Darren Marble
Appearances
The Money Mondays
How Retail Investors Beat Wall Street (The Rich Hate This) w/ Darren Marble 💵 E99
Alternatives are maybe the most exciting aspect of the financial markets right now. Investment opportunities that are not public. Alternatives are startups. They are secondaries, maybe secondaries in Anduril or Stripe, big, big multi-billion dollar private companies, but where there's demand for those securities. This market is maybe the fastest growing market in US capital markets right now.
The Money Mondays
How Retail Investors Beat Wall Street (The Rich Hate This) w/ Darren Marble 💵 E99
And we want to do our part to highlight that diversity because I think it's cool. I think it's the right thing to do. We're looking for founders that have proven they can execute. That means they're generating revenue. So we're not putting idea stage companies in this show. Now, there are great idea companies out there, but that's not the kind of company we want to put in the series.
The Money Mondays
How Retail Investors Beat Wall Street (The Rich Hate This) w/ Darren Marble 💵 E99
Companies that can execute, people that have overcome a lot to get where they are, people that we think will show well in the series.
The Money Mondays
How Retail Investors Beat Wall Street (The Rich Hate This) w/ Darren Marble 💵 E99
Dan, thanks so much, man. It's awesome to be in here with you. The last time I was checking this out, I think we were in Temecula filming part of season two of What's Your Star of going public. So serial founder, born and raised in the Bay Area, came to UCLA for college, dropped out of UCLA, got into sales. Sales took me into entrepreneurship, and now I'm a serial founder.
The Money Mondays
How Retail Investors Beat Wall Street (The Rich Hate This) w/ Darren Marble 💵 E99
You know, that's a good question. I've thought a little bit about this lately, and I don't know that every business needs to or should have some kind of charitable component. My personal thought is that that's a very personal thing.
The Money Mondays
How Retail Investors Beat Wall Street (The Rich Hate This) w/ Darren Marble 💵 E99
concept now you're somebody who's incredibly passionate and committed to giving back and i admire that about you i don't know that every founder that runs a business necessarily needs to have that but i think it does make sense for certain businesses We are in talks with a company. It's a hot sauce company. It's a cool company. It's called The Crippling Company.
The Money Mondays
How Retail Investors Beat Wall Street (The Rich Hate This) w/ Darren Marble 💵 E99
The founder of the business is a young guy's kid, really. His name is Drew. And he suffers from cerebral palsy. And he's in a wheelchair. And he has not let that stop him. So Drew wanted to start a business when he was in high school. I think he was a senior. And he was in like a business class competition. And he told his professor he had an idea to start a hot sauce company.
The Money Mondays
How Retail Investors Beat Wall Street (The Rich Hate This) w/ Darren Marble 💵 E99
And it was going to be the next big thing. And his professor said, this is unrealistic. And gave the kid a B minus. And that was his inspiration to start the crippling company. She's like, he's making fun of himself. You know, he's calling himself a cripple, a crippling company. And the names of the hot sauces are similarly, you know, funny and kind of have humor.
The Money Mondays
How Retail Investors Beat Wall Street (The Rich Hate This) w/ Darren Marble 💵 E99
Anyways, he took $3,000 he had saved up, started the business, and they'll hit $5 million in sales this year. What? $5 million. They've sold over 400,000 bottles of hot sauce. The crippling company. And... 5% of the revenues of this business go to a cerebral palsy foundation. And so I think that for his business, that makes sense. And maybe for another business, it makes sense.
The Money Mondays
How Retail Investors Beat Wall Street (The Rich Hate This) w/ Darren Marble 💵 E99
So I think it really comes down to the founder. Who is the founder? What are they passionate about? Do they think it's appropriate to give back? And maybe they can.
The Money Mondays
How Retail Investors Beat Wall Street (The Rich Hate This) w/ Darren Marble 💵 E99
Wow, that's a good question. I don't know that I have the right answer at this moment, but what I'll say is that I'm a guy that's in my early 40s. I'm 44. I've been doing this for a hot minute. You and I have known each other for 10 years. just now in my mid 40s, my businesses are starting to really take off.
The Money Mondays
How Retail Investors Beat Wall Street (The Rich Hate This) w/ Darren Marble 💵 E99
It's starting to really get exciting in terms of the execution, the tangible results, and there's maybe some wealth accumulation just now starting to happen. And I've spent 20 years of my life to get to the moment where it's just now getting exciting. It's been 20 years grinding, failing. I don't know if you know all the details, but I've been hacked, stalked, sued, extorted along the way.
The Money Mondays
How Retail Investors Beat Wall Street (The Rich Hate This) w/ Darren Marble 💵 E99
I know some of those you can relate to, maybe others not. Anyways, it's been a long journey. I don't want my children to come into a world in the future. If these companies are big, you know, big success, which I hope they are for my sake, my investor's sake, my family's sake. I would never imagine just laying it out for, for my children where they don't know the value of hardware.
The Money Mondays
How Retail Investors Beat Wall Street (The Rich Hate This) w/ Darren Marble 💵 E99
I own and operate two companies that are in the online capital raising space. So I have a FinTech company, Issuance, which is like a processing engine for securities. It's like Stripe for securities or Stripe for capital.
The Money Mondays
How Retail Investors Beat Wall Street (The Rich Hate This) w/ Darren Marble 💵 E99
And maybe that's old school, but like, You know, I think there's value in learning how to commit to something for many, many years and to work hard for many, many years. And we live in an era where there's a lot of younger people that maybe don't have the work ethic of you or me. It's different generations, different time.
The Money Mondays
How Retail Investors Beat Wall Street (The Rich Hate This) w/ Darren Marble 💵 E99
But I think personally, it's really important to instill a work ethic in my kids. So at minimum, they're going to be working and they're going to learn and I don't care what they do. Maybe they can serve fries. Maybe they can do something else. But, you know, they need to be working and learning and kind of earning their keep over time.
The Money Mondays
How Retail Investors Beat Wall Street (The Rich Hate This) w/ Darren Marble 💵 E99
You can watch the Going Public series on goingpublic.com. If you're looking to raise capital and you've got a massive community, you should check out issuance.com. Find me on Twitter at Darren Marble. And this was awesome. It's a real treat to be in here with you, D.
The Money Mondays
How Retail Investors Beat Wall Street (The Rich Hate This) w/ Darren Marble 💵 E99
And then as you know, I'm a producer of a show of which you're a star called Going Public, which is like Shark Tank where viewers can learn about exciting companies like Cards and Coffee. and ultimately click to invest and buy shares in featured companies while they watch.
The Money Mondays
How Retail Investors Beat Wall Street (The Rich Hate This) w/ Darren Marble 💵 E99
I would say, in summary, my mission and kind of what drives me in these companies is a very simple idea that customers deserve an opportunity to be owners in companies, regardless of your net worth, your income,
The Money Mondays
How Retail Investors Beat Wall Street (The Rich Hate This) w/ Darren Marble 💵 E99
And now there's new laws in the United States that permit everyday Americans to buy shares in companies like Cards and Coffee or thousands of others that are turning to their communities to help fuel the next stage of growth of their businesses.
The Money Mondays
How Retail Investors Beat Wall Street (The Rich Hate This) w/ Darren Marble 💵 E99
So it's a show like Shark Tank where we follow the stories of founders building their businesses, raising capital. And now we've infused the format with apprentice style challenges. So for instance, if you haven't watched, we put Dan in a boxing ring with Floyd Mayweather. Yes, we did. And the lights go on and it's boom, there's Floyd, the greatest boxer alive.
The Money Mondays
How Retail Investors Beat Wall Street (The Rich Hate This) w/ Darren Marble 💵 E99
And you're at the Money Mayweather gym. And your challenge was to pitch your business while sparring with him. That is you and the other founders out of their comfort zone. And that's what makes this show exciting. It's what makes it authentic and entertaining. Season one was much more of a documentary style. Put a few million dollars into the production. We got a startup documentary.
The Money Mondays
How Retail Investors Beat Wall Street (The Rich Hate This) w/ Darren Marble 💵 E99
I went to my partner the other year and said, if this is going to be bigger than Shark Tank, it needs to be more interesting. We have to have a true reality format here. Like kidnapping me? Like kidnapping you at your own ranch, nonetheless. The origin of this company is my co-founder, Todd Goldberg, pitched me on this idea in 2017. We were at a Ruth's Chris Steakhouse in New York.
The Money Mondays
How Retail Investors Beat Wall Street (The Rich Hate This) w/ Darren Marble 💵 E99
I was involved in an IPO where the retail investor, Everyday Americans, were actually able to buy IPO shares. And it was unique. It was an historic deal. And he said, Darren, what if we were to create a show like Shark Tank where viewers can invest? And I said, Todd, as you're a very good friend, I'm here to tell you this is a very bad idea.
The Money Mondays
How Retail Investors Beat Wall Street (The Rich Hate This) w/ Darren Marble 💵 E99
I've heard this pitch myself 100 times, and you're not the only guy that's pitched me on this. And he was kind of shocked. Todd is not a guy who likes to hear no, which ultimately makes him a good co-founder for me. He said, OK, this is such a common idea. Where do I watch it? And of course, it didn't exist. And what we realized in that moment is that it's a very complicated business to execute.
The Money Mondays
How Retail Investors Beat Wall Street (The Rich Hate This) w/ Darren Marble 💵 E99
So we figured out what were the components that we would need to put together to produce this show. We need production, we need capital, we need technology, we need a business model, we need a distribution partner. Who's gonna put this show out where their audience can potentially invest money into a company that may or may not be successful? Maybe a company fails.
The Money Mondays
How Retail Investors Beat Wall Street (The Rich Hate This) w/ Darren Marble 💵 E99
So we were trying to answer these questions, liability, risk, compliance. And it's taken us seven years, you know, to put out two seasons. And now we're on our way into production for season three and hopefully a lot more next year.
The Money Mondays
How Retail Investors Beat Wall Street (The Rich Hate This) w/ Darren Marble 💵 E99
Issuance is a software platform. It's a platform that supports various kinds of online capital raising. So we have a product for campaigns which are known as regulation crowdfunding campaigns. This is a capital raising tool that's been in effect since 2016 that allows companies, startups, to raise up to $5 million from anyone over the age of 18 globally.
The Money Mondays
How Retail Investors Beat Wall Street (The Rich Hate This) w/ Darren Marble 💵 E99
But to host a Reg CF campaign, you have to work with a FINRA regulated funding portal or a FINRA regulated broker dealer. So we're regulated. This is a regulated software platform. It's Shopify for shares or Stripe for shares. But ultimately, it's a subscription engine.
The Money Mondays
How Retail Investors Beat Wall Street (The Rich Hate This) w/ Darren Marble 💵 E99
It's a software that allows retail investors to buy shares in a startup using their credit card, debit card, cash app, ACH or wire transfer. It's mobile optimized so that the everyday American, the retail investor, can buy shares in a startup on their phone and check out using Apple Pay.
The Money Mondays
How Retail Investors Beat Wall Street (The Rich Hate This) w/ Darren Marble 💵 E99
same way we buy products when we see an ad on instagram so we've really worked to make this software super slick really fast checkout it's about 45 50 seconds and compliant with sec rules and regulations it's taken us many years and many millions of dollars to kind of build out so let's say someone has a company and they're like oh i'm gonna google search crowdfunding crowdfunding campaign
The Money Mondays
How Retail Investors Beat Wall Street (The Rich Hate This) w/ Darren Marble 💵 E99
Really good question. So just like any kind of capital raise, you know, raising capital for your business under Reg CF, for instance, it's not a fit for everyone. Typically, the companies that raise the most capital have a community of customers, fans, and followers.
The Money Mondays
How Retail Investors Beat Wall Street (The Rich Hate This) w/ Darren Marble 💵 E99
So if you're listening, you're watching, if you have a brand that's been established for several years, you're doing a few million in revenue, you've got a big email list, highly engaged email list, you have a real authentic and engaged community, you're a great fit to raise capital under reg CF. You have a community that you can very easily turn into investors.
The Money Mondays
How Retail Investors Beat Wall Street (The Rich Hate This) w/ Darren Marble 💵 E99
Conversely, if you're an AI guru who sold your last company for a billion dollars and you're starting your next business, but you don't have that natural audience, you're actually not a good fit.
The Money Mondays
How Retail Investors Beat Wall Street (The Rich Hate This) w/ Darren Marble 💵 E99
So, you know, we, we try to work with companies and figure out which businesses are actually going to have success raising capital this way, because it tends to favor the brands that have existing communities.
The Money Mondays
How Retail Investors Beat Wall Street (The Rich Hate This) w/ Darren Marble 💵 E99
Well, there's actually prerequisites first. So before you launch, you actually have to provide certain disclosure to the investing public. And this is why the SEC, the Securities and Exchange Commission, highly supports our industry. You have to provide two years of reviewed or audited financials as a first step. Then you have to file a disclosure document with the SEC called a Form C.
The Money Mondays
How Retail Investors Beat Wall Street (The Rich Hate This) w/ Darren Marble 💵 E99
And one of these steps requires a third party auditor. The other step requires a third party securities lawyer or a securities law firm. And that's the trade off. So, you know, I will sometimes say that this industry is the opposite or the antithesis of cryptocurrency. No judgment on crypto, although I'm not active in that space.
The Money Mondays
How Retail Investors Beat Wall Street (The Rich Hate This) w/ Darren Marble 💵 E99
But with crypto, you can kind of launch a meme coin and tomorrow start pumping and promoting. And that's not how this industry works. These are real businesses that have real revenues in products and services that are raising capital, selling real securities. And that requires a process of disclosure, audits, legal work,
The Money Mondays
How Retail Investors Beat Wall Street (The Rich Hate This) w/ Darren Marble 💵 E99
And then once you go through that process, and this could take 30, 60, 90 days, depending on the readiness of the business, then you launch the campaign. And from there, there's a marketing campaign that takes place. There's a marketing campaign to your customers, your fans, your followers. You could invest dollars in paid media. You could bring in influencers or celebrities to market the deal.
The Money Mondays
How Retail Investors Beat Wall Street (The Rich Hate This) w/ Darren Marble 💵 E99
All of these things are now legal. So that's kind of the upside.
The Money Mondays
How Retail Investors Beat Wall Street (The Rich Hate This) w/ Darren Marble 💵 E99
You know, alternatives are maybe the most exciting aspect of the financial markets right now. Alternatives meaning investment opportunities that are not public, right? So you've got stocks, bonds, those things are public. There's a lot of liquidity. Alternatives are startups, right?
The Money Mondays
How Retail Investors Beat Wall Street (The Rich Hate This) w/ Darren Marble 💵 E99
They are secondaries, maybe secondaries in Anduril or Stripe, you know, big, big multibillion dollar private companies. But where there's demand for those securities are real estate investments, private credit. So, you know, this market is maybe the fastest growing market in industry. in U.S. capital markets right now.
The Money Mondays
How Retail Investors Beat Wall Street (The Rich Hate This) w/ Darren Marble 💵 E99
One of the reasons, by the way, is that fewer companies are going public right now than ever before. So there's a backlog of companies that raise a lot of money. They're private. They don't want to go public. They're not having a hard time raising capital in private markets. And also, people watching Jim Cramer's CNBC, that's an old model. That's a dying model. That's a dying network, truthfully.
The Money Mondays
How Retail Investors Beat Wall Street (The Rich Hate This) w/ Darren Marble 💵 E99
Cramer's become a meme. The average millennial or Gen Z investor doesn't trust traditional financial media. They don't get their news from Jim Cramer or CNBC. They get their news from newsletters, from X, from TikTok, from Instagram, from consumable viral content. So the younger investors are actually more interested in alternatives now than ever before.
The Money Mondays
How Retail Investors Beat Wall Street (The Rich Hate This) w/ Darren Marble 💵 E99
Um, you know, I think that the risks are that you're investing in a, an asset that doesn't have liquidity. So you're not going to buy $350 of a startup in our show and flip it for a thousand dollars tomorrow. Somebody investing in cards and coffee is hoping that you as the founder. are going to be able to exit the business one day. It could be in two years, it could be in five years.
The Money Mondays
How Retail Investors Beat Wall Street (The Rich Hate This) w/ Darren Marble 💵 E99
Maybe you sell the company, maybe you IPO, maybe you don't, right? So there's risk there. But that's where there's also massive reward. So we have an investor, for instance, in our company, who you met in the series, Cyan Bannister. Cyan is a famous Silicon Valley investor.
The Money Mondays
How Retail Investors Beat Wall Street (The Rich Hate This) w/ Darren Marble 💵 E99
She and her husband invested $50,000 into Uber as a private company in the seed round and turned that $50,000 into 200 and something odd million at the IPO. That's the kind of return you're not going to get investing in a public company, unless you're holding it, you know, Nvidia for 15 years. So there's this kind of asymmetric upside in the right alternative investment deals.
The Money Mondays
How Retail Investors Beat Wall Street (The Rich Hate This) w/ Darren Marble 💵 E99
I love it. You know that I believe in it. And I think there's a system that needs to be disrupted. That system is a system of traditional venture capital, where the rich get richer. You've got the limited partners investing in the general partners, and you've got these multi billion dollar funds. And these people are touting access to the best startups. And
The Money Mondays
How Retail Investors Beat Wall Street (The Rich Hate This) w/ Darren Marble 💵 E99
You know, this is the rich getting richer. And what I believe is that real wealth can be created and should be created by everyday Americans, regardless of how rich you are, how successful you are. You shouldn't need to stroke a million dollar check or a 10 million dollar check into a business to be able to earn a real return, to earn a venture style return.
The Money Mondays
How Retail Investors Beat Wall Street (The Rich Hate This) w/ Darren Marble 💵 E99
So what we're doing is we're working to level the playing field. and make it exciting. The whole purpose of this show is to provide entertainment, insight, education, and access. Access to exciting investments that the average person has never had access to until now. And that's what we believe in.
The Money Mondays
How Retail Investors Beat Wall Street (The Rich Hate This) w/ Darren Marble 💵 E99
It's a very good question. You know, I think there's a common adage and it's probably been said before on your show, which is invest in what you know. Right. So everybody has some level of expertise, whether they know it or not. A lot of people have expertise.
The Money Mondays
How Retail Investors Beat Wall Street (The Rich Hate This) w/ Darren Marble 💵 E99
They don't think they're experts, but they are relative to someone else down the street that doesn't have three years, four years of experience doing whatever they're doing. Investing in what you know is a good starting point.
The Money Mondays
How Retail Investors Beat Wall Street (The Rich Hate This) w/ Darren Marble 💵 E99
You're never going to be an expert in five sectors, 10 sectors, but maybe you're an expert or you have some knowledge or some advantage in one because you worked at a business, you started a company in some sector, you're passionate about consumer products or medical devices because you have a family member that had some issue and you've got some knowledge.
The Money Mondays
How Retail Investors Beat Wall Street (The Rich Hate This) w/ Darren Marble 💵 E99
I think that's one thing is kind of investing in your passions, things you are knowledgeable about. That's going to make it a little bit easier. And what's cool about this industry is that the retail investor can invest $100 into Cards & Coffee or another company in our show or outside of the show. You don't need to put in your life savings. In fact, of course, you shouldn't.
The Money Mondays
How Retail Investors Beat Wall Street (The Rich Hate This) w/ Darren Marble 💵 E99
So not to say that the person that's investing $100 shouldn't do any due diligence, but at minimum, I like the idea of people investing into things they know they have some expertise in. That's maybe a good starting point.
The Money Mondays
How Retail Investors Beat Wall Street (The Rich Hate This) w/ Darren Marble 💵 E99
We're looking for exceptional founders. In a lot of ways, we operate our business like a venture fund. So we're not technically making an investment, a direct cash investment in the companies in our show, but we are getting equity. We're getting compensated in equity. And so we're looking for incredible businesses, but incredible founders. This is a show.
The Money Mondays
How Retail Investors Beat Wall Street (The Rich Hate This) w/ Darren Marble 💵 E99
So we are looking for people that are interesting, authentic, entertaining, maybe a little bit eccentric, that will play well in a show like this, right? Where they're going through multiple challenges. So we're looking for diverse founders, founders of color, female founders, women-owned businesses,
The Money Mondays
How Retail Investors Beat Wall Street (The Rich Hate This) w/ Darren Marble 💵 E99
to really give viewers a sense of, you know, the average, you know, kind of, there's so much out there. We've never wanted this show to be, it's the white male founder show, whether, you know, that's just boring. And that's not the reality of this country today. There's a lot of diversity out there in the world of entrepreneurship.