I’ll do pre-rev, I’ll do start-ups, but I don’t like things that are going to take more than a couple of years to return the dollars. What is the earliest stage that you would invest in a company? LEARN MORE: Access my 4 part Raising Capital video series designed to help entrepreneurs wow investors and secure all the capital they need to grow their businesses. Still, higher returns than you can get in many other places in the marketplace. That’s the other side of the business that I’m involved in. You don’t get as high a return, but it’s a lot less risky. That’s less risky, because now you’re already jumping in when something’s already been made, already been tested, already successful. The other is jumping in after it’s already tested successfully and providing roll-out capital. One is the total risk side of taking something from the beginning and launching it. You’ve got to know when to hold them, know when to fold them in some of those deals. Oil has been devastating for me over the years. I’ve gotten killed in minerals and futures and things like that. I’ve gotten killed in the options side of the business. You’ve got to be able to write 4 $200,000 checks and have 3 of them gone completely, and have that fourth one bring you back $5 million. It’s a much riskier kind of an investment. The risk is you put up $200K and you can lose it all on 3 out of 4 deals. Having said that, if every deal was like that, obviously those would be the only investments you’d have to make. You get spoiled as an investor when you put up $200,000 and you get back $5 million.

It could do a hundred million dollars and bring back, for a $200,000 investment, $50 million in sales with a $5 million profit. I found that I could invest in somebody’s product, and a product could do tens of millions of dollars. I made my profits selling products on television. They’d say, “Hey, I need money to finish my idea so I can go sell it.” In the early days, I didn’t have all the capital that they would need, so we would either go raise money or bootstrap it to get products to the marketplace. Inventors would come to me and they’d have an idea. I started 30 years ago in the world of As Seen on TV, in the infomercial space. It seems like that’s where I tend to do very poorly or not as well. The biggest challenge that I’ve had is when I get into areas that I’m not skilled in or don’t have experience in. What is your overall investment philosophy and how does it differentiate you from others.Īs an investor, I generally try to stick within the industries and the types of deals that have worked for me in the past.

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