Two Peas in a Podcast

Episode 102 - Michael Axman

Michael Axman got his start as the 30th employee under Pollen, a Los Angeles high growth tech company in music, travel, and entertainment space. He leveraged the network on incredible talent into starting his first company called Axman Ventures which focused on helping startup founders with fundraising, partnerships, events, and operations. Ax went on to co-found The Nucleus Network, a community based on the power of warm introduction that has already made over 1,500 introductions resulting in millions of dollars in total deal value across multiple industries.

To connect with Ax reach out directly to:

https://www.thenucleusnetwork.com/

https://www.linkedin.com/in/axmanmichael/

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Duration:: 36m
Broadcast on:: 11 Sep 2024
Audio Format:: mp3

Michael Axman, AKA-X, one of the most frustrating things about you is that you've already been so successful at such an early age, and the awesome part about talking to you is I just feel like every single time that we're in a room you are. One of the smartest people, one of the hardest working people I've ever gotten to know, and I'm just so excited to share you with our platform. I appreciate you having me on Ego, I'm excited to chat. Did, tell me about where you started and what the first gig out of college was. Yeah, so being born and raised in New York, I studied at the Kelly School of Business in Indiana University and then moved out to Los Angeles to work in early stage high growth tech. I worked at a company called Pollen. It was in the music travel and entertainment space, which for a young 20 year old coming out of university, it's a cool space to be in. We were venture backed, and that was a fun rocket ship to be a part of because we were working with some of the biggest artists in the world. I mean, we had partnered with Justin Bieber, Cascade, Diplo, Deadmass, and we were throwing these highly curated weekend travel destination experiences across the planet. I mean, we were going to Vegas, Cancun, Cabo, Miami, even internationally to Ibiza and places in Europe. And so while that was fun, it was also a huge learning experience for me in a positive way because I met some incredible people, learned what it was like to kind of roll up your sleeves and be a part of a startup that was gaining incredible traction. And I think that kind of set me on the path to where I'm at now. Yeah. Mentally, what was it like being 20 and meeting some of the idols, some of the biggest recording artists in the world, knowing that, hey, I have no idea how I got into these rooms, but I'm just so happy I'm here. Yeah, the truth is you kind of just get thrown in the fire and everyone's different, but I'm a firm believer that that's the best way for humans to learn is by experience. You know, nobody really knows what they're doing until they do it. And so as much as people tell you, this is the process. This is the way to do things that looks different for everybody. And so it was awesome to be a part of that company because, you know, the people were incredible. We were making real noise and really changing people's lives, both internally and externally we're providing this platform for young professionals to have some of their most memorable experiences with their best friends, you know, traveling across the world or across the country to see their favorite artists. And we were at the forefront. We were kind of the foundation of making that a reality. But getting thrown in the fire is something that I try and do to myself even, you know, to this day when there's a new vertical that we're entering or a new, you know, comfortable situation that someone's not used to or you haven't been in. I think that's the best way to keep that growth mindset and grow both personally and professionally. Yeah. And I love that idea of getting thrown in the fire because what a lot of people who have a typical nine to five don't understand is that people who are going to start up where a lot of hats, you don't just have a typical thing that you do day to day. Your life is just kind of this continuous wheel of problem solving and coming up with the best solutions for whatever is in front of you. What are some of the biggest challenges that you had being, you know, young 22 year old when your friends are talking about, you know, being an accountant and sitting in an office and you're like, hey, I have these complex problems in front of me that people are just expecting answers to today. I think it comes down to discipline. You know, there's always going to be another opportunity to do something different if you want to get out there and hang out with friends. I think that's important, you know, having a social life and following your passion. But for me, I got blessed, honestly, I would say half lucky that my first, my first job at college was my passion. I was traveling, I was working in entertainment and music and tech. One thing that that first job taught me for sure was that in order for you to be successful as an individual, you want to try and find the intersection of what you're really good at doing, but also what you love to do because if you can find that cross point, this guy is the limit. And I think a lot of people might find one or might find the other and it's not easy. It's pretty difficult to find that intersection, but like I said, I was lucky to be kind of thrown into the fire in that situation where it kind of was at that cross point almost immediately without even realizing it. And so to me, it's all I've ever known. And so there's no way for me to even look back and say there's, you know, as another opportunity to look at like what else would I be doing? Like that's exactly what I wanted to do at the time. And that's kind of what brought us to a rep today with Nucleus. I love that. And part of the reason why I love that so much is because a lot of 20 year olds, especially coming out of college and not having an idea of what it is that they will be doing, don't even talk about passion. They are a lot of the time looking for a job that just takes away the pressure. But what we know about people is that pressure makes diamonds. And what's so cool is that when you are thrown in the fire, you come out on the other side of it with incredible experiences. What was it like for you having the pressure on you to go and do something that was extraordinary and atypical? There was no other way, I think, failing fast is the answer to that question, right? You have to, there's no clear path to success and I think success is a never lasting dream of people that there's not like a line in the sand that you draw, at least for myself and I'm like, okay, like this is what success looks like. Success, I think that line is always, should always be pushed further. So, you know, we talked about being thrown in the fire. We talked about a few other aspects of what that situation can look like for an individual with passion in work. People go their whole lives not finding out what that looks like, especially I think at the older generation, you know, people are parent's age, are grandparent's age. The social norms there was, you know, you get out of school, you get a job, whether it's corporate or a small business, you work in that job for 30, 40, 50, 60 years and then you retire. And for some people that works, that's totally, that's fine, I think the key is making sure that that works for you and knowing that at least you try some other things and those aren't for you or, you know, you're happy with where you're at and you're finding success. There's no cookie cutter approach to what that could look like, but times are changing and I think now, you know, the data shows that people are changing jobs more often than ever. People are chasing their passion to your point, Igor, more than ever. And I think something that I focus on pretty regularly is not only for myself, but also for others, my loved ones, my family, my friends, my clients is trying to get them to a point where they can try to find that intersection as well. Because a lot of people, like we talked about, they do one of them, right? Maybe they're really good at being an accountant or maybe they love, you know, being a fisherman. But if there's a situation where you can kind of find that intersection, it's almost like Nirvana, like nothing, nothing else really matters because you're doing what you were meant to be doing and you're doing it pretty damn good job at it too. X, one of the things that I just appreciate so much about you as a human being is that this conversation around success is such a hard one for people to understand. A lot of the time you just build this mountain peak in your mind of what success looks like. And when you hit it earlier than you thought, you just move the line and continuously keep moving it to be something else. So here is a hard question to throw you in the fire. What is success? That is a hard question, Igor. Success is different for everybody. Success is something that I like to talk about a lot, Igor, because it gets me energized. It gives me energy rather than drains me of energy. But I think that's because, you know, I'm blessed to do something that I love for a living. And success is different for everybody. So, you know, that question for me to answer that would be waking up every single morning and being excited for the activities that I'm carrying out, the people that I'm meeting with, the places that I'm going. And that's the simplification of it for me, because there's a lot of, you know, minutian details we can get into about, okay, maybe there's a part about a job or an event or a place that you don't really want to go, but you know, it's part of the course and you kind of have to go and get you closer to where you want to be. But if you're going to dumb it down for me, if you wake up with a smile on your face and you're excited to see the people that you have planned to see that day or you are, you can't wait to get a bed to go to that place that you have scheduled or maybe there's nothing on the calendar and it's open-ended, but you know, you know, it's the journey out the destination that you yearn for. Me, that's what success looks like. And the data that doesn't happen or the data that I wake up and I don't have that kind of energy or that mindset, I know that something needs to change. Yeah. And the golden nugget in exactly what you said is this idea of the journey. Don't look for the goal, look for the fun, the pleasure, the challenges that come with traveling the journey and going down that path. It's so much easier said than done to and you're very right Igor and there's specific ways that I personally will try and bring myself back to, let's call it reality when I'm on that journey and maybe I'm not, you know, in the right headspace or I don't think I'm, you know, where I'm supposed to be in a given moment because that happens, that's human nature. A meditation is something that I, that I focused on regularly. I think that even it could be a couple of seconds or a couple minutes where you might not think you're in the right place and this may not feel like a situation where you want to be spending time in, but having kind of these grounding principles or grounding behaviors, I should say, including meditation, I like to journal every now and then maybe there's a person that you call, maybe there's a thought that you bring into the top of mind for you. That's for me been something that I'm a muscle I've been working on, but I'm trying to flex even more because I feel it feels like a superpower when, you know, you can almost trick your mind to thinking like, Hey, I'm upset, I'm mad, I'm uncomfortable, I'm sad. And actually, this is all normal to be occurring, like, let me lean into this more and figure out why that's the case and then kind of get me out of that rut back onto the right path. Yeah. And I think a lot of people have a hard time having this exact conversation. Hey, the muscle of doing the things that you don't want to do, whether it's waking up early, whether it's working out to extreme levels, whether it's pushing yourself in a sauna called plunge yoga, whatever the hell it is that you choose to do. It's just working the same muscle of, Hey, I don't want to, but I have to. And I see the same pattern that you develop inside the gym or inside the studio as the same pattern that you develop in the business world by going, Hey, there are things that I need to be doing on the business side that might not be the top thing on my mind, but I know it's just going to parts of the business to the next level, and I have to get done today. Yes, absolutely. I love the way you just said that Igor and I'm really happy you brought up saunas and cold plunges. That's a core focus for me when it comes to health wellness, recovery, I try and do the contrast therapy at least three or four times a week. And it's funny timing because I was, I was in a sauna last week, actually having a conversation with a sauna master, I didn't know these these individuals existed, but they do. And the sauna, I was asking questions about, you know, optimal temperature and optimal time spent in the sauna and, you know, for the cold plunge, like, should I jump right in after? I let my body come back to homeostasis and one of the big learnings for me is and I asked the sauna master, I said, how much time would you say on average is the, you know, the required time to feel or at least benefit from, you know, all the health benefits that they say come with sitting in the sauna. And you said that time is different for everybody, of course, it depends on the person, it depends on the temperature. But he said for everybody, the one constant is that however long you are in the sauna for, once you start to feel, he used the word uncomfortable, it's different than feeling pain or feeling dizzy, like, you know, feeling like you're gonna put some up, but there's a surface level of discomfort that you can feel. He said two minutes after that is what your limit should be because you kind of get to that point, you're like, okay, like, I'm feeling a little iffy, I'm feeling okay, I could probably push and he said those two minutes are the most important because that's when your immune system kicks in and takes over kind of like that fight or flight. And that resonated with me because you can apply that same principle to anything, you can apply that to business, you can apply that to your relationships and of course, obviously the sauna as well. So it's fascinating to have that conversation with him. Yeah, let me take you down that road just for 30 seconds. Tell me about the sauna routine and specifically what it is that you do and then we'll come back and we'll talk about the mental piece because that's just as important. Yeah, I've become addicted to this contrast therapy method. We at Nucleus do a ton of events that includes saunas and ice baths, but even personally, the gym, as granular as the gym that I chose for a membership here in New York City where we're based, the requirement for me is I needed it to have the amenities because when I go through the sauna and cold plunge kind of process and I walk out, I feel like way more than a million bucks and you can't put a price on the feeling that you get. And for me, it's all about those energy levels, right? Whether I'm tired or whether I'm over-energized, going to this kind of sanctuary, if you will, to sweat out toxins or to just be in your thoughts and unplug a little bit. You know, all day we're always on our screens for work, for pleasure, whether it's your phone or your computer, your television. This is a place where I don't bring any of those, obviously the television. My phone stays upstairs and it's a place where I can kind of do the meditation, but also have those health benefits of what the sauna and the cold plunge bring. And so I love to do it in the mornings. I think it's the best way to start today. I started the day off on the right foot, but I don't discriminate. I sometimes do it in the evenings if, you know, work gets in the way and I have an early morning client call, but we are doubling down as a business and be personally on contrast therapy as a whole because of the benefits that I've personally seen and, you know, a lot of my circle sees the same thing as well. Yeah. Final question here that I'm going to hit you with on the sauna front before we move back into the business end of the world. And it's this one. The mental aspect that you just mentioned is one of the biggest benefits that I like talking about. And it's this idea of challenging your mind to going, Hey, this sucks. I'm fully unplugged. And at the same time, the only thing that I have to deal with is my own mind that's telling me to leave, that's telling me to get out. And all I have to do is just tell it that I'm in control and I'm the master of whatever the future is going to hold. Talk to me about the ability that you get and the benefits that you see out of being in control of your mind and understanding who it is so that you are as a person. I'll start with the cold plunge because I think it's a little bit more difficult when it comes to that mental capacity to your point, Igor. For me, it's a, it's a, I sound like a contract, a mental contract with myself. I tell myself, okay, I get in the sauna for 15, 20, 25 minutes. That's great. And then I know I'm in a cold plunge after. I don't know anybody that I've spoken to that's like, yeah, I can't wait to, you know, get in this freezing tub of water and, you know, make my limbs numb. Like everyone I speak to who does it afterwards is like, wow, I feel indigorated up. So energized. I feel amazing. And so for me, the contract, that side of myself, as I say, I'm going in the cold plunge for five minutes. There's no offense but it's happening. I decided that for myself, nobody else told me I had to do it. Nobody else is, you know, holding me accountable to me, myself and I. And I think the reason I'm able to have those conversations with myself, yours, I did a little bit of, I should say, I came across a study that highlighted the people that human spend the most time with across their life cycle, right? So you're born and, of course, you're heavily reliant on your parents or your family. And then you kind of come into your adolescent years and you're spending a lot of time with friends and you're socializing and you're learning and navigating how to become a human being because this is like your first experience being being conscious and not relying solely on your parents. And then as you grow older, there's still a friend time, but maybe there's other relationships that come into play. And then family. Now you're balancing all three of those together. And the reason I'm bringing up this study is because the resounding kind of takeaways that you, Igor, myself and all humans spend the most time with ourselves, whether it's in our mind, whether it's physically across your life so you can live 20 years, you can live 120 years, you spend more time in your own thoughts with your own self than any other physical human being that exists. And so because of that, that relationship is the most important. There's a saying you need to help yourself before you can help others and I feel very strongly about that. It's the reason when you go on the planes, they tell you to put the, you know, if anything were to happen, God forbid you put the oxygen mask on yourself and then help others. So for the cold plunge, I have that contract with myself. It's because I told myself this is something we are going to do. I know the benefits. I've done this before. And then I just go ahead and do it. There's no alternative options and I think there's another famous quote, I'm not mistaken. It's Arnold Schwarzenegger who says he doesn't have a plan B because there's just the plan A and if there's a situation where a plan A doesn't pan out, then he figures out what plan B might look like. But if you kind of prepare beforehand for that, you know, that secondary option, you're leaving room for failure. For sure. And I have so much appreciation in the way that you specifically talk about this because so few people actually talk about positive self talk, the ability to get through hard things and I think what makes great people good business leaders, good partners, good friends is this ability to go, Hey, this sucks. I'm going to get through it because I owe it to myself to come out on the other side of this and be a better person. Let's bring it back to the business side of the world. What was it like working at your first startup, seeing it explode and seeing this giant growth year over year, knowing that this is a typical and not something that a lot of people have to deal with? It was an amazing, amazing experience. You go around honestly looking back on it, it's crazy to think that that was my first working experience. You know, it's all I ever knew. So to me, it was like, that was par for the court. That was the process. You know, you join this company, the company grows rapidly, the company raises a bunch of money solidifies all these amazing partnerships, but more than anything outside of the people that I met, it was the learnings of what works and what doesn't work in a startup ecosystem. You know, when I joined that company, I think we had just launched in the States maybe the year before, and I was employee probably 40 in the US and I left, you know, four years later, there's 700 employees globally. Rapid growth was something that, again, was all I ever knew. And so having conversations with friends who were at different types of companies or friends who were at startups that failed was just good for perspective to see like, oh, this is not like you said, or this is not normal, this is not, you know, this is the outlier. But also, you know, there's the learning piece for that, for me, was looking at the company, the foundation, like the systems and the processes that we were implementing to see from my perspective. When I thought worked well, I didn't work well in what areas I thought there were for improvement, which is why I felt so compelled when the time came for four and a half years later to leave and stuff from home business, because I felt like I was in a good position to take the positives of what really works well, but also kind of work specifically focus on those areas that I didn't see were working well and I could kind of implement these operational efficiencies to make sure that I could fill those gaps now. With that process, clearly, there's going to be some other things that pop up that, you know, that don't work well. That's a constantly iterative process, but it's why I felt so compelled to kind of, you know, leave a certain thing. Yeah, and I feel like this is a common theme between every single business owner as a way that you talk about problems is it's not if they come up, it's when they come up finding the best resolutions and always knowing that there is a path forward, regardless of what that looks like. Yeah. So we have a motto. I would say it's honestly a core value. It was the first thing I spoke to Jake and co-founded about when we started Nucleus last year. It was exactly what you just said, right? There's no way for us to prevent problems from happening. There is a tangible way for us to implement solutions, to solve those problems once they happen. And so the core value for us is one liner that I can't take credit for, but I use it every day of my life and it's everything is figure outable. You know, a lot of people are very good at identifying problems. I think less people are really good at implementing solutions or finding solutions or at least suggesting solutions to that problem. So great, there's a blocker with a certain partnership that we're spinning up where we lost the customer or a client missed the meeting, like, that's going to happen. What is the solution? What are the actionable, tangible next steps that we can implement to solve that problem? And I think that's what separates a lot of successful startup founders from the rest. And I have so much appreciation for the way that you talk about solutions. But what we know at the end of the day is that every single solution is just a trade-off between a couple of the options that you have. Talk to me about the ability to analytically pick between the multiple avenues that you can choose to go about solving a problem and how you guys find best solutions in the work that you do. It's a really good question. I like getting into the details here. So obviously it's case by case, right? For us, I think we look at it at the lens of who is involved in the problem. So you asked about, you know, the problem arises and what kind of solutions we can look at to fix that problem. Like, is the problem internal? Is it just myself, my co-founder, our operations manager, our interns? Is it a client problem? Is it, you know, who are the key stakeholders? Because this is, I mean, every business, but specifically ours. It's a people-first business, right? People like to do business with people, people like to buy from people from the thing my target of yours is my computer doesn't die. So for us, we look at, like, you know, who is involved in the problem and then what are their incentives? There's a famous quote from Charlie Munger who said, you know, you show me the incentive, I'll show you the outcome, but that's what we're building our business off of. And so if we know that some of the key stakeholders in the problem and different incentives, it's a little bit more of a difficult problem to solve. But if we know that maybe all of the, you know, the people who are involved in a blocker or a roadblock or an obstacle or on the same team or have a line's incentives, it's a different conversation. So we kind of start, like, at the skeleton of it all. And then it wants me to establish who the stakeholders are, but from there, we are all about brainstorming collaboratively. So maybe I have one suggested solution to a given problem, but Jake might have another one. And so weighing the pros and cons of those for us, it's a combination of an art and a science, and that's everything we do, but seeing what the benefits are to doing this solution versus that solution, there's a time piece of it, right? What's the deadline to solving this problem? So there's all these different pieces that come into play, and I think looking at them, like holistically and also simultaneously, it's not even preferred. It's required when going to solve a problem. And then obviously, you know, once you quote, unquote, solve the problem, you might think it's the best solution, but that problem might come up again. And you might want to revisit how you solve that problem the first time. Yep. And I love that phrase that you used in that answer holistic because I find that the best business owners understand that there is a bigger picture in play and you can't concentrate on a small piece for the small problem, but look at how it impacts absolutely everything you're doing. Now before we spend the rest of the time talking about the current project, let's talk about the first project that you did by yourself. Now while you were at an incredible level of success at a startup, when was the initial idea of, Hey, I think I can do something on my own. And where did that idea come from? The idea came from when I was at the startup, I loved what I was doing, I loved what I was working with, I loved when I was working on, I knew it wasn't the end goal for me for a few reasons. One, I've always kind of had an entrepreneurial spirit, you know, even in high school buying and selling things or even just an interest in learning about entrepreneurial journeys and successful founders who went from zero to one or zero to a hundred is always something that was was tough on mine for me. So I just didn't know when that would come. And so it's a really scary jump to make, you know, the stability, even at a startup, like if you have stability, there's a paycheck that comes in and there's expectations and there's a backbone and resources and when you leave to kind of start your own thing, all of that goes away. You don't have any of it. You are the backbone. You have to create the stability yourself, but it's kind of like that the cold start problem, whichever one always talks about on the stuff with ecosystem. And I just figured as a mid 20s, young, hungry entrepreneur at the time, like what better time than now? You know, people always talk about risk appetite and they say, all right, well, when you're older, you might have a wife and kids and a mortgage and there's a lot more on the line than you need to provide. And I didn't, you know, at the time, I didn't even have any of those things. And so it just felt like if I was going to do it, which I knew I was, now is the time to do it. And we spoke about it earlier, Igor failing facts as inevitable. So I figured I'd like to fail facts at that time to be able to say, okay, do four, six, 10, 20, 40 years later, I'm glad I made that jump because if I hadn't, who knows what would have come from it. Yeah. And I have so much appreciation for that answer because a lot of people are first and foremost scared of taking that leap. But second thing that a lot of people overlook is that the best day to get something started is today. And the specific benefit that you have of being young is going, Hey, if I take a swing at this and it's not working out. I have the rest of my life and life is so long and life is so awesome that even if this doesn't work out, there is going to be something else that I pick up and have the ability to do. Yeah, I have a mentor who taught me something that very much resonated with me. And I try and instilled that upon not only our employees, but friends of mine who come seeking advice and conversations like these with you, Igor, decisions can only be made or I should say this isn't should only be made with the data you have available today. There's this kind of like analysis per analysis that happens like, Oh, what if this happens or what if that happens both or are possible? But as of today, like your point, make a decision based on the data that you have and then evaluate how that looks in the future. People I think spend and I would use the term waste so much time trying to gather out on too much information. Now maybe there's a couple pieces you can try and get to make an informed decision, especially if it's a big decision. I'm not saying rush into anything. I'm just saying more broadly, there's a lot of decision makers who are afraid to either take that jump or just make that decision whether it's a yes or no and be decisive based on the data they have because they think that they should be gathering somebody other additional pieces of information. And it's a tough balance. But that's something that resonated with me because early on in my career, I was extremely indecisive. It was almost crippling. Like I was like, Oh, if I make this decision like this could go terribly sour, but there's also the complete opposite side of that like what if I make the decision and it turns out to be perfect and amazing and beautiful and successful like I do that in all my decisions even you know, outside of work, you know, I have a lot of friends and people nowadays and outside of friends, you know, if exactly issues and I totally get where those are stemming from. And I think they stem from worry, I'm worried that this is going to go wrong. What if this goes perfectly as planned? Like why don't why are we focused more so on that outcome as just as likely as the negative one? Honestly, there will be a much better place if that was the case. And so I try and do it myself and I try and I try and instill that a lot of people I spend time with. Yeah. And I want to instill just a little bit of a, in addition to exactly what you said, what a lot of people actually having anxiety about is not only the downside outcome, but I feel like there is this unspoken anxiety about being successful, even more than you previously planned. For whatever reason, people are stuck in this like middle band of going exactly with a flow. So even the idea of being more successful than they thought sometimes is stressful. And you actually see a lot of people when they hit a home run, develop anxiety about, you know, doing too well. And I feel like there is this like weird thing about the system and the structure of the nine to five job that keeps a lot of people ingrained in doing exactly what it is that a typical person does in their job. And it's so interesting to watch guys like you and Jake get out of that system and be like, hey, we're going to build something that provides value outside of it. And we don't know what the hell that looks like long term. But here is the game plan for the time being. Yeah. At the end of what you said is what is what makes the most sense to me. We don't, we started this company. We didn't know exactly. And still, I don't know, we don't know exactly where it'll take us. We have an idea as to where we'd like it to go. We could kind of, you know, predict where it's heading based on what we've been able to do, but that could change, you know, snap of the finger. So. Love that. That's not a nuclear network. Yes. So Jake and I started the nucleus network almost exactly a year ago. And we are building a business by leveraging the power of the warm introduction. Igor, we were talking before we started recording and a little bit about both of our backgrounds and you have mentioned that, you know, a lot of the reasons you attribute the success you gain so far as to the people you know, everyone always talks about how your network is your net worth, right? We are living in bodyments of that. We are bringing that to the forefront, bringing that to fruition day in and day out across every industry. So what we do for a living is we make introductions, you know, we are focused on unlocking value and driving growth for our partners and clients across these industries by connecting the dots. And so everyone could leverage the warm, I would say everyone does leverage the warm introduction, right? Referrals for talent acquisition, introductions to investors, for founders who want to raise capital, partnerships, lead generation, business development, marketing, all of it kind of stems from people trust who they know. And they go to who they know when they're looking to get involved with a new, you know, make a purchase or try a new experience. And so for us, we started by saying, okay, we know kind of the best of the best in their respective fields. We know the best venture capitalists, real estate investors, private equity funds, we know the best influencers, agencies, tech companies, brands, like, why are we not helping these connect with each other where that mutually beneficial relationship kind of takes off? So we started in October and our model is a mutual referral agreement, you know, that quote we just mentioned with Charlie Miller, really is about the incentive and the outcome. We have a mutual referral agreement that states if Nucleus is able to drive business to company ABC, then Nucleus gets a percent of that business, right? Because we kind of spot it up and there's no sweat off anyone's back to provide that percent. So we've seen a lot of success and we have a couple hundred clients on that side because we're saying, hey, contingent on performance, if we're able to move the needle for you, we all take a piece. Everyone says, absolutely. Why not? And so we started that model, like I said, just under a year ago, we've made just under 1,500 introductions for our clients in the past, you know, in 2024 or so eight, nine months so far. And that's resulted in millions and millions of dollars of what we call total deal value of which Nucleus gets a percentage. Now, it's important to note we are very not, we have a focus on non-transactional relationships and the reason I say that is there are hundreds and hundreds, literally, almost thousands, I would say, almost a thousand introductions that we've made that do not result in a transaction occurring. However, we still view that as a successful introduction, depending on the outcome and I'll give you an example. We do a lot of work with family offices, venture capital funds, single funders, angel investors and individuals and a lot of founders come to us and they say, hey, I'm prepping for my series A or I'm prepping to raise my series B fundraising round from investors. I've never been here before. Can you connect me to other founders who have raised the series and in the series B before? That's very easy for us to do. We work with a ton of them day in and day out, their friend, their family, their clients, their contacts, their partners. And so we connect those dots, right? We set the stage for a fruitful conversation, we provide context on both sides, monetarily there's no benefit to Nucleus from that introduction. However, when we make that introduction, both of those sides look at Nucleus more favorably because we were able to help them get in front of what they're trying to get in front of. And so we kind of create this flywheel and this network effect kicks in where individuals and businesses alike come back to us and they say, hey, that intro is amazing, I love chatting with that person, they were super helpful. I'm now trying to get in front of this person. And so it starts this ripple effect. So we're very, very focused on just getting people in front of the people that they want to get in front of. Now the key here, Igor, is that Nucleus is a vetted community, right? So we're going to introduce you to some Joe Schmo, who comes on the podcast and is mean and rude and inconsiderate. That's our reputation on the line. And so we are very particular about who we introduced, how we introduced them to each other. Again, the context that's provided on both sides because we want to make sure that both sides also express interest in chatting. And so what that means is we get a double opt-in, like Igor, you might want to chat with a podcast next week that we have in the network. And so what we would do at Nucleus is we would kind of take your proposition, this is Igor, he runs this amazing podcast, he talks with small business owners and athletes and executives and founders and investors. This is why you should chat with him, we had a great conversation with him. Once we get that double opt-in in both sides express interest, that's kind of part I should say of the recipe for a successful introduction. And there's several other aspects of the business, but that's kind of the core business model. Yeah. And I have so much appreciation for exactly what you do because it feels like at the end of the day you are just making the world a better place by introducing people who need to meet other people in your network to each other and making sure that there is a positive outcome for both parties. And here is the final question that I'm going to hit you with today, X, and it's going to be a hard one. Long term, where do you see the network growing and where are the biggest opportunities for growth for you guys as a firm? The question we've been thinking a lot about recently, Igor, when we started this company we cast it a wide net intentionally. We didn't want to pigeonhole ourselves when it came to industry focus because of the sectors that we have relationships in that they spend very wide. Now that we've made all these introductions and closed all these deals and helped all these people, we have enough data to go back and see where we've seen the most success from the business. But more importantly, we're our clients and our partners and our customers have seen the most success. The jury's still out, but we have a general idea of where that direction, what direction that's going in. And for us, listen, we're in the business of connecting great people to great people. And so if we have an ask that comes in, "Hey, I'm looking to get in front of us a bakery, I'm looking to get in front of an investor, I'm looking to hire ahead of sales," and we know because we're missing what we do from it and we're always on calls, we're always kind of understanding what these companies are looking for. What can I do? That's no problem. My answer to your question when it comes to growth is we have a Q4, a little bit of an expansion planned for areas of focus that we've seen the most success in for ourselves and for our clients. And so right now, it's nucleus more broadly, but there's a world where we have nucleus events, nucleus advisory, nucleus VC, nucleus podcast, and there's all these different verticals that the same model lends itself to as you very well know. So I think that's what the future looks like and kind of having experts in each of those fields, that's the idea of how nucleus, be the nucleus in that field to kind of spread the connection and do network development and help not only connect the dots, but help people and businesses grow and get in front of within that sector is what the future looks like. And what's really interesting to me or before you wrap up and I want to give Jason credit, when I started this company, when we started this company, I was a little bit now reminded that I was like, okay, Igor is a podcast host, like we should connect him with other people in the podcast space. What Jake's really good at and what he's kind of opened my eyes to is that you never know what a connection could lead to, right? Like we can connect you to some random, like I said earlier, Joe Schmo, maybe isn't mean to consider who's nice and friendly, but may not play in the same space, but you guys can become best friends. You guys can become business partners. You guys could do a whole bunch of stuff together that I didn't even think was possible up front. So being open minded to that and only working with open minded people is kind of a core value of ours too. And I want to appreciate you having me on the show because we're one of those open minds and I'm excited to have you in the network and continue to build together. Yeah. And I have so much appreciation for the work that you guys do because of specifically that when you put like minded people together who all have a growth mindset, at the end of the day, the products, the opportunities, some of the collaborations that come out of it, create incredible things and you never know the direction in which they're going to go. I think so, so highly of you, all of the, I mean, the incredible journey, all of the success that you've had already at your young age is amazing to see. And it's a story that needs to be shared with more people because there are a lot of people on the same trajectory as you that need to know that you can make something of yourself. You can build something great. And there are opportunities that are going to come your way that are just incredible. Thank you so much for sharing your valuable time with us. We really appreciate your brother. Thanks for having me Igor, very much appreciate it man.