The Adidas Family Legacy: From Iconic Brands to Venture Investing

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

Alex is the founding partner ADvantage VC, an estimated $100 million AUM venture fund as part of the family legacy that created iconic companies such as Puma and Adidas. Alex draws on his deep roots in the sports and entertainment space while focusing on sports entertainment investments. 

So what does this mean? Well, it means that Alex understands unique cross section between venture capital and sports entertainment, that this episode is bound to open your eyes to the promise of this sector and how it brings astonishing returns to alternative asset managers.

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[THE GUEST]: Alex Bente is the founding partner at ADvantage VC, an estimated $100 million AUM venture fund.

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• 19:10 (Cont.) The Adidas Family Legacy: From Iconic Brands to Venture Investing

Transcript

Ryan Miller  

My name is Ryan Miller, and for the past 15 years, I've helped hundreds of people to raise millions of dollars for their funds and for their startups. If you're serious about raising money, launching your business, or taking your life to the next level, this show will give you the answers so that you too can enjoy your pursuit of Making Billions. Let's get into it. 

Ryan Miller  

What if the DNA of success could be decoded? My next guest's great grandfather didn't just create shoes, he created empires. See, most people think venture capital is about money, in fact, it's about something far more important. In the next 45 minutes, I'm going to reveal the exact playbook that transformed a family's athletic legacy into a $100 million venture capital machine. You see, this isn't an interview, this is a blueprint for disruption. See strategies that work in sports, secrets that crush in venture capital, all can be found here. Are you ready to rewrite the rules? Here we go. 

Ryan Miller  

Hey, welcome to another episode of Making Billions, I'm your host, Ryan Miller and today I have my dear friend Alex Bente. Alex is the founding partner at ADvantage VC an estimated $100 million AUM venture fund as part of the family legacy that created iconic companies such as Puma and Adidas. Alex draws on his deep roots in the sports and entertainment space while focusing on sports entertainment investments. So what does this mean? Well, it means that Alex understands unique cross section between venture capital and sports entertainment, that this episode is bound to open your eyes to the promise of this sector and how it brings astonishing returns to alternative asset managers. So Alex, welcome to the show.

Alex Bente  

Ryan, thank you so much for having me on. It's been a great getting to know you over the past couple of weeks, you're awesome, and what an amazing job you've done with building a really cool community here with Making Billions and really, it's the go to spot to learn about alternative investments.

Ryan Miller  

Yeah, man and you're right at the hub of it. So, you know, I'd love to just jump into it. I mean, you have a great background. You're the great grandson of Adolf Dassler, who created Adidas, and the family also brought Puma, I mean, what a great thing. Now you've jumped into venture capital, focusing on the strengths that you've had multiple generations to learn from. So in your perspective, investing in venture capital, but also investing in the sector that you do, how would you say that people get some early points on the board when jumping into venture capital?

Alex Bente  

Well, let's just face it, it's not an easy environment currently to start a venture capital firm. I think being a working manager is incredibly difficult, but I think every, every tough period is at the same time also an opportunity. And I think even more now than maybe three, four years ago, when the venture capital pool happened in 2020, 2021, you really have to focus on what makes a difference and where is your edge. And honestly, as a former athlete myself, I will hear that quite often the day, I try to make comparisons to business to sports, right, and it's usually very similar. So I think even in sports, I was always looking at, okay, what are my strengths, what are my weaknesses? And usually I like having gone high strengths, especially in the biggest moments. So if you transfer that to the world of venture capital, creating a firm, again, I think it's such a competitive industry, but obviously dominated by few very large firms, you have to think about, hey, how are you different? How can you compete, how can you truly see the right deals at the right time? How can you get an allocation to these deals? How can you be a value add investor, and it typically creates, I think, or it requires specialization. And honestly, very, very fortunate to spend born with that in a way, right, because family history is in the world of sports, I very much always lift my passion, or sports on tennis courts, and now I'm blessed to have the opportunity to do something in sports. It combines lower passion, which is obviously, and it's an investment and so on. But, yeah, that naturally created, obviously, that strategy, okay, this is the one area where we can be valued, and it's just what should be active and where we can really, you know, differentiate ourselves. And, yeah, that would be my number one, I think initial thought, you know, for anyone out there that wants to get into venture capital with their own strategy, their own funds, okay, how do you win? How do you, how are you different? 

Ryan Miller  

And winning is certainly a thing that you're no stranger to, and with the background in sports, that's what we do. Long story is we don't want to just participate, we want to win. So make sure that you're actually building it to win in the right ethical way, which you demonstrate brilliantly at ADvantage. So maybe walk through a little bit of the process that you've gone through on determining what your advantage is, where you fit, and how can other people learn from that? 

Alex Bente  

Yeah, happy to and I think the first thing also I just want to mention, because I think if you want to win it in the long run, you also have to accept that losing is part of that journey, and it's a very again, you really got it all the time, right? It's true in sports, it's even true in business, right? No one, even the best in the world, they don't win every single time, every single day. It's really what happens once you lose, how do you handle that? And I think that's one thing that I learned early on through sports, but in Tennis, you lose points, you lose games, you lose matches all the time but how do you react to that? And do you use that as fuel to get better, and it's very much also, I think if you look at our journey over the last now eight years, we've certainly made mistakes. We've made many mistakes, but make sure you don't make the same mistakes over and over and over again, and you actually look in the mirror and look how you can use that to become better and improve. And yeah, just wanted to start with that, because it's all about winning. But I think how to win, it's, I think also accepting losing is an important lesson on along the way. So big picture, but I just started with that a little bit earlier. How do you win as an emerging manager, how do you get started? It is, again, focusing on what makes you different. Where are your strengths, and I think, I believe every human being does have a unique story, a unique perspective, and therefore also unique ability maybe, to access, you know, deals in a certain space or make the right decisions in a certain space. And I think that's for us, where the for our journey, as I mentioned, for sports, it was always clear it has to be sports, but at the same time. But if I had to just write down, okay, what are two and three things that make us different early on, how we want to differentiate ourselves? It was sports, global, series A and the simpler, typically, the better, right? It's easier if, it takes you two minutes to describe what period it's what your difference is, it's too complicated, right? It needs to be very easy to understand and I think that has really helped us. And honestly, over the last eight years, we have not deviated that state. Obviously, there's lots of adjustments you make with smaller things, but main key strategic priorities have remained same.

Ryan Miller  

Brilliant, thank you for that. So remaining focus on what you're good at, what your advantage is, so that's that's really good given the name of of your venture fund. And you know, for what it's worth, what some of the things that I've done, if this is helpful, is really, I always start with vision and work backwards. Some people go from ground and work their way up, I start from the top and work my way down. And really just understanding, like, who do I want this to be for, who do I want to be personally? How do I want to build this firm? What positive things do we want to bring forward into the world, and how do I fit into that? And then pretty soon, you understand your vision and how you fit into it, then you're pretty clear or clearer on some of the gaps, and that kind of leads into choosing who you work with. So I'm curious, how do you go about you know now that you know who you are and where you want to be and what advantage you want to have? How do you determine who you work with? How do you go about doing that?

Alex Bente  

It's honestly the key next step after and maybe even that's the first step, I think sometimes even, maybe even before you know the exact detailed vision, you meet the people that you know you want to build something with. And that was honestly also a little bit the case work with ADvantage, because ADvantage does not exist if I don't meet Jeremy Pressman, still my business partner today, he's become like a brother to me. And he is, when it comes to strategy development, he's definitely the person that came up with that specific strategy, full credit to him. But ultimately, why did we partner and why are we still a business together? Why will we do business for the rest of our lives? It's because we, we have, I think, the shared, the same, shared core principles and values, but are very, very different with our skill sets, but that foundation is super important. And that leads me to, I think one of the key things, at least to me, which is always trust. Trust is so, so, so important and if you can't trust each other, any team, any sports team, any team in business, is definitely there's no trust at the end of the day, you're going to lose because that's the foundation everything else is built on. Obviously, you need to be smart, you need a build a good network, but you can't trust the other person to really do what's best and manage yourself with firm. You start making the wrong decisions and spend a lot of time worrying about things you shouldn't worry about. So that really then influences, I think, everything that you do when you start building your firm, but it's obviously who's your business partner, who are the key people that you want to hire after that? And then even, who do you want to surround yourself when it comes to advisors, investors, who do you want to back with your capital? What are you looking for in an entrepreneur and if you it's my opinion, if you can't trust someone, there's nothing that conversation to be had. So trust is such a simple word that probably everyone always tells you, but I think it's still being overlooked too often because we're chasing maybe an interesting idea or an interesting financial opportunity in the long run, will not work. 

Ryan Miller  

Yeah, you know, on this show, we always say that your reputation, relationships and results are the three most valuable assets in your possession when it comes to your reputation. I think that's kind of what you're talking about is to say, are you well known for being an honest person? Are you a bit of a scoundrel or what's going on here? And so curating a reputation, some people call it a personal brand, but make sure that when you do it, that integrity is part of it. That's just a note that I think both Alex and I can beat on that drum and echo it to as many people that will listen, is really make sure that you're fully compliant, but also there's the letter and the spirit of the law as well, and just make sure that you honor those relationships and some of those expectations, whether it's with an investor, with a partner, both internally externally, just don't be hard to work with. And make sure that if you say it, you keep your word, can you add anything to that? 

Alex Bente  

Yeah, well and I think it's a big part of it is also right, especially as it relates to your team, when it comes to team where I think there are always certain situations, no matter we like it or not, where we could make a certain decisions that would maybe benefit us over our business partner, or us over the whole firm that we're building, and in these moments, that's when integrity really shows up. But are you always putting the company first right and I always try to either go my business partner, Jeremy, before any but I'm happier if he wins than if I win. That's at the end of the day, how actually feel and not everyone has to feel like that, but I think it's that's where integrity really shows up, but not when everything's great. I think in moments where tough decisions need to be made, and that's when you really need to, need to show and prove that you're a good business partner and you're you there in the tough times. So it's once again, but that's true in so many other aspects of our lives, tense in sports, that's in we've got private relationships. So that's if there's one thing I can tell anyone that wants to start a venture capital firm or is currently building it, it is a long term process, and it's incredibly difficult, incredibly difficult. So if you don't surround yourself with the right people, you are going to move slightly.

Ryan Miller  

Great. So that puts credence to the importance of hiring well, partnering well, we've all had those moments where maybe you had a partner or partnership that didn't look great, didn't work out great, and maybe you came out unscathed, maybe you got clipped a little bit from a bad partnership. So I think what we're saying is underscoring the importance of making sure that you really do deals, whether it's internally or externally, you do those deals with people that you know, like and trust. Is that a fair summary on that? 

Alex Bente  

Yes. 

Ryan Miller  

So you mentioned that venture capital is, has quite a, it can be challenging building your firm. So with that said, what are some areas, maybe one area for sure that you would say this is the number one thing you need to look out for, for how not to lose, how to cover your butt. What would you say?

Alex Bente  

Well, I think there are different ways to answer this question, but fundamentally, I do believe, from a portfolio construction specifically, but in venture, if you focus too much on not losing, you're not doing your job. So in that sense, often is the best defense. Venture is an asset class that is ultimately every funnel is defined by very few investments that you make. The majority of them actually will most likely not work out, and that's okay, right, the power law of venture capital is well known. One or two investors will probably return 80 or 90% of the funds over term. So what I mean by that, and that's really just one detail when it comes to, obviously, very isolating, our portfolio construction, how we invest, but, and I think we all, we all have personal relationships with the founders, and it's, you know, you want to be there in tough times. And they've been. There are many, many examples of turnarounds, but even in our portfolio. But if you and I think it's a constant struggle that a lot of fund managers maybe don't talk about as often, but you know, we all have sizable portfolios, and typically, the worse it goes in a company, the more time it requires. Now, obviously, you want to be there, you want to be there, you want to be helpful, but at the same time, you always have to ask the question, okay, what, where do I spend my time in the most effective and efficient way. Ultimately, for our LPs and harvesters, right and it is okay, right, to have a company go to zero. No one wants that, but it is okay and it's painful for everyone involved, but it is ultimately okay. So shouldn't you spend more of that time that you have on your one or two investments, because that's where the true value creation happens. And it's a sensitive topic, it really is, because you want to be in for the long run with everyone, but we all have families, and the, there is only 24 hours, and you can't over promise and I think you have to focus eventually. And that's honestly also where I think hiring and delegating to younger people, that's an important step also, and I think they can prove themselves, maybe with some of the positions that may not go as well right away, right? So that's one thing I think high level of what I would say is, when it comes to portfolios construction, the question how not to lose, focus on winning. You need to put yourself in a position to win. How do you win in venture capital by having a couple of significant, ideally category defining investments. And I would being part of that and being a value added investor there, that's the key. That's what will make your reputation, if you're an early investor in Uber or Airbnb, right, that's for decades you will, you will be able to run on that. 

Ryan Miller  

You'd be a legend, for sure. So speaking of that, I mean, it's always good to look back, but sometimes we look at the present and go forward, when we're looking at market moves and really what's going on now, I'm curious. What I really want to know is, where do you see the market going? So it's really exciting now we've got AI and AR and VR and all these different things, where do you see the market going from here forward in your sector?

Alex Bente  

Where do we see it going in different certainly different directions. We have all of this capital going into sports teams, but billions, over $100 billion in the last 18 months, which is ultimately a good development, and valuations have increased significantly over the last decades and they are two view points, right? You can be and lots of people I speak with have you, have one of the two viewpoints. But you know, kind of valuations have maxed out. Where do they go from here, especially given the current business model, how do you grow the business? But how do you don't just bet on multiple expansion? And I see that right, because three main revenue streams for sports leagues and teams are video rights, ticket and gate revenues and sponsorships. And you can build a case that for many leagues and teams out there, all three of them are difficult to really increase significantly in the next years. In some cases, video right sales have already started being flat or declining. It's tough to increase ticket revenues, the way to do that is have a stadium, you can't do that so often. Increasing prices can really send the wrong signal to your fan base. So it's a difficult thing to do in sponsorship, there's certainly ways how you can grow that, but is it cannot be the main driver, right to have an asset that is worth billions of dollars to work 3x that in 5, 6, 7 years. It's a real question, but I think the what I'm getting at, and that's where why technology is also such an important enabler of all this, is the unique thing. The most important stakeholder is the fan, right? Fans is at the center of everything because we care and because we want to pay significant amounts watching engagement sports, that's why, ultimately, everything else is so attractive. That's why live sports, right is still pretty much the last thing we watch live on TV, and why these meteorites are worth so much, right, same thing happened, really across the board. Now, sports fan has not really been embraced, or at least not by directly by the leagues and the teams enough, in my opinion, and that is starting to change, especially on a global scale. I mentioned that earlier, and that brings a whole set of opportunities to growth, if you think about it, but a sports thing, like most sports teams, acquire their customers with a fans at zero cause you're born into being a Colts fan, a Browns fan, whatever it may be, and usually you'd stick with it for the rest of your life. So the lifetime value that LTV is often charts. If you think about then the opportunities that way, but if you think about, okay, sports teams really, as not just media companies, but as consumer brands. Have these you know, underlying your metrics, you could all of a sudden see massive potential in sports, in sports teams, leagues, right? But they need partners, right, they need data, they need technology in order to enable them to do that and smoke. And it takes time, but it's never, never happens overnight to the media or older business also business model and slowly modernizing it, but so that's certainly one thing what that we're trying to invest in. To give you one example, is short form content, something that we pretty significantly invested over the last couple of years, because it's obvious that that is something that consumers are spending more time on, but want to engage with sports and sports highlights and behind the scene content, younger audiences don't watch three hour, not live broadcast, then that's certainly something that the leagues have struggled with. But how do you capture that at scale, distributed at scale, and even from a consumer destination perspective, right? Currently lives all over the internet or all different apps that we have in our phones. Why isn't it in person purpose built? And by the way, that's also the monetization opportunity for the leagues, but historically, they had not really valued the short form content rights in a significant way. That is changing, but also we realize no, these short form content rights actually have significant value, and how can we take advantage of that? That's really just one trend, but if there's so I could go on and on and on, even then also talking about it, fitness and wellness and health and all of that, it's fascinating space, there's so much happening, and yeah, industry is, frankly, can keep growing and really listen to. 

Ryan Miller  

Yeah, that a, absolutely brilliant. I remember my one of my favorite teachers in college was my statistics teacher, and I eventually became a tutor there, but I remember him saying two things. Number one, he was from Texas A&M, he was very proud. But also, number two, he had a moment in time, and this blew me away about how math helps sports, and so he, I think, was commissioned by the Philadelphia Eagles to help improve player performance, injury prevention and that's fine. We had a human actor, but now we have AI, what's your position on the future of AI as it relates to sports, and how you see that improving games or fan engagement, anything at all. 

Alex Bente  

I think the first thing to mention is that AI has been in sports for a while. It's not something that has just think arrived a year or year and a half ago with chatGPT. That's at the core the application of AI is very obvious in the Europe performance space, as you just mentioned, right, ultimately, you have an increasing amount of data on professional athletes, how can you use that data in a personalized way? How can you make sense of that, and years ago, years 2017 when we saw multiple companies that use AI already to really use predictive analytics to give recommendations on load management for certain players, certain injury risks, like maybe the right hamstring is at an increased risk of an injury today, make sure not to push that player too hard and so on. But that has already existed and I think the interesting part there is more that this kind of capability is reaching the longer tail of the market by you've athletes, amateur athletes, or even regular consumers. That's exciting, and certainly that's what we see if we give it AI, a big application for AI going forward, but having every human being, hopefully will have not just data, but also really personally recommendations about how to improve their overall performance, which is very closely and connected to fitness and health wellness overall. So I think that definitely interesting opportunities on the fan engagement side, to use large language models, no doubt about that and there are different concepts that we've come across. So that's really where we see more, I think, of a more recent disruption in a revolution. 

Alex Bente  

As a venture capitalist, it's also important to say what AI could do where, definitely we're seeing this happen, but as we speak, that it could change the venture game fundamentally. And so to one degree, we love that someone will tell you what that and the other side we don't, because it could. You could make things much more competitive where AI is making all of us more efficient, even running a venture fund has become much more efficient, right? You can certainly use AI agents to make your taking notes, doing research, all of that is much, much, much quicker and more efficient. So you maybe don't need as many analysts anymore, but this analysts anymore. But the same thing applies, obviously, to companies where you may not need a massive, huge team anymore to build a company that scales. So that means you probably don't need to raise as much capital, which will make it much more difficult, right to kind of get into these rare to select companies that are really performing well. But if you end up being part of one of these companies on the cap table, and you aggregate a strong position, then you love it like you do, because these companies got to be much, much more profitable, and there's going to be less solution along the way. So it's a watch out, I don't think you know a lot of people, at least I keep reading it, but there's going to be a billion dollar company that was built on one person. I don't think that's going to happen tomorrow, realizing that probably one person is currently out there that thinks I'm going to prove Alex wrong. Please do, I don't think that's going to happen overnight, but certainly you're going to have smaller teams, more effective and efficient teams, not all AI.

Ryan Miller  

Brilliant man. So as we round third base, I'm just curious if you have maybe three or four things that you can illustrate that would give people an unfair advantage. From all of your experience, from all of your insight, from everything that you've done and with who you are, what would you say are three or four things that people can really take away, blow away the smoke, get right to the signal. What would you say?

Alex Bente  

It is a it's obviously the key question, and it's tough to really summarize it, but let me give a give a try. But number one, stay in your lane like be disciplined every deal that we see as a firm, I always try to ask myself the question, and every person on our team should ask themselves the question, why do we have the pleasure seeing this deal? Usually, if we're being honest, it means because all the smart capital has already passed on it, you're just the next person to see it and but I think you have to be honest with yourself, where are your strengths? Why are you the funds that can actually make the right decision in the sector and be then the right partner to that company and why do you win? So that's number one, be very, very thoughtful about creating that piece and then making that strength stronger and stronger and stronger. Playing to win, don't play to lose. And I think we live in a world where doing one thing extraordinarily well is more important than doing everything just okay. So that's number one. 

Alex Bente  

Number two, also, I think a lesson from sports, everyone always focuses on obviously winning a big title, the big tournament, having an investment that becomes uniquid exits. Yes, obviously that's the big end goal, but how do you get there, right? And what truly defines greatness is doing the boring little things very consistently, over and over and over again. I know it sounds a little bit cheesy, but you know, they always say, do the little things in an extraordinary way. It's always something that I really appreciate it because people don't see like the work that has gone in countless hours when no one's watching, doing the little things the right way, over and over and over again, creating the right habits. And that it works in sports, so important in sports, same thing when you build a venture capital fund, or if you want to be good investor, it's ultimately these habits, and that's about really everything that you do right with relationship management, how do you how do you make sure that you are like communicating in a right way, consistent way, you're listening to what what you're at, you know your LPs are telling you, and it is you stay consistent with that, but also your investment processes, but making sure that every process is exactly what you set out to do. You don't make any shortcuts. I think that's that's such an important foundation, and is actually a differentiation if you really do that the right way, not a lot of people are doing that. There's a reason why they're very, very few funds that really scale to that, that level, that there's a reason why very few professional athletes are truly known all over the world. Question is like, yes, they may have certain unique traits and talents, but very few people will be willing to put in the work that they put in, and very few people will be willing to do what they do when no one's watching. So a great learning in sports, that one to one is the same in business, in my opinion. 

Alex Bente  

And the third thing I said that earlier, I think surrounding yourself with the right people. And that one thing that's also important early on, because I've seen that happen, unfortunately, don't just, you know, it's top raising capital initially, but be thoughtful about who you surround yourself with also on the capital side, realize that it is a really a mini marriage. It's a 10 year plus journey and 10 years can be a long, long time if you have a wrong person, of a wrong investors around you, and that is something that we've been blessed with. That's incredible LPS that we get along with very well. Obviously, they're pushing us to ask the right tough questions, which is exactly what you want. But ultimately, these are all people that we enjoy being around, and really view that as a huge advantage that we have no pun intended. And be selected, I know it's tough early on when you build, especially in this environment, but be selective, taking the wrong capital can destroy your firm. 

Alex Bente  

And then lastly, don't enter venture capital for the wrong reasons. This is not something it's not an industry to make a quick buck, go somewhere else. There are other ways to do that, this is the ultimate long term vision based industry, and if you truly embrace that, that can be another differentiator. It's a be be in it for the right reason, be in it because you enjoy the process and the journey. But if you in it just to hopefully, one day have a massive outcome through an IPO or a strategic acquisition, of course, that's well, working towards, but if you don't enjoy the journey, you will you'll be frustrated and you won't be successful. So be aware that this is not the easiest way to make money, most funds lose money. Or not lose money, but a pretty significant amount lose money, and a lot of move on around performance. So it's a really, really difficult way to make money, you have to enjoy the journey.

Ryan Miller  

Brilliant man. Thank you for that. So before we wrap things up, closing remarks, anything you'd like to say ways people can connect with you? Maybe they have some sports related things, anything at all, what would be some of your closing remarks? 

Alex Bente  

First of all, I mean, your shirt looks amazing, for those of you that are don't seeing us on video, are not seeing us a video, he wears an All Blacks Adidas shirt. Incredible, I think this is the best that Ryan has ever looked. We had a secret agreement here is that we both would wear our favorite kits and jerseys. So I'm wearing a little bit of a different Bayern Munich jersey, this is like something very cool that Adidas started doing the outside using their originals logo. So also, you know, typically they always have performance logo, which you were wearing for, for the jerseys. They things had like these third and fourth ultimate versions of the jerseys with the originals logo. So I'm wearing that from my favorite team in the, in soccer we call football in Europe. So just want to make sure to give people a good shout out, really appreciate it. I think this call would have gone a little bit differently had it been a Nike shirt or a different shirt, how can you get in touch with me? I think, like there's probably the standard answer, yeah, reach out on LinkedIn. No, don't, please don't reach out on LinkedIn. I always encourage everyone also, right, if you want to get to someone put in the works, then ultimately, the best way to get to someone is always through warm connection, warm introduction, and use LinkedIn or other social media platforms to see, okay, who do I know who knows Alex? Could I reach out to them to maybe ask them for a warm introduction, right? So that would be my challenge, which is then one, obviously, feel free to reach out to LinkedIn, but like that, it's always like something that I also try to do is, don't just send the cold email. I appreciate the hustle, but put in the extra work. But hey, I know this in this person, he has that great things about you, can I, can ask you for connection or but that's, that's what I would, I think also maybe for just emerging managers as in general, that's it.

Ryan Miller  

Absolutely Alex and, you know, I always say, you know, never start a new relationship or reach out with an ask, typically, yeah, and LinkedIn is notorious for that. People will say, hey, this is who I am, this is what I do, book a call with me. I'm like, I'm not going to respond to that, but if people actually recognize some of the stuff, they've done their homework. So what Alex is talking about isn't unique to Alex, even though it is very good advice, I can echo it, and I feel the same way, but I like how you made a game out of it, right, challenge accepted. So it's like, get to know, do the work, see if you can win the prize. So Alex, it's been an absolute pleasure. So just to summarize everything, just number one, some unfair advantages, is learn to stay in your lane, we talked about that a lot. What is your advantage? What, how does that fit into the vision? Who do you need to hire and that's an important second question. The other one is, do the little things in an extraordinary way, right? Build systems to make sure that those little things do get done and they will add up. The third one that Alex mentioned is, don't enter this sector just to make money. We say that all the time, don't make money your God, it is useful. It is a resource, but it should not be your North Star. And then finally, don't take any money, who you have investing in your fund is key. You do these things, and you too will be well in your way, in your pursuit of Making Billions.

Ryan Miller  

Wow, what a show, I hope you enjoyed this episode as much as I did. Now, if you haven't done so already, be sure to leave a comment and review on new ideas and guests you want me to bring on for future episodes. Plus, why don't you head over to YouTube and. The extra takes while you get to know our guests even better, and make sure to come back for our next episode, where we dive even deeper into the people, the process and the perspectives of both investors and founders. Until then, my friends, stay hungry, focus on your goals and keep grinding towards your dream of Making Billions.