business matters. That's number one. And number two, the other thing that matters a lot is who you choose to work with. So don't just hear a big number and turn your brain off. Stick to your morals. Be that person that you wish you are or you already are just be a better version work with the right people. And now you got a fighting chance of actually closing and doing good deals and coming out the other side with a better reputation than when you went in and better relationships and when you went in.

Oren Klaff  
Yeah, yeah, I mean, I think also like this word values I think people can get confused about because if I say to someone, what are your values? Right, they read me the Bible, right? Like I'm honest, I don't bring my neighbor's wife, I tend I tithe to the church and I, and I'm good to the Word and the Word is my bond. And, you know, so they're just sort of read every, you know, God fearing value from the Old Testament and New Testament, you know, Koran, and Book of Mormon and they list it out. And they're like, no, like, not, how do you be a Mother Teresa is not what I'm asking. Right? What I'm asking is like, what is core to the way you do business? And you have different answers, like so. So for example, I have colleagues that hate it when people lie to them, right? And it triggers them, they caught they, they're instantly all over it, you know, and they're like, God, I love it, not love it. I'm totally accepting when somebody lies to me, because I encourage it. Once I hear it, like, yeah, tell me more about that. Because I want to see like, how far they'll go. And how crazy pants you know, what crazy pants lie mine, you know, did this come from? Right? I want to. And so I'm not sure if people lie to me all the time. It's just, I don't have like to confront them on it, I just let it pass over me, I try and wiggle out of that deal or relationship. And I let the lies like other people are, like, buried. So that's a value system, which is some people hate being lied to. Me, I don't mind. So you know, there's other things, you know, part of my values are, you know, not even like showing up on time. Because I blow a lot of calls, I come late, I probably come late, some call view, sometimes I come early, I just I'm super busy, I try to do the best I can. So like my, my value is not like 100% showing up on on time. It's not like one of my highest values. One of my highest values is is if there's like something like that, that we've set that needs to happen, you know, two weeks from now. And there's plenty of time to do it. And it just shows up on done with no notice. That freaks me out, right? Because I'm like, my projects have multiple, multiple milestones, many touch points, complex integration points. And if you're responsible for the delivery of a financial model, that, you know, that describes the deal, that's critical for us to present to the bank, and we're relying on having two days to review it. And it's not done. You know, when you've had two weeks, like that triggers me because you know, of getting wise. So I think the point is you got to say like what is it that are your you know, your actual meat and potato things that you can live with and what you can't live with? And therein lies your system, because what happens is, now you have a real system, like hey, man, is that how it works, you show up with stuff that that's supposed to be done, and you just don't give any fair warning, and just go ahead and get it done in time, right? Because if that's how, you know, it's gonna be with you, I cannot work with you. We might, we might enjoy hanging out at Thanksgiving, you know, we might send each other Christmas cards, we might, you know, go to the surfing together, but we cannot work together, right? So you can't just say my values are ever every 500 things in the Mother Teresa, you know what we're doing? Listen to Bible, it's got to be something you're like, if that's how you work, I don't care how much money I could make come out. And there's your value system. I love that.

Ryan Miller  
So would you recommend that people that's a great place to start is just figure out what are is your that core value system as far as business goes, just to help them start to raise capital and do good deals is just figuring

Oren Klaff  
it allows you to do the zero risk takeaway, right? FOMO we talked about FOMO? Like, how do you do FOMO? Well, it to take away fear of missing out, right, so Hey, Ryan, I need you to make a decision by September 15. That's two weeks from now, are you in or out super high stakes? Because I think I can close right? You know, in 30 days, no pressure, Ryan has the money. I can close his ass. You know, it's just, you know, if I just eggshell him not getting upset. He's a cool guy. He's got lots of stuff going on, no need to like get him all flustered with some kind of hard deadline, because he could have a really negative reaction to that. Right. So that's why you don't do it. But if I say to myself, listen, this is a startup startups don't sit around running around. There's no, I'm gonna we're gonna start off just hypothetically, startups don't run around for three months, you know, trying to raise $2 million. It's a 30 day thing, right? So you say you understand startups, you say you have you know, capital, you say you've had an exit, you say you're like at the speed of your work the same as Silicon Valley, you say, you know, all those guys, you say, you know, a bunch of founders who went full exit, right? Well, then you understand startups fund themselves in 30 days, I don't want to sit there, you know, for six months screwing around trying to talk to money. So the takeaway is zero risk, right? Where I can just say, Hey, man, we are working on startup timelines. Like if you can understand that, and you want to be on that timeline, and you can see yourself closing this in 30 to 35 days. I'll let you in the deal. If you're, you know, if you and it happens, you know, guys say their startup guy, but they really function well that private equity or institutional mentalities, which is fine. It's not illegal. It's just not for us. But if you really are a startup guy, and you really can't function on startup timelines, let me know. And then we can process this thing. But we're going to be out here. We've been doing this for two weeks, September 15 is 30 days. That's like five days away from my absolute limit, when I'm willing to work with someone on a $2 million piece. So now because I pulled in my value system and my understanding of, of norms in this industry, and then apply them to you, right, now I can, I can turn the screws on FOMO because that's I'm applying a standard, and I'm blind of applying to the belief system. And I'm blind applying my values on a hard close, so there's no risk to me. So now I'm running a hard close on Ryan with zero risk of myself because I'm like, Well fuck it, if the guy is like a 50 day, you know, close, it's gonna be a pain forever, he's never going to be behaving like a startup guy. He's gonna be behaving like an institutional guy. And I don't want those guys in my deals. And you know what, this is the largest economy on Earth. It's a fast, it's it's the most functional capital markets, it has the most amount of investment capital, the most amount of, you know, people are interested in entrepreneurialism, Brian is one, you know, fish in the sea of many if he doesn't want to behave in a normal startup framework, then he is occupying. And I don't know how you got sucked into this accusation, Ryan. But you know, just because you're the only other person on the call. What happened? Yeah, this is Ryan Ryan, alternate universe, but like, I have zero risk in pulling the takeaway, because, you know, and then and then ultimately, you have to be okay for Ryan to go, Hey, like, I can't do it. You know, it's too fast for me. Great, right? And then it's done. And, and when you say, great, and you don't try and close him further. Now you're building integrity for yourself, and you go great, I set a deadline. The deadline was reasonable, right? It's right, I held the moral authority frame, I held my values. It was completely fair. These are industry standards. I held Ryan accountable to the industry standards. It couldn't meet my standard. Why should I have low standards than like, the middle of the industry? And he's out, right and having done that, a at zero rescue yourself, and B, you've built this like incredible integrity machine. Inside of you're like, wow, I can hold my own integrity. This is fucking amazing. I can actually be true to myself and live. Yeah, that's absolutely right. If you're in like, I don't know, Slovenia, or Carrefour or Belgian West Congo, you know, maybe like, like, that's specific to our economy, because I can go find another 10 Ryan's you know, on LinkedIn tomorrow. So So you know, maybe you can't pull that shit in, you know, thing file China or, you know, wherever, because they don't have as much as functioning of a capital markets as we have you here. But over here in USA, America, we could do that all day long, because there's plenty of people to talk to. Anyway, Hey, Ryan, how would you like to have your show back? Turn it back over to you.

Ryan Miller  
Now, this is wonderful. So, you know, the lessons are the takeaways that we talked about. These are some of the things that I teach, as well. Oren. So thank you for just being a Herald. What I'm hearing, there's many things and this is an episode I'm going to be listened to many, many times. What we're saying is, you know, it's okay. All's I thought about is me in the early days. 15 years ago, when I started pitching, I was young, I was trying to be too nice. I was flexing on anything. I just wanted to accommodate Right, excellent customer service that raised $0. So yeah, it was accommodating. And it was polite, right? Yeah, I gave excellent customer service to people who never funded anything that I brought to them, but they like to have me around. Yeah, it was a help desk. Yeah, help desk. Yeah, that's what I was. And you know, deep down, I do enjoy helping people at some level, of course, why not? But what a problem, that is the problem. And that can be a problem. But when you actually grow and what Oren and someone who has mastered this, he's able to say no, like, if you want to work on the deal, here's how it's gonna go. Because early on, when you started this, he was talking about I want to control the deal, not the people, I don't care, the people will align to my values, or they won't. But at the end of the day, when a deal starts, and it's my deal, I let them know, this is my deal. Here's how it's gonna work. This is the deadline, can you get it done or not? It's fair, but I'm not being I'm being kind. But I don't have to be polite. But we do have a deal to get done.

Oren Klaff  
That mean, good. Let me give one like method to stick your nose because I hear a lot of people like, yeah, you know, I can't I could never say that, or I work in a company. Like if I talk like that, you know, I'd be out on the street. You know, I'm saying it at a very high state of intensity. It's a podcast, this is entertainment. Right? If we're going Ryan, what I want to do is really, you know, talk to you about values, importance of sticking to your knitting. And what we'd like to do is make sure that the moral code that we've identified, like, Okay, we're gonna have a podcast. So I'm saying that a high level intensity, I'm adding invective to it, tossing in a couple words you don't see in the Bible here and there. So you may be saying, if you're new to this, they I could not do that. You'll get there. But let me give you a way to nose in to this. That is amazing. When you're coming to a zoom call with somebody who perceives themselves as higher status more valuable and more powerful than you 110% For sure, they came to the call late, three minutes late, five minutes late, seven minutes late and you sat around going, hey, I can do this come to call two minutes late with me. You're gonna find crickets, right? Like, I don't put my full ego on display, but like, hey, you know, if you get a call with Oren Klaff to talk about, you know, putting $20 million, your company can't figure out, you know how to say, Hey, I'm gonna be five minutes late, no problem, and you just don't show up, then I'm like, Okay, now on to the next thing, because I'm busy, right? But but for sure, and don't take this wrong way as much more like, you know, likely if I feel like I have $20 million, you have a small company, I got lots of companies like you, I'll probably come to call four minutes late, because I'm just that's when somebody perceives themselves at higher status than you, they will take risks around you. They would not take with their peers or their superiors. So when I need $20 million, guess when I come five minutes early, right? When I'm giving $20 million, you know, then guess when I come five minutes late. That's the way it functions. If you live in some alternate universe, it doesn't. I'd be surprised. Tell me about it. But that's the way it works. So anyway, so the guy who perceives himself more powerful than you comes five minutes late, but we got to notch him back down to reality, right? And it goes like this. Hey, Ryan, welcome to the 207 call. Because the two o'clock call started a few minutes ago. Let me get you caught up. You could now write however, you can say that and whatever tone of voice 100% of billionaires hedge fund managers, private equity guys, venture capital guys, captains of industry will turn around and say to me, I'm sorry, I got hung up. I was like, you know, you know, it's COVID there were 37 boats that were responsible for their delivering like toys to small children's and orphanages. I had organized those. I've we, everybody knows, like coming to a call seven months late is bullshit. So it just is right. What not that not that there wasn't a reason for it. It's just, you know, everybody in our culture knows the value of time. Do you go hey, are you here for the 207? Call? I will Ryan will everyone go like I'm so sorry. You know, Joe peon. Like, it doesn't matter who you are the valet guy. You know, the the the billionaires will apologize to the parking guy around time, because in our culture, we understand the value. No billionaire that I know nobody, man NGO billion dollar hedge fund like, yeah, so what I wasted seven minutes of your time, like, why are you telling up on it, nobody will do that. They like 100% of them go, I'm sorry, which is a great way to start a call with a billionaire apologizing to you. So the call just starts like and try this, you know, with your friends with your colleagues, you know, with people around you. And it seems like a crazy thing to do, but you will love it. It would just be going all day. Hey, Jim, you're here for the 203 call, right? Like, oh, man, I'm so sorry. I know, I like I should have come early. But I, you know, I had just saved this little lady car was like gonna run over. And then she she was like, thanking me and wanted to give me $5 I'm trying to put it back in her pocket. But yeah, I'm here. Now I'm focused, like, let's, I'll make it up to you. Right? So that's, you can start to see the status games and the power games of like, where is the integrity, and everybody in our culture knows the importance of integrity around time, nobody will say let him answer what I came to the call late, calm yourself down, like you. So you can start there and start to see it happening for real. And that's a really fun, and people will laugh at it and try it out. And that's a fun way you can know is your way into the world of status and power.

Ryan Miller  
So you seem very astute student will say, of human nature and power moves in within those human nature's and those dynamics through people you feel like understanding because a lot of times we'll talk about pitching and here's how you say the right thing. And here's you got to present your thesis. And do you put a mission statement in your slide deck? What, right, so we have all these tactical things. Sure, that's fine, you got to write something down. But it sounds like just talking to you in on this on our show and our time together, that the highlight on everything to have someone with your background, and you're talking about human nature, power moves, and just how that interaction of face to face works, you find like understanding how the rise to power and human interaction and you find like that is that a big part of how you're able to be successful in raising capital.

Oren Klaff  
No one will do a deal with you, they perceive themselves as higher status and more powerful than you unless until they believe that you are appear and an expert in what you do, and that they are appreciative of the opportunity to work with you and that they do not hold leverage over you. They will not close a deal with you.

Ryan Miller  
Well, so shifting gears, I'm curious from all of your experience and understanding human nature and writing all these books and raising all this money, man, you've been busy guy. I'm wondering if you have like four or five things that you found to be the most helpful that maybe you can leave behind some some cheat codes. With all that experience for our fans around the world. We've got 100 countries, we'd love to hear from the master himself. What are maybe four or five things you found to be absolutely impactful when raising capital.

Oren Klaff  
So that that's great. I thought you were gonna say for a moment you raise capital, he wrote a couple books. I bought a couple of companies on the board of a company working with a big Italian firm. It sounds like you and I thought you were gonna say sounds like you have no life.

Ryan Miller  
Well, that would be an insult to me as well. Yeah. So we're I'm right there with about I have a show that I insult my guests. Let's do that. Yeah,

Oren Klaff  
you don't need that show. We install your guests when your guests will just insult themselves. All right. So that's that's the secret there. Yeah, I wrote down a little list for you guys. I thought of some takeaways come on a show like this. You hear a big dick guy like Oren Klaff, talking about $20 million 100 million dollars, billion dollars, right? And you can start to fetishize this world and be like, Yeah, I want to get in that. The reality is, the way that I got in here is 20 years of asking for honing the ability to ask for small checks, you cannot skip over small check Ville, and go into big boy land, right? I don't really don't see any like middle school football players go into the NFL, guess what they do, they go to high school, and then they go to junior college. And then they go to college. And then one in a million of those guys goes to the NFL, where they hit really hard. You can read medium articles, you can be on a podcast like this, but you have to understand like the 10, 5, 10, 20, $50 million world is the NFL Super hard hitting your bones broken, your career ended in one hit. Like that is not a good starting place, even though it seems like it. Because you can read those articles and be like, Yeah, I started the company I'm like, those are, those are lottery winners. Don't worry about that. So the takeaway is learn how to ask for $25,000 checks from people and get them to scale up to $100,000 checks, because you can do that inside your community. And so people you know, and go cold for larger money, once your skill set has improved a bit, Don't set yourself Self up for failure, by jumping into cold approach, million dollar asks, you're just like, you're just gonna get your butt handed to you. Because you can, you know, I see, you know, colleagues or friends or people, they think it's like sales, or like you never sell none, you can literally get hit bet zero for 100, all day long in that world. So learn to ask for small checks before you start thinking about going into larger, I think the next thing is if you're an entrepreneur, and you're looking for money, understand what a minority control deal is. So what you know investors who come in and are providing you money, you're going to want control. Of course they are right. But those control provisions are real, like they can't take your equity away, but they can fire you. Or they can make your life miserable. This is why I tell most of my CEOs, the first day you take venture capital with the last day you enjoy working at your company, because most venture capital deals are minority control deals. And you're like, I have a job, like, yeah, I have equity in the company. And then I used to run this company. But now I took a minority control deal. And I have a job and I hate it. I hear that 10 times a week. So learn what a minority control deal is. And I think the third thing is, I find people they want to know, like, how to find investors. And I think that's the wrong mission. I think it's how to find groups of investors and be efficient. Rather than find one investor and trying to convince them to give you a million dollars, find a group of investors, you know, and try and suck, you know, 10 $500,000 checks out of there, right. So find groups of people and pull smaller checks out, rather than find one group and try and convince them to give you one large check. So groups rather than individual investors. And I think the the fourth thing is recognize investors buy the stock of your company, they don't buy the product and buy the company, the bank statement, they don't buy the the mission that you have, they don't buy the benefits there, they there, they may never use the product might not even understand the product, what they understand what they understand and want to buy is the stock of the company. So when you're meeting with an investor, you're selling them the stock of your company. And that's what the pitch is about. Right? Not the product, I will pitch the product of the companies and I'm in when I'm talking to investors for three minutes, like investors are smart. They're like I get it. Oh, you make a supercar that goes faster than Porsche and you know, has whatever and the super and carnets and credit, but how do I make money in the company? Oh, you make software that does accounting but uses AI? And it's better than into it? Okay, good. I got it. I don't need to our meeting explaining your AI accounting software? What is the stock of the company I'm buying? And how is my my money going to make the business better? And now is the stock going to go up? And then how am I going to get liquidity and get my money back? That's what you're selling. So three minutes on the product, and 57 minutes on the security that you're selling? And then I think if you listen back to this, which I'm not sure you should or could or would, but hype and FOMO are the two things you can control, you know, hype up the deal. In terms of explain though, what's exciting about it, you know, like positive are gonna turn hype and why acronym like Halo UWPD personality, extremism, whatever, right? But you, you need to think about talking about the best aspects of the deal. What's exciting about it, and then setting a firm timeline timeline that you would miss out to the hype is exciting. And the FOMO fear of missing out or the timeline. And that's how you can or the to control mechanisms, from Wall Street all the way to Silicon Valley to get deals done hype and FOMO. So those are the five things, jot those down, figure out how to do that stuff. And you are now like the world's greatest deal maker at least better than me, for sure. Because those are the things that took me a long time to learn and you can just learn them today and start doing them tomorrow.

Ryan Miller  
I love that. So what are some of the things that you've done to build hype and FOMO if you can leave behind some how tactics are there? Are there any things you can distill down as far as things people can do?

Oren Klaff  
So hype is how things are changing, right? Things are changing so dramatically, there is unmet demand for what we do. And we have a jaw dropping solution that is a perfect fit for all the pent up demand. Because how things have changed, right? Hey, like, what does that sound like? I don't know, a tornado went through our hurricane went to Florida like today or yesterday, right? Turns out that there is now an insane demand for synthetic two by fours. And we have, we have a logistics helicopter delivery system for remote delivery of synthetic two by fours. And we are raising money today to be able to ship 100 million synthetic two by fours to the immediate demand in the state of Florida. Great. Would you like to deal

Ryan Miller  
perfect, you know, just just to summarize everything that we talked about, learn to ask for 25,000 and work your way up on the smaller checks. First, get comfortable for asking for money. The second thing that Oren talked about is understand what a minority controlled deal is, make sure that you master those things. Third is learn how to find groups of investors more than just individual seek out groups. Number four was learn to sell what investors are actually seeking to buy. They're less interested in your product than they are on how they get paid. Make sure they understand what your deal means to them, not just why you care. Make sure you address the areas that they care about. And finally, understand. Please understand, according to Oren and I would agree the only thing that closes deals is hype and FOMO you do these things, and you too will be well on your way in your pursuit of making billions.

Wow, what a show. I hope you enjoyed this episode as much as I did. Now if you haven't done so already, be sure to leave a comment and review on new ideas and guests you want me to bring on for future episodes. Plus, why don't you head over to YouTube and see extra takes while you get to know our guests even better. And make sure to come back for our next episode where we dive even deeper into the people the process and the perspectives of both investors and founders. Until then, my friends stay hungry. Focus on your goals and keep grinding towards your dream of making billions