Ep. 18 | Transforming human interaction - Joel Puthoff

Joel Puthoff, the founder of Linxy, a location/check-in social app that redefines digital and real-world connections, shares his journey. He underscores the importance of meaningful connections, the power of overcoming limitations, and the profound impact of mindset on success. He delves into the importance of building momentum, the magic of collaboration, and the essence of team motivations. By highlighting how overcoming limitations and focusing on what you input into your mind and body directly impacts your success, Joel and Jack share the importance of solving real-world problems and the patience required to build a company. Joel's journey of raising capital for Linxy through compelling storytelling and navigating an ever-changing landscape is a testament to the power of his resilient mindset.

Joel Puthoff LinkedIn
Linxy Website
Linxy Instagram

Thanks for listening
Host: Jack Moran
Powered by: DreamSpear

Follow Shakin' Hands Podcast
Website
Instagram
YouTube

Dreamspear
Website
Instagram
Skool

SEE YOU NEXT WEEK!

Transcript

0:00

Hello, everybody, and welcome to Shaking Hands. I'm your host, Jack Moran. You can find me on Instagram at Blue Collar Kid. That is blue collar KEHD Today on the podcast, we have Joel Puthoff the founder of Linxy. What's going on, Joel? How are you doing, Jack? The. Very well. So, we got to talking a little bit before we hopped on, and, seems like you have a pretty dense resumé and entrepreneurship. but I just want to get, like, started and see first off, like, what are you doing right now? What's the deal with legacy? what are you working on? Yeah, legacy is a real time, location based software connection and experience application. It's a first of its kind. the simplest way to think about, think of it is combining LinkedIn with Pokemon Go. We don't have augmented reality features, but it's, it's a way to build connection at events. And after, you know, years of going to so many professional events, networking events, working from coworking and coffee shops, I'm like, why is there no technological solution to understanding which great conversations and ideas are around you to make efficient and effective connections? And after years of working on it, Linkxy it came to life here in 2024. So what does that look like from a user? Like I download the app like and I have Linkxy See, what is the user experience? Yeah. You first you can find, an event that you might want to go to. So we work with Tradeshows conferences. We're talking to the largest music festival in the country. And so there might be an event that you're already going to that they're using links for. And so you would download the app, you set up your color connecting system. So we've built this like unique connecting system of like different words and ideas and interest that each individual has. And as you like, design your own palette of conversations that you hope to connect with. you go live at this event. So check and technology is nothing new. Geolocation technology, geofencing. but once you get to that location, you go live. And that brings up this dashboard that allows you to interact and connect with people around you in a very profound way. It's it's very unique. And, and, and instead of walking into a, an event, let's say there's 100 people there and you don't know anybody. Instead of being like, all right, who am I going to talk to? Small talk and battle in the game of like, figuring out who are the good connections here for me? our software helps you find those exact people, efficiently, at that event. So it will filter down that larger group into, like, smaller connections that are that you should prioritize meeting, when you click on their contact or whatever their profile, what information are you getting? And then how are you bridging that connection in real life? Yeah. and so as you go live, it brings up this dashboard that shows you like, what are the top interest in the room? what are people talking about? What are people interested in? And then you can just look at the dashboard and be like, I got to talk to Jack. I've got to talk to Sam. I've got to talk to Tanya. Like, Holy cow, they share the same interests that I came to this about to talk about. And it's a just an efficient way to find those conversations. Gotcha. And then when you do find those people, say, I find Joel, is. Do I have to just find them based on their picture, or is it going to make, like, some sort of connection? Yeah. Good question, good question. It's, there's you have a picture of yourself, typically just a close up headshot. and then we also have a link score. So you can kind of see how strong your connection is and how many interests you have in common. And then it really just gives you like these social links that you can easily connect with people. I feel like I should use that for my dating life. Yeah. What? Maybe we're really sticking to the professional, but we've done a couple dating events. Actually, we've had a couple, of these, Charlotte singles events and things like that, that, they've used them for their events to have, like, a playful way to, like, meet new people and find people that are aligned and interested in them. So why did you get into this? Well, from 2017 to 2019, I was, helping build several different companies. I was a, independent consultant and doing operations and sales consulting, and I was building teams and helping, like, scale revenues for these different companies. And I was going to a ton of professional events working from we works in coffee shops. And I kept seeing the same problem. I'm like, why do I not have any solution to have like situational awareness of like, who's around me in the group connections and like, I'm walking in and training these sales teams to like go to these events, but they're also going and you can you can spend a day studying who's all going to be at that event. And hopefully you find them when you're there. Or you can just design, spend five minutes to design the conversations that you seek, the professionals that you want to meet. And then when you walk in there, our technology does the job to be like, hey, you're both interested in talking about this. We're both interested in talking about this, this person, and it just helps you like find those people seamlessly. And I just kept thinking about it. Then Covid kind of like slowed the momentum, like I was actually supposed to pitch on March 26th, 2020, in Greenville, South Carolina, at the next event, with my first pitch deck ever with my this is my first software company. And, you know, Covid canceled that event. And, I kind of put it on the back burner and focused on my other company and finished my book. And and then people kept talking like, hey, man, that prototype that we tested, that was really cool. And they kept bringing it up during Covid. And finally I was just like, man, I've got to do this. I really believe in it. Had so much deep research in it, and through writing my book, I learned even more about the power of like, human flourishing and and like the opposite of, like, you know, mental illness or even like depression and all these things is human connection, like the power of human connection and having like, very strong circles. And it just got me really motivated seeing the problem perpetuated during Covid being like, oh my gosh, the software is even needed more now today than it ever has been. and I was just like, I will it would pain me not to like, take the risk and have the courage to, like, just try to, you know, trail blaze this path and and late 2022, I just put everything on the side, picked up all my links, the tools. And I was just like, here we go. It's time to bring this to the world. And and, it's been quite the two year journey you said before, like personal connection. What is the value of personal connection and having a strong circle and, you know, and a strong network. Yeah. I mean, truly, it's everything, throughout my career of having a good, network and friends and through sports, you know, a lot of people know me as an athlete. And being part of teams, learning my leadership skills was definitely learned in sports. And understanding the power of connection and how teams work has been a core of like, my professional journey so far. And like building teams and building culture and leading teams and, understanding when teams work together and when a country's united and when people, have like similar motivations that are talking together and collaborating, the powers that can come out of that or the results and the outcomes that can come from that are so much more than one individual can create. And in this world of like working from home, so many more people are isolated and looking for connection, but they don't always know how to find their people. And, you know, that's what I'm really passion about. Is this really helping people find their people. And instead of just seeing people in like the physical realm, seeing people in a different color, that's a little bit of like Linksys motto is, instead of just walking into an event of 100 people, you're not just seeing physical bodies. You're like, oh my gosh, there's people a like me that had the similar interest and, similar ideas that they want to talk about here today. and the idea of connecting those and building collaborations. one of my favorite quotes, in life is one plus one equals three or 4 or 5, and it's the idea of bringing two people together and the powers that you can manifest together. I think is, under understood, for lack of a better way to put it. Are you an advocate of, like, the collective consciousness? 100%, yes. Yeah. That's, pretty powerful stuff. Big stuff. Yeah. You were talking before about, like, sports, and I think we talked a little bit, before we got on the podcast about how you're big into health and you found some synchronicities between, your health and your personal, you know, body and entrepreneurship and productivity. What are kind of those, like, insights that you've discovered? Yeah, in my 20s, I, I, I played college baseball and I look back and I'm just like, man, if I would I'd just known what I know today I could have, like, really developed myself. just from, like, eating healthy and mental frameworks, how you think about things. in, in my 20s, I spent so much of my time studying business and studying sales and studying operations, and then I got to like 30. And me as an athlete was just, like, not recovering as well. And I'm like, man, what's going on? And then as I started digging more and more and more into like the gut health and brain performance and unlocking like, new mental frameworks and, getting rid of limitations that I've had in my mind and different frameworks that kind of suppressed my capabilities. I was like, oh my gosh, like, what don't I know? And for like a three year period, I just went on a deep study of the Joe Spence's of the world and all the different authors that write about different aspects of human performance. And after years of like gathering all this information, I was just like, oh my gosh, like, what am I going to do with all this information? People are like, build a podcast or write a book. And I ended up taking the book thing and being like, man, learning how to write will be such a powerful way to learn all these human performance tricks and or tactics and habits that I can instill. And I've learned from my life that writing things is the best way that I learn things. And so, you're like, externalizing those thoughts in your head and it almost like you start learning stuff about yourself. Yeah. Instead of just read it. Maybe, maybe I have, like, learning, disabilities or some sort. What I feel like when I read it, it's just like I kind of know it, but when I write it, it just takes it to a whole nother level. And that challenge of like, man, let's challenge ourself to write a book. And all my high school friends would probably be like, you're the last person that would frickin write a book. You wouldn't even read a book in high school. but it really was. It was as much as I wanted to give the book and the information that I was discovering, these hidden wisdoms that I sought out to, like, understand and find, it was really for me. I mean, learning how to write a book and challenging myself to do it and finish it and putting something out there that I really believed in, which is a very powerful exercise for me to, like, get over this, naive, undereducated, you know, this intellect, like, try to paid myself forward as this, like, new person. Like, I can write a book like that. I would've never thought that I had that capability inside of me until I did it. So what are the. Well, first of all, what's the name of the book if people want to hunt it down? And what's kind of like a cliff notes of that book? Yeah, it's, the book is called Capability Fuel. think of human capabilities and how to fuel those capabilities. So capability fuel, it's on Amazon only. and the framework of the book is, is understanding the human capabilities that we have, that we have the potential to fuel and fire up and evolve. And so what personal capabilities do we have? And as you get all these capabilities and fuels working together, you can maximize and optimize the momentum you have towards ideal goals and life. And so the five capabilities of the book are confidence, adaptability, resilience, focus and self and social awesome self and social leadership. And if you combine those and you fuel them all, effectively with your mind, your body, your spirit and your social fuel, getting those fuels to work optimally together is a way to maximize your momentum. And so you talked a little bit before about like discovering some of your limitations if you're comfortable, like what are some of those limitations that you discovered and how did you work to get through those? yeah, I am a social being. And so I, I mean, some of my limitations were, can I just not drink? Can I actually eat healthy every day? I now have a cold plunge. Can I get in the cold plunge at 6 a.m. to start my day like I did today? and make it to the gym at 630? That was not my old life. And so some of my old limitations were, oh, I can maybe do this. I can maybe do this. And the more that I developed, the more that I accomplished things and developed my self-confidence, it really, broke down those limitations and realized, like, man, I can do anything that I put my mind to. I have to have a plan, have to be disciplined. but if I can develop those skills of how to build a plan, understand a problem, understand the solution that I want to build, and I can just force myself to do the things I have to do to accomplish it. I can do anything. And just like as you start to do that and you build a company and a new company or you accomplish a big task, that's how self-confidence is truly built is by you actually doing it and living up to the word that you told yourself. Right? So you said before, you don't drink. I drink a little bit, but, I used to be very social, and drink a lot. Eat very unhealthy. never had the right necessarily mental frameworks built into, what I need to do to, like, evolve and upgrade myself and level up. but now it's. I'll drink socially, but it'll be like, you know, 1 or 2 drinks compared to, hey, let's get hammered with the buddies, right? and I've really scaled that back and kind of got rid of that in my life. I don't look for the buzz as much, and I really look for, like, the clarity. how do those inputs affect your productivity? Like, like dietary inputs? Literally everything. It's, it's a big part of the book too, is, is what you input is pretty much what you're going to get on the output. and similar to like a neural network, in software, everything like the input is a direct correlation to the output. And for me, like if I drink for even two days, a couple, a couple, couple drinks each and eat bad food like it is literally the next day, I don't want to work. I'm not motivated. I don't want to be uncomfortable. I want to be comfortable. And, I don't want to do, hard, mental task or hard physical task. I want to just kind of be lazy. And so it kind of puts me in that, like normal mood. And when I am fire and I have momentum, momentum is something you want to like, build up. And so I think a lot of, what I've gained through this, and put in my book is, is about generating that moment when you have that momentum. It's like motivating to keep that momentum going. And then once you like get out of that momentum, it's like, man, how do I generate that momentum again? And so to me, I look at it in a very like energy centric way, how to build that energy. And once you get the ball rolling, like kind of like a snowball rolling, it's easier to keep going. But once you like, have a lull and a little lull affecting the, the progress and you're like, not feeling that great because of how you been eating and drinking or even thinking, then it can really like, stagger, your momentum and your progress in your production. How did you get, like, started on this entrepreneurial journey? Was it like some experiences that happened in your childhood? Like, can you pinpoint like what kind of catalyzed you to start thinking like this? Or like, how did you start transitioning into this way of life? Yeah. I would say, you know, when I was young, I did I my I'm one of eight kids. My dad worked really hard and to raise eight kids. And so there's two things that my dad gave me that I'm so fortunate and blessed to have, which is hard work and discipline. And, that helped me a lot in sports. And I got to college and I went to college for baseball. I didn't go for school. And, really, the one of the two inflection points in my life was after my freshman year of college, I came home and my mom's like, you're at risk of losing your scholarship and your grant money because you've got a 2.2 GPA. I'm like, mom, it's school. Like, who cares? Like, come on, she's like, well, you've got these other things to pay for. And like, you're spending money and like. And she's like, you need to find, like, something like, we know I have to pull you out of Wittenberg University. And I loved it there. I was meeting so many great people, and I was just like, I'm not leaving Wittenberg. And they're like, really? Over that course of the summer, going back to my same summer job, working in a warehouse was which was just like trash, you know, $10 an hour work. I'm like, why am I back doing this job again? I really got, like, motivated to be like, man, when I get back to school, I'm going to find an internship. So I got back my sophomore year and I found an internship called Young Entrepreneurs Across America, or Student Painters. And it's an entrepreneurial development program. And, my parents are like, no, you're not doing that. Sounds risky. Sounds tough. You you can't do this. All these, like, doubts and like, why would you do this? This could cost you money. Like, you don't even know if you're going to make any money doing it. And I was like, stop it. I'm doing this like, I am, like, passionate about it. Whether it was my my ego or confidence as a young kid at 19, 20 years old, I was like, I'm doing this run my own business, have my own employees, make 10,000 profit in the summer. Come on, baby. and I did it. I paid I while playing baseball. I ran a, company in college, and I made more money than I've ever made. I learned how to employ and sell and market, and it really just changed me. At 20 years old, I was just like, oh my gosh, I want to be an entrepreneur. I finally know what I want to be in life. And, I had a couple uncles at that point that were successful in like finance and, medical sales and things, and they're like, oh, Joel, you would be great now to go into this. And I got out of college after a couple years of building my company and then getting into the training portion of training other college students, one of which was my brother, how to start his own company in college. and instead of, like, taking, like medical sales and letter jobs, I got out of college, I moved down to Charlotte. I'm from Ohio, and I moved down to Charlotte in 2008, late 2008, and I started a new division for this company, young entrepreneurs across America, working with universities here in the Carolinas. And in the first year, there was two out of like seven universities that are like, we'll give you a chance to train entrepreneurship. And the other was like, no, get out of here, you 23 year old little punk. And, those two universities were, Chapel Hill and USC. I started working with them. Then by the end of it, seven years later, we were going to 12 universities, and I was training all this entrepreneurship and entrepreneur development and management and sales, and my bug kept growing and growing and growing. And I was seeing, like some of my students come out of my program and then get out of out of college and start their own company. And they were like building some different types of companies. And a bunch of them have different companies, even, like the same program developed the one Unicorn in Charlotte, which is Abbott Exchange, which is now a 3 to $5 billion company. no way. Yeah. Mike Prager went through. He's ten years older than me. So he was a little bit before my time in this program. but he also went through this program. He's the one unicorn that came out of this, in Charlotte. What do you mean, unicorn? unicorn is where a company, and in my mind, my definition of unicorn would be a company. Starts in a city, and it grows from 0 to $1 billion company. Well, and so a unicorn is something from 0 to 1 billion. and it's not like taken over by new private equity firms and new CEOs. It's like it was a unicorn built from scratch. Well, and yeah, he it's now called the Abbott Exchange Music factory. he has a huge facility over there. and even when I was running that program down here, like, talking to him and other entrepreneurs and, like, yoga groups, I was just always around this entrepreneurship. And I always had this, like, you know, from that first business, I ran this first house painting business, I ran to knocking on doors. Hey, want us to paint your house? Who the heck are you? we're college students, and we pay houses, baby. learning that and getting that taste of, like, building a team. And through all my experiences, like the taste of, like, building a team, whether it's sports or in a company. man, that is the passion and, I know a lot of people say, like, follow your passion and do all these things. Like, I think those are great, like, understand what you're good at and your skills are, but I really think the passion is in the doing the building. The team, the the pathway of upgrading yourself. And you'll become really no matter what business you're running. Most people are if they're successful, they're pretty passionate about it because they're good at doing that. Even if it's like an accounting business, which a lot of people say is a a brutal job. So, yeah, entrepreneurship started early and, in college and, and it hasn't left me. So I'm personally curious, when you talk about the team building, that's something that I think I've had some difficulty with. you know, my business is not the sexiest of businesses, so funding human resources to, build an erosion control company has not been very easy. What do you think are the, like, keys to building a good team? Yeah. It's, Yeah. And I've, I've had some less, sexy companies and then, like, links. They like links. These fun. It's innovative. It's. Yeah, it's. People are like, I want to be part of this team. Like, all right, let's go, baby. What do you do? but, my keys would be really understanding the people that you're bringing in and understanding their why factor, understanding where they want to go. And if you can somehow pluck the right type of professionals and hungry people. and then give them a pathway towards success that aligns, relatively closely with their vision or even help them build that vision, because most people lack vision. And so if you're a person that can help them understand a pathway to success in their life, and you can even, you know, expand the vision that they are able to create on their own. if you can give them that pathway and just learn how to manage effectively and they believe in you as a leader, I think they'll work really hard for you. And so, Joel, what's your vision like? What are you chasing after? How do you define success? At this stage in my career, success is about impact. And, you know, bringing, bringing products and solutions to the world that matter. you know, some of my past companies were about making money and building a team, and it's my company. And, now it's about like, man, our world is so fascinating. It's the most interesting time to ever be alive, in my opinion. And, we also have problems and challenges out there. And so over the last five years, after my, like, four year consulting stint of always looking for problems, looking for problems, looking for problems and then Covid happening, like during that period, I had a lot of time to like, deliberate and think while I was writing my book and like just expand my mind and, but that idea of like finding problems in the marketplace now, it was about I read a book called The Blue Ocean Strategy, which is like build your Own Blue Ocean. If you can actually figure out, like a problem in the marketplace and build a unique solution. is that Peter Teal? If he talks about Blue Ocean, right. it's not Peter Teal. I should know the author of it off the top of my head. I can't think of it right now. blue ocean strategy and just the concept of finding a problem and building in a unique solution, and then building a moat around it. obviously, software is somewhat sometimes hard to protect. and my last invention during Covid, like a little bit more easy to protect the physical product with the utility pattern. but the idea of, you know, impacting people and connecting people and solving these huge real world problems, really, like, took over me a little bit, and I saw the problem in the marketplace of, like, why? Like going to all these events, like, why is nobody have the software and even to have the thought that, oh, I'm going to be the person to create it is a little bit confident or narcissist, whatever it might be. You can you can call it whatever it is. But to me, I was just like, why is nobody solving this? And after like years of studying and working on it, I was just like, nobody else is building this. Why are they not building this? and there are some challenges out there to, like bringing it to life. And it is kind of a monster of a product to bring to life. But my passion is about like finding big problems in the, in the, in the world, in the market. And how do we bring like, unique solutions that can help people and right now, like our country. So to be like, I just saw people posting yesterday about Trump and Kamala Harris and racists and all these things, I'm like, man, they have us like dangling us emotional beings dangling, fighting against each other. And they're just like orchestrating all of this, like division and hate. And, in my opinion, a lot of the racism and all these, they're, they're, they're perpetuating that on us. And people just like, I don't like this person or this because of this religion or whatever it might be. And to me, it's just like, man, we are way more alike than unlike as human beings and the power of collaboration, the one plus one equals three. Like we're we have a world that's dividing and so many different ways, and everybody's being more individualistic in the power of that cohesive, collective, consciousness and just the collective, the power of the collective working together. I see so much beauty in that. And I just want to, like, bring that to life and, like, gift that to the world. and it sounds like a little. Oh, you want to give that to the world, but it's really like this, it's an amazing, experience to be able to try to bring an innovation like that to the world and try to solve it. and but it's, Yeah, it's it's finding those problems and and bringing unique solutions. and, the impact that we can have with links is, is really what, you know, turns me on with legacy so much. Well, I agree that there is, a lot of division in the world. What would you say is the solution? or people should focus on an individual level to start getting away from some of that division. I think that we see like more often than not, people have a million critiques for everyone else. Yeah. but they're not doing anything, you know, themselves. Like, what would you say would be the first step to kind of solving some of these problems? This division in the world? a little Segway. If we could somehow just, like, cut off the extremes from both sides, I think we could work with a populace that isn't so extreme. but people have, like, radical belief systems, and they think their way should be the way of all other people and their belief system. And my number one belief is, I don't know more than I do know. So I know how much information I don't even know. Like, I can come up with theories and use information to build great theories, and have, beliefs that come from that. But at the end of the day, like, you know what? We're floating on a rock around a big old sun, and this not even reality. It. Yeah, I think it's reality. But, there are no absolutes. There's no. And I think a lot of people in their minds, they are so passionate about whether it's something traumatic that happened or something that's very emotional to them. And we're emotional creatures and many people don't know don't work on their emotional regulation plan for themselves, like how to how am I going to manage my emotions and how am I going to think through this? And I think critical thinking is lacking a little bit in our, our country right now. and the ability to just manage those emotions. And if we could, like I said, we could just cut off the ends of the like the extremes of both sides and work with people that are like, really trying to solve these problems. and, bring people together and understand the power of people compared to this individualistic me, me, me world that has kind of like surfaced. I think we could solve a lot of those problems. I agree with. Yeah. On this, entrepreneurial journey, has it been all smooth sailing or, you had some adversity? I've got scars. I've got wounds. it's, Yeah, it's an up and down roller coaster. The way I look at entrepreneurship is, you know, if we're going to start a new company, it's like building a mountain. You first have to figure out, like, what mountain you're building, and. And so you get hit, you plan out, you get your product to you, whether are your solution or your business. You like, map out the mountain you're going to climb. You could be climbing a small mountain. You could be climbing Mount Everest, along that trek up that mountain, whether it's a five year journey, a ten year journey, a two year journey, you're going to get bruises and you're going to there's going to be bears and there's going to be, you know, mountain lions, and there's going to be things that are like ripping you to shreds and, people duping you and people trying to steal your idea. And, you know, employees that quit, people that say, oh, you're not paying me enough. Screw you. You know, like there's, there's there's plenty of, like, wounds and battles that, you have to face, along the way. And it's just a matter of like, all right, next, next. And then I think the more you do it, the more repetition you do it. Like, you know, you learn how to handle discomfort. And I think, entrepreneurship is really just a journey of learning how to handle discomfort and learning how to discipline yourself to get through that discomfort. if you're seeking comfort, don't be an entrepreneur. If you're if you're seeking an abundant life, entrepreneurship could be life for it could be right for you. But that doesn't mean I don't. I definitely don't recommend entrepreneurship for everybody. so, yeah, trekking up that mountain, man, that's the that's kind of where we're at with links right now. We're kind of at the we built the mountain. We're kind of at the bottom of the mountain. And our team of 18, we're like, let's trek up this. We've got our bags, we've got our boots, we've got our little hand clips and we're we're ready to climb, baby. Yeah. And I've seen like with a lot of my mentors who are like seasoned entrepreneurs, they have found a way to kind of change their perspective. that that discomfort is like something they chase after. Oh yeah. I know, like 6 a.m. in the cold plunge, like, let's go. Don't be a, don't be a B or a Pete this morning. Like, let's go, let's start your day off. Like, yeah, get a little pain to start your day. This is what it's about. The pain is the name of the game. And it's it's a little bit like a masochist. I'm, I'm kind of a masochist. That the pain and getting through the pain is so self-assured, and it's like, it's it's part of, like, the self-love journey. Like self-love is you sticking to your word. And so if you want to build self-esteem, you want to build self-love, you want to build self-confidence. Tell yourself to do something that you don't want to do and do it. It's great advice. Yeah. When I first was introduced to like, so you guys were doing a raise, are you guys still raising money? Yeah, we started, raising last year and we shut it down because most people were just like, hey, do you got product and traction? And we're like, no. And so I spent a lot of my money to, to build. And then my co-founder came in, and he came in in September. He gave a chunk of money. another one of our partners gave a little bit of money, and now we're raising again, as of like two months ago, we just launched a we funder. what's what we funded we funders, a crowd crowdfunding, crowdfunding, platform. And it allows we have a bunch of family members and friends are like, hey, man, I can't give 25 K, which was our, our minimal, nut to get into the company as an investor. but we launched this we fund it and it allows a bunch of our friends and family and, and connections to get into legacy, at a small level. And it kind of builds this, like, brand ambassador. And so it's one of our strategies to scaling as well is, is getting, you know, hundreds if not thousands of people, you know, joining our force that we're trying to create with legacy. What are the tips that you would give to an entrepreneur or what have you learned, or the keys to capitalizing a company or raising money for a company or I don't know if I'm the right person to talk about that. Yeah, because I'm in the middle. And, some of my teammates would be like, you're not. Yeah, I haven't quite raised well enough. and through through this, I've learned like, man, I've had a lot of great connections back to one of your earlier questions. the power of network. I've built a great network, but I realized doing this, like, man, I'm not connected to anybody in, you know, investing angels, VCs, private equity. I don't know anybody. and so, luckily, I can use my skills to meet those people. but it's a tough time in the market right now, and it's it's, it's, been a little bit of a battle, and you've got to find ways to, like, build relationships. And the way I look at it, or think about it, is I'm like, dating five angel investors right now. Take them to lunch, have coffee. I've been to dinner with a couple of them. I met two of their wives, coming to meet my business partner and they really want to, like, get to know you. And so, everything in life is about building good relationships. it really is the power. And, if you want to raise money, you know, build a great product, a great solution that is solving a big problem, and build great relationships. And, there was one other note I was thinking about here is, is be be able to tell a compelling story. And, very good advice. I'm still working on our compelling story, and it's, I think we have a very compelling story. It's just learning how to pitch that. And, we've got some pitch events coming up, and so I haven't really done many of those, and my team's like, why aren't you going to these pitch events to raise money and like, and and so I'm still working on that skill of, of raising money and it's, been quite the learning experience. I love it so far, but it's been challenging. It's like a little bit brutal. What do you want to use the capital for? What do you think's the best use of that use of the capital for the growth of the company? Yeah, 70% of it is for the development of the product and our team. And so, the majority of us, you know, aren't even, you know, making money yet on this journey. And, to be able to we have four engineers right now and a couple designers and, I'm building a sales, sales team as we speak. and it's really just being able to fund it, being able to fund that and pay my team effectively, mainly the engineers. And to be able to bring in more resources to grow this force. because we have like the next 6 to 12 months, almost mapped out with what we want to build and our best features are yet to come. And like link 2.0 drops tomorrow, in the App Store. And we've been working for like the last three months on all the new upgrades that we just had and then what we want to build in the next 3 to 6 months. you know, that's going to take us that's going to cost us at least 100 grand to build it. And then to deploy some other resources and compensate some other team members. Another, you know, $100,000 in that regard. And so, right, there's like 200 of the 500,000 that we are raising. and some investors are like, I don't want to come in unless you give me 20% for $1 million in them. And our team is just like, don't give up that much equity. And so our our whole team is like fighting for equity and unlocking equity. which is a really cool part is we have like ten people, battling to unlock equity or working on a vested schedule to earn equity. And so people were like, really into it. And they see the upside, they see the opportunity. They see the impact that we can have at scale. Yeah. That's fantastic. Yeah, yeah. So what is the like end goal for a legacy. Where do you want to see it. like what's kind of the growth strategy. Where do you guys what are your plans? Yeah, we are, we are using Charlotte kind of as like our our playbook for building, a market. And we just started working, and we got two people in Raleigh now and two people in Cincinnati. and we're starting to make partnerships. And our goal is to, you know, revolutionize how people connect and experience spaces. And so we are a location based entertainment and social connection tool. And we want people to connect and have like powerful engagements and collaborations. And we also want to create a lot of fun. So a lot of our location based entertainment is what we're building right now. And so when you walk into a like a business, they can partner with us even like we're talking to the Charlotte Knights, like they can partner with us. And when people come, they can like upgrade the experiences that they offer their customers. and they can connect people that want to connect at the baseball game. Compared to just sitting there eating a hot dog and meeting the 2 or 3 people around you. you can have like places to where you can, like connect and like it's a pop up, not networking about anywhere you go. and link, see, is that like power to like, connect, verified, individuals in real time? Well, it's, very inspiring what you're doing. And I'm excited to, to see the journey unfold and hopefully will be a user here soon. Yeah. what would be, like, kind of some, like, final advice that you would give to someone that's maybe like making looking to make the leap into entrepreneurship but hasn't made it yet, or someone who's an early entrepreneur who hasn't really barreled down the path yet. Yeah, I would say, be patient. And I think everybody wants quick fixes. I think what technology has done for people today is everybody wants these quick hits, these short like the attention span. And so just understand this takes time. Like I've been working on this idea for many years. obviously it slowed down for two years during Covid, but this is like a three plus year, of my energy and time and thinking and going to bed sober, waking up so I can write and think and work with my engineering team that started overseas and now, mostly domestic. and so one be patient and then two, like, if you have a job and you really are passionate about building a business after the job is over, like start hustling on the side, like the early stages of when you're starting your first company, that you're the passion just comes like year one. Passion should just be there. And if you're not excited about running your business after six months of doing it as a side hustle, you should be like, salivating. Like, how do I continue to build this so that I can escape the corporate or escape whatever I have now that I don't want? if you're not salivating, then it's not the right business. because your first year, you should be super passionate. It's like your business. It's your baby. It's. It's literally like your child. and so while you're doing what you're doing, don't necessarily give that away. keep the money coming in. find ways to keep money coming in so that you can work to build this and become sustainable. but once you get into it, just continue to iterate and work each day and make it something that you're you are passionate about. So some really powerful advice maybe where can people find you if they want to reach out? so anything you want to plug here at the end, you can find me on LinkedIn, Instagram, my book on Amazon. Capability fuel. But yeah. Joel put off Joelle put off. And I think I'm the only one in America. So I typically will get my name Joel put off. and those are my handles. All right. Fantastic. Well, I appreciate you coming on. That was super insightful. Yeah appreciate it Jack. Thank you. All right guys that concludes this episode of Shakin Hands. I'm your host, Jack Moran. You can find me on Instagram at Blue Collar kid. That is blue collar KEHD. If you like what you heard today, please subscribe and tune on. Tune in next time for some more interesting guests and conversations. Thanks guys. Thanks. So the