Shark Tank, Private Equity, & Wealth Management

Statistically, it's harder to get to Stanford than to actually get Shark Tank to pitch. And sometimes you'll be surprised entrepreneurs don't respond. They call them like gold diggers in Shark Tank because they, they only— the intention was to get on the show just for the exposure. They had no intention of making a deal. The entrepreneur has to do their research to make sure that when they're approaching their investor, they're approaching the right investor.

Welcome to The Deal Table. I'm Lane Carrick.

I'm Ryan Harper.

Today's episode features Abe Mankara. Abe's a partner in Legacy Knight, a multifamily office based here in Dallas. Before that, he worked with Mark Cuban for 7 years, and a big part of what he did was evaluating deals from Shark Tank.

I'm really excited to share this episode with the audience. The, the amount of lessons we got, the tidbits of information, how to evaluate deals, what he looks at, what he likes, what he turns away, What's good, what's bad? And so excited for you to see this.

Well, Abe is a star. We don't have to make him a star. He came as a star.

I'm humbled to be here.

Delighted to have you. This is the deal table. And we wanted to do something that was somewhat centered around our work at Optum Mergers and Acquisitions, but bring in people from all sides of the deal spectrum. And I can't think of anybody we could bring in that has more experience around deals. Surely, from just a quantitative standpoint, you've probably looked at thousands of deals.

Yes. And I had the pleasure of working with a lot of those entrepreneurs, too. And now, I guess, in what we're doing now is it's not just— entrepreneurs could be founders, CEOs of businesses, but they could also be managing partners at private equity funds, venture funds. They're all entrepreneurs, right? Right.

So, so quick question on that, because if you're looking at so many at scale and so many deal flow, I think it's easy to ask the question of what makes a deal work, but what in a deal makes you throw it away very quickly? Like, if you're looking— because if you're looking at thousands, there's no way— I mean, there's got to be some commonality to be like, nope, throw it in the trash. Like, what are those common things that you're just like, absolutely not?

You have to put the context also of the type of deal that you're looking at. Let me— I guess we can go and start with the Shark Tank stuff because that's, yeah, that's an easy way. The way it works is they film the whole season in 2 weeks. I have 1 week in January and 1 week in September.

How many, how many episodes is that?

That's probably 20+ episodes. So season starts in October, ends in May.

Yeah.

Might be off on the number, but it's— that's kind of the time frame. Okay. So basically what you do is, um, they— out of 40,000+ entrepreneurs that apply, they narrowed down to pretty close to 200, 150, 200. And then half would pitch in June, half would pitch in September.

What was the top number? Is it 40,000?

40,000+? Yeah.

I mean, and who's analyzing that?

So the producers.

Okay.

So they have their first tier of diligence, which includes a part of their criteria is obviously you are an actual business. Yeah. But also they, they look at a different— from a different lens from an investor. Is it going to be good TV? Right, right. And then you have a lot of applicants go through the website, then you have scouts that go to trade shows that are industry-specific. And then they do casting calls in major cities. And they announce it, and you have entrepreneurs waiting in line just to get a chance to pitch. But yeah, I mean, it is a process. I think somebody once said that statistically, it's harder to get to Stanford than to actually get on Shark Tank to pitch. And the way it works is, I mean, think about all the Sharks and their busy schedules. They book a year in advance, and they know that for that one week, They're going to be in the studios morning to night, and you've got— they have no idea who's walking through those doors when they open.

No preparation.

No. Yeah. And the entrepreneurs are— the producers help the entrepreneurs kind of put together their opening pitch with the props and the music, but that's it. After that 1-minute pitch, it's 100% unscripted. Anything goes. No retakes. So if you really screw up your, your pitch and the producers think it's good TV.

Yeah, it's— you make a fool of them.

Exactly. But, you know, some people say there's no bad advertising. It's still being on, on the show is always going to be a benefit because especially now that's syndicated on CNBC, it's there 24 hours.

Oh wow.

So it's like the gift that keeps on giving, right? If you have a website You don't have to, you know, have a company that's, that's scaling to $100 million. You could have a hobby business on Shark Tank, and a lot of them end up being hobby businesses. And, you know, they do relatively well. Entrepreneurs eventually— some of them that don't do well end up getting full-time jobs, but the website's still working and traffic still comes on a regular basis and ends up being a hobby business.

I have, I have a friend that was on Shark Tank, and she's very thankful that she did not get picked up. Yeah, because like, uh, I don't know if you were there.

She aired— did she air? She aired.

Yeah, Laren Lockwood, Lion Latch. So she has these little devices where you put the jewelry in it, and, and nobody, nobody gave her offering. Yeah, which she's thankful for because she didn't have to give up equity, obviously.

Because you give up a lot of equity.

Right.

And then she— and she's extremely successful.

Yeah.

Um, she, she is actually one of the first people on TikTok Shop that got picked up by TikTok, and and like TikTok flew around the world to promote, uh, TikTok Shop.

Yeah.

And, you know, and she lives in, I don't know, some small town in South Texas, and literally she keeps that post office running because she mails out so much product.

Exactly. And TikTok now is the new platform.

Uh, well, it's shifted commerce online.

It's pretty amazing.

Yeah, yeah.

But, um, yeah, so going back, um, I think a lot of entrepreneurs that go through it Some regret giving up too much equity and some regret not getting a deal. It depends. But as long as— and it's same with, you know, not just Shark Tank, but right when you are working with investors, you have to make sure it's the right investor that's a good fit for you that can add value, right? And depending on what you want from an investor, it's not just the check. A lot of people can just write a check. What you really want is the right smart investors, especially if it's early stage, which a lot of Shark Tank companies are pretty much in an earlier stage.

Of.

You really need investors that are hands-on, great advisors, have experience. It's not just a check. But so on the diligence side, which is your question, The Sharks, and the average pitch is probably an hour plus.

Really?

So there's a lot of back and forth. It's not like a decision.

Don't they distill that to like 5 minutes?

Yeah, yeah. But it's like they're not going to make a decision in 5 minutes. It's an hour-plus pitch. And when you see a handshake deal, it's a true commitment to invest, assuming no red flags during diligence. So diligence happens after. So the Sharks would come back to their teams and they would have a list of companies. And, um, well, on the Shark Tank side, it was anything from financials didn't add up, right? You claimed you're doing $5 million in sales and your books show $3 million. Uh, you claimed you had a commitment from Walmart and it's just an email. Right? You, um, you probably said, yeah, we're, we're good IP-wise, we've got— we've hired the best IP attorneys, and your, your intellectual property is not that solid, right? Or you might have a lawsuit you didn't disclose that pops up in diligence. There's a number of things, um, and that's where, you know, if you're not being transparent up front And this stuff shows up later in the diligence process, it's not good. That's not a good way to build a relationship.

So the handshake is solid, assuming you acted in good faith.

Exactly. And sometimes you'll be surprised entrepreneurs don't respond. The investors, the Sharks teams go out and say, hey, here's a list of requirements and documents we need from you, and they don't respond. Some of them, most probably because they don't— they just— we— they call them like gold diggers in Shark Tank. That's like— because they, they only— the intention was to get on the show just for the exposure. They had no intention making a deal. And, um, and some of them, you notice they don't even go through that stage. They, they come up with a crazy valuation knowing that the Sharks will not bite, and they'll stick to their number, and then they get the exposure and walk out. Without giving any equity. I think there's one company that did twice, and after that they changed some of the way they, they put companies on the show. So in the earlier days, the producers pretty much put the schedule together without any feedback from the Sharks. So when the episode aired, it could be a company that the sharks looked at, they had a handshake deal, but after the fact, didn't close. So now everyone thinks that, oh, shark, one of this shark invests in this company, but in reality, they did a handshake deal. The deal really never actually get to close. What happened because the companies were abusing the platform— because they got the exposure.

Which probably led to other investors, right?

So kind of the most recent, when I was— this was 5 years ago, they would ask for feedback from the sharks. Did this deal close? Okay, then we're going to slot it in. If it didn't, there's a good chance it wouldn't air.

Ah, okay.

Which is a great way to kind of, as an adjustment.

Yeah, it stops the abuse.

Exactly.

Yeah.

And from a consumer, you know, you know that this is a company that actually closed and you're happy to support them.

So I will freely admit I've never watched an episode of Shark Tank. I know a lot of people are huge fans of that show, but I'm just not a— I'm not a fan of reality TV. In a 2-week stance, how many deals does, like, a Mark Cuban— does he commit to?

I would say, like, the Sharks on average, they would probably do anywhere between 15 and 20 handshake deals.

So, so directly after that 2 weeks, you have how much time?

Let's say 20.

So how much time do you have to, to go through those 20 deals?

Great question. So let's say in June, on average, let's say you, you, you commit to 10 companies, and then probably half won't close. So now you've got 5 companies. Um, let's say the diligence would get you to probably September. This is June to September for the teams to really go through and do an in-depth analysis of all the, the company documentation, their financials. In some cases, you go and meet the team, especially if they have some kind of a facility that's manufacturing products, or if you might want to go to see their co-packer alongside the entrepreneur. And the reason I'm saying manufacturing, co-pack, because most of the companies on Shark Tank are consumer product. That's what really does well on the show because consumers can buy it, right? Right. You're not going to see an AI.

Startup that does a SaaS behind-the-scenes company.

I mean, it doesn't make sense, right?

It's not sexy.

No. I mean, you might get good exposure, but you're not going to see the immediate kind of revenue through the show. You'll probably get an influx of people contacting you, wanting to do business with you. But the beauty of the show is you get this immediate reaction from the audience, which reflects in sales. And I've seen some amazing numbers. Companies get on the show, within the first 48 hours, they're doing $200,000+ in sales. Within a week, some are probably doing close to a million in sales.

That's a big bump.

It's a big bump.

So what, uh, what, what average check size would, uh— because I do watch the show some.

Yeah.

And it seems like they're smaller transactions.

They're smaller transactions. These are earlier stage. I would consider them kind of in the venture world, like a seed, Series A, or even pre-seed sometimes. I would say average check is probably $200,000. And then you see some of the— some companies can command $1 million plus. And a lot of them with that ask for $1 million plus actually have more than one Shark in the deal. But the majority of those deals that have multiple Sharks don't close. It's rare for a deal that has 3, 4, or 5 Sharks. The reason is now you have more investors looking at the details, and they're more likely to find something. And all it takes is one Shark to say, I'm out, and then the deal's done. Deal's done.

Out. So just doing the math for a Mark Cuban— and it's public knowledge how much he sold his— a portion of the Dallas Mavericks for. If he's writing— if 20 deals come and 10 get done and he's writing a $200,000 check, we're talking about $2 million.

So, um, yes, the other thing that, like, you know, they— I can't say the number, but the Sharks get paid to be on the show.

Okay.

So, and I would say it's pretty significant where it's play money.

Okay. So he's, uh, So just taking Cuban, he gets paid to be on the show, and that's not an insignificant payment. That would be more meaningful than the actual investments he's going to make, which would be a rounding error on his net worth. I think from one of our earlier, early conversations that it was the deal flow that came because of Cuban's exposure on the show, not from the Sharks and the Shark Tank show. But is it fair to say that the volume of people reaching out on an unsolicited basis to try to do business with Mark Cuban exploded?

Yes, but like, I mean, it's probably more relevant for the other Sharks.

Okay.

Like Mark already had a lot of recognition in terms of his, his brand, right, through the Mavs and through him being kind of an amazing tech entrepreneur.

It's also widely known that he answers his email.

Yeah, that's true.

Yeah.

What Shark Tank brought is a lot of consumer products. Which were not part of the portfolio prior to Shark Tank. Right. And now Mark's considered an expert in that space.

Interesting.

I mean, through the show, he's invested in pretty much every consumer product category you can think of. Some have done well, some have not, but there's— they've— there's been some great success stories, and all of them, all of them have really seen significant boost from the show. A lot of— and the one thing that people don't talk about, it's not just the entrepreneur getting money and going out and selling products. A lot of them are job creators. It's amazing to see how many entrepreneurs that started on Shark Tank as like a one-man show, or it could be a— I love, like, in the earlier days, you see, you saw a lot like husband-wife partnership or a mother and daughter partnership or a son and father partnership. These are amazing companies, just ideas, and they just were able to figure out how to get it from a prototype to a product, set up a website, got some sales, got on the show, and got a deal. And from selling products from their garage to having a facility and employing 30, 50 people It's pretty amazing. Yeah.

So what are some of the details that make a company attractive? Not so much the, the flash on Shark Tank, but just, you know, like what Elaine was talking about, like an unsolicited, um, hey, here's— we'd love for you to invest. So like, what makes a hey yes, or this is a slam dunk, or this is a hell no? Like, what are some of the factors there?

So the first thing for an investor, especially if you get an unsolicited email on a deal Every investor has a plan. They have.

Some kind of a— some.

Structure around their portfolio and what they invest in at what stages. For example, if I'm an investor that only invests in later stage companies and you send me a deal that is still in ideation phase, then they clearly.

Don'T— they didn't do any research on you.

Exactly. And then I'm going to say, thanks for reaching out. Love the idea, but it's too early for us. I would recommend seeking, let's say, angel investors that are in town. And if you ever get it to a later stage and you hit certain revenue metrics, reach out again and we can talk. But to your point, yeah, I mean, some investors, it's very clear. If you have a VC fund or you have a private equity fund, I mean, it's on the website. It's very clear in terms of what are the type of deals that you invest in in terms of sector, in terms of size, in terms of EBITDA, if it's PE. And then basically a lot of the professionals are not just waiting for deals to come their way. They're out there in the market trying to seek them and build relationships. But for the celebrity investors, let's say people seek you because you, you are, you've made it. A lot of those investors have a pretty good guideline on where they invest, right? I'll give you an example. Even, let's say, a sophisticated family office, if you reach out to them and it might not be as clear, they might not have a website. If they have a website, they're not necessarily going to disclose as a, let's say, a private equity fund would disclose on their website sometimes, like the type of sectors and size companies that they do. You have no idea. But you know that, let's say, that this is a family office that does big checks. Well, but you don't know if they would invest in your sector. You don't know if they would do— in some cases, their minimum check might be way above what you're trying to ask for. You might be looking for $500,000 for your tech startup, and you go to a family office, they said, we love what you got, what you're doing, but our minimum check is $5 million.

I think that's one of the things— sorry to interrupt your flow, but from, from a small business guy being in the entrepreneur world, hearing that is the first time you hear that, you're like, what? You have to double take because that sounds so absurd. Like, what do you— because like most people were like, hey, 'Can I get $100 grand?' And they're like— because even just asking for $100 grand feels like a big ask. But then when you hear back, 'Hey, I like you a lot, but our minimum check is $100 million,' you're like, 'What world— what planet are we on?' Because it is such a huge difference of, of business size, mentality, and there's so many things that go into that. It's— but the first time I heard that, I had to like— it was almost like a spit take. Like, if I had fluid, you'd be like, 'What?'.

Yeah. Well, because like the, a good investor is disciplined, right? Um, they're not gambling. So it's not like whoever shows up and says, hey, we need $100K, this is gonna be the best thing ever. Here's $100K. Um, now that's where some of the VC companies come in, but they also are very disciplined and they're very sector focused. And they, a lot of like pre-seed VCs, they're backing entrepreneurs that are still in, in the ideation phase. They have a great idea, they want to, figure out how to get it to market. And with the right VC that gives you kind of $100,000, let's say, to $500,000 check, you can get there. And they know that, and they're taking a lot of risk, but they're also— for the risk they're taking, they're taking a significant part of your, your equity, almost like in Shark Tank, right? So if you look at the from a more sophisticated family office investor, they're less likely to do a $100K check in a startup. They're more likely to invest in a VC that gives them diversified exposure to that stage of growth. In some, some cases, it's specific to a sector. So you can invest in a VC that's focused on, let's say, B2B SaaS or biotech or consumer products. The more specific you are, I think the more you are going to be categorizing it internally in your portfolio as a bucket, because you have to look at your portfolio also from a planning perspective. You have to make sure that you have your asset classes based kind of within a certain range And that allows you to be disciplined, to stay within your lane. Right.

So speaking of lanes, when it comes to like the industries that like yourself or anybody would invest in, like what determines— is it just preference or are you industry agnostic or what determines how you pick where you invest or like to invest?

So that's a great question. So let's say if If you just sold your business, right, and you, um, you, you didn't go to SMU and get your EMBA, so your network is not as expansive as, as yours is now, um, the first thing that will happen is, um, most likely you would have one of the top wealth management firms come to you and offer to manage your money, right? But you want to invest maybe and support entrepreneurs in your industry. So you would say, I'm going to put aside, say, $1 million to $5 million, and I'm going to use that to start investing in supporting entrepreneurs. Because, you know, if, you know, one of those, those entrepreneurs hits it big, you know, my $5 million could end up being $50 million plus. The challenge there is You also, you can start going, maybe joining angel networks, which is very advisable because now you're with peers and you have kind of more of a collective diligence on, on deals that come in. But that's not going to stop people to just solicit you all the time, especially if, you know, it gets out that it gets out that you sold your business. And what you notice is a lot of people just say yes. You start saying yes to a few deals, and then you— without a plan. Back to being an investor with a plan is so important. And a lot of those deals, early stage, if you don't do it the right way, which means it's a numbers game, um, if you only do, let's say, 2 early stage deals, the chances of one of them really making it big and getting you a return on your investment is less likely than, let's say, you invest in 10, 15, 20 companies at the same stage, right? That's what the VCs do. So you learn from those mistakes. The other thing is, if you're investing in early stage, um, the entrepreneurs expect you to be hands-on. Back to what we're talking about with Shark Tank. So it really needs to be ideally an industry that you have experience in and you like the entrepreneurs and you want to help them out. And the ideal situation would be you become an advisor and you invest in their company and try to help them get through all the challenges that an early-stage company goes through, given your experience, because you've been there, right? Now, as you go up the scale in terms of more institutional investors, it's much different. Like endowments, family offices, multifamily offices, there is a very clear portfolio strategy in terms of what asset classes and what type of managers they invest in. For example, some endowments would not back a first-time fund manager. Come back when you have a track record. Maybe on fund 2, on fund 3, we'll consider it. Same as we're talking about all the fund managers and founders being entrepreneurs. I mean, it's the same thing. You have to— the best thing, kind of, the entrepreneur has to do their research to make sure that when they're approaching their investor, they're approaching the right investor in terms of their industry expertise, the size of the check that they're going to make, and the value that they're going to bring to the firm, either operationally or helping you with on the client side or helping you just raise capital on future rounds. It could be— I mean, ideally, if you hit the jackpot, if you have an investor that checks all these boxes.

What I'm learning in this conversation is I've been incredibly lucky, and I'm incredibly ignorant to this world. Because the one time I asked for money, I got it on a handshake, and it was a lot, and I did no due diligence.

Yeah.

And I gave no due diligence. The downside is, is it's completely hands-off, and it was only because he liked me. And literally in the process was, I don't expect to get any of this back.

That's the friends and family round.

That is, yeah.

Yeah.

And, and, and, and while I'm incredibly grateful for that, it's like, actually, I'm just— there's no but. It's an awesome feeling. But at the same time, it's like, man, if I— I wish I could have been a lot more prepared because maybe I would have got a little bit more, you know. But, you know, cool.

Has— have you given them a return on their investment?

Not at all.

Okay.

Well, actually, you know, yes, literally 2 weeks after he wrote that check, he was in a small room like this with Governor Abbott.

Okay.

So I don't know if that got him anything, but I think that's cool.

That is cool. Yeah.

You know, like, uh, like I said, I'm good with the connections and the smile on my face, you know.

Well, that's great. I mean, yeah, I mean You've got all kinds of investors out there. You just need to find the right one. And like I said, the size of the check doesn't necessarily mean it's the best investor for you. So the same way investors are doing diligence on you, you've got to do diligence on them. Because it is a long-term relationship. And you want to make sure you're— the same way you're hiring the right people to work in the firm, Ideally, you want the right investors to be investors on the— on your cap table, because now you're partners.

We have a client of Optima that took a deal that was substantially less in cash at closing. Yeah, to get the right partner, a private equity firm that had specific expertise in buying platform companies like his as platforms and scaling them, versus somebody that offered a lot more cash at closing. Didn't have the relevant experience and culturally wasn't as good a fit. So it was smart on his part to make that choice. So from your evolution professionally, you were with Cuban for 7 years in the family office, and you were dealing with a variety of investment media, and not just the Shark Tank deals and private.

Equity deals, but— And I've had the privilege of really working with, um, being on the entrepreneurial journey with a lot of great entrepreneurs from the first early seed check to their exit.

Yeah.

Which is amazing.

Yeah.

And I like to say now, um, Legacy Knight, uh, I work and support entrepreneurs after their life-changing liquidity event.

Yeah.

Um, because what Legacy Knight is, is a multifamily office. Yep. So think of it as a family office platform. Um, A lot of our families are genuine entrepreneurs, and we become their family office team, right? Yeah.

And so there's, there's, you know, we.

Could go into a long conversation on the difference between family office and multifamily office, but the difference is basically where we add value. If you look at the, the range of our families from a net worth perspective, it's $50 to $500 million is kind of the range. The way we see it, below that, you've got some of the top banks and firms in the world that can manage that and manage your money. Above $500, you can justify hiring your own team if that's what you want to do. But for a lot of other— kind of ultra-high-net-worth individuals that want a full family office experience, a multi-family office is really a, a great option. Because what you're doing is you're getting, um, for a fraction of the cost of setting up your own family office, you're getting a top-tier team, you're getting some of the best back-office reporting in, in fintech, and you're getting a top-tier— also, as part of the advisory part, you have a lot of services. And usually when you're in that range, services are a very important part of the equation. It's not just, OK, let's just look at our portfolio once a quarter. That's important, right? And you have to deliver. But there's also other kind of services, we call them, that are an essential part of the family office experience. And then on the investment side, What we do is we leverage our collective size to go after some of the best-in-class managers and play with the large, large family offices.

Right.

So just to touch base on that. So, and again, I understand it's, there's no rule of thumb, it's more just numbers in the air, but like, so less than $50 million, there's probably not a need for a family office. $50 to $500, probably instead of doing your own family office, maybe do a multifamily office. And then $500+ that's when you can justify having your own single-family office. Yeah, yeah. Okay, again, because I've never, I've never really under— I mean, I know family offices are, hey, family office, but I've never heard it defined from a number standpoint.

And the numbers range, right?

Right.

Some people say it's $750, $500. I'm hearing a lot of $750 million these days, but I think at $500 But here's the interesting part. We're in Dallas. There's a lot of family offices here. I've seen family offices that are Gen 2, Gen 3 run that are within that $50 to $500 million range. And they have their own family office. It's a smaller team. They're more nimble. They outsource some of the services. But operationally, they function as a family office.

I don't know the metrics off the top of my head, but I heard it somewhere, probably at SMU, 20 years ago, 30 years ago, the number of family offices was like less than 100, and now there's more than 1,000. And, or it's probably way more than that, but just in the last 20, 30 years, it's grown astronomically. Yeah.

So, and they've, um, you're right. I mean, it's, it's now you always hear, like, when you think about some of the, the larger investors, right, you endowments and foundations have historically been known to make the big checks. But now you— the family offices are part of that group as well. Um, to your point, there's more family offices that are operating, um, as kind of institutional investors because of the size and because of the expertise and the discipline that they have. And multifamily offices are also part of that. So you're seeing more interest and And family offices are global, right? You know, if you technically— the sovereign wealth funds in a way are a big family office.

So when you, when you, uh, left, uh, Mark Cuban, did you start Legacy Knight, uh, right off the bat, or did you— yes, transition?

Yeah.

And then what motivated you to, to— or maybe not motivated, but what is it? Just you wanted to have your own thing? Like, what made you— it was— yes.

It was kind of the the, the entrepreneurial bug.

Just being around it for 7 years, you're like, I want to do it myself.

And then my co-founder Matt, um, I mean, he's the architect. Um, he had the idea. He was in the, in the family office and multifamily office world. Um, and, um, I love the idea. And, um, we, um, were able to, to launch it, um, late 2019. And fast forward 5 years. It's been 5 years.

Congratulations.

I think we got ranked as recently by Citywire as the fastest growing RIA in Texas.

Wow.

So it's quite an honor.

Yeah.

So as you know, I ran a mass affluent high net worth shop, Sovereign Wealth Management, out of Memphis. And we took a single family on. And ran family office services for them. And it was because they wanted high-touch services and we were in Memphis, so we didn't have Goldman Sachs or some of the players. And this particular family said, no, we want somebody here on the ground. And we cohabitated with them. They shared offices. And through that, we gained some other family office clients. And what I found was the biggest— and these were people transitioning out of a liquidity event. And what I found the biggest value-add was, is we were writers of investment policy statements. And it was shocking to me when people became liquid that it wasn't in their mindset to create a business plan around their wealth. And my dialogue with them was, well, you didn't run your business without a plan, did you? Why would you run— your wealth is now your business. So, we wrote investment policy statements. They had an asset allocation model. It was driven by a required rate of return. In some cases, we had clients where the required rate of return was below the T-bill rate, right? And so the question became, all right, well, you don't have to take any risk. You could literally bury your money in the backyard and just go pull out cash as needed, right? And be fine. You won't, you won't outlive your resources. So now what is the goal, right? What, what— and it was always interesting to And a lot of it was philanthropic and other things. But I found that writing the investment policy, putting the structure around them and the discipline, which I don't know if you have this experience or not, when really bad or really good things happen, they tend to want to alter their asset allocation to accommodate that. So, one of the challenges is to kind of hold everybody's feet to the fire and say, "No, we wrote this so that we would be disciplined.".

That's important. That's the starting point. That's the plan. And to your point, because I used to see it a lot. I mean, working with entrepreneurs, they're so disciplined, and they know every aspect of their business, and they have a plan. And they also have a plan on who to sell the business to, or if they want to IPO. But they have no plan for the day after. And to your point, that's where kind of family offices or wealth management firms or multifamily office can really help guide the entrepreneurs. It's important, ideally, to start engaging with a wealth management firm way before the exit. I think once you have line of sight, that's when you need to start engaging and putting a plan together. Because typically, also, there's some opportunities to reduce your tax liability if you do it right and you do it earlier. Um, um, than later, because sometimes after the fact you're scrambling.

Yeah.

Yeah.

One, just a quick anecdote, just because, uh, I keep hearing it. One thing that I have learned in the last couple years is, is if you hear somebody say they sold their company, they probably made $100 grand or something. If they said they exited— yeah.

So.

I mean, that's just, you know, something for the audience. If you hear And I think it's true because I've never heard anybody who made a lot say they sold. They say they exited. But somebody that made not so much, they always sold. Yeah. And I don't know if you, you agree or disagree with that kind of— I've heard that.

Yeah. Um, I've— I don't know. I think maybe in general, yeah. But I've heard both.

Yeah.

Like entrepreneurs that sold for a lot of money and they either say exit or— I guess it's— I don't think it's a rule.

I know. I think it's just funny.

So when I started the family office and realized I was going to be in that business, I went to family office exchange conferences. I don't know if they're still a thing or not.

There's a lot of them.

Out of Chicago. Well, this was the Family Office Exchange, FOX, out of Chicago. And I remember the first one I went to, there were 10 or 12 of us there. And we were all in family office business. And none of them were profitable. Profitable but me. And they were all using an accounting model, right? They were counters. And they hadn't figured out how to charge a fee that made sense. Mine was an asset management fee. I charged a percent on the total assets that were under the investment policy. And if the value went up, I got a raise. And if the value went down, I took a cut in pay. I did find there was service creep. They'd want you to solve this problem over here, and then once you solved it, you had to solve that problem every time. And then, I don't know if you— and that was the dog walking sort of stuff.

That's a saying in the family office world.

Can you all define that real quick?

Ancillary services that aren't necessarily tied to investing, but I literally walked a dog.

So I will say, because I think that's universal, because you can ask Naomi. We don't walk dogs, but we do a lot of stuff outside of scope just to satisfy customers.

I walked a dog on New Year's.

Eve for a client. Every business. Yeah, you've got to satisfy your clients. But to your point, yeah, that's— I mean, MFOs typically charge an AUM-based fee that is based specifically on the capital that you're managing for them. But that is inclusive, especially if it's a certain amount of capital, that it's going to be inclusive of all the other services. So it's based on the expectation you set up front. If you say, hey, we're going to do it all, you better price it in. You better price it in or you're setting yourself up for failure. And that's where, to your point, it could really eat up your margins because you end up spending a lot of time on some of the dog walking services where kind of you were hired really to manage money and generate that return, right?

Well, I think that's one of those, those lessons that, you know, we're trying to— like, for me, part of this project is to learn to be a better business owner myself, but also altruistically help the audience with be better business owners themselves as well. And just getting everything in writing and scoping out everything and, and maintaining that scope versus just, like you said, walking a dog.

Yeah.

And because it's so easy to be like, yeah, I could take care of that, and then all of a sudden that's a new function all the time. Or it's like, you know, I just— I was just watching, I was just babysitting for the day, I didn't know how to do it every day now, right? And, and I think that's just one of those things of, of realize your worth and have those, uh, boundaries.

Yeah.

And sticking to the boundaries and and just realizing that it's okay to say no.

Yeah, well, also it's okay— yeah, you're right, it's okay to say no. And sometimes entrepreneurs, like, if you get your big— your first big client, I mean, you're going to do whatever it takes.

Exactly.

But over time, as you figure out kind of your business model, you have to adjust and go back, say, look, um, this is moving forward, this is going to be kind of the— these are the parameters of, uh, the what we're going to be providing for you and at this revised cost. There's a chance you might lose that customer. But I think if you do it right and you are providing value, they're going to stick with you. But you have to figure out sooner than later where to adjust. Otherwise, it's going to eat up your margins. And then you're going to have an issue as a business in terms of just surviving.

Well, even with my business, we had a very— well, for us, a very large customer, client last, uh, last fall, early, early first quarter, late last quarter. And it was a $200,000 gig. And $200,000 for our size company for a 2 to 3 month project is amazing.

Yeah.

But once that turns into an 8-month project because you don't set the boundaries, all of a sudden you could potentially be bankrupt.

That's right.

Yeah. And, um, that's, you know, it literally— I learned a lot, but I'm still learning. I learned I needed to go to business school. But again, though, it's having those boundaries. And I think every entrepreneur, every business person, either they learn it from a trusted mentor or they learn it the hard way.

Yeah.

So, Abe, I have a perception that among the expertise that Legacy Knight brings to the table, maybe a differentiator, is your expertise in alternative investment. Investments, which would include private equity, venture capital, hedge funds. Is that an accurate perception?

That is accurate, yeah. I mean, that's— because if you think about what we talked about is our families are in wealth preservation mode. And we try to source and invest on behalf of our families in some of the best-in-class managers out there. Our biggest bucket so far has been private equity. So we invest in some of the best private equity managers out there, private credit, real estate, growth. So we do have relationships with a lot of the great managers across different sectors. And kind of back to what we're talking about is what's our investment criteria? We're— we need— so far, we've been investing with managers that have a track record. So it might change moving forward, but we haven't backed a first-time manager, right? Back to the early stage, kind of later stage comparison. And the majority— the biggest kind of bucket in terms of asset class allocation has been private equity. So if you think about the, like, the the top endowment models that are out there, like the Harvards and Yales of the world, they tend to have also kind of a portfolio that's heavily weighted on alternatives. And the biggest bucket within that group is private equity. Private equity, if you're backing some of the top firms, they're usually acquired— they're not usually. They're always acquiring companies that are highly profitable. Typical private equity will start— won't consider investing in a company unless it has $5 million EBITDA. And as you move up the scale, there's some PEs that their minimum is $30 million EBITDA to $200 million EBITDA. So what you're doing is you're backing a best-in-class team that's going and sourcing and investing and acquiring amazing businesses that are cash flowing, um, with a goal to create enterprise value and then sell it at a markup, right, over a 10-year period, right? Typically PE funds are 10 plus 2. So if you're looking at it in terms of the risk of an opportunity to invest in It's less riskier to invest in a top-tier private equity fund. Let's say if you want to put $1 million in a diversified portfolio of amazing businesses that are doing $10 million EBITDA plus versus giving $1 million to, let's say, a company that barely has $100,000 in revenue They're burning money like crazy. But they have a great team. They have a great product. They're disruptors. That million dollars could end up— if they do execute and they raise additional capital and they grow the team, they acquire market share, could end up being $50 million, right? Or $100 million. You never know. But there's a good chance it could end up being zero. So if you're in wealth preservation mode, zero is not an option. So you would say, well, let me choose investment strategies that can preserve my wealth, get me kind of a reasonable 2x return over time, and without all the risk and without all the volatility. And I get to sleep better at night.

Yeah, I used to— I'm thinking about access, so the check size. For some of those top-tier private equity funds is big. When I was running Sovereign Wealth Management, I had this issue because I wanted my clients to have access to the best top-tier management I could get to. And they weren't $10 million checkwriters. And so we would create a fund to invest in a diversified group of funds. There's a layering of fees, although we credited that back to our clients so that we weren't getting paid twice on that. But you're working with larger clients. You probably have that $50 million minimum sort of client relationship. But even if they put 20% in private equity, that's $10 million. That might get them to one manager in the top tier.

But that's a very good point. I mean, that's part of the value of being a family in a multifamily office is the fact that you don't have to be a billion-dollar family office to do it. $10, $20 million check in some of those best-in-class managers, right? As a multifamily office, you will be advised to allocate a certain amount that fits your investment criteria, your liquidity profile. But the aggregate from all the families gets us to $10 million plus. So we can collectively invest in managers that have a minimum check size of $10 or $20 million. And leverage our collective size. So, that's another value you're getting is— and to your point, the individual family could be doing— their part could be $500K or $1 million, whatever is the right size for their portfolio.

That's a value add.

Absolutely.

It's a clear value add, particularly if you're doing your due diligence and finding the right managers to get into. I hear these days that there's a record amount of capital in private equity funds. Looking for a home, a number that's in excess of $1 trillion. Is that consistent with what you're hearing?

So yes. So there's a lot of capital, I would say, sitting on the sidelines for a number of reasons. One, just because of where interest rates are. If you're thinking in terms of kind of a more of a lower risk option. I mean, you can just park your cash at the bank or money markets and get a reasonable return, or actually a nice return, without all the risk, without all the volatility. And what you do is you sit and wait for the right opportunities or for the market environment to change. There was also a lot of uncertainty due to the election. And now there is more certainty, right? But I think January 20th and beyond, there's going to be even more certainty regardless of which side you're in. It's a matter of just, we got to that point without any issues. And so that definitely impacts the the investor sentiment, and you'll see the markets react accordingly in a positive way. What we haven't seen is, like, the last 2 years, it's been a slow M&A market. We haven't seen a lot of IPOs. And basically, you're seeing investors are ready now.

Why do you think that is?

What happened is, back to kind of— it's the overall market environment. You saw a lot of cash go into kind of high-yield strategy, liquid strategies. So that became a great option versus investing in riskier investment strategies, right? The other thing is there's been, from a valuation perspective, we were kind of— we went through a bubble that burst. And we are seeing how things are correcting themselves across different sectors right now. So what you're seeing is, as a result, less companies are acquiring other companies or merging with other companies, and less companies are— have the capital to get them to the finish line to go an IPO. And it's because of all the other factors that have really slowed everything down. So I guess the hope is things will start opening up. We're beginning to see some of that happen in terms of just from an M&A perspective. And then we're yet to see if we're going to see more IPOs. But these are things that you can't really— you have to plan for them, but you can't really guess where things are going to land. But basically what you do is, as an investor, based on your risk profile, you've got to figure out the best place to put your money. And right now, what we're seeing is a lot of capital on the sidelines waiting for things to change. And then you're going to see a lot of deployment of capital go through back to PE, supporting VC firms, private equity firms, entrepreneurs directly.

So when you're talking about risk profile, is it— because you're talking about being an early stage versus later stage, and then we talk about the different industries— is it— do you think it's the risk profile that kind of determines everything? Because obviously if you have a higher risk profile, you're probably more comfortable with early. If you're lower risk, you're probably with later. If you're higher risk, you're probably with a dot-com type thing. If you're lower risk, you're probably with something more real estatey.

Right.

Like, is that safe to just make a bold statement? It's like, hey, your risk tolerance affects your trajectory of this business.

Yeah. And then things change. Like, look at real estate is a great sector. Real estate, until the interest rate environment changed, was supposedly kind of the best place to invest in terms of kind of lower risk strategies. But in the last 2 years, the real estate sector has been significantly impacted in a negative way. So it's no longer kind of the obvious place. Now, there are still certain sectors in real estate that do well. But let's say, I mean, like office space, for example, post-COVID got really hit. And it still hasn't recovered.

But like warehouses, I think last time I checked was like less than a 2% vacancy rate in Dallas.

Yes. But that's driven by the growth of— AI is actually directly impacting that because you're needing more capacity, server capacity to meet the demand. And we're hoping— I mean, this AI, I don't know if it's a bubble. There's definitely going to be a correction, but it's not going away. I think AI is definitely the next—.

That'S one of the jokes a friend of mine was saying, is like, because we're working on an AI product ourselves for, for the video world, but he's like, just change the name of your company, slap AI to the back end, and raise $10 million. Yeah, you know, and, and he wasn't kidding, uh, because it is very— I mean, I was not old enough to be like an investor or be too knowledgeable, but I was old enough to be somewhat of an adult during the dot-com boom where just people were making— just raising so much capital just because they put dot-com. Yeah. So it kind of feels like that. It is.

We're in a bubble a little bit. You're right, because you didn't do it, but a lot of other companies are doing it. They probably have— they don't really have an AI platform, but they They have a— Slap AI. And you're getting investors' attention immediately. Now, the sophisticated investors will figure out that you're not a true AI platform. But a lot of them won't. And they'll just bet on you eventually becoming an AI platform if you're not already. But I think AI is— it's pretty amazing what's happening in the space. Every industry is going to get impacted. Every industry has to have a plan on how to really to move into the age of AI. And it differs. It could be— I'll give you an example of how people are thinking about AI right now. I mean, in a very short time, we're going to have AI agents. That will manage our lives or manage our businesses too, even to a point where you might have an AI agent on your board. If you think about it, on your business, right? You can program the AI, feed it with all the, the criteria that you would expect from a sophisticated investor that understands your space. And they could provide very kind of objective feedback.

Well, you could even— not to interrupt your flow, but you could even say act like a Bill Gates, act like a Warren Buffett, exactly, a Charlie Munger. You're like, hey, or you can think, I want to build a super investor where it's aggregate the best qualities of these people, put them together, and you act— be a board member. Yeah.

And, and there's a few groups out there that already have an AI agent on their board, or at least maybe on their IC committee, let's say. IC being investment committee. So typically, like, if you have an investment firm— could be any type of investment firm— typically you have an IC committee internally that vets opportunities as they come in, and you kind of make a decision as a group, almost like a board but focused on the deal flow and the investment decisions. So, yeah, so AI agents are going to be everywhere. And the best— the interesting part, I heard a speaker, forgot his name, but he was saying that the, uh, the one industry that's going to be impacted the most is, uh, search engines.

Um.

Because you won't need to go on to Google or Yahoo and search, which means you are not— there's no value in customers paying for ads. Because if your AI agent's going to do it all for you, they're going to go and search.

There won't be human eyes on it.

And then by them, by an AI agent going and doing all the work for you, the AI agent's not going to be targeted with ads. They're doing everything behind the scenes. So that's interesting because it makes sense once you hear it that like search engines are going to be impacted.

But at the same time, there's still so much hallucination from the AI. It's like, how long does it take for that to, to clear up?

It's moving pretty fast. Yeah, very fast.

So from an investment standpoint, you know, thinking of AI, there's all sorts of new investment media that's being created and Bitcoin is close to $100,000. Dogecoin, which was, I think, a joke, is more valuable than Ford Motor Company. So how does Legacy Knight view those? I don't even know if you'd call them an asset class of digital currencies.

Or what— Yeah, it's like crypto, like cryptocurrencies as a— as a class, it.

Is—.

It'S kind of high risk, high return. And now I think some investors that want to make a bet on crypto, but in a more, let's say, conservative approach, they're holding Bitcoin on their balance sheet. Bitcoin has really been through a lot of the— through time so far, has proven to be— it is kind of volatile. We've seen it go up and down a lot. But to a certain degree, we've seen the floor. And I think the way it's set up with kind of the halving milestones that it has, and the fact that it has gained a lot of credibility in because of the investors that are holding Bitcoin. You're seeing more institutional investors hold Bitcoin. So it's— I don't think Bitcoin is going to go away. If you want to bet on crypto, that's probably the best one to bet on. I think it's the only one. It's the only one. The other ones, I don't know. I'm not an expert on them to really say. Bitcoin, I've seen sophisticated investors hold Bitcoin under balance sheets.

[Speaker:John DEL VECCHIO] So when it comes to Bitcoin, one of my favorite things about being a media company is just the— because we're industry agnostic, we touch a lot of different industries. And one of our clients is a Bitcoin miner. One of our former clients is the Texas Blockchain Council, which is the nonprofit that interfaces with policymakers. And once you see the, uh, the infrastructure, like the billions and billions of dollars that are going into energy in the data, the, the data centers, and you're just like, oh, this is a real thing. But like all those, the cryptos, like to me I would be very skeptical of those because those are the pump and dumps. And I mean, literally, I think 2 weeks ago, maybe a month ago, there was a kid that, a 16-year-old on a live stream made a crypto made $30,000 on livestream and then killed it and then rug pulled. And it's just like, on one hand, what stupid idiots are doing are investing in this. On the other hand, what stupid idiot would do it online on a livestream for the world to see you? Because you're going to— I don't know if he's going to jail at 16 or whatever he is, but that's not a good look. Um, but the infrastructure side of it is, is fascinating to see and just Seeing the, the, the Senator Cruzes and the— and now President Trump and all these, you know, policymakers jump on board on that is, is fascinating to watch from the sidelines.

Yeah, it's, it's the new digital gold right now.

Yeah.

Yeah. It's, it's fascinating space. It's, it's not— I think it's more in terms of it holds value similar to gold versus kind of a currency. That's what makes it different than all the other cryptos. So we'll see. But you never know. I mean, government regulations could impact it, right? You could have— a government could have their own version of Bitcoin. And that would definitely impact to some degree.

So at Legacy Knight, what are you focused on? What industries are I think you said you're— I don't know if you've definitively said, but I also know rule number one of a family office is not to lose money. Yeah. So like, what industries are y'all, uh, looking at and getting involved in? Is it later stage? Is it— and is it— do you have a floor of what you'll invest in?

Yeah, I would say we're, we're industry agnostic. Um, we've done a few direct investments. They've been— so far they've been tech-enabled businesses at a later stage. So what you would consider, let's say, a late Series B, Series C. So we've done a few of those, but most of where we allocate capital is to fund managers that are doing more in the alternative investment space versus doing direct investments ourselves.

And then do you— one of the questions I have is, do y'all bring in outside capital, or is it always just what you keep under your roof?

Both. On some occasions, if we have capacity, we invite other family offices to co-invest with us on a deal-by-deal basis.

Okay.

And are you doing the ancillary services?

We are.

Okay.

Yeah. But we outsource a lot of it.

I was going to say, that can be tough to scale. And particularly, you're servicing clients not just in Dallas-Fort Worth, but are you servicing clients across the country?

Yes.

OK. So the ancillary services you'd almost have to outsource, depending on what the exact nature of those are.

Yeah, it could be anything from estate planning to tax advisory, philanthropic strategy advice, to kind of, let's say, the bill pay aspect, which I'm sure you did a lot of that for your clients, too. I don't know, should I buy or should I charter a plane? What's best suited based on my current liquidity profile or my investment plan?

Yeah, we did a fair bit of that financial modeling. Yeah, that trusted advisor role. Be a problem solver. I used to tell my staff, and I'd ask them, what business are we in? We're money managers. No, we're problem solvers for wealthy families. And the problems change day to day. And a lot of times, they have nothing to do with what they're invested in.

Well, the joke is like, you have a new family that just came into liquidity and like, oh, I want to buy a plane, a second house in the mountains, and then I want to buy a yacht. And your job is to say, well, you can only do one. Pick one. Pick.

All right.

It's like, do you want to have money at the end of this, or do you want to go all out right now?

No, don't pick the yacht.

What are your goals for Legacy 9?

I mean, our goal is really to partner with great families and to continue the great relationship we have with our existing families and to add value and also to pick great investment strategies for our collective group. Basically, keeping it simple.

Can you continue to be the fastest growing RIA in— is it Texas?

In Texas, yeah. If we do our job, yeah.

Yeah.

That's the goal.

That's exciting. Congratulations to you and Matt and your team on the success that you've had. And we're cheerleading, cheerleading you from across the street over here.

Yes.

You're in the same offices.

So we, um, so our, our first office was on Knight Street. Yeah, so that kind of, uh, exactly, Knight Street, um, contributed to the name.

Of the firm, right?

And, um, but you know what, I can appreciate the hell out of that. Yeah, you know why? Because my company is called Harbor Belmont. There isn't a Belmont name, that's just the street I live on.

How about that?

Yeah, so I love that y'all's company—.

So we were looking for an anchor to legacy because we want legacy in our name. And I've told this story before is I went on Google and searched for legacy multifamily office. Legacy multifamily office, very generic terms. And we would get lost in terms of the search results that would show up. Looking for something to anchor Legacy, uh, so we would be unique and we would stand out. And when we went and found the— our office at Parkland Knight— the building's called Parkland Knight II on Knight Street— we knew this was going to be our space. And something clicked. Knight, Knight, Knight. Legacy Knight had a good ring to it. We created kind of the brand story in the earlier days that You know, the knight's a protector of the family's legacy. Uh, knight is a strategic piece on the chessboard. And, um, the best part is, as you know, as an entrepreneur, LegacyKnight.com was available for $10. It was the best part.

Yeah, well, that's why even just determining the name of this show is like— I mean, I think we went through like 50.

We went through a lot, and it.

Was just like, all right, well, let's— the dot— well,.com,.com,.com. Okay, well, this one works. Cool, we'll do that one.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And then if you switch to AI, AI domains now are very expensive. If you want to start an AI company and have a.ai, expect to pay $50K plus.

Oh my goodness.

It's crazy.

Wow, somebody got rich buying up those domain names.

I think I'll pass.

Pass on that.

There's nothing wrong with.com. No, I, I don't— I just don't.

See how, like, again, maybe I'm just I'm ignorant or old, but like.com seems like the only one to go to. Like, I've never— I never got on the.tv,.biz,.net train. It's.com and only.com, at least for me.

Yeah, yeah, I think so..com is still the, uh, the dominant domain, but I think AI is, uh, it makes a lot of sense. I think AI, if you're an AI firm, yeah, yeah, makes sense. Let the rest of them What are.

Lessons that— and as we wrap up, I want to be mindful of your time— what are the lessons that you wish, start going all the way back to Shark Tank, the founders, business owners, or even established businesses, what are business lessons that you wish more people knew or understood or implement?

Um, always surround yourselves with good advisors. And at first, if you're a startup, some of those advisors could be your first checks, angel investors. Some might not be, but definitely engage yourself. And even, even if you don't want to just have a formal board, have an advisory board. And based on the stage of the company, It could be a non-paying advisor. And over— as you scale, you could probably compensate him to stick around. But truly having the idea of an advisory board and having kind of even early on engage with them as if they're an actual board of directors. And then have the discipline to not just engage with them on a regular basis, but also give them updates. So it provides more discipline for you to be kind of— best way to say it is, is more organized in packaging your business on a, let's say, quarterly basis where you have an audience that is very interested in the performance of the company because they're giving you advice. Even though they don't— let's say they're not investors. But that process of engaging with a group of advisors that want the— your— that kind of want to support you because they want to see you succeed, um, and then extend that, right? Um, extend that to, um, an extended network of advisors. They— that you don't have necessarily have to— they don't have to be associated with a business. But to your point, based on the networking aspect, you're saying people want to help. And if you reach out, and sometimes, you know, shoot for the moon. If you're starting a business or you have an existing business.

Um, like, who.

Who, who's on your wish list if you had kind of the pick of your choice? Reach out on LinkedIn. You never know. Obviously, locally is better, But.

Um, you—.

People are always open to giving you advice, especially if you're an entrepreneur and you're building something different, unique, disruptive. Keep them close. That's what I would say. It's really valuable. And then over time, some of them might be investors. So that's a long-term strategy to get capital.

Last question for me: what, what business book would you recommend?

I'm going to be old school, Think and Grow Rich.

There you go.

Napoleon Hill.

Yeah.

Yeah.

That is a classic.

It's about the mindset at the end of the day.

Final thoughts?

Final thoughts. I love Abe's advice at the end there about developing a network and advisors. I have an advisory board at Optima. And I will say that Abe walks the walk and talks the talk because I reached out to him. I didn't realize how young Legacy Night was because I arrived here in 2019. I guess Andy Schwartz connected us. Yeah, but I'm not sure. But I was kind of cold reaching out to you asking for a meeting. And you were gracious enough to host me at your offices and spend some time and give me some counsel. So it tells me you're very generous of spirit in helping people. And I certainly directly appreciate that. And we appreciate you sharing your wisdom with our audience at The Deal Table.

Well, thank you. Enjoyed it.

Hope you enjoyed being in the pig room today. Connects me with my father from Memphis. His first job was as a cotton grader in Memphis when there was a cotton exchange, and he picked up all the lingo there. And he would tell me when I was being greedy, he'd say, Lane, pigs get fat and hogs get slaughtered. Just be a pig, don't be a hog.

You know, thank you for saying that because we went all All day with nobody saying that.

Nobody's saying pigs get fat and hogs get slaughtered.

And we're surrounded by swine.

There you go.

Here today.

That's the way to wrap it up.

There we go. Thanks again so much for being here.

Thank you.

Thanks, Abe. That was great.