@0:01 - Gabriel Flores (The Shades of Entrepreneurship)

Hello everyone and welcome to the Shades of Entrepreneurship. This is your host, Mr.

Gabrielle Flores. Today I have Jeffery Suckinger.

@0:18 - Jeffrey Sekinger

How are we doing Jeff? Doing wonderful.

@0:21 - Gabriel Flores (The Shades of Entrepreneurship)

How are you doing? I'm good. mean Jeff happened chatting. We're actually really excited about this one because Jeff has really a really unique story.

I've actually been connecting with this team so I kind of have a little bit of background. But I'm going go ahead and let Jeff give his story.

Jeff, go ahead and introduce yourself. Who is Jeffery?

@0:39 - Jeffrey Sekinger

Yeah, so currently I'm 31 years old. I'm in Miami, Florida. I have three different financial brands. One being an asset management company.

It's a hedge fund that owns it. a management company that owns quite a few different funds that have different strategies mainly in currency markets.

And then I've got a funding company. That I've had for six years that I was actually my first like mainly successful company after leaving the corporate world and in Asset management and then I've got more recently a software company for retail traders So that we build different types of trade management softwares and trading algorithms for traders to you know Make their lives more efficient and hopefully more profitable as well So those three different ventures of what I've been working on the last six years and so far has been Pretty great, but hoping to share some of my experience here today and how I got here Yeah, let's let's start from the beginning you mentioned you're in the corporate world and then you kind of went to the entrepreneurship world Let's talk about that transition.

How was that transition for you? why did you decide to kind of transition out of corporate America into the entrepreneurship world?

Yeah, so it's it's somewhat of a deep story.

@1:52 - Gabriel Flores (The Shades of Entrepreneurship)

I don't want to spend the entire pocket Let's get it.

@1:57 - Jeffrey Sekinger

Yeah I'll go about as deep as you can go, but I had a... I kind of forced myself out of the corporate world very quickly because I really didn't have another option and the reason is because I got injured in high school football and got prescribed opiates and that led to a time where I actually got addicted physically dependent on those things throughout all of college and even into my workplace at my first major corporate job with a largest bank inside the United States and it got to a point where it got uncontrollable and I had to actually go into a rehabilitation center and during that process I did a lot of you know self-development and realized that I had three you know everyone has a hierarchy of values and I realized that my highest values were having freedom options and choices to do what I want with my time energy resources seeing impact on other people so I wanted my work to be meaningful and and I was in a wall you know I also want to uncount

attorney potential, which I wasn't getting in a salary job with no bonus. So I realized that that was, um, I, you know, the reason why part of reason why I carried that problem from high school into college and then into the corporate world is I was escaping my own reality because I didn't have a reality that aligned with my values.

So when I started to realize, Hey, Jeff, you actually value these top three things and your entire life that you have right now is misaligned with those values.

And that's why you're continuously down this problem of, of, you know, essentially hurting yourself with different types of chemicals that originally you were prescribed from, from doctors.

And it was just a problem that kind of avalanched over time. I realized I had to make a change.

So when I got out of rehab, I said, all right, what aligns with my values? When I got out, I had credit problems because I was actually, you know, I, I was, I was always an entrepreneur from an early age.

And then when I got into the corporate world, I stopped my, you know, Different types of businesses I sold shoes on Amazon.

I did a lot of different, you know, random things throughout the throughout the previous 23 years of my life And uh, and I realized that, you know, I I have credit problems coming out of that that center and I went back into the Workforce and realized that okay Well, if I want to create that reality that aligns my values I need to do something But first and foremost, how are you going to create a life that has, you know, freedom in it If you're not even close to financially free and you're in a bunch of debt So I focused on my credit.

became a master at Repairing and fixing my credit and then I built my entire first company around that process So I raised my score from a 524 to a 793 And right around nine months and I documented the entire You know process of doing that and talked about all the things that I was doing in order to get my credit score higher And then I built my entire first consulting

company around that. So we can consult for early stage entrepreneurs to help them get access to financing. And it was anywhere between 50 and $300,000.

And we did that through building a solid foundation on their personal credit profiles, and then setting up businesses correctly so that they could go through a funding process in a few even a few months coming, you know, after they registered for the LLC.

So that was our first my first major company I still have today that that was, you know, successful. I had a few different ventures that failed before that.

And that was, you know, my problem became my purpose, because I came out of that issue, had the credit problems, figured it out for myself, built an entire business around that, and made more than eight figures running that company.

So that, that was my first start and first successful company. About a year after I started that company, I started my first head fund.

Once I, you know, out of the debt, started to accumulate some, some money. I'm met with another entrepreneur that I knew from middle school.

And we launched our first hedge fund because I was always so interested specifically in the cryptocurrency industry. And we launched our first fund and that was April of 2019.

And now we have several hundred and limited partners across different funds under that one management company that we run.

And then, you know, about a year and a half ago, I saw a really big opportunity to streamline some of our trading strategies in the softwares because I launched an educational product around trading.

And people were highly interested in what I was, know, different strategies of trading and things that I was doing with inside of our funds.

And we built a, we built some of our strategies into softwares that that trade different currency markets and commodities like Bitcoin and gold.

pulled in and then different foreign exchange currencies. And then this is our most recent brand, which is a software company that retail traders, they pay a subscription fee to license that software.

And for them to manage their own accounts with those trading tools. So that's a high level. I know it's a very indirect path to success.

I've probably had one of the more interesting stories to get to where I'm at today, but it's shaped who I am.

And I really wouldn't have had it any other way because I've gone through a lot of adversity. And I think the adversity that I went through really prepared me for all the adversities that you experienced when you're in entrepreneurship.

Because a bunch of unknown things happen and tough situations happen. And you've got to be able to push through that.

And that's something that I learned, going through that tough process that I went through in my mid 20s.

@7:52 - Gabriel Flores (The Shades of Entrepreneurship)

Yeah, I love that because one of the things you mentioned was adversity. And I think, you know, people's care.

It becomes a testament of their character of how they react to adversity, you know, and one of the things you mentioned is when you're in that rehab you created your value kind of your pyramid right your value pyramid.

And one of the things you also mentioned is you really wanted to make sure whatever you built you helped people that was that was kind of a really core value for you.

Where did that passion come for helping people come from.

@8:25 - Jeffrey Sekinger

I just feel like if you don't have purposeful work, I don't care that much about money like if I was just sitting in an office collecting cash every single day.

Even if it was a huge sum of cash like at some point you're human you need to get more purpose out of life than just accumulating a bunch of cash so like if you can have some purpose through your work and you feel like you're having a positive impact.

That's huge if you can make, you know, fair amount of money and also help people in the process that's huge in it.

And like I said, you know, earlier. Problems became my purpose and I think that's the most powerful thing that anyone can do is you know You have a problem in life.

You overcome the problem yourself and then you help others with that same, you know type of problem So so in my in that circumstance, you know, it was my credit and my Personal finances and then getting funding to sort of you know one of my companies.

So like that Going through that process is extremely fulfilling when you overcome something You see how dramatically it impacted your life and then you use that, you know knowledge and skill set to also help others and Circumstances do that.

That's just a really really fulfilling process.

@9:41 - Gabriel Flores (The Shades of Entrepreneurship)

Yeah, I completely agree and now let's take it back to that first that first Organization the first entrepreneurship endeavor the one where you're helping kind of the finance now folks This information will be available on the shades of e.com as well.

please subscribe to the newsletter now I would love to hear kind of one you mentioned you kind of started it.

You're basically just you know nice month focusing on your own personal journey, your own finance journey, how did you begin to take that own, how did you begin to think about, you know what, I'm going go into document this, and then how did you begin to actually take that documentation and turn it into a business?

you mentioned, you can did some consulting work, and you've been doing it now for six years, so you've now scaled this consulting group pretty dramatically as well.

So how did you begin first to kind of start with the idea and say, you know what, I think I actually have something of value that I can sell.

@10:33 - Jeffrey Sekinger

Yes, so I actually built, you know, one of the early stage things that I did when I was just about to leave corporate, this is before I was still in the corporate world, I mean, I tried to run the business while I was there, I declared an outside business activity, and I was working for JP Morgan at the time, and they were like, hey, you're going to be a competitor to some of my ever going to do anything without competing.

So I I just realized that there was no option, you know, so I had to leave there if I wanted to start that company.

And that's what I did. I started even before I had any type of, you know, dependable cash flow. And how I documented it is I actually read a book called Crush It by Gary V where I'm sure you know who Gary is.

He talks to a big personal brand guy, right? And he talks about how your personal brand is your resume.

So I'm like, that's so true. I really can argue he provided all these stories about all these people that, you know, created great businesses and impact and, you know, made a lot of money through their personal brands.

And I'm like, this makes sense. Let's go ahead and do this. And I'm going to brand myself as the credit and finance expert as I go through this process.

So I literally just broke down my personal brand, which is mainly done through Instagram at the time. And I said, and I just like literally started to talk about credit and all the things that I was doing with my own credit profile.

Showing the improvements that were occurring, I went through the six different factors of credit, talked about how those factors add up to your score and what impact they have, and how you can tweak certain things in order to get those six factors up.

And, and I, and then I, you know, showed exact, you know, processes of, you know, how to accumulate more points on certain cards that you get and how important it is to have on an LLC and not on your personal credit cards because then the utilization doesn't reflect on your personal And all of these things that a lot of consumers don't know were not taught in high school and college, which is unbelievable.

I was a finance degree, and they didn't teach me really anything about taxes, how to pay my taxes, how to optimize taxes, how to fix your credit score, to, I mean, how public education.

tools and they didn't teach me anything about credit. So there's a big hole in just with consumers in the United States because you need a credit score to do almost everything.

And I just talked about that entire process that I went through. And then I got to the point where people were like, hey, I see the value in what you're doing.

And they said, do you have anything I can buy from you? And I'm like, no, I don't. But let me think about this.

So then I launched a presale to a program that I was going to release. I talked about the different phases of the program and what it was going to do.

And to me, like right when I launched the presale, I think I made like five or six grand. And that was like within 24 hours.

And I was like, wow, I guess I might have something here. And then each week I built out that program.

And I would slowly raise the price of the program. And then that really kick started my entire brand. And then I started hiring employees.

And then everything just started a snowball from there. So it all launched off of my personal brand and really because I read that book called Crush It.

@14:06 - Gabriel Flores (The Shades of Entrepreneurship)

And you just kind of funny, I think I actually have that book here in the bookshelf behind me somewhere.

With that said, you know what, I won again, folks, this information will be on the shades of.com. So please subscribe to the newsletter.

But I would love for you to what is that current business name that you're working on and kind of without, I certainly don't want you to sell the farm, but I would.

There's probably some people listening that probably could utilize your service. So give them what's the elevator pitch?

@14:29 - Jeffrey Sekinger

What's the company name? Give them little synopsis so they can understand what they'll be receiving from you if they join up with your team.

Yeah, for sure. It's 0% dot com. So it's the number zero and then percent spelled out dot com. And it's simply a kid salting company that works with you to optimize your credit profile, set up the proper business if you don't already have one, and then go through a strategic funding process to get the lowest interest funding that you could possibly get.

And our focus is anywhere between 50 and $50,000 and $300,000. That's usually the range because we're helping people with like very early stage LSEs, but we have different access and different, you know, companies that we work with that can get much larger amounts of funding if someone actually has financials and they have cash flow and they can prove that.

If they don't like have cash flow and they don't have finances, you can still get a fair amount of funding, but your personal credit profile, they're going to base a lot of the funding off your personal credit profile.

So that's our main core focus is we help early stage entrepreneurs get access to low interest financing typically between $550,000 and $300,000.

@15:40 - Gabriel Flores (The Shades of Entrepreneurship)

And who is like primarily your target audience?

@15:43 - Jeffrey Sekinger

you pretty busy, agnostic when it comes to entrepreneurs? you looking like specific industries? Yeah, a lot of different industries.

don't have, I mean, there's only like a few high risk industries that we don't, you know, work with, but the majority of the companies that we work with are some type of, there is,

either a consulting company, they're a marketing company, or they're an e-commerce-based company. Those are like our top three, but that doesn't mean that we won't work with a brick and mortar company or something else.

But those types of businesses typically get higher amounts of funding because they're lower risk type businesses, and they have less overhead.

So there's certain things that the lenders look for, not just in your credit profile, but in the type of company that you're starting that it can impact the amount of funding that you get.

@16:30 - Gabriel Flores (The Shades of Entrepreneurship)

And then for an entrepreneur that they're trying to get funding. Actually, let's say for your example, started your consultant.

What are some things that kind of surprised you during either trying to access funding or just going through and getting an LLC and starting your own business that you didn't know about when you started it?

@16:50 - Jeffrey Sekinger

Yeah, tons of things. mean, first of all, I didn't even think that it was possible to get funding on a company that didn't have revenue, which I quickly realized you can't do that.

If your personal credit profile is in good shape so I learned that process I call and then I call I you know pretty much claim the name strategic zero percent financing so you can also get financing through certain types of credit products that you don't pay interest on for six twelve even sometimes twenty four months.

And you can use that in and your you know business essentially you have free money for up to you know at the high end it is twenty four months typically it's twelve to like fifteen months you're not paying any type of interest so there are certain credit products that allow for that and you know as an early stage business owner you know you've got to have an idea of how to make your company your company you know profitable like you know quickly you don't want to take on a bunch of debt if you don't think that you can actually make money right but if you actually have a clear plan and you're confident in your plan why would you not get some type of financing that's essentially

free money from the banks by leveraging something that you could you've already built with your credit score or you can build no matter how bad your credit is because I could tell you like I said I had a legitimately out of 524 credit score and I got it up close to it in 800 and not to be long and then was able to go through a funding process to get hundreds of thousands of dollars so that you know that I didn't realize how quick it could be number one how early stage of a company you could actually get financing on and then the type of rates that you could you could get in a you know short period of time as far as like a you know zero percent or low low interest offers you know in a in a 12 to 24 month mark so those are the three major things and then the other thing too I didn't even know before I got into the credit game was that if you have you know a lot of people they start business quick and they put it on their personal credit cards you needed to set things up the right way from this

start. Especially if you're playing on putting spend. I mean, first of all, sometimes they'll shut down your personal credit cards if you put business expenses on them.

So that can be a big issue. But number two is your utilization is a huge part, which is how much credit do you have and how much of that credit are you actually using?

Correct. that's a huge part of your credit score. And if you're using a bunch of your outstanding credit and you have a big balance on your credit cards, your score is going to get tanked.

So if you can move that over to a business that helps immensely in increasing your credit score, because the utilization, aka the credit that you're spending on the business, on the business credit cards or business lines of credit, are not reporting on your personal credit.

So you can, you know, you leverage money without it negatively impacting your your credit score.

@19:50 - Gabriel Flores (The Shades of Entrepreneurship)

Yeah, really, really smart. And folks, I got to say, just a general rule of thumb from my own personal finances, I try not to exceed 30% on a credit card balance.

Like that's anything over 30%. I begin to get worried just because it tends to hit your credit score pretty pretty hard, but I do like you know the the option to you know working with your LLC and then also there's grant funding available to for entrepreneurs folks you know the Latino founders are nonprofit coming up pitch Latino and pitch banner coming up so there's pitch competitions there's grant funding SBA has funding so you know get out there and network with folks and figure out you know what what's all available for you now now Jeff you also mentioned it is very interesting kind of a really nice vertical integration though is you essentially doing the consulting and then you created a fund and how did how did that transition occur and how do you create a fund well I didn't plan it luckily everything had a lot of synergy so I mean first of all I started a a RAGD I've got a you know a RAGD 506B and a 506C and and those are you know private placements so typically you pay

@21:00 - Jeffrey Sekinger

an attorney to start a fund that's usually between $20,000 and $40,000 to start a fund. That's typically the cost, but if you're starting things like a reggae plus, it could be $75,000, the range can vary, but usually it's $10,000 to start a fund.

I started that fund because I just had a deep passion for trading and investing, and I saw how quickly blockchain was growing, and this is why I left the corporate world.

I watched the huge run-up that crypto had from 2016 to 2017, and then the fall from $20,000 back down to the low of $3,000 for Bitcoin, and I knew that that was not going to end there.

People were saying, oh, that's the industry's down and I'm like, there's no way that it's done. I really think that this is a big trend that's

going to see some serious adoption. So I'm like, I can see this vision of this industry growing rapidly. I'm already interested in it.

I'm already invested in it. Why don't I start a fund with a guy that I trust and admire because of his ability to trade and manage capital?

And that's what I did. We started a fund just for ourselves. We're like, hey, this could be a viable business.

But let's put money together first, prove a track record. And then let's start to raise money with that track record that we build through the fund because you can't, you know, if you're talking to a potential investor, you can't market returns that are outside of what you built through, you know, fun.

You can't show like personal stuff. So like, but like, hey, let's just build a track record. And if we do well, then we'll start to, you know, raise money just from, you know, people that we already know in our network.

People have already done business with and it made it pretty easy. So it started very slow. It's a long term compounding business.

It's not an easy thing. I'll make a bunch of cash flow from starting a fund. You've got to have a lot of patience, and you've got to earn a lot of trust with people.

So this is like a longer-term play, and it's played out pretty well, and we've done pretty well as far as the management side goes.

And it worked out because I built these relationships through my consulting company, and then naturally, there's networking opportunities. We had events every once in while, and people would just ask me what I'm doing on other ventures and with my investments, and I let them know, I invest in my own hedge fund.

like, well, what is that? And then it's just an easy conversation, and a lot of the investors that we now have in our fund are clients that have built relationships over the past six years.

So a lot of that came, that's another thing you've got to think about is the lifetime value of the customer.

Maybe it doesn't end just with that sale of one company, like maybe there's indirect value. value that's occurring in different areas, and it's not always maybe they funnel into another business.

Maybe they bring you a key employee that helps your business grow, they make you become a partner on a company with them.

There's a lot of indirect value of growing a network and building relationships in business.

@24:20 - Gabriel Flores (The Shades of Entrepreneurship)

Yeah, I completely agree. I'm always encouraging the folks that are listening to, you really get out in network and meet with people, talk with people, share your ideas, and get insights, test your thesis.

Truly, see if you have a minimal about a product that people are willing to purchase. The only way you can do that is actually get out there in the community and test it in the market.

Now, Jeff, one of the things you also mentioned, so now you're doing consulting, then you started a fund, and then you pivoted another kind of vertical integration in a way.

You create software to help retail traders.

@24:53 - Jeffrey Sekinger

Now, tell us a little bit about that. What is called and what kind of program is it? Yeah, so it's a company called NERPA.

It's NURP. It's a software company that any type of, sometimes we have some businesses that become clients, but they're typically a higher net worth retail traders that want to spend less time behind a computer, jump into a strategy that's built based on back tested data, then they manage, they can help manage that strategy on their own.

So they're watching over their accounts, making sure that the strategy is functioning. can adjust certain position sizing and equity stop glosses and things.

So they can make adjustments based on their own risk tolerance and goals, and that's something, another huge trend that I saw in the marketplace that I knew was going to be a very big thing, and I knew that it had a lot of synergy with our fund, and I understood that it's going to add a lot of value, not only to that enterprise value within

side of that company, but also in all of the research and data that come with it and how that's going to help, you know, our fund and our strategy moving forward as well.

So, so yeah, it was, it was another, you know, vertical integration, like you mentioned, and also another way that, you know, I build relationships with clients and ultimately they tend, I tend to get other clients in my other companies as well.

So it's kind of building somewhat of a flywheel as well. And, and, and I realized too that, like, if you look at some of the wealthiest people in the world, I mean, especially if you're studying billionaires, they become billionaires through private equity, and a lot of them build, you know, these companies over many, years, oftentimes, you know, decade or two.

And if you look at where a lot of the value was going, it's going where you get these high multiples, it's coming from recurring revenue, and a lot of times that recurring revenue is some type of software as a service.

So it, I Now, as I studied some of the wealthiest people in the world, and I want to make a move into that direction, I'm like, I also need to be in the right vehicles.

And if the right, if I could find the right vehicle that also has synergy with everything that I know and everything that I've done in my career, then why would I not, you know, build a team around launching a brand that has synergy with my other companies?

Builds a lot of enterprise value and it gets me in the right vehicle in order to get to the growth that I want to have.

So, yeah, all those things are main reasons why we started there and it's been a huge success since we started and very happy with the progress we made.

But it's not an easy, definitely not an easy business. don't think any business is, but especially when you're playing it in financial markets, they move very quick and markets change.

And there's, you got to have your fingers on the pulse and have a lot of smart people working for you.

@27:57 - Gabriel Flores (The Shades of Entrepreneurship)

Yeah, I completely agree. you know, play the. I got a 403, know, got the IRA kind of, you know, definitely play with the retail traders.

Well, got my butt kick a couple of years ago and some short, some short trainings, but who ever doesn't get their butts every kicked every once in while in some short trades?

@28:16 - Jeffrey Sekinger

I have been smoked many times too, trust me. I mean, times where it practically made my heart stop, but that's part of the game.

Like you, you are going to take losses and that's part of trading and investing.

@28:29 - Gabriel Flores (The Shades of Entrepreneurship)

If you can't stomach losses that you should just, you know, cash under your bed and just let inflation erode away at it slowly.

Exactly. I completely agree. So let's, let's stick on that train because I think, you know, there's a lot of probably retail investors in fact, retail investing has gotten extremely kind of popular within the last five years, you know, since the pandemic specifically, I would say, what are what you say are three reasons why blindly following the herd is an investment strategy destined to fail.

@28:56 - Jeffrey Sekinger

Yeah, it's, I mean, when I first realized this and I didn't I realize it's from an early age. I've been investing for over 10 years.

But when you realize that all these financial markets that we're playing on, if you're on any type of broker or an exchange, you are playing something called a zero-sum game, which means that in order for you to win, someone else has to lose.

So if you're listening and you're using groupthink to make investment decisions, a perfect example is the Fed pivot. If you look at the data, everyone's like, hey, man, when the Fed drops rates, that's going to make debt less expensive, and people run a borrow more and spend more money, and then the economy is going to go up and the stock market and everything's going to go up.

And that's groupthink. That's what everyone, primarily retail investors think, which to an extent, you're right in a very short period of time.

But if you go look at the data, the majority of the time, when the Fed is dropping rates because of recessionary fears and

employment is on their rise. then the Fed says, hey, it's time to pivot. Let's let's drop rates. If you look at what happens the majority of the time when they're making those big pivot, it's an interest rates, you usually see a big drawdown in the S&P 500 and other markets because they're dropping rates because something is seriously wrong.

So, contrary to the popular belief of the group think and the herd that all starts buying the top when they drop rates, markets are forward thinking.

So, they've already that's why we're seeing a big rally in the stock market already because markets have been planning on this pivot and interest rates for the last six nine months.

So, the market has already moved there. You're going to then buy the top and a lot of the time as you'll see the market sell off after a Fed pivot from these recessionary scares.

I think that's what's around the corner, but obviously I don't have a crystal ball and everyone's got to make their own financial decisions.

that's just an example. So, when you realize that when you're doing what everyone else is doing, and you're following the herd, you're typically the best thing you could do is, you know, be average, but a lot of the times you end up losing money because you're just, you're getting on the tail end of the herd and you've got to think, all right, how can I place capital in a place before everyone else places their money there?

And that's the main, you know, thing you need to take away from trading and investing is you've got to be forward thinking further than just like, oh, right with the Fed Pivot's fam by the market.

No, the market, the smart money was thinking that way nine months ago.

@31:35 - Gabriel Flores (The Shades of Entrepreneurship)

Yeah, I agree. Having FOMO and trading is the worst thing to have fear of missing out because, you know, I think a lot of people will ride the wave up.

And if you look at folks, you want to, Jeff, think you're correct on what you're saying because, you know, Buffett is a good example of this trend right now.

you look at the amount of stocks he's recently sold in the amount of cash he's hoarding right now, I generally assume something big is coming as well.

So you can, again, historically, you just kind of follow the market. It has its ups and downs, folks. I'm not saying not, we're not trying to say this to scare you from, from entertaining investment, certainly not, word, but we are trying to, you know, be educated, make sure you know what you're doing.

And right, again, if you're doing long term investments, you know, look at the market, a 10 year span of any market, well, except for Intel right now, but look at a 10 year span of very much any market and you're going to have a pretty, a pretty, you know, positive trajectory.

So, so, Jeff, what's, you know, yeah, you got three businesses going, what's, what's next?

@32:38 - Jeffrey Sekinger

What's, what's on the future horizon? Honestly, just growing what we have and making the products better and better. I mean, that's a, that's a thing that one is a never ending task.

And the more that you focus on products, the less, the easier everything is, like if you have a great product that makes everything 10x easier.

So that's why. primary focus is just focusing on product, building our team, getting the right leadership team in the right seats.

And that's my objective over the next 12 months is just continuously to hire better and better people and grow everything that we have.

So I've got more than enough on my plate and excited to just keep growing what I have. And again, just hire people that are way smarter than me to help fulfill the mission and vision that we have.

@33:26 - Gabriel Flores (The Shades of Entrepreneurship)

And I like the idea of going through SaaS, the whole subscription model. Personally, I'd like, I love the subscription model.

I'm trying to figure out ways like how do I personally myself get to the get a product to the subscription model because like you're mentioning it's just kind of reoccurring revenue, especially if I a good product or service.

if you can create it, know, automate it, have something that's already kind of built out and you certainly have to continue to adjust as the world and the market adjusts.

But I tell you folks, subscription model SaaS is kind of the way to go if you're able to do it.

Really, again, a lot of work. but really, really good. Now, Jeff, what advice would you have for someone that's listening right now that's interested in becoming an entrepreneur?

@34:08 - Jeffrey Sekinger

What advice would you have for them? Yeah, mean, make sure that what you do aligns with your values. I think that's number one.

know, I feel like I waste a lot of time early stage of my life doing things that I was doing just because I thought that it was like cool or the right thing to do or like it would make my parents proud.

Like at the end of the day, you've got to make yourself proud and you've got to do things that align with your values.

So if you don't have self-awareness, you're going to really struggle and you're probably going to waste a lot of time and then realize that, you know, with entrepreneurship, I, you know, I was, I think I did things that really the right way as far as making a company profitable very quickly.

But a lot of the times when you're launching something, you got to feed this organization and continuously invest back into the business and

Your perspective, really, in my opinion, should be that you're jumping into at least a five-year commitment, and you should think about your business as a five-year investment that you're going to sacrifice a lot of things.

You're probably going to have to stop spending a bunch of time on your weekends doing going to the beach and spending going to every family vacation and all these weddings that you get invited to do and watching Netflix in the evenings and going out with your friends.

I sacrificed all of that for many, many years, I don't think people realize the sacrifice that you have to make early on.

And I think that a lot of times it takes five years to build a solid leadership team, then you get some of your time back.

So if you're going to make that leap, that's the type of perspective that you should have, is you're going to make lot of sacrifice, and it's going to take some time, and you've got to be thinking in at least a five-year time horizon before you really start to see the compound effect and the fruits to your labor play out.

@35:59 - Gabriel Flores (The Shades of Entrepreneurship)

Yeah, I got it. Tell you folks, I started this podcast what three and a half years ago, you know, still scaling it just got brain on my first employee that helps with, you know, the editing of the stuff, but you know, again, it takes a lot of time.

But then at the same time, it's something I'm fun. I love. I do. I love doing it. It's passionate about, like, you know, Jeff mentioned, and I think the passion is important because when you have those moments of self doubt, it's, it's going to, it's the passion is going to want to kind of propel you forward to not give up.

@36:28 - Jeffrey Sekinger

Now, Jeff, have you ever had a moment of self doubt throughout your career career? Yeah, all the time. I mean, it happens all the time.

And, and, you know, it's, it's sometimes you get in a place where there's sort, there's many things that can help you get through it, you know, being around other people that are doing similar things and having success.

You can give you a lot of inspiration. So I, I'm a big fan of finding a circle on a network around you that is doing similar things that you can feel like, oh, you went through that problem.

Same thing here. And then you can like get feedback from them and and learn a lot quicker. So that was one of the great things I did is I surrounded myself with a small network, but it was a really good network of people my age that were growing different companies helped immensely in my learning curve and also getting through that, you know, self doubt.

And then, you know, just listening and feeding your mind, people talk about the diet that you feed your body.

How about the diet that you feed your mind? I think that's even more important. So like what I'm talking about is listening to positive, you know, affirmations, listening to people like Jim Brown and Jim Brown and Les Brown and Tony Robbins and things that you're talking, they're talking about personal development and perseverance and doing those things instead of every once in a while, know, not listening to music on the way to your job or to your business.

Listening those types of things can really help alter your belief systems because ultimately, you know, what you believe in your head then determines your thoughts, words, actions, habits, and destiny.

So if you have a really strong belief system in yourself, you can get over those times of self doubt.

But if you don't have the belief system there and you're not confident yourself because you're not keeping the promises that you make yourself and staying disciplined, then it's going to be a lot harder to get over that self doubt.

@38:15 - Gabriel Flores (The Shades of Entrepreneurship)

Yeah, folks, we are the average of the 10 people we hang out with the most, you know, and so make sure you surround yourself a lot of good positivity.

And I agree, Jeff, you know, like, you know, sure you're even positive with yourself. I think that's really important.

We're, we are our own worst critics. It's very easy for us to get on ourselves for things that we've done.

But you also, it's very imperative for you to take a moment to take a step back and look in the rear view mirror of all the accomplishments you have done throughout your life.

And if you need to, by all means, throughout the year, you know, if you do something great through a day, write a note down and put it in a bucket.

And so at the end of the year, you have a bucket full of these little notes that you can go pick out and say, wow, these are all the things I accomplished this year.

Because again, having that reassurance and continuing to build upon that. As Jeff mentioned, know, it eventually creates its own, its own kind of energy, right, you kind of create your own or positivity and things start to go well.

You know, one of the things I've changed recently completely on Jeff is I do my bed every morning. I wake up every morning, I make my bed and I feel like that just that accomplishment has been doing a lot.

I put one of those, the money trees next to my bed now as well as it's been sprouting and doing or been working out about three days a week or, you know, four days a week.

Now, or this month is my goals three days a week, but with with a three year old and 18 month year old.

always difficult, but, you know, just trying to get into routines. I would say, I always encourage people to try to get into routines because once you kind of get into routines become, you know, focus on those routines.

As Jeff mentioned, you become better because again, you're learning from either yourself or you're learning from someone else. So again, keep on moving now folks again all this information will be available on the shades of entrepreneurship website, the shades of e.com, including a transcription.

Folks are interested in learning more about you, maybe they want to connect with you online, or they want to find your website.

What is your information? How can they get a hold of you?

@40:09 - Jeffrey Sekinger

Yeah, I mean, I post a lot of my life on Instagram, so if you just look at me up there, just my name, Jeff, seconder.

I post stuff on there. post different types of personal development content, mindset things on threads, which is through the new Instagram app, so you could get some value there.

If you're more like finance and investment focused, I'm on X as well. I talk more about finance and investments and things like that there.

And then just my different brands, know, mainly 0% and then our fund doesn't really have a website because we don't, we just don't need to.

So yeah, I would say those are the best places.

@40:51 - Gabriel Flores (The Shades of Entrepreneurship)

Perfect. Again, folks, with all this information will be available on the Shades of E.com, so please be sure to subscribe to the Shades of Entrepreneurship.

You can also become a patron for $5 a month, you can help support the show on patreon.

@41:03 - Jeffrey Sekinger

Again, the shades of e.com and you can follow us on at the shades of e on all the social channels.

Now, Jeff, before we leave, is there any last words you'd like to say for the listeners? No, I mean, my big thing is just like, you know, I I'm so happy that I went through that those challenges and tribulations that I did because I got to know myself better.

And when you know yourself better and you've got that self-awareness and you know what you truly value, it makes life a thousand times easier because you're doing things that you truly care about.

And at the end of the day, it's your life and you got to design your life around the things that matter and that you value yourself.

So if you could build your career around things that align with what you value, it's going to make your life so so much better.

@41:50 - Gabriel Flores (The Shades of Entrepreneurship)

I agree. I agree. know, the difference between a job and as a career is that job is something to do for money in a career is something you're passionate about doing, right?

just get out before. just, you know, continuing to go out there, folks, network. There's a lot of people out there in the community that want to see you succeed.

So make sure you go out there and break some bread with those folks. And again, folks, all this information will be on the shades of e.com website.

Jeff, thank you again so much for joining the show. Really appreciate it. And for those, again, I would say everybody listening.

Congratulations on your sobriety, phenomenal story. know that that's probably been a lot of work. Awesome dude, truly awesome work what you're doing.

And me personally, I'm going go check out your website because I love to trade as well. So I'd be very interested in your retail trading software.

Again, I told you I got my butt kicks in short, so I need to make that money back. So, and folks, you can subscribe to us at the shades of e.com.

You can go ahead and visit Patreon, become a Patreon for $5 a month. Thank you and have a great night!