So Frank, man, I, you know, I read your story and it's pretty incredible. And it even reminded me of some of the things that happened to me in my life. And I know that it seems like entrepreneurs who've really gone through the mud are the ones that persevere and become the most successful. And I know you spent two decades on Wall Street and then you lost everything. And that was a rock bottom moment for you. So what made you decide to rebuild and get up? What was that motivation? So for me, motivation was a just one thing to go home. I have been separated from my wife and children for almost three years. And, you know, I was estranged from them. I think the chance to see my kids for like 18 months. And I just really I just wanted to go home. Whatever it took, however long it took, you know, I just wanted to fix it. That was my driving force. If I was a single guy and then I didn't have kids, it probably we would be talking about a completely different story here. But given the fact that, you know, I was responsible for three little children. And then plus my wife kind of gave me no choice but to pick what I broke. The motivations, right? Like family, I think it's always a great motivator for you to want to better yourself. What made you say the entrepreneurship being a founder was the right path versus you getting a job? So I've always been sort of like a team leader. And I've always, you know, worked for myself and I just figured that I'd have to find the new way to make a living after the Lehman Wall Street after 21 years. This business kind of fell into my lap and I just didn't want to work for somebody, you know, and I just wanted to move forward and have my own company and started out little gyps and drabs and then snowballed over, you know, the last nine years. When you look at the industries and the problems that you can solve, I think it's always fascinating to see why somebody said, oh, this is the problem that needs to be solved. So what draw, what was the draw for you that was, you know, this whole thing with small businesses and funding? What was the draw where you said, okay, this is the problem and I want to solve this problem. You know, coming from Wall Street background, it's been always the customer service and service oriented. And in the MCA space, customer service is really not something that's out there. So I kind of like brought a little bit of a human touch to this industry and, you know, service the merchants and the brokers and, you know, hold everybody's hand when it can't be to be held and give them that little extra attention. There's work phenomenal for us, you know, just, just be the human being and listen to people, you know, when the merchants have any problem, they can payments, you know, you have to understand what happens and, you know, walking them through situations rather than, you know, pushing them through is a lot easier to deal with. I imagine that most businesses, the funding side is the maker break, right? Like if they're not selling and making revenue or they don't have the money to buy equipment or invest in something, then the business just goes out. And I think it's like 90% of businesses don't even last past five years or something similar to that stat. So how do you, what, what does every business owner do you think needs to know? Like what could you teach them right now around this whole funding? Because I think most people I know they have no clue about funding and it's, it's very a complex situation. It's a challenge for them to the point where I think they just say, I don't even want to do it. I'm not going to do it. But then their business is, you know, hugely at risk. Peace of advice that I can get to the merchants is, you know, try to pinch your pennies where you can because it all adds up at the end of the day. And, you know, the MCA space, it's expensive money. So I tried to believe her now. I tried to talk merchants out of it unless they really need the money. Then you take it and you use it. Unfortunately, a lot of people abuse the merchant cash advance space and just take multiple, multiple advances one on top of another and they had stuck in that gerbil wheel, which is kind of what you want to avoid. So I tried to bring that out and make them understand about the risks, you know, you know, dealing in the merchant cash advance space. It's important that they understand the risks as well as the benefit. There have been, you know, numerous merchants that we've owned in over the years that have benefited tremendously from borrowing and have grown the business exponentially. But, you know, caution is, is is a word of advice. We're in their business journey. Our people normally looking for funding, you know, all aspects of where they're at. We don't really deal with startup companies. We'd like to see at least, you know, a year or two under the belt. But we have companies that have been around for 30 years. We have doctors, offices we have businesses that have been around for 18 months. So we service all different aspects. It's not just one niche market, you know, we credit services. There's many people as possible. And I know you deployed over 250 million dollars to businesses and many times I'm guessing traditional banks just are not able, they're not touching these companies, which is sad because I think, you know, it's like half of the jobs that exist in the US are for what they would consider to be a small business, which I'm guessing most of these banks are not servicing these people. But they need it probably more than these other larger corporations. So what do you see in these businesses that banks miss and why are you betting on them? Well, we see the opportunity to help a niche market. Unfortunately, like you were saying, banks are really not looking to bet on small businesses. They rather bet on the bigger corporations and do, you know, big servicing of bet versus servicing small businesses, which are the backbone of this country. Like you said, this statistic is pretty high out there. I think they're, I think it's like 40% of the workforce isn't the small business somehow one way or another. And if they don't get the capital, when the capital is needed, you know, it's just inevitable that they're all going to fail. And unfortunately, no one's out there to help them. I mean, you go to a bank, it takes, you know, three months just to get the claim, where we can get you funding done within a couple of hours, having the money in your account. But, you know, we pride ourselves in speed. And that's, that's what differentiates us from some of the other ones out there. Hey, there's, there's always different spaces at niches and markets for people. And I'm glad that you're, you're helping to solve a problem for these businesses. Just because I, I know how it is, like you put your heart and soul into something. And many times you're making less than you could just go work at a, like a basic job with the hopes that it grows into something. It's like when you, when you say it out, a lot of almost sounds crazy to be an entrepreneur. Like you almost are better off getting a job somewhere and you'll make more take home. I'm glad that you're, you're helping those people. Let's talk about, I know your father hasn't still, uh, some things in you and he, he told you something, if you're going to go do something, do it right and treat it like it's your own. And I, I think that's so fascinating how you've taken what you've done with that. Can tell me about these lessons that you've learned from others. Well, you know, so like lessons I learned from my father, he always, uh, taught me to have pride in everything that we do, you know, whether you're working in a battle store as a kid or the working on a wall street as a young adult or whether you shine shoes, whatever you do, just be proud, just be proud, do it correct. Well, don't do it at all. And that's something that's stuck with me, you know, throughout my lifetime. And, um, you know, my father was a big influence in my life and still to this day, you know, I think about him every day and, you know, what, what he thought, he was a good, a good, a good person that he's missed. But, uh, you know, his legacy is his children and his grandchildren and, uh, I still listen to, uh, those words he said to me one of the long time ago. When you think about, uh, mentorship, do you find that, wouldn't like for yourself, have you used people as mentors or do people come to you for any sort of mentorship, or do you find that business is kind of like a, a lonely place where you just got to figure it out as you go. You know, I, I think I'm a big believer in mentorship. I, uh, I always, over the years have taken on the sort of like a pet project, younger guys where I've directed them and, uh, have, uh, had like sidekicks or pervajaries, whichever one you want to call it. I think that's important. I was always taught at Wall Street as, as we were growing up in, in, in, uh, the financial aspect is you want to surround yourself with people that are smarter than you so that you can learn from them. And that's a, that's a true fact. And, uh, you know, I, I meant them and, and, uh, I helped people for free. I don't know anything for it. It just, it helps me give back a little bit something to, to the world. Uh, very grateful for the position of, especially at the everything I've been through. And, uh, I'm, you know, I'm a very big believer in giving back and, and helping out those that need help. You know, it's wild when I talk to people and they say, you know, I, I, I know it's the higher people and they're almost afraid to have people around them that are smarter than them. It gives they might become a competitor. They might, but I'm thinking the same way like you, you only grow and learn. If you have people that are around you that are smarter, knowing that, you, you know, the people that you lead, specifically will go on to do great things. So let's talk about leadership for you. Thinking back to when you were in like Wall Street, more a corporate environment, what type of leader were you then? Compared to the leader that you are now having over eight years of sobriety, the ups and downs and downs and ups that you've gone through. What's changed in your leadership style? Well, I used to be a lot rougher, a lot, you know, guns blazing, always pushing the envelope. You know, that's what, you know, we, we were caught in Wall Street, it's a young man's game. But my style has changed. I'm a little bit more of embracing as a boss and understanding that employees do have issues. And, you know, not, not having fear of anything because going through what I went through was probably the worst thing that someone could endure. And if I can get through that and I can get through addiction, there's nothing that I can't get through. Everything else will fall into place as long as you just push forward and work hard. But hard work is something that I believe in for my employees and I do it firsthand. I'm a full hands-on owner. Why don't you sit here and delegate? I work whole aspects of this business wherever health is needed. I will always jump in and help my employees. Yeah, I know. And thank you for sharing that being vulnerable. It's amazing how not only time changes us, but the experiences that we have completely changed. And thinking about like how I am today might have been the complete opposite as I was 20 years ago. When you're looking at the industry itself, because I know the private credit is just insane. It's projected to hit over $2 trillion in the near future. What do you think is driving this shift in your industry away from traditional banking? And do you think there's still going to be or maybe a new opportunity will arise? Well, I think what's driving the shift is the actual banks themselves. Considering small businesses unbankable and leaving no choice but for them to go to alternative financing. And that's why the growth is just going to be tremendous. And it's growing in a faster pace, I think, than the 2.48 trillion that's expected over the next couple of years or so. I think that market grows. And you've seen a lot of institutional money starting to pour into this side of the business. Because there's money in lending and institutions know that, banks know that. Unfortunately, they don't want to take shots on these small businesses so they'll let the hedge funds that manage risk a lot better than a bank would. Take that role and run with it. And that's what we've been seeing. Pretty much the banks have cannibalized themselves with the sort of fee. There's been a lot of interesting things with banks. I was just looking at bitcoins like plummeting right now going up. And I mean, the finance role is fascinating. I don't understand most of it, but I'm always interested to hear what's happening. When you look at growing and scaling your company, what has been something that has been critical for you as you've grown and scaled past certain milestones? One of the most important things I think for me has been talent. You know, the talent pool up here in New York is a little bit more competitive than it is in some of the other smaller markets like down south. And I think having the office in North Carolina and Florida where we really got lucky, we were able to hire some really good talent. I think that changed the game a little bit. You know, up here you have five people chasing that one job where you know, down south or out in the Midwest and some of the smallest cities. You find talent that is still looking for a job and there's still some good talent up at the higher. We're going to look into expanding to the South and into the Midwest hopefully in the next couple of years. How about when it comes to technology? AI is obviously an every single thing. It seems like that we're doing. Are you finding that there's any technology, software, anything that you either see that's going to be helping your industry or it's already helping you? So the AI aspect of it is all fun and dandy when it comes to, you know, looking at Thanksgiving and basically, you know, data mining, the data that's on there. I think that when it comes to underwriting, you're always going to need that, you know, final human touch to bring you across the goal line because sometimes you have to look beyond the numbers. You know, you have to look beyond the company, you have to, you know, do it a quick, you know, mental analyzation of what you're, you know, what you see and make decisions and pivot when necessary. And unfortunately, some of these software aren't there yet. They might get there one day. So we just use AI just to help break down some of the bank statements. But most of the rest of the underwriting process is that manual. When you're thinking about future goals and, you know, you've already achieved things. I'm sure you never thought you would achieve, especially going back to certain moments in your life. And seems like you're, you're, you're very grateful and you work very hard. And no, you, you've really put the systems and processes and people in place, which is amazing. So when you look at goals and milestones forward thinking, how do you, how do you structure them and how far out do you normally, how far out do you have to look in terms of like, okay, I want to hit these milestones at this time because this is success to me. Well, what's important about setting goals and milestones is really setting goals and milestones that are attainable, right? Anybody could say, I want to make a billion dollars, right? That's just not, that's just not going to happen. But if you set up attainable goals, stuff that is reachable. And, you know, I tried to set short-term goals and I also have longer-term goals, right? But it's the short-term goals. It's, you know, those are the ones that get you to the longer-term goals that help you, you know, push forward from there. So it's important that you're realistic in your numbers and in your goals. And, you know, hard work, pretty much remedy anything. And I mean, you need a little bit of luck as well in business. Hard work and a little bit of luck. You don't have a good recipe for success. Yeah, thanks for sharing that, Frank. So I know you have something really special out, by the way, I just launched a book and then you just launched a book, The Hardway Home. And I, like, the amount of time and energy and effort that went into my book was insane. And I can imagine it's the same for you. But it feels so good when the book comes out. But I'm like having a hard time even thinking about people reading a book. I feel like I'm going to get judged. But how was the process of writing this the Hardway Home? And what was the inspiration behind this book? So the inspiration was trying to get someone to benefit, even if it's just one person to benefit from my story and bring that hope across that, you know, you're never really truly alone, even when you feel like you are alone. And I was living on the street and I was alone, you know, at that point, I really thought I was alone, but I wasn't. I had my whole family behind me, even though I was estranged from everybody. They were still behind me supporting me. So if my story can help one person overcome, you know, some troubles that in their lives, whether it's addiction or whether it's just employment or whatever the case may be or some sort of mental health disorders. So I'm like, I'm sorry, I can help just one person. It was well worth it for me. And writing the book was hopefully was more self of myself than anybody else to give me a little bit of closure because I do carry a lot of regrets on some of the things that, you know, I didn't say it over the years. So hopefully it'll put the rest of some of those, those demons. Sounds like it was almost therapeutic for you to what tell my story and to say it out loud, you know, to myself and put it down in words and paper was absolutely amazing. And I didn't realize for a while what I went through until I wrote the book sort of in a kind of way, kind of like inspired myself again, if that makes sense. You know, we forget, you know, when we take things for granted. And then you jot down memory lane and opens up some good memories. It's a lot of words also, but it's a lot of good memories. But thinking back, what's the moment for you that was like a great memory when you're like, oh my gosh, when I wrote that in this book and it's in the book, this was something that, you know, made me really smile compared to like you're saying all the memories that were obviously very tough. I mean, with the one pivotal moment that happened in my life where it was almost like I had a moment of enlightenment. It would happen to me on the phone with my brother and he said to me, he said, don't you want your children to have good memories of their childhood like we did. And that just blew me away like it was just something is so profound to me. I can't explain it, but like it changed me as a person. And then from that moment on, it was just all, you know, it was all downhill from there. You know, every day that went by that I, you know, was so and that I, you know, pushed forward just a little bit more was closer to home than I got even though I didn't know it in time. You know, I was a shrink from my family for three years. I never thought that I would go back. And was that one pivotal moment, which was important for me, just to remember that was what kind of like help me come back. I love that man. So it's always amazing how one sentence, one phrase, one or two words can completely change the trajectory of not only your life, but obviously your family's life, your kids life. And, and then whatever generations to come later on just from that one sentence. But thank you for being vulnerable to even write this book again. Like I've just went through the same process and it was so there was so many times where I wanted to tell them that I don't even want to put it in the book. Like I sent it in that delete it because I don't want that in there. But like you said, if one person can be inspired, but the hard way home and Avanza capital holding. So if you want to get in touch with you Frank, they want to get the book. They want to find out more information about you. How can they do so? Well, they can find out the book on Amazon and some of the other big book retailers. And if they want it again, much of us they can just go to our website. It's www.avanza.nyc and they can reach us through there. Well, Frank, again, I can appreciate you being here. I can relate so much to your story. I think there's a lot of other people that are either in the moment or they're out of the moment. And yeah, hopefully that they'll become entrepreneurs. And if they ever need anything as a small business, they can contact you. So thank you so much for hey, change in the world. Change in the world being vulnerable enough to write it down and change the world, which a lot of people are not. A lot of people will not do that. So I appreciate you for for being here on founder's story. My pleasure. Thanks for having me. You
