Making Billions: The Private Equity Podcast for Fund Managers, Startup Founders, and Venture Capital Investors

Launch Your First Fund: Royal Family Money Manager Secrets

April 29, 2024 Ryan Miller Episode 110
Launch Your First Fund: Royal Family Money Manager Secrets
Making Billions: The Private Equity Podcast for Fund Managers, Startup Founders, and Venture Capital Investors
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Making Billions: The Private Equity Podcast for Fund Managers, Startup Founders, and Venture Capital Investors
Launch Your First Fund: Royal Family Money Manager Secrets
Apr 29, 2024 Episode 110
Ryan Miller

Send us a Text Message.

Hey, welcome to another episode of Making Billions, I'm your host, Ryan Miller, and today I have my dear friend, Trevor Welch.

Trevor is an award-winning fund manager in venture capital, hedge funds, and private alternative investment strategies. As a former Goldman Sachs, private banking manager and money manager for the royal family, he's earned his place as one of the world's top 100 Finance leaders in 2023.

So what this means is that Trevor has entered God mode in private investments and is a perfect example of one of the funds that won in his industry. xFIaijmY0pxL7j0J4hTm

Subscribe on Youtube:
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCTOe79EXLDsROQ0z3YLnu1QQ

Connect with Ryan Miller:
Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/rcmiller1/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/makingbillionspodcast/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/_MakingBillons
Website: https://making-billions.com/

[THE GUEST]: Trevor is an award-winning fund manager in venture capital, hedge

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DISCLAIMER: The information in every podcast episode “episode” is provided for general informational purposes only and may not reflect the current law in your jurisdiction. By listening or viewing our episodes, you understand that no information contained in the episodes should be construed as legal or financial advice from the individual author, hosts, or guests, nor is it intended to be a substitute for legal, financial, or tax counsel on any subject matter. No listener of the episodes should act or refrain from acting on the basis of any information included in, or accessible through, the episodes without seeking the appropriate legal or other professional advice on the particular facts and circumstances at issue from a lawyer, finance, tax, or other licensed person in the recipient’s state, country, or other appropriate licensing jurisdiction. No part of the show, its guests, host, content, or otherwise should be considered a solicitation for investment in any way. All views expressed in any way by guests are their own opinions and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of the show or its host(s). The host and/or its guests may own some of the assets discussed in this or other episodes, including compensation for advertisements, sponsorships, and/or endorsements. This show is for entertainment purposes only and should not be used as financial, tax, legal, or any advice whatsoever.

Show Notes Transcript Chapter Markers

Send us a Text Message.

Hey, welcome to another episode of Making Billions, I'm your host, Ryan Miller, and today I have my dear friend, Trevor Welch.

Trevor is an award-winning fund manager in venture capital, hedge funds, and private alternative investment strategies. As a former Goldman Sachs, private banking manager and money manager for the royal family, he's earned his place as one of the world's top 100 Finance leaders in 2023.

So what this means is that Trevor has entered God mode in private investments and is a perfect example of one of the funds that won in his industry. xFIaijmY0pxL7j0J4hTm

Subscribe on Youtube:
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCTOe79EXLDsROQ0z3YLnu1QQ

Connect with Ryan Miller:
Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/rcmiller1/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/makingbillionspodcast/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/_MakingBillons
Website: https://making-billions.com/

[THE GUEST]: Trevor is an award-winning fund manager in venture capital, hedge

Everyday AI: Your daily guide to grown with Generative AI
Can't keep up with AI? We've got you. Everyday AI helps you keep up and get ahead.

Listen on: Apple Podcasts   Spotify

Support the Show.

DISCLAIMER: The information in every podcast episode “episode” is provided for general informational purposes only and may not reflect the current law in your jurisdiction. By listening or viewing our episodes, you understand that no information contained in the episodes should be construed as legal or financial advice from the individual author, hosts, or guests, nor is it intended to be a substitute for legal, financial, or tax counsel on any subject matter. No listener of the episodes should act or refrain from acting on the basis of any information included in, or accessible through, the episodes without seeking the appropriate legal or other professional advice on the particular facts and circumstances at issue from a lawyer, finance, tax, or other licensed person in the recipient’s state, country, or other appropriate licensing jurisdiction. No part of the show, its guests, host, content, or otherwise should be considered a solicitation for investment in any way. All views expressed in any way by guests are their own opinions and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of the show or its host(s). The host and/or its guests may own some of the assets discussed in this or other episodes, including compensation for advertisements, sponsorships, and/or endorsements. This show is for entertainment purposes only and should not be used as financial, tax, legal, or any advice whatsoever.

Ryan Miller  

My name is Ryan Miller and for the past 15 years I've 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, this show will give you the answers, so that you too can enjoy your pursuit of Making Billions. Let's get into it.


Ryan Miller  

I probably shouldn't tell you this, but the fastest way to grow your wealth, in my opinion, is to launch your own fund. So my next guest has done just that, leading him to manage money for Goldman Sachs, oil families, and win a ton of awards for doing so. So he's going to walk you through how to launch your own fund, so that you too can enjoy your pursuit of Making Billions. Here we go. 


Ryan Miller  

Hey, welcome to another episode of Making Billions, I'm your host, Ryan Miller and today I have my dear friend, Trevor Welch. Trevor is an award winning fund manager in venture capital, hedge fund and private alternative investment strategies. As a former Goldman Sachs, private banking manager and money manager for the royal family, he's earned his place as one of the world's top 100 Finance leaders in 2023. So what this means is that Trevor has entered God mode in private investments and is a perfect example of one of the funds that won in his industry. So Trevor, welcome to the show, man.


Trevor Welch  

Hey, I appreciate it, I'm glad that beyond and I have to like whatever superstitious so I'm not jinxed with that God mode, I need to keep going into the future man. But I'm grateful to be a participant and love listening to you and finding out how we align, and especially some of the skills you have that I really need to develop. So I really appreciate it that.


Ryan Miller  

We're all brothers on the path, man. So we're very fortunate to be in the top 2% of the world. It's all because amazing guests just like you my man. So you know, let's hit him, right between the eyes, you've done so many things, I mean, Goldman, and you know, managing money and raising money and working with high net worth even in royalty. I mean, you've done it all brother, and you're winning awards, this is amazing, we're gonna have a really good show folks who don't want to stay in the end, where Trevor really opens up and gives a lot of his best advice at the end. But before we do, let's get some advice about beginners. 


Ryan Miller  

So for people who are just starting out, let's say fund managers, right, this is an area you understand very well. What advice can you give to a beginner who's starting out in two ways? One, how do they win? How do they get early points on the board as a beginner, early emerging fund manager? And two, how do they not lose and blow it all up? What would you say?


Trevor Welch  

Yeah, and I think is a lot of it is to separate some of those skill sets and one of those is looking at what the components are of a fund, whether you are operating the fund, whether you are trying to find an investment that is worthy of someone else trusting their money with you, or whether you're fundraising. And those three components can take three very diverse skill sets to fundraise, to make the business solvent, to operate and do the operations and get things correct. And then to actually find deals that your brain is able to see something that others can't typically find or understand well enough to make money off of, you've got to combine those three, or outsource the things that you're not good at. 


Trevor Welch  

And so for making money on the investment side, and we'll talk about that, as far as you know, what, what's key, there's really two things you must do if you are going to make an outsize return out of like a risk free plus whatever average of the stock market, bond market or a private equity portfolio from the risk reward perspective. What you're looking for, especially in private investments, is to collapse, an inefficiency that is existing that other people aren't seeing, whether that's by a technology you're investing in, or a company that you see is creating some magnificent inefficient efficiency. Think of something like the internet or where we look at artificial intelligence, these aren't necessarily creating new industries, they're just making certain processes and functions within industries more efficient. Or you find something that has never been done in history that needs to happen that will benefit human experience, livelihood, or just something they all want like the iPhone, like the, everybody has a phone. People globally have mobile phones. So something that is a new experience or a new way of interacting with each other in society. If you can do one of those two things collapsing an inefficiency or create something that's never been capable before you can make money for your investors


Ryan Miller  

Awesome. You know, you and I've been speaking offline a little bit and I noticed a bit of a contrarian. What would you say about you know, contrarian, folks? For those who don't know, it is basically saying if the markets going up, you're betting it's going down and when everything's going down, you're betting in an opposite direction. Now that that sounds cool, a little cowboyish, but it's not enough to just be a rebel, you got to be right. What's, what's your opinion on? Just, are you in favor of contrarian? I mean, I think you are, but maybe you can walk me through a little bit of that.


Trevor Welch  

Yeah, it's important as a fund manager and whether you're emerging or not to be able to look at something and say, do I have an edge? Is there something that I'm seeing because Wall Street over analyzes everything and the key of if you're an investment banker is you need to know every number you need to know, you know down to the details of what is predicted and what can happen. And if you're on the same side of that opinion, unless you have access to something that will definitely generate money on that same side of a trend or reverting when a trend reverses. And that's in private markets or public, you need to have a very different view from that. Or else it's kind of just the median expectation of what the market is going to do. And so unless you can be very confident that you know, something that will happen or not happen, that is believed, it's tough to replicate that you are going to make anybody money. Meaning if you can generate somebody a 1% annualized return, that's what a lot of hedge funds stat ARBs, are doing anyway, you know, if you're always on the same side of what Wall Street is doing, or if you're always thinking the same, you know, trend of artificial intelligence, well, that's the definition of buying high and selling low, and which is the opposite of how you make money, you have to be variant of that when things are low, and nobody wants it. At the Warren Buffett method, the Intelligent Investor method, which I recommend everybody read, if you're going to have very few eggs, you have to watch those eggs carefully that they are going to go the direction that you think they will long or short. 


Ryan Miller  

Perfect. Thank you, you know, when it comes to beginners launching their fund, is there a milestone that you would recommend to emerging fund managers to have where you can finally stop sweating so much? Is there a minimum amount that they should say, Look, your first fundraise should be at least this number AUM to cover OpEx whatever is it? Do you have any advice on that?


Trevor Welch  

Yeah, when I look at funds and have looked at fund managers, I look at three different risks, whether they're worth it, that's the business risk, the operating the business risk, being able to do it properly and then the investment strategy what's really unique. With that business risk you, you start to be able to pay the fixed costs and variable costs of a fund at a very minimalistic headcount, which have funded most and most financial institutions' headcount that followed by technology, and that's starting to catch up are the largest expenses. That's typically for a startup, when you're really doing it right, you have the right key players, vendors and components in place, minimum $25 million of AUM. And that's on a traditional 2 and 20 type structure. You know, it can vary, but really, you're cutting corners on some things that are risking investor capital and your own livelihood. And so you want to try to get as close and venture capital, you can start lower, but in some hedge fund strategies, you shouldn't start unless you've got more. But typically, I would recommend, you want to be about breakeven on the management fee. So if you're charging a 1% management fee, you're gonna need a minimum 50 million if you're charging too, you can probably get away with 25. But just to be able to break even on those expected expenses. That's, that's where I would recommend, and there are things you can offset with what the fund will pay. But even then, you don't want somebody, you have to cap how much the fund reimburses your expenses if you're a small fund and so that's coming out of your pocket. 


Ryan Miller  

Got it, okay. Yeah, brilliant. So 25 million, if you're on a 220 structure, is the first milestone you should shoot for, for raising capital. And then I would say even those three things that you talked about, that's brilliant, that's also probably the areas where you don't lose is make sure you got those down. So I think you said business risk operations and strategy, correct? 


Trevor Welch  

Correct. 


Ryan Miller  

All right. So make sure that you know, business risks, you know how to run a profitable business operating is compliance, audit, all that fun stuff. And then strategy is just your thesis, your deal flow, figuring out your competitive advantage, and how to extend that to your investor. So I love that man, that's really good.


Trevor Welch  

There's individual components of each and you think of like, well, what's difference a business risk or operating risk businesses, your fund is your revenue and expense model. And you need to be capable of sustaining that through some really rough periods for maybe five to 10 years, you're looking at different components like a venture capital, the average venture capital fund investment is 14 years, the average marriage in the US is nine to 11 years. So somebody invested in a venture capital fund is more likely to be divorced one and a half times before they get liquidated of their fund. Even though the fun terms could be eight to 10 years, that is irrelevant to what's owned underneath unless everything is distributed time. So being able to know how to operate that can sustain your business, when you still have to operate it when you're not making the revenue because your fund doesn't allow it. And then having those people in those vendors that can, you know, manage the fund properly. For instance, accounting, most CPAs can't just go into a fund and account for funds, especially in public markets, but even in private property, specific rules and regulations on the legal field of how things can return to investors or it's a specialized field. And so your buddy that might be doing you know individual tax returns might not be the best person to do your fund reporting, you will probably miss report to your investors. And likewise with legal if your guy is a divorce attorney, he's even if he's a securities attorney and he worked on Wall Street doing, you know, public issuance and opinion letters for restricted stocks, isn't the guy for fund documentation and getting a fund launched her fund counsel? 


Ryan Miller  

Brilliant. Yeah. So it sounds like everybody gives a hard time to venture capitals calling it risky. Turns out it's less risky than marriage according to those statistics. That's all I heard was venture, you're that venture versus a marriage venture? That's great. All right. Well, let's, let's talk about the market. Man. That was phenomenal. So in the market, what do you ,what are you seeing out there? 


Trevor Welch  

Yeah, so things cycle, and it's been a historically long bull cycle and a lot of that has been because of, you know, money that's made its way into market through credit markets through private debt funds, and mostly through the Fed. And somebody used to be if you're a fundamental investor, meaning you're looking at the bottom at core of financials and things that go based on interest rates and things the risk free rate, it used to be you could predict valuations and things based off of that those core components that will come back into vogue, where value investors are, you know, important, again, different things with interest rates, and the Fed plays a big role. And we see that with inflation. And, you know, the market still reacts every time, Jerome Powell, you know, says something, but right now, I think there is either way, a lot of volatility for anything that happens, meaning there are assets that are in hyper bubbles that are super, super high. And what happens over long periods of time of rates, you know, maybe skewing where money gets thrown into a market, if you throw, you know, double the money and there's not double the production, well, the prices of each thing produced is double and that's how inflation works. 


Trevor Welch  

You get into an environment when multiple economies and central banks are trying to manage that by just injecting more liquidity, without ever stopping the ability to change what rates people borrow at tends to have hyper volatility. In one regime in history that we saw that that happened was in 1926, way more Germany would happen again, in 1937. It's happened in the 1970s. It's happened kind of low flow in the 1980s, but the ability of all those markets combined to inject more money into our central banks to inject more money, whether it's through more borrowing or lending definitely produces a lot more volatility going forward, where smaller economic changes can make a larger, how much does it cost me to borrow difference. And so while the Fed would like those borrowing rates to come down, they don't want that to create more price inflation and there's just a balancing act. There's actually a really good book on that called, The Age of Turbulence written by Alan Greenspan, where he explains this in 2005, before the financial crisis, basically saying if you're trying to control for three things, they're contrary like employment and inflation and all these things, that it's not possible and one of them breaks. And I think that's where we see things in markets that, that volatility gets more extreme, where VIX goes from one level to an extreme level, and that extremity rolls down to private markets, to debt markets, and to everything else that changes asset valuation pretty quickly.


Ryan Miller  

I love that, you know, you remind me of a thing I was like, say it's really hard being a regulator and regulators typically will say the Fed in this case, they have a habit of riding the brake, and they keep tapping the brakes till some flies through the windshield. So that's, that's perfect what Alan Greenspan talked about, say, two of the three passengers have their seatbelt on, but one of them is going to fly through the windshield, we just don't know which one until it does, so. 


Ryan Miller  

Thank you for watching. If you've made it this far, we must be friends. So don't forget to like, subscribe and click that notification button. Now, let's get back to the show. 


Ryan Miller  

It's not enough to know where it's at, but we also got to have a call, so what's your opinion? Where, what do you see out there? Where are the next opportunities looking forward in the market? 


Trevor Welch  

Yeah, so in everything I do, I base it on a few components of conditional probability and different option pricing models matter a lot to me and not in a Black Scholes predictive, that you would price like a derivative or an option. But in macro markets and public markets, looking at, you know, the worst case, base case and best case of any scenario that effects what I'm looking at as an investment. So macro level, different supply, dynamic, demand dynamics, but really looking at things that regardless of what the Fed does, regardless of what China does, are people going to demand and spend their money on having a better quality of life. I think so. So what are the technologies, what are the biotech you know, solutions of pharmaceutical solutions that will durably make that happen not just in developed markets, but globally? 


Trevor Welch  

And so as you as you can implement different things that have worked in certain markets, and then find how that works in other markets, that's always a successful trading strategy. I mean, that's one of Chase Coleman of Tiger global, that's a lot of what he does is he's like, you know, we have Amazon, so I invested in these things in India and Brazil and the roll down that where it works somewhere that's bound to work somewhere else, where how do we express that thesis of ours. And so that's what we do in life sciences, in energy infrastructure, right now, there's a lot to be done in developed markets and of course, in third world countries on energy and access to energy. So that's a place that I'm interested in. There's a and we talked about this once there's an author and I forgot, it's like Singer or something. But he says that there's a correlation, that access to energy has a direct correlation with advancements in society and if you can access energy, you can create clean water and if you can clean it, create clean water, you can create clean food, and it's just the cycle that revolves. And so we need to be able to solve all those and that's something that I'm interested in as well. And those are, those are things that geopolitical, those are things that, you know, central bankers, they're not going to stop the trend of making advancements in those places, and making good investments that return capital. And that's what we look for.


Ryan Miller  

You know, I love that and that was a big part of why I pursued energy, clean energy and those types of things and in our venture fund, not a solicitation for investment, I'm just saying this was the inspiration to that as well as to say, look, if you want to do the most good get into health, invest in biotech, biotech, right, this so this is more of a from an impact investor, like myself, biotech, energy, clean energy, whatever, any of those forms, and then be able to just work with governments and say, Look, we know what you need, you know, work with government of Nepal, or anywhere, really, and just say, Look, if we can help you with that, you know, just point and show us the way. So that's a big vision of ours is just giving access to help countries. So absolutely love that brother. 


Trevor Welch  

I love that and it's recursive, meaning that different countries, different economies have different challenges that sometimes produce some really interesting technologies. For instance, India has to help care a billion people and maybe they don't, billion plus, and maybe there are inefficiencies there. But they also innovate on some things that are really interesting, like portable ultrasound equipment where ultrasounds are really impactful for more than we understand whether it's, you know, plaque in the arteries and things and, and so there's a sharing there. And as markets are open, it helps to travel to places see how things go different places, like here, you'll see a different adoption rate of things like blockchain and cryptocurrency than you will in markets that have a less efficient financial transactional system. And for them, it's revolutionary, where here in the US, it kind of works well, functionally, and so there's not a need to change it as much, but where it needs to change, you find some innovation, that's really interesting. 


Ryan Miller  

Thank you for that. So as we round third base, I'm just curious, based on all of your experience, all of the fundraise, and all of these amazing things that you've been able to do, I'd love for you to talk about some of the competitive advantages you can provide for our listeners, based on all of your experience, maybe two or three things, what competitive advantages, would you provide someone who's just starting out? Or if they're experienced either way, what would you say? 


Trevor Welch  

Yeah, somebody said, I just read this and so I don't deserve credit and I wish I should give credit to these but maybe it was Simon Sinek. But he says we don't rise to the level of our goals, we always fall to the level of our systems. A competitive advantage for you will be build a system and process of the way that you think through investing. So yes, you need to have a sustainable business. Yes, you need to operate it properly and learn how to do that ,but the systems of the way you think will matter more to an investor, it will matter more to the long term success of how you perform in managing a fund than whether you're right on the price of Bitcoin tomorrow, or whether you've got Microsoft stock pegged. The way you come to those decisions, and the more articulate you can be on how you come to those decisions will help. I use certain methodologies I learned in grad school at Carnegie Mellon, Carnegie Mellon is very quantitative as people know and through that quantitative process, it helped me refine things like economic game theory. So I listened to one and there's a lot of research on economic game theory about operational research, or optimizing systems, processes and models, but applying that to an investment framework and how you think through the investment framework, the better you can do that. The more articulate and convincing you'll be for an investor to trust you with their money. It's one thing to come with an idea and say, Hey, investor, this is a great idea. You should invest in their ideas are a dime a billion right now, especially with artificial intelligence. But the ability to say this is the system and process I use to identify new ideas that will durably and replicably, make more money on an asymmetric risk return than my competitors.


Trevor Welch  

And so what I use is the economic game theory model of decision making, it doesn't work to pick stocks and bonds, but it does work at macro level markets, and that the one that I use is just a combination where I can quantify, you know, the probability, I think, different markets will move a different where different decisions, I should say will go up, works in geopolitics, it works in other, other areas, and refining it to those three to five, maybe eight variables that matter. So if you can define 70 to 80% of the success of a system, based on three to five variables that matter, you can then control for those variables and you can decide do I have an effect? can I influence? Or do I have the ability to mitigate the risk of those variables, meaning if I want to invest in a consumer product company, and one of the key indicators is the number of doors that can get in, that I can impact that the buyer of Walmart will pay attention to it? Well, maybe I invest in that company, if they've got a good product and I know I can get them into Walmart and I know the success variable. That is how many doors that have retail that they can get in that would be an example of a variable that can control for.  If you can't refine 70 to 80% of the success of a company or an investment down to three to five variables, you probably don't understand that market or that product well enough to get involved, so you just pass and I think the more you can do that, and articulate that to investors that will help. 


Trevor Welch  

The second one I use is that kind of discounting probability optionality model. There's one called Cox Ross Rubinstein, where you're looking out into the future and saying, here are the components that are needed, here are the risks that are possible and that helps you refine those five to eight variables in a market in a product in a company and be able to affect that.


Ryan Miller  

Yeah, make sure you have a good decision making process and you run it off a few of those models of game theory. I absolutely love that. So I'm going to look that up, I'm going to take your advice, this is great. So what about another one? What else would you say, could be a competitive edge from all your experiences? What could you share with someone and kind of point them in the right direction to develop this themselves?


Trevor Welch  

Yeah, it would be, course , always stay curious of anybody that you're talking to. You can always learn something from everyone and there there are people that are heavily listened to like, and know the difference, meaning that there are people who are wonderful to get advice from on the way that they think, but never believe that they are more likely to be correct on the actual way that it is applied in the way that they invest, then what your thesis is. Meaning if you have a system and process that you've researched, and maybe you are on the opposite side of the spectrum of a Ray Dalio or Simon Sinek, or something else, or Jerome Powell says I'm in the market, or you've even got like Jamie Dimon saying certain things, you know, we're fluff, when underneath there is a mandate of every division of JP Morgan to use the technology that he's on CNBC talking against, when there's a variation of that, realize that you are not, if you're curious, and you are learning and you are seeing things, have confidence in the process that you're putting in place. And don't doubt yourself, because some expert, especially if that expert is Wall Street, completely disagrees with you. I think that will give you a competitive advantage and give you that contrarian view as well.


Ryan Miller  

Yeah, I love that. And you know, I learned this from you, and other times that we spoke, but one of the things that you taught me was, expect people to disagree with you, like be ready for that if you're going out and you're pitching or you're talking about your thesis, expect them to disagree with you. But do not ever let it be okay for them to find a flaw in how you arrived at your thesis so they can argue it. The one thing they should not be able to argue, is your research process of how you arrived at your conclusion. Even if they don't agree with it, make sure they can never find a flaw in how you arrived. 


Trevor Welch  

That's a good way of putting it meaning smart investors, smart people can disagree with you and they can end up being right. But they will respect the way you disagree in why you came to the conclusion you did and that matters more than who was right or wrong. And that's a good way to put it.


Ryan Miller  

Thank you. I was just regurgitating your wisdom, but what would you say would be a third competitive advantage?


Trevor Welch  

It helps to take the risk of being on the edge of what you're comfortable understanding and just knowing that you have that curiosity and that intention, and that confidence that you'll figure it out. Always approach a problem knowing that if anybody can figure this out, I will and be okay being wrong. If you're humble enough to say, I'll figure it out, even if I'm wrong, over time, you'll be right a lot more than you're wrong. And where that comes in is if you're in a business meeting, and somebody's like who can do this and you're like I don't know if I can and be humble about it. But here's how I'll do it and I think I can do this and figure it out and be confident that you can take it on. That's how you rise in a system, whether that's a corporate system, or whether that's your, your own system of getting better at making good decisions. And that's what you need to do, you're not going to just make every good decision, you need to go out there, figure it out, mess up, but know that you've hedged that bottom, that downside, that you're not exploding and defrauding over promising, you are legitimately with with humility, saying, I think I can understand this, I'm gonna go understand it. And if I mess up, I mess up, but I'm gonna learn from and if you're in that room, and when somebody says, who can do this? Who can figure this out? Be the person that says I can figure it out? Even if you don't know if you can? 


Ryan Miller  

That's right. You know, you reminded me of a saying, I think it was Sheryl Sandberg from Facebook, something along the lines, like if you were offered a seat on a rocket ships, don't ask what seat just get on. And so it's one of those things, I think that emulates exactly what you're saying is be the guy, be the girl, be the person who just says, look, I'm going to figure it out, right? So that continuous improvement mindset, rather than a fixed mindset is just saying, like, look, I can get better, I've figured stuff out in the past, I figured out how to walk, I figured out how to feed myself. I mean, you could really go for it. But either way, we are built to figure things out and so when you're offered at the seat on that rocket ship, Yep, I'll figure it out. 


Trevor Welch  

You do it and that reminds me of something I used to have things on my wall. One of them was like things to avoid and investment structures that are usually fraud and there was a list of 50. And another one was a Navy SEALs way of thinking when they're afraid. And a lot of these things, especially when you're in uncertain markets, which there's never a market that certain and if it is, you shouldn't be looking, uncertainty is going to happen. So I don't know what ways it's gonna go. But I know that there's uncertainty and I can make money on the uncertainty but, it talks about a Navy SEAL way of thinking of looking at a problem in a system and when you're scared of it thinking through what's the worst that could happen. And usually, if you really visualize the worst that could happen, and knowing that the probability of the very worst is low, you can better calculate how to get through that fear. You can better calculate, you know, I can move forward and I can figure this out and I can make it work. 


Trevor Welch  

I've had that before I had a weekend where this and this is again in public markets, I had a mark on our investment. It was a long short equity fund, I made some trades at a mark that was catastrophic loss. And I was like, I don't understand and my brain was so afraid for the whole weekend because I couldn't talk to the, you know, it was backwards, like this is 10 years ago, but like, I didn't have immediate data that I could access. I just saw that there was a catastrophic loss in this and I was like, oh, no, I'm dead. You know, my, I was a partner and the other two partners, I was dead and I stressed about it. And I remember thinking through it on Sunday, and then all sudden, I thought, you know, it's gonna be alright, it's the worst, it's gonna happen. It's gonna be alright. And so first thing Monday morning, I get and I call them and I'm like, hey, I don't understand how this trade went so wrong. And it was a system error. I'd actually made money on the trade, but in my mind, I could have figured that out. But I was so afraid, like I was so like, stuck in my own head that I was like, what's the odds that this bank is good? This investment banker was an Interactive Brokers system. I was like, What's the odds? They're wrong? And I'm like, This can't be and sure enough, if I'd made money, it was a bad system error. But that Sunday, when I couldn't find out myself, it was nice just to relax and think you life's gonna go on. I got a family. I've got what I've got. And we'll be okay.


Ryan Miller  

That's right. Sounds like you got your priorities in the right place, brother, I appreciate that. So before we wrap things up, is there anything else, any final closing remarks? Any ways people want to reach out to you, where can they find you if they want to learn more?


Trevor Welch  

So I'm just Trevor Welch's on my LinkedIn, they can get on. Happy to share, I've got a checklist that's 234 items strong, I'll probably refine that down of some of the core components. You need to start a fund and have a successful fund, whether it's the legal side or the banking side or whatnot. When you go to my site here soon, you will also be able to take a free business assessment that will do a stochastic probability of when you run out of money where your weakness, weaknesses are or how you analyze and that's one way that we look at what we invest in on the equity side, will also allow you to apply for some some private debt through our funds. But that's a free service that it's a minimalized free service. If we're looking to invest in you, we'll we'll have a lot larger kind of assessment, but it's it's being built right now where you'll be able to go on say get a free assessment and it gives kind of a stochastic like a probability of you know, you're a little weak on this financial side or these this, you know, supply chain side, whatever it is.


Ryan Miller  

Awesome. Well, perfect, man. So just to summarize everything that we talked about, just make sure you have a durable way of making decisions, game theory, whatever it is, sometimes I call it a Buy Box, but just make sure that you have a way to affect yourself as you're trying to make decisions, especially in this case, but in any space at all. Second thing is just remember no one's too dumb to learn from right so just Make sure that people can teach you stuff people are going to disagree with you. That is fine. Everyone has is entitled to their own opinion, however, make sure that they can never find  a flaw in how you arrived at yours. And the third thing that Trevor mentioned, to give you all a competitive advantage is, take opportunities to get in the room, even if you're not sure if you're ready, it doesn't matter. You're offered a seat on a rocket ship, just raise your hand. Don't ask what seat just get on. You do these things, and you too will be well on your way in your pursuit of Making Billions.


Ryan Miller  

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 guest 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.



(Cont.) Launch Your First Fund: Royal Family Money Manager Secrets

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