Asher Ismail (00:00):

So many entrepreneurs, I think, see success as like raising a big round and you can't blame them, right? Because my God, you open up tech crunch and, you know, it's all stories of these businesses that have raised tons of money and you're like, you know, bow down <laugh> this is amazing. But the truth is that success as an entrepreneur is actually building a profitable business and owning more of it.

Rabah Rahil (00:33):

We're back folks for another one of your favorite podcasts. You know, it, you're not your row as an, I have the money man for you today. Asher Ishmail of untapped. Welcome to the show.

Asher Ismail (00:44):

Hey, thanks so much for having me really looking forward to the discussion.

Rabah Rahil (00:47):

Yeah, absolutely. And I have to tell you, you probably have one of the best Instagram feeds. So I do a bunch of, uh, stalking of all my guests and your Instagram feed is pretty pretty fire. I have to tell you, you live a, you live a good life. You don't leave a lot of, uh, Stone's unturned there I'm it was fun to follow you and study up. Um, I'm in Austin as always in the marketing HQ for triple, where does this podcast find you today?

Asher Ismail (01:11):

I am in London. Uh, so we're actually a, a fully remote company at untapped. So we're often different parts of the world, uh, you know, living, living in great life in that sense. Uh, but yeah, my home base is, is London.

Rabah Rahil (01:23):

Yeah. And, and for those of you listening, he has one of the better setups of on my podcast, guest. Beautiful sound beautiful setup. Um, you're from London, but you went to uni in Toronto, correct?

Asher Ismail (01:34):

Actually the other way around. So I was originally, you might have heard from the accent actually, I was originally, uh, born in Canada. Okay. And I, I came over to the UK, uh, to, uh, work for Skype. Yep. Uh, this is, this is back in the day and it was origin supposed to be a 12 month assignment and it ended up being, you know, 12 years I'm still here. So the one thing that hasn't changed is the accent.

Rabah Rahil (01:56):

There you go. Um, what did you study at school?

Asher Ismail (02:00):

Uh, I started engineering actually. So, uh, yeah, you know, what's, what's funny. Uh, I, as a kid, I probably, uh, had, you know, the, the parent, the traditional parents of thinking about making sure I do something that's stable and solid as a outlook on my career when actually really what I wanted to do was probably be an entrepreneur all the way back then. But, uh, it was a great experience to just learn some more problem solving and some things that have, you know, been really useful in my later life. But, uh, yeah, I got to live the full dream by, you know, getting to be an entrepreneur as well.

Rabah Rahil (02:29):

How exciting I was actually a engineering major for two years as well. Um, how interesting. Yeah, that was wasn't for me. And then the O other joke, cuz you you're so social and well spoken was, um, engineers are great people, but uh, definitely not the life of the party. And there was always that joke of, um, how do you know an engineer's extroverted? They look at your shoes, um, where, cause they're, they're notoriously, they just look down and stuff. And so, um, yeah, it's actually not a horrible major outside. You start to get into some pretty heavy maths and stuff where, um, I, I remember doing just literally pages of one problem into some calculus and stuff. And then, um, yeah, wasn't for me, man. It's impressive though. You made it through well done.

Asher Ismail (03:11):

How did you it through yeah.

Rabah Rahil (03:13):

How did you kind of transfer into investing?

Asher Ismail (03:17):

Uh, well, it's, it's actually been a long journey of entrepreneurship actually. So, you know, I, I did my, my first startup in oh three. Yeah. And you know, it was the first time I was running a business and I was young and I was just trying to raise a hundred K Uhhuh <affirmative> and I probably had a hundred meetings and got a hundred no's and you know, I didn't wanna take financing from the banks cuz they all wanted personal guarantees and you know, venture capital. It wasn't ideal either because I didn't have that track record or connections or like a warm intro. And so I just kept out on missing out on growth opportunities and you know, I would go on then to do another business and you know, when I was raising for that business, I, you know, I thought I had it all figured out.

Asher Ismail (03:59):

And so I raised like millions in venture capital, but then I also got terribly diluted and yeah, I just started to realize that like the options for me were just really limited and it was just oppressing to think, right. That you could work so hard and own so little of your company and uh, and yeah, I guess, you know, along the way I had some other experiences, but so many of my friends are also entrepreneurs and you know, other founders and online businesses and yeah, I just noticed that, you know, it wasn't just me, you know, all of them were facing the same challenge and you know, I thought there must be a better way. So we didn't necessarily like set out to like, you know, build another unicorn. We just set out to be like, Hey, how can we solve a problem for people in our lives? And that ended up being actually, you know, the investment model that we use today. And you know, so now I guess I'm, I'm an investor. Uh, but uh, yeah, it was uh, really thinking about how do I do something and really solve a problem with the product that I wish always existed.

Rabah Rahil (04:53):

I love that it's a actually kind of very analogous to the triple well Genesis story of, uh, max, our co-founder and AJ, we, we have three co-founders max, AJ and eon, but AJ ran Max's, uh, ads and max kind of wanted a better way to kind of see the, the health of his business. So I think those sometimes are probably the best way when you kind of dog food and birth into the world, what you wish you would've had to kind of take some of the, the pain away from previous people, what that you felt

Asher Ismail (05:22):

A hundred percent. And I think that is actually so important actually, when you're building a business, right. We always talk about like, Hey, you have to spend tons of time with your customer and really understand them. And one of a beautiful thing is if you actually can be your first customer, cause you really understand that problem inside out, you have solved one of the biggest blockers of actually a startup being successful. So yeah, it's, it's a great way to work and yeah, I think it's been part of what helped us just grow so quickly is cuz we understood the problem, but we could give it to our friends and then they could tell a bunch more people and yeah, I really started to use it and you know, it made it, you just take off so quickly and exponentially,

Rabah Rahil (06:00):

I love that. Um, and for people that don't know what dilution is or blah, blah, blah, we're gonna get that to that in the value add segment we'll we'll nerd out with Asher pretty pretty in depth. Um, did you get, did you close the hundred? K was it friends and family or how did, did you end up raising

Asher Ismail (06:14):

It? You know, I did end up getting fine, figuring out a way to get all the funds together. So, so it worked out. Yeah, it was a great, um, first business experience. Uh, luckily I had some, um, amazing mentors and actually the, the person who is the person who finally said yes, cause you know, it's always about how do you get that first person to say yes. And when you do, you know, it opens the door to the rest, right. And the person who said yes, they were actually a philanthropist. So they probably just had a bit of pity on me. <laugh>

Rabah Rahil (06:45):

Take it how you can,

Asher Ismail (06:47):

Hey anyway, take the win. Right. Take the win. Anyway, you can make it happen, made it happen. So yeah, it was a great ride. Learn. Lots of lessons learned how not to run a company. And uh, yeah. Then I was able to apply that into the future. And uh, and yeah, now, you know, actually personally I spend a lot of, a lot of my time outside of ICAP, you know, doing executive coaching for other founders, supporting them in like their leadership and development and growth and yeah, just trying to pass on some of the things that I kind of learned, uh, playing this game,

Rabah Rahil (07:15):

I might have to hit you up. That's awesome. <laugh>

Asher Ismail (07:18):

Good to know. Let me know.

Rabah Rahil (07:20):

Um, yeah, I've heard a joke about, um, raising is a bit like throwing a party. The hardest thing is getting like the first two people to commit. Cuz every time when you get asked to go to a party, you're like, oh well who's coming. Yeah. Like, I don't know, who's coming. We're like, well, you know, Asher's on the cap table and X, Y, and Z's already on the cap table. Like, oh yeah, what's the wire, what's the minimums. Okay, cool. I'll get in. But if you're usually that first blood is always the most challenging where it's like, oh, who's that going? Coming to the party? Well, I haven't, I'm asking people, but they're not, nobody's committed yet. And you're like, no, come back to me when some people said yes, and then I'll come.

Asher Ismail (07:55):

That is a fantastic analogy. I'm gonna use that. Cuz you're totally right. That is so much of the game. One of the things I talk to entrepreneurs about is that in the early days, so much of what determines your success in fundraising is either having amazing growth metrics right. Or it's FOMO, right. That fear of missing out. And it's probably a lot more the latter a lot of the time. Right. And so the more you realize that, um, and you prepare yourself around that message, um, you know, you're this much better set to be successful.

Rabah Rahil (08:25):

Yeah. And the other interesting part of that, uh, FOMO is, um, and obviously you want everybody to win, but you can, the further you get a, or the more you get into emotion versus logic, cuz the former like the metrics is founded in math, right? The, the, the FOMO is founded in emotion. And so when you get into that emotional realm, um, you can, we, we, I used to work for an agency and there was, we had some clients that were VC back that had just basically growth at all costs. And you get into some very unique math that we would joke around about and call it ally math, cuz it's like, none of this is gonna work out. Like unless you get to an IPO or something like this is, this is crazy. You're paying you, can't sell $20 bills for $10 in perpetuity. But, um, it is just interesting. There's also, uh, a guy named Scott Galloway or professor and he, he wrote a book and basically the lower you go down, uh, basically starting from the brain all the way down to the genitals. Like the genitals are actually better businesses because people are thinking I rationally versus when people use their brain to make a decision, there's not as much, uh, arbitrage and pricing

Asher Ismail (09:28):

<laugh> that is a new one. Not expect to hear that podcast. Interesting.

Rabah Rahil (09:32):

Yeah. Always

Asher Ismail (09:34):

Something new

Rabah Rahil (09:35):

<laugh> it's, it's, it's actually a really interesting thesis where you get into these more, uh, kind of not animalistic, but uh, very, very, again, emotional decisions. And when you make emotional decisions again, they satiate different needs versus, you know, just looking at X, Y or Z growth vectors, et cetera, where, okay, cool. What, what's the PE ratio here? Okay. Kind of thing like that, but um,

Asher Ismail (09:58):

Fair enough. Yeah. Yeah. I can agree. And I think you're right. So much of investing is, is that, um, and sometimes that can be a good thing. Uh, but also I think there's another side of that. That can actually be a really bad thing because hundred percent with you and what it means that we so focus on pattern matching, you know, we focus on giving funding to the people who already would be getting funding and you know, there's all these overlooked groups and other challenges, all the challenges that there are with traditional venture capital and you know, a little bit of what we're trying to do it uncap bit of our mission is around how can we change that? How can we democratize access to capital by doing it a fair way and actually being data driven. So, uh, yeah, there's a lot to, to solve there.

Rabah Rahil (10:37):

Yeah. I love that. Making, making the world a better place, one investment at a time. Um, what's the best and worst piece of advice you've ever received.

Asher Ismail (10:46):

<laugh> that's a, that's a tough question. I think, uh, you know, I think bad advice is, is funny because there's so much bad advice. That's

Rabah Rahil (10:54):

What,

Asher Ismail (10:57):

Well, you know, what's funny, I think you always end up getting a lot of bad advice because, um, I think that the challenge that people have is that they give you advice and it comes from a place, you know, of good intent, but it comes from a place where they've seen it once done that way. So they think that okay, by giving you that advice, that it's gonna work for you, you know, so like, you know, for example, I had at a previous company, you know, I had a board member where they had, you know, really built their entire business around doing like an outbound marketing strategy. Yep. You know, where they got these BDRs and really driven that and their business and it worked for them so solidly. They were just so convinced. That is a great thing to do. But if you actually took the context of the business I was in and the margins that we had and what was, you know, the problem we were trying to solve, it just all broke down.

Asher Ismail (11:45):

And that's also like a thing, you know, when I look from, you know, hiring people, one of the things I love to see in people is that they've had like multiple different experiences and been successful in different environments because yeah. They kind of learned that lesson that actually what worked for you once isn't necessarily, what's gonna work for you again. So yeah. It's like a, a general kind of trend. Um, and then your other part was, Hey, like what's good advice. Well, it depends on good advice on what, you know, I think good advice. Um, when fundraising is one piece I would say, and I think one piece of advice that I've gotten there, um, was always about like having the right mindset. So, you know, I think the challenge of being an entrepreneur so much is about your resilience and your ability to like keep driving things forward.

Asher Ismail (12:29):

But in fundraising, you know, it's one of the possibly the most frustrating time draining activities that you undertake as, as a founder, right? And early on, when you have a small team, it can just take up so much more of your energy than you'd like. And you know, if you don't have a good mindset, um, you're really gonna struggle. And I think that comes from, you know, one like planning ahead, you know, realizing that it's not gonna be quick and painless, especially if you're in, in equity mode, but also expecting rejection. Like, you know, I talked to you about how, you know, I got my a hundred nos. Um, eventually I think what saved me is that I learned to embrace it, you know, and as, as part of the process and not take it personally and, you know, realize, um, you know, this is the advice actually that someone gave me was that rejection will happen for good reasons, for dumb reasons and many times, for reasons that will forever remain in mystery.

Rabah Rahil (13:24):

Yeah.

Asher Ismail (13:24):

That's great. And you know, you just have to appreciate that and, you know, practice makes perfect, you know, by, you know, putting yourself out there and going again, um, you learn from the past and you know, eventually you're gonna be successful.

Rabah Rahil (13:37):

I love that. Yeah. And I, I, I couldn't echo those sediments anymore. So eloquently put the way I think of bad advice a lot of times is to your point, um, usually it's lacking context and it's just a hammer searching for a nail where it's just like, oh yeah, that made sense once. But like in terms of when you don't have the context. And so that's why I loved why you, you started to kind of winnow down that question in terms of the best advice. That's beautiful, man. I love it. What has been your most memorable investment to date?

Asher Ismail (14:07):

So, uh, you know, the way we invest is a little bit different of course, right. Than other folks, we're not an equity investor, so we're not doing these like huge bets and, you know, uh, praying to the, to the powers that be that they're gonna turn out. Actually, we hope that all the investments that we do are actually gonna be a great result. Um, but you know, to give you one example, you know, a company I love is a brand called headwind. They're one of our, our first early customers, they're a sustainable fashion brand. And you know, like so many founders that work in the fashion space, you know, they had this challenge where they would basically have to wait for one season to sell out before they could reinvest in the next. And I see like your head nodding. So, you know, you know, there's so many entrepreneurs who are kind of in this situation and they're stuck, right.

Asher Ismail (14:56):

And it's so frustrating because you know, you got something good, but you're limited in how quickly you can grow. Yep. And so, you know, Alex and Anna, they are the founders of head win and they are like incredibly financially savvy. So like I remember talking to them and just them putting them through our, like us, putting us through our paces in terms of this product and how it works and why. And, you know, eventually they decided to take like a 50 K advance from us. And what was really beautiful about this was they were able to reinvest that. And, you know, they put the money, you know, into a bit of their marketing and a bit of their inventory. And compared to the previous quarter, they saw their business grow 11000%. And you're like, what? That's insane. Right? It's like common there. But basically it just showed that you could take a business, you know, what you have the right founders, the right product. And suddenly you give them the capital that otherwise that they were lacking and now they could unlock this incredible growth. That's beautiful. And so, you know, those are the stories we love to see and, you know, be able to support founders, you know, more founders like that, um, to be able to, you know, really reach the next level and really realize their potential. And it's, you know, obvious that challenge, but when you can get there, it's incredible.

Rabah Rahil (16:14):

What a cool story. I love, love, love that. Um, a couple more questions. How did you kind of skill up and like, obviously you are super young and you have all this mastering understanding of finances of business, et cetera. Is there any resources you leaned on, any frameworks, any books that you could recommend for people trying to skill up and kind of approach your level or like I base too long, didn't read. How did you kind of, you know, what was your pathway to your mastery or knowledge acquisition?

Asher Ismail (16:45):

<laugh>, you know, I've always been a believer in like learning by doing. Um, and so, you know, in my earlier days, I, another, another thing after I did my first business, it's kind of funny. Um, I didn't know very much about finance. I remember actually being in a situation, you were talking about cap tables earlier. I remember being in a situation where an investor said to me, Hey, can you send me a copy of, of your cap table? I wanna make sure that it matches with ours. And I was like, Hmm, what's a cap table. <laugh> so what I said was, I said, why don't you send me your cap table and I'll check it versus ours <laugh>. And so I was like, all right. I was like, oh, they got it. I was like, oh, this is what a cap table is. So, you know, at the early days, like, this is a long time ago, this is, you know, in 2003, right.

Asher Ismail (17:32):

Where being, you know, there wasn't the level of resources there wasn't people, you know, doing podcasts about how to build your company. Right. So getting knowledge was very painstaking of like pulling it together and finding the info. Um, and so I ended up actually then spending some time working in manager consulting. So I went to, um, this firm called BCG and, you know, did some consulting for different businesses and kind of felt like that was a better way of me getting my finance knowledge rather than going and trying, getting an MBA. Uh, I just thought, Hey, it was a better way to like, learn on the job. So I've always been one for, Hey, how do I actually practically go and experience things and, you know, talk to more people it's kind of funny as well. Like, um, I have a, I have a nephew who, you know, wants to be a lawyer and he told me really wants to be a lawyer.

Asher Ismail (18:18):

And I was like, oh, that's cool. And, um, how do you know you want to be a lawyer? And it's like, he's like seen it on TV. And I was like, well, maybe actually what you need to do is go and actually spend a day in a lawyer's office and actually see if you really like what lawyers do. Right. Cause what you see on TV is not what you're gonna get. And so, you know, it's just funny. I think the, to me generally, the best experiences are always, how do you keep, um, you know, just learning from, from doing things and figuring out that way.

Rabah Rahil (18:45):

I love that. And I'm a big believer in, um, the map is not the territory where kind of, you can see what things are like theory, land, but like theory, land, and reality can just be worlds apart sometimes. And being able to actually just go do, um, can be some of the, the fastest ways you learn and see your point too, you build a network, which is great. So if you can get around either mentors or people that, um, are wanting to further you on your journey, it's even better. So I, I love that. That's fantastic. Uh, one last question for you, Ash, Ashley, we'll wrap up the main segment. What is the nicest thing someone has done for you?

Asher Ismail (19:22):

The nicest thing someone has done for me? Um, you know, gosh, I I'd say like, you know, my, my partner probably has been such a huge support. So I think it's funny, you know, as entrepreneurs, um, you can get so focused on, you know, running your company and putting, you know, all your energy and all your time into it, you end up so often like neglecting the people in your life. You know, you spend less time with your friends, you forget, you know, your anniversary or, you know, you're just kind of disconnected. Um, and you know, actually so much of what you need in building a company is about having those relationships cuz when things are more rough and you do get the more difficult parts of the journey, having that network of people that you can really rely on and really support you and they get you, um, is super important. So, you know, I think the nicest things that probably have just done for me is those moments where we were hitting a wall and you know, you just need a hug or you just need someone to make you a cup of coffee and just remind you, there is a bigger world out there, you know, other than, you know, just chasing the, um, the success of this particular moment, you know, being able to think about that broader perspective and how those people in your life has been been awesome.

Rabah Rahil (20:37):

I love that. Yeah. Um, I've been guilty of that a little bit myself where, um, I joined triple whale full time in October and it's been heads down the early stage startup is just, just crazy. And um, yeah, it's been a big, big priority of mine. These last few months is to show up a little better in my, my relationships because you're right. It's who wants to be on a golden mountain by themselves. You know what I mean? It's just not the, not the path. All right, Asher, are you ready? It's the value add segment. This is why people bought the ticket. Let's get nerdy on some investing stuff. So, okay. Before I get into the questions, can you just tell people what a cap table is? So then when somebody does ask them what a cap table is, they won't be some <laugh>

Asher Ismail (21:19):

Um, was a good summary of that. So a cap table is a description of the allocation of shares within your company and the ownership and, uh, gives a, a nice quick way of people to understand yeah. Who, who, who, who owns this business and what's the combination.

Rabah Rahil (21:36):

Love that. Perfect. Okay, cool. So first I guess give people a little bit of, uh, background on untapped, kind of the, the elevator pitch, what you guys do, and then we'll get into the nerdy investment questions.

Asher Ismail (21:48):

Sure. So at untapped, you know, what we're really passionate about is that founders shouldn't have to give away equity in their company to fund growth. So we provide fast flexible funding to e-commerce businesses for marketing inventory or hiring. But the key thing is that we do it without personal guarantees or dilution. Uh, and so, you know, the model and the way it works is pretty simple. You know, we can give you, um, between 10 K up to 5 million pounds of capital and we do it for a flat fee, which is typically 6%. And as you generate sales, that's when you repay. So we'll take a small portion of your daily sales until the capital and the fee is repaid. Um, what's beautiful about that is, you know, if your revenues do slow down or even stop, your repayments are flex. So they would also, you know, slow down or stop. And the idea is that this is a better, more fair way for companies to actually get funded, especially in the e-commerce space where, you know, they have a challenging cash flow cycle. They have, you know, seasonality to deal with, you know, difficult terms from suppliers, being able to manage your business in a more cost efficient, more affordable way just helps you grow that business, you know, in a way where you're in control and you're doing it on your terms.

Rabah Rahil (23:10):

I love that. And just outta curiosity, uh, why is it called untapped

Asher Ismail (23:15):

<laugh> well, you know, I think, um, the idea of untapped is like a feeling of a word, which is this idea it's like, you know, it's unlocking your potential, you know? Yep. It's idea as an entrepreneur, you were for so many and, you know, in eCommerce you're stuck because of the fact that you're in a rock and a hard place when you're trying to actually get those, those options and yeah, untapped, I think for us, you know, echoed that feeling of like, Hey, there's so much potential in, in, in these entrepreneurs.

Rabah Rahil (23:43):

I love that. No limits baby, no limits. Um, when should a founder raise and then are there times a founder shouldn't take capital?

Asher Ismail (23:52):

Well, so, you know, I think the, the high level story about that is that there's, there's two scenarios. Um, when you're raising money, one is, you know, either you are a business that needs to prove out product market fit mm-hmm <affirmative>, and you're getting some initial capital to help you, you know, demonstrate that story and like get your product to market. That might be one time. The other moment is when you already have product market fit and you actually have something that now you really wanna scale and take it to the next level. And so for untapped, like the way that we work is, you know, weed, sand capped is great for you. If you're doing at least 10 K of monthly sales, you're growing and you've been operating for six months. And the reason why is, you know, the idea of, of our funding is, uh, we wanna fund businesses that have hit that stage, where they are repeatable and predictable.

Asher Ismail (24:43):

And 10 K is sort of the moment where it's no longer side of desk. You've gotten to a place where actually, you know, you could be drawing a salary from this and also doing it for six months, shows that there's a bit of, you know, history here. You can do it again and again. And we wanna basically add more fuel to the fire without taking a piece of the pie. So, you know, you, as an entrepreneur now have this opportunity to, you know, grow your business and scale it and we can fund it. And then we're a long term partner, so we'll fund it and then we'll fund it again. And again, and again, you know, we have customers who work with us, you know, where they fund it 10 plus times, um, because they, they like the approach and they realize that yeah, they could, you know, build, build their business by owning more of it.

Rabah Rahil (25:23):

I love that. And so you said, can you give people that kind of aren't hit to the game? Like, what does it mean? Cuz you're when you're raising capital, that's a, uh, there's a couple ways you can do it right. Where either debt or equity. Um, and can you kind of give people a little bit of description on kind of what the differences are there?

Asher Ismail (25:42):

Yeah, sure. So I mean to start with equity, um, in an equity, you know, model the, you know, the, the key thing about that is that you're giving away a big portion of your company to fund, you know, whatever that, that next growth is. Uh, and typically that's like 20 to 30% is you'll do in a usual round. Um, and of course, once you give it up, you know, you're giving up with it also some control, maybe you're giving up a board seat, uh, and then when you do it, you, of course, you know, can't take it back, right? So it doesn't that doesn't necessarily suit every business. And for some use cases, it's like really silly, right? So if you're an e-commerce business and you're planning to turn around and spend that equity on Facebook ads where you already know that you have, uh, you know, one pound going in and you're getting three pounds out, you know, you have a, a three X ROAS, right.

Asher Ismail (26:38):

Uh, to, to go this podcast, uh, if you're in that stage where, you know, you know, that you're gonna get that return, it's really just crazy to then be like, I'm gonna give, you know, away 20% of my company for that. Right. Yep. So that, that's like the key problem that we're solving. But the other side of it is there's, you know, traditionally been debt models where you could go out and get, um, a bank loan say for example, and, you know, potentially get a decent interest rate. But the interesting thing about those models and debt in general, it was usually designed to unlock liquidity from, you know, fixed assets. So it made a lot of sense, you know, when you have a property, um, or, you know, you have physical machinery, but you know, in an online eCommerce world, most of us, we don't have that and banks, they don't understand it because when you look at a good eCommerce business, they're probably reinvesting every pound, they make into more ads and more inventory.

Asher Ismail (27:36):

Right. So when a, when a banker, you know, you go into the branch and they see, you know, how you're performing. They're like, oh, this is terrible. Right. But actually they're not realizing, Hey, what's to come. These people are investing for the golden quarter and the fact there's gonna be massive growth and there's a real opportunity there to unlock. So, you know, what we've designed is this new funding approach where it's specifically tailored for e-commerce yep. You know, where it matches that cash flow cycle. It's not about just what you're doing today, but it's about what you, we think you're gonna be able to do next, because we look at these businesses every day and we can really design a funding solution that matches the cash flow cycle, but also, um, really matches that the broader needs of that business. So, so yeah, that's kind of at a high level where we saw a gap and, you know, where were we being able to work?

Rabah Rahil (28:25):

I love that you're like a walking textbook. It's incredible. <laugh> um, you keep using this word dilution. Can you explain to people what that means? And so, oh, kind of like an example. So I start a company and I have, uh, a hundred shares of my company and then I go raise. And so I raise and give Asher 20 shares, 20% of my company. And then what, what does that mean as I continually raise in dilution, can you kind of color that in for people?

Asher Ismail (28:52):

Well, the example you gave is already really good, you know, it's basically the idea of dilution is that you just have you own less of your business, right. At each stage. Yep. And, you know, progressively, if you think about it, if you're giving away 20 to 30% at each stage, you keep going and, you know, the stat is that founders, you know, uh, at exit typically own less than 15% of their company.

Rabah Rahil (29:13):

That's crazy.

Asher Ismail (29:13):

Right. So, you know, if you are playing the game that way you can expect, you know, it's probably a very different outcome from what you thought, maybe at the beginning. And, um, I think, you know, as a, I probably didn't understand that game until, you know, I really built, you know, my second or even this third company of really understanding the mechanics of how it works, because you know, the first time, you know, you're signing a deal with a VC, gosh, you're like just happy to get any deal. Right. And like, you know, they have obviously in, in your life, you know, how many deals will the typical founder actually sign? Like maybe if we're really lucky, like a handful, right, right. Uh, a VC, they doesn't, they do that every day. Right. Their job is negotiating these term sheets and these deals. And there's so much more complexity to it, which is not just about how much equity you're getting away, but also like what's the liquidation preference, you know, it's the idea that actually, even if this company sells, it's gonna be the investors who get paid back first.

Asher Ismail (30:10):

So it could be working out depending on how you've structured your rounds, that, you know, it could be really hard for you to make a return on your business. And so just things that you start to pick up, you know, as you go through through the game. But, um, yeah, the key thing is, you know, uh, so many entrepreneurs, I think, see success as like raising a big round and you can't blame them. Right. Because my God, you open up tech crunch and, you know, it's all stories of these businesses that have raised tons of money and you're like, you know, bow down <laugh>, this is amazing. But the truth is that success as an entrepreneur is actually building a profitable business. I love that. And owning more of it. Yep. Right. And we don't celebrate that enough. And so, you know, if we can encourage entrepreneurs, start to understand that, and I think that's happening more so than ever, like entrepreneurs are trying to wake up then think about, Hey, wait a minute. What is the right funding option for me, there are multiple ways now to grow a business. And I think that's exciting. And, uh, you know, it's a, it's a, a great change to see.

Rabah Rahil (31:14):

I absolutely love that. And it can also dilution can get even more pernicious, correct me if I'm wrong. But for example, like in a series a, B or C, like in my B or C, I might issue more shares making the denominator even bigger than it was when I came on or something like that. Right. So there's even more shares outstanding. So you're two 20 shares out of a hundred are now 20 shares out of a thousand. And so you can get into this place where you can, you're like, oh man, it can be really challenging unless to your point, you have these built in kind of nuances, like the, the quote of the devils and the details where you can either buy more of those shares to keep your equity, or you get to your point too, push down the liquidation preferences where you're last in, or, you know what I mean? You you're the last money out. And so you have a, a pitance that you might get, or you, you, you get into some kind of really weird e-liquid places where it's like, you have all this quote unquote value, but there's, there's no way to unlock it.

Asher Ismail (32:12):

Yeah. And I think understanding those details is, is the challenge, right? It's just hard as, as entrepreneurs to necessarily have all that information at hand. And what can you do in that case is if you are gonna go on that route is have great advisors, you know? Yep. Try to surround yourself by people who have played the game previously and can help you, you know, navigate it. And, and so you actually get a good outcome for yourself.

Rabah Rahil (32:34):

I love that. Um, so when you do have that kind of speaking a little bit about liquidation preferences, when companies, um, have aren't public, how do employees or founders sell shares? So say you're in my company. And like, uh, we, we made a happiness pills company and I gave you a bunch of options. You exercise your options. So now you actually own, uh, proper shares. Can you sell those? Like how do you ever get rid of those shares unless the company goes public?

Asher Ismail (33:07):

Well, what what's interesting is of course that companies are staying private longer than ever. Yep. So, you know, traditional investing schedules are four years, you know, is the standard agreement. And I think that is because it used to be that you could like in theory, build a company and get it to exit in that period. Right. And what I actually we're seeing is it's taking a lot longer. People are building much bigger companies. And I, what's interesting about that is it's causing, um, a new market to form around like secondaries and around, you know, new, new ways where, um, employees can actually, you know, get out or get a portion of, you know, what is in their options sooner. And so that's starting to formulate and happening. It's becoming more popular as, um, as folks are doing rounds. Sometimes they're allowing some of their employees to exercise some of their options.

Asher Ismail (34:02):

Um, but I'd say it's the minority of cases, right? For the most part, you know, when you're getting, when you're getting options in a business as an employee, at least usually it's, you know, much for a much longer haul and for founders, um, you know, there are times if you're doing really well as a business, you are, might have the ability to negotiate, being able to do a secondary as part of your round, but it's not a given for sure. And, you know, I think, uh, if you're planning for that structure, you're probably gonna have, uh, investors asking some questions too. <laugh> why you wanna, they also wanna see, you know, that you're really committed in, in the, in the longer term. Um, not to say that you can't do do some of that. I, and I actually would recommend that to entrepreneurs is to, you know, do, do a bit of secondary at every round, if you can, because, um, it's a good way to actually take some risk off the table.

Asher Ismail (34:51):

Yep. And that enables you to actually take bigger risks because, you know, if you know that you have this nest tag aside, your mortgage is paid off. Now when that moment comes and you have the chance to like, say, Hey, should we go really big? You actually have the confidence to go and do that or not to sell out early. So I think there there's, some can be some really good things and great ways to position that, you know, to a potential investor around it. Um, and UNCA, of course, we're not dealing in equity. So we don't, you know, typically deal with people's liquidation preferences or secondaries or any of those things that's less relevant to us. And what is more relevant to us is, you know, the, the running of your business every day. Yep. You know, we try to look, we connect to like the data sources that you use to run.

Asher Ismail (35:35):

So it's not like we're asking you to do your pitch and come with your business plan. We're asking you to connect, you know, what you already used to run the business, like whether that's your Stripe account or your Shopify, um, your Google ads. And we're able to use that data to basically make a data driven decision about, you know, who to fund and how much capital they're available. And we can also, you know, do it really fast because, because it is done in a more, you know, online way. Um, and you know, typically 24 hours is like the timeline to fund. So really different world from VCs where you're gonna be negotiating term sheets and all that complexity. Like our agreements also are like six pages. Yep. So they're written in plain English, you know, I wrote most of the lines myself and I wrote it in a way where I could give it to my friend and they would feel comfortable signing it cuz that's what I wanted. I didn't wanna feel like, oh, you need to have a lawyer and like a team of people around you to hold hands and be able to understand what is this that you're getting into. So, um, you know, I think there can be another way to make it happen.

Rabah Rahil (36:37):

Yeah. I love that. And I think that's exactly what you talked about at the beginning of the show where, um, raising is very, very arduous and for a small company that has very limited resources, it could start to take away from the value generation of that company. And so with you guys, you can just kind of get in, get out, get your check and start printing more money. I, I think that's really cool.

Asher Ismail (36:59):

Yeah. It's actually just gives you more time to spend what you actually wanna do as an entrepreneur. Like, you know, I wanna spend time with my customers working on my product, you know, growing my business. But you know, there were times where I felt like I was spending, you know, three to six months of the year just being focused on, you know, how do I get the next set of capital? So all that time is time, you know, being spent and actually, you know, building your business.

Rabah Rahil (37:25):

I love that. Um, you can pass on this question, but it's just so fascinating to me, it is a little bit in the equity side, but, um, so we've all read about kind of the implosion of, of fast. How does that happen? And like what do you think went wrong in your opinion? There were, they raised just a boatload of capital and basically 12 months-ish later kind of the whole company just folded.

Asher Ismail (37:49):

Yeah. I mean that is a really crazy situation just to see how, how limited their revenues actually were. I think everybody was shocked to be like what happened there. Um, but it probably represents a time in this market that has been really frothy, right. Where there has been, um, just folks chasing businesses. And, you know, I know at a time at UNCA, like we had, you know, VCs chasing us, like, you know, sending presents to us, just doing crazy things to, uh, you know, get attention. And you know, that represented that time. The time ahead, I would guess is gonna be a bit more challenging of course, like, you know, so much can happen so quickly in the land of startups. And you know, what's coming ahead probably is, you know, with the, the global macro situation. Yeah. And the ongoing war, you know? Yep.

Asher Ismail (38:39):

Inflation is the highest it's ever been and there's gonna be rising interest rates. And I think all those things probably mean that venture capital, at least for these bigger rounds, you know, the fast size rounds that you're talking about. Yep. Um, they're gonna probably be, you know, a bit more rare for the time coming, because I think VCs are gonna wanna be sitting on their hands for a bit understanding how to price the market. And probably we should expect it to be a little bit quieter, but I think what's also gonna be interesting about that is that there's gonna be lots of businesses who maybe would've thought about going to BC and now we're gonna be open to more alternatives. And so I think that's eventually could be a good thing for us where, you know, maybe there'll be some businesses who are now thinking, Hey, wait a minute. Maybe I should explore all my real options now. And as you said, you know, realize not every, just because you have a hammer, not every problem is nail, right. So we've always had this hammer of equity. Yeah. And, uh, you know, now you start to realize, wait a minute, there's other solutions and yeah. I'm hoping that that's gonna be a great thing as well.

Rabah Rahil (39:44):

Yeah. That's wonderful, man. I love that. Um, well let's bring out your crystal ball cuz you kind of did that for the macro. How do you see that unfolding of like the next two to three years unfolding for eCommerce?

Asher Ismail (39:54):

Well, you know, I think e-commerce is still gonna have incredible growth. Uh, you know, there obviously the, a more challenging macro environment means there's gonna be a bit slower than we were like, you know, the pandemic was like insane in a different way, you know, unexpected, right. Where in like three months we had 10 years of growth. Yeah. So I'm not expecting necessarily that, but you know, all the forecasts I think are still for incredible, you know, growth still to continue in eCommerce space. Um, and I think what we're gonna see is that businesses in this categories are gonna start to become more focused. Like, you know, we've had this idea where there's these big markets that have kind of been captured and the new eCommerce businesses are gonna be ones that are gonna have that, you know, a unique space that they're going after, but also are probably thinking about how they're going to market differently and more being more innovative because you know, the costs of ads is only gonna continue to go up. Yep. Um, and so, you know, building a strong business in this case is finding that niche that you can serve, thinking about like community being more multichannel and like continuing to get to market in a great way. But I think there's gonna be a ton of growth.

Rabah Rahil (41:03):

I love that. Yeah. Echo those sediments and I think, uh, people are sleeping on community. Um, I think that's one of the most under underutilized growth levers out there. And I think there's been such a bull market in terms of ads where, um, there's just Facebook ads were so underpriced. The targeting was so great. Those two tailwinds were really, um, driving some, you know, uh, people that could get away from the actual fundamentals that made a great business. And now that's kind of cooling off where I think Facebook ads are still great by, but they're, they're probably more accurately priced if not perfectly priced in terms of equilibrium. And so, um, now you have to figure out other ways in other places to find arbitrage. So I, I love that.

Asher Ismail (41:44):

Yeah. On, on arbitrage. I think that's also such an interesting opportunity. Like not only just in the marketing side, but like the inventory side, like, you know, what I've seen and I'm sure you, you probably echoed in kind of the data that you guys have is that obviously inventory and supply chains are like longer than they ever were before. That problem is probably not gonna go away for a significant time. Supply chain costs are gonna be more expensive with low prices being high. And so, you know, entrepreneurs need to think about how do they optimize for that. And I think what's been cool is seeing how some entrepreneurs are taking this problem and actually like making it into an opportunity. So like, you know, one of, one of our customers, for example, they, um, you know, went to their suppliers and negotiated, you know, basically doubling their inventory order, but getting a 10% discount.

Asher Ismail (42:33):

Yeah. And then, you know, went to us and they got the funding, you know, at a 6% fee and effectively that meant that they actually made a profit on the idea of, you know, slower supply chains. Yeah. And so, you know, that arbitrage, if you can actually figure out some cool opportunities, you can, you know, turn this into an opportunity. And seeing that work out for folks is early beautiful thing. So I never, I think it always never surprises me the, you know, endless, you know, innovation that entrepreneurs have to be able to like work through a problem. So, um, yeah, it's just, uh, great to see. And hopefully I think there's gonna be a lot more of that too.

Rabah Rahil (43:10):

Yeah. It's like that Jurassic park main life will find a way

Asher Ismail (43:14):

<laugh>, that's beautiful.

Rabah Rahil (43:17):

Asher, you made it to the final round. Rapid fire. Are you ready?

Asher Ismail (43:21):

All right. I'm, I'm slightly scared, but let's do it. Yeah.

Rabah Rahil (43:25):

All right. Um, London overrated, underrated.

Asher Ismail (43:29):

Underrated. Yeah, because I think, uh, you know, it's so funny, uh, uh, there's a one con there's one cool people in the world who think, Hey, if you're a board of London, you're board of life, right. Cause there's like an endless set of things. That's a good line. That's a good line. Then there's also another movement of being a Londoner where you notice that people just leave London. There is a constant, one of the most challenging things about London is that there's a constant stream of people moving on and moving to other places. So that's where my, my underrated comment comes from. I think there is just still so much more do here.

Rabah Rahil (44:02):

Okay. Toronto overrated, underrated.

Asher Ismail (44:05):

<laugh> ouch. I don't know if I can, I can dis my hometown. So I'm gonna say underrated <laugh>

Rabah Rahil (44:12):

You're hedging. You're hedging. I can

Asher Ismail (44:14):

See you. Can't be, I can't. You can't like ask me about a third city cuz then it would just become a bit disingenuous.

Rabah Rahil (44:20):

<laugh> um, RSU, overrated, underrated, restricted sock units.

Asher Ismail (44:25):

Um, I'd say overrated.

Rabah Rahil (44:28):

Overrated. Okay. I like it. Uh, the great pyramid overrated, underrated

Asher Ismail (44:33):

<laugh> so I visited the great pyramids. I'm guessing you've done your, your Instagram. I've done my,

Asher Ismail (44:38):

Yeah. Um, you know, <laugh> what I'm gonna say. Something challenging. Say maybe overrated. What was funny about the, the pyramids is, uh, that in my mind, as a kid, it had been like this lifelong ambition to go and see the pyramids. So it was really cool. I mean, it was a really great experience, but um, I think within Egypt, uh, you know, whereas where I got to spend my Christmas, there are so many other amazing temples and sites that you must just aren't. Um, we aren't as knowledgeable about. And I think seeing some of those really like blew my mind and uh, so I think, you know, there's so much more to do other than the great pyramids. Not that they aren't amazing.

Rabah Rahil (45:21):

I love that. I think for me, the biggest kept secret is I you, for me, in specific, you don't realize they're basically right in chiro, there's a highway that goes to them and nobody takes the other angle. Right. It's only the angle where you don't see the huge metropolis behind it. And you're like, oh, and it it's a, it was very unique when I found that out, I was like, really, cuz in my head too, it's on the bucket list as well. But I thought it's in this like super remote desert that you have to take, you know, four runners to or something like that. And you're like, no, you just, just hop on the highway from the Capitol

Asher Ismail (45:53):

<laugh> I was surprised by that too, to see that outlook and see, I don't know, see the KFC, um, you know, next to the, across from it, I think, um, there's like, A's like AKA hat that has like a really great view of the pyramid. So you're like, this is all very surprising in its own way. Absolutely. Yeah. It's never, you get, uh, yeah. You learn new things as you go to new places.

Rabah Rahil (46:16):

Oh, that's perfectly put raising capital overrated, underrated.

Asher Ismail (46:21):

Uh, I think overrated, um, because I think, you know, as I said, um, there are so many entrepreneurs who really do believe this idea about, you know, raising capital is the symbol of success. And actually I really think it's about building a profitable business. So I think the more entrepreneurs that are thinking about that, um, the better

Rabah Rahil (46:40):

I love that NFTs overrated or underrated.

Asher Ismail (46:45):

Uh <laugh> I'm gonna say overrated. Um, you know, I haven't gotten my first NFT yet to be honest, but maybe I'm not the expert to, to discuss that particular topic. Uh, but yeah, I don't know. I think, uh, I think that market still has a lot to develop it.

Rabah Rahil (47:01):

Yeah. I love that. Uh, entrepreneurship overrated, underrated.

Asher Ismail (47:06):

Hmm. Uh, I think like underrated, I'd say I think, uh, interesting. Yeah. I think, you know, the, the thing about this is that, you know, entrepreneurs are the people that when you think about it are actually gonna solve our biggest challenges. So whether that is with what's happening with the economy, what's happening with the climate, uh, or, you know, the current, you know, the, the current state of, of most affairs are problems that are solved by entrepreneurs. And often we don't think about it in that way, you know? Yep. And depending, especially what part of the world you're in, they can have, you know, really different views to what being an, an entrepreneur is. You know? Uh, I think from, from my parents in the early days, they thought of being like entrepreneur was like, Hey, you, you just wanna get a job. Like, you know, like you should just go get a job, <laugh> get off your ass, get a job. And I was like, no, there's, there's a bigger thing. So to me, I'd say underrated because yeah, there's just so much more entrepreneurship and why can achieve,

Rabah Rahil (48:02):

I love that favorite meal and why,

Asher Ismail (48:05):

Uh, favorite meal that I've ever eaten, um, or favorite meal that like, you know, I, I would have

Rabah Rahil (48:11):

Either or either best meal or most frequent, you can choose

Asher Ismail (48:14):

<laugh> most frequent, you know, um, I, I'm gonna plug one of our, our customers, um, who, uh, you know, deliver, there's a company called fresh fitness foods who I've been a customer of and they deliver amazing meal boxes, um, to, to your home every day. And it has been a lifesaver, especially as like a busy entrepreneur. Um, and also, you know, I, I try to keep fit. And so, you know, one of the things I started to neglect in life was having enough time to just eat properly. You know, I was started getting my calendar condensed to 15 minutes slots where I had to go and scramble to have whatever I could get. And so, you know, I just love that, that, you know, they're a great supply of good food that, you know, keeps me nourished and, uh, yeah, probably helps me get my job done.

Rabah Rahil (49:01):

They deliver to the states.

Asher Ismail (49:03):

Uh, I don't know, actually I don't, maybe not, I think they're, they're in Europe

Rabah Rahil (49:07):

Only UK

Asher Ismail (49:08):

Based. So, uh, so yeah, but you know, I'm sure there is an equivalent <laugh>, there is a, a great supply of those out there.

Rabah Rahil (49:16):

Favorite podcast.

Asher Ismail (49:18):

Well, this one, obviously <laugh> obviously, uh, no, um, I'd say, you know, podcasts that I, uh, have listened to, uh, for a really long time, um, is like masters of scale. Yep. So one of my favorites just because I think, you know, my heroes, um, have always been, you know, some of the, some of those entrepreneurs who actually end up being on that show. So to me, that's a dream to one day get to be on there, but, uh, yeah, I always love, um, the, the knowledge and insights that I get from it. So yeah. One to recommend.

Rabah Rahil (49:48):

Awesome. Yeah. It's super fun. Listen, favorite place to travel to and why?

Asher Ismail (49:54):

Uh, well, you know, I was, uh, just recently, uh, in Australia. Oh. And that was a really cool experience just because obviously other side of the world, um, I was actually ended up being on the longest flight ever because I was re I was taking a flight that is normally an 18 hour flight. That's like direct, uh, to, to get you from over from London. Um, but the challenge was, of course the war, um, happened in Ukraine had like broken out and so the plane had to be diverted. And so they had planned, okay, Hey, we gotta handle that. But then the crazy thing was that another war where it had broken out between, um, another country, uh, and Iran, and basically had to divert the plane again. So I actually ended up being the longest flight ever <laugh> possible actually, before it actually took off, they had to, um, get 30 of the passengers off the plane because otherwise it would be too heavy and there wouldn't be enough fuel to make it. So it was like a completely chaotic experience. I'm really not selling the Australia journey, but, uh, <laugh> yeah, it was, uh, amazing thing to able to get there, to be on the other side of the world, um, and see some beautiful things, but also really thankful that I wasn't one of those 30 people that got kicked off the flight and made it back.

Rabah Rahil (51:16):

What, what did it end up clocking in at,

Asher Ismail (51:18):

Along with inspiration was I think it was like 26 hours.

Rabah Rahil (51:22):

What did you do?

Asher Ismail (51:24):

<laugh> I watched a lot of films.

Rabah Rahil (51:28):

Oh my gosh.

Asher Ismail (51:28):

Listen to some podcast too. So yeah, I found a way I also played a little bit of, of, of Minecraft. So I, yeah, there you go.

Rabah Rahil (51:36):

Oh my gosh. I recently went to, um, Israel and that was the longest fight I've ever been on Tel Aviv to New York. And that was brutal for me. And I, I can't imagine that's almost double that's that's that's more than double that's incredible. Wow. Uh, favorite follow on Twitter.

Asher Ismail (51:54):

Um, favorite follow on Twitter. I, you know, I I'm gonna say I love to follow Elon just because he just bought it just, well, yeah, I mean, he just, he cracks me up and, uh, yeah, I don't know. I will, uh, I'm always surprised about what he will do next, but yeah, it's just endless dream of entertainment.

Rabah Rahil (52:13):

It'll be interesting how it shakes out, cuz definitely people are built different, but running SpaceX, running Tesla and basically running Twitter is gonna be a really interesting, um, he, he's definitely the richest guy in the world definitely deserves the benefit of the doubt, but man, that is, uh,

Asher Ismail (52:29):

Well, hopefully, hopefully he'll learn to delegate a little bit

Rabah Rahil (52:32):

<laugh> yeah, yeah. But then if you do that, then you start to lose the, what he wanted to do kind of thing ish. Right? Like why did you buy it then if you wanted to delegate just own yeah. You know, just buy a bunch of equity in it unless you wanted to like do what you wanted to do. So I think it's all gonna be fascinating, but uh, really fun follow. Okay. Last question. You'll be through the rapid fire. If you could have dinner with three people dead or alive fiction or lawn fictional, who would they be? You're at a table, four person setting. You're sitting at the head, you get to invite three people. Who are you inviting?

Asher Ismail (53:02):

Wow. That's intense. Um, you know, I think I would actually end up, uh, for me if I was generally answer answering that, I would feel like I would probably pick, uh, some, some folks in my life that I didn't get to spend enough time with. Yeah. So like debtor alive. I would love to spend more time with my grandmother probably was like the inspiration for a lot of my entrepreneurship tendencies and like, uh, love my, uh, my, my family is, uh, from east Africa originally and they, you know, were, were there at a time where they used to own all these different convenience stores and you know, um, there was a war, unfortunately, where there was a guy named Edin who kind of kicked everyone out of the country and they had to immigrate. That's how we ended up in, up in Canada and I got to go back not too long ago and get to see, um, you know, basically all these buildings that had our family name, it was kinda like the sign had been like ripped off, but you could like see the outline of like what they had built.

Asher Ismail (53:57):

And I had no idea, you know, and I didn't realize this when my grandmother had passed and how she had actually been such a driving force behind creating all that empire. So yeah, I think, you know, some of that entrepreneurship like came from her, so she'd be one person I'd love to hear the story of how she did it and what happened. So one person on the list, um, I think, uh, another, you know, uh, just in terms of like continuously like fascinating me, I always, I ended up for a short period cuz I worked at Skype. We got acquired, um, by Microsoft and uh, sat Nadella became the CEO. And I think he is someone which is a, is a strange company to think about because Microsoft as a stock was like completely flat. When, when I, you know, got you were talking about, you know, employee equity, I got my employee equity from Skype and literally the first thing I did was like, okay, I'm vested, I'm out <laugh> and then amazingly Satya like turned around and just made it back into like an incredible growth soft understand with you.

Asher Ismail (54:55):

And so I think I just, you know, um, would love to learn more from him and they'll understand his insights of the world and like what he did, um, to make it, make it happen. And then I think, um, you know, the, the last person, um, in this, uh, you know, I feel like, um, what has also been a big part of my life is just thinking about things a little bit more, more broadly in terms of like, where is our world going? And like, what are we, what are we driving towards? And, um, there is, uh, you know, the, the founder of, of, uh, save the children, uh, who I briefly met, um, you know, back in the day when I was, uh, doing a little consulting project and I just felt like, you know, five minutes with her was such an inspiration around what actually is possible kind of in our world of like opening your mind. And so, yeah, I'd love to, you know, I think now where I've gotten to be in a really lucky place of building a company and kind of figuring things out a little bit more that way. I'd love to spend more time on that other side of things and thinking about giving back and how, how that all came about.

Rabah Rahil (56:06):

That's beautiful, man. That's beautiful, grandma Satcha and save the children. I love it. I love it. Fantastic. Asher, you made it rapid fire. You did it.

Asher Ismail (56:15):

Thanks a lot.

Rabah Rahil (56:16):

Okay. Tell the people how they can get more involved with untapped. Where can they follow you this time is yours, my friend.

Asher Ismail (56:22):

Uh, well, you know, know if you, if you're interested in looking for funding, obviously we are UN capped.com is our website. Hopefully that'll be in the show notes. Uh, and, uh, yeah, it, you know, we, we'd love to see more folks involved with that. Um, actually I have a special offer for your listeners too, um, where, oh, beautiful. You know, if you're running an e-commerce store, you've made it to the end of this podcast and you know, you're doing at least 10 K of revenue per month. Um, and you either wanna, you know, scale your campaigns a bit faster, maybe purchase some more inventory. We would love to help. So, you know, last month we ran the super successful campaign. We funded hundreds of store owners where we gave them up to 50 K absolutely free. So no fee, normally we charge 6%, but you know, last month we did it for exactly zero and on our website, you know, you won't find mention of it anymore cause it's gone. But you know, for listeners of the podcast, we're like ready to make it happen again. So yeah, all you have to do is reach out to [email protected] with the subject line secret 50 K. And you know, if you do it now, you don't wait. It takes like two minutes. Uh, we'd love to, you know, help you get the funding that you need and, you know, grow your store.

Rabah Rahil (57:37):

Look at that Asher with the money gun slide into those DMS people, get you some money and what a great offer, fantastic best setup, one of the best guests and the best offer by far Asher. You just, you're such a gem. We appreciate you so much. It's fantastic.

Asher Ismail (57:52):

<laugh> thanks so much. It was really great to be here.

Rabah Rahil (57:54):

Yeah. Thank you so much for your time. And if you do wanna go get more involved with triple oil, it's tri triple well.com. We're also heavily involved on the bird app, um, at triple oil. And then we also have a fantastic newsletter that goes out every Tuesday, Thursday called whale mail. You can subscribe right on our, uh, Twitter profile page. Asher. Thank you so much, man. If you ever come out to Austin, gimme a shout. We'll grab a, grab a beer, grab some dinner. Um, I need to get on your little, uh, fitness regiment and get some of those meals, man. You look fantastic and I, I need to step it up and I also need to show up in more of my relationships. You've inspired me in so many ways, not only business. So thank you so much for taking the time today.

Asher Ismail (58:30):

Aw, thanks so much. Really great to be here. Talk to you soon.

Rabah Rahil (58:34):

Awesome folks. That's 37 in the books. We'll see you guys on the flip.

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