Hey it's Tony from Hammett. What a journey it's been on going public but time is running out. Can you believe there's only 28 days left till the big finale?
So click the link and own a piece of these reggae companies today. Okay let's get this episode started. Today on Going Public, Josh Snow is back to work with Trouble and NGT Academy on growth strategy and innovative marketing techniques. Buying time is really the best way to grow a business.
While Hammitt is taking their shot at pitching and to make investors big and small. We got our first customer! Woo! And Jeff Hoffman makes a return visit to check the progress for Proven as they prepare their brand for the public market. You guys know that I was most concerned with our messaging.
It's all happening today on Going Public. On Going Public, you're going to hear from four companies that are open for investment from the general public, including you, the viewer. The companies have all filed an offering circular with the SEC that you should read carefully, including the section called Risk Factors. Head over to goingpublic.com for more info. So Josh, you've been all over the country.
Get us up to date. Tell us what you've been up to. I visited Hammett headquarters in Hermosa.
Welcome to the building. Got to see the products in person and understand the craftsmanship and the quality. That is going to help you have a more grassroots approach to building a community and growing it.
I had a chance to sit down with Proven in Miami and talk about their business model and some of the efforts that they're working on. The right celebrity partner will change the face of your brand overnight. Next to my hometown in Phoenix, I get to see the team at Next Gen Tea.
So I've been globetrotting. It's been a lot of fun. Josh has sold more than $100 million of snow. It's a teeth whitening kit.
His skill is how to create a new category and scale. Entrepreneurship to me is freedom. It's creative freedom.
It's the ability to help others gain their own level of freedom. Ultimately, it's a beautiful thing. It's a powerful thing.
And it's a creative thing. It's an outlet. This is our second mentor session. We're just excited to talk with Josh.
I think he has a lot of wisdom and experience. So we're like sponges over here with these mentors because they've done a lot of things we haven't done yet. And I love that.
What's going on guys? It's so awesome to finally meet in person. So, listen, how would you guys describe your brand and the brand that you're building?
At NGT Academy, we can take people from zero to engineer in less than six minutes. months and our students don't pay a dime until they start making at least 40,000 a year. And it's just not about just getting that technical aptitude. Our North Star is when we change someone's life and the trajectory of their career path.
You got an incredible thing going here. I believe that we will fail ourselves as a nation if we don't figure out a way to capitalize on the massive amount of talent that is in this country today. If you have to quit high school so you can help your family out, Are you going to be programming at night?
Probably not. I feel like Next Gen T has an incredible model where they align themselves with their student. And for me, I believe that this is just one of the many things that I want to contribute to to help keep the American dream alive because our product is our people. How can we broaden the scope over time so that it's even more approachable and accessible?
It's like when we started this company, anyone with a credit card could actually enroll into our programs. Self-paced, all online, weekly coaching, losing money on that just to build brand awareness and credibility. Now it's more about target marketing. So when you're growing a business, there's a way to just grow and there's a way to grow smart.
The just grow path is, hey, we want to add as many users, as many customers to our business, our brand, to our services, as fast as you can and figure it out later. Instead, I recommend growing smart. You're looking at what's working in your business today and how do you double down on that?
And then how do I look at areas in my business? that perhaps I'm missing out on huge opportunity. For example, in my business Snow, we neglected the Amazon sales channel for a very long time. But when we realized it was an opportunity for us to grow our business profitably, then we realized that we should be investing in that area versus trying to make Pinterest work for our brand or some other channel that maybe hasn't proven itself already. Are your prospective students hanging out?
Obviously on Facebook and Instagram, but specifically, what are they popping up on these forums and talking about? That's an opportunity where you could acquire the entire forum. Oh, yeah.
Brought to you by NextNT. Oh, yeah. Forums, Discord servers, I think that's where a lot of guys hang out.
What are your thoughts on acquiring, let's say, a cybersecurity-specific job site for prospective students to know that you have a direct pipeline? If we can match make employer demand with the talent and build a talent in demand That's ideal. That's ideal and then we can really democratize education. It's funny we haven't thought of any of this yet so this is great. We got out of the mentor session already some really good actionable things.
You know because we have a million lives to change. We do. We need to take these people from zero to engineering.
Let's get at it. You have been on your website now for a while and honestly with what you're already doing how can we capitalize what's there? There's a strategy called the edge strategy and what it means is that in the course of doing normal business There's a lot more enterprise value that kind of spills over But we as entrepreneurs are too busy to catch it all So I think you have such a wealth of stories and lives that have been changed One time there was a student crying on the graduation ceremony had his family there and he was just so thankful It's a magical moment in the beauty space.
We call them beauty moments when he or she finds something that finally works And they've got a little more pep in their step. What we've been spending the last few years doing is trying to find those stories, extract them, and then amplify them so that they multiply. I would love to see some content from the families. That right there would attract so many people, and I think it would lower the barrier of a perception of, like, I'm not smart enough. I'm not good enough.
That certainly helps a lot. We do have some student success testimonials. We have quite a bit of them. Like forklift driver to network engineer at Google, or stay at home mom that got a cybersecurity analyst position. Capturing the actual transformational experience that the student has.
This is new territory for us. We're going to go to town. Hey, nice to meet you. Hey Joe, pleasure to see you man.
Today we're interviewing Joe Cabezuela. He is a student success. He started the program in October of 2020 and now he's got a job as a network engineer at APEC Systems.
NGT Academy has impacted my life in ways that I didn't think possible. I'm right now working a job that I didn't think was possible. My wife was the most supportive of it because she knew that this would lead to getting a job and having a good civilian life after the military.
Joe needed this program. He really did to just be more self-assured and to not only catch up on his skills that he learned in the past, but to also learn more skills for the future. Veterans are people we really have a soft spot for.
We're veterans ourselves. We want to get veterans into more jobs. So we really love seeing these students. have success and seeing that smile on their face and that amazement actually when they finish the program that's what keeps me coming to work every day. Super stoked to be able to provide Joe with services get him trained up and into the field and you know supporting his family in an amazing way and we're so happy we're able to bring your family more joy and happiness through this whole process.
I'm hoping the audience will find through watching these testimonial videos our program and our training is extremely effective. It's going to give you the results as long as you stay focused, stay on track, and keep running toward that North Star. NGT Academy, what's your take on these guys?
I think they're a hoot. I think they're a lot of fun to mentor. They're really open-minded.
I love the energy. They have a great model. But, you know, really, potential pitfall is potentially them getting in their own way. And I think the best way to prevent that is to hire some high-powered team members on the marketing ops side.
But I challenge them to go a little bit bigger because I don't want them to lose focus with their in-person business. Because as we know, in-person business doesn't scale the same way that the digital side. So if they can follow through on at least one or two of those things, I think they'll be in it.
an even better position. Hey there, TK here from NGT Academy. If you've seen on the show, our company is all about changing lives.
In fact, our mission, change a million lives within the next decade. That's a million new jobs. That's a million families with financial security. That's a million folks not having to worry about large amounts of student loan debt to grow their careers.
Now, if you love our mission, I invite you to join us by visiting invest.ngt.academy and and owning a piece of next gen today. Hey guys, so I had a I had a chance to download the app, do my research, so that I could be a better help. We're here to be with Treble to understand their current efforts, what's working, what's not working, so that I can kind of diagnose and see where there might be some large opportunities. Bob and I often talk about how are we going to get to billions of people around the planet, right? We're getting a lot of incoming from Indonesia, for example, saying, hey, when am I getting Treble?
How come you guys are not here? We're hoping to raise a lot of money through a Regulation A offering. How are we going to invest that money to do one very, very important thing?
Triple, quadruple our users in a very short time frame. If we wanted to go to Indonesia next, walk me through what does that look like, timeline, etc. Opening a new territory is not complicated. We found that you need about 5 million people in a market for us to then monetize it in a way to cover the royalties.
We have to consider something called minimum monetizable scale. Before we enter into new markets, and here's what this means. Number one, we've got to be big enough to get the attention of brands while we're still covering costs of things like royalties, customer acquisition, and company overhead. Things change when we get to about 5 million active users in the market. So as that active user number goes up, the cost per user on an amortized basis goes down.
User growth is our top priority when we consider expanding into a new market. So what I found is buying time is really the best way to grow a business, in the way of acquiring competitors. So if we're looking at Indonesia, I'm sure there's someone who created a free music app in Indonesia and now has millions of downloads and users.
You can immediately swallow that app. You can pull them into your user interface, expand the catalog, and immediately have the sales side of it kind of already pre-sold even. His idea was acquisition of customers through acquiring companies.
And I loved it. And then tracking the success so we know what's working and what isn't. I believe that.
It's a very safe and secure way to grow the business. It's very important as you grow your business to make sure that you're tracking every metric that's a part of that growth. What are the key performance indicators or KPIs that your team is all looking after? Are you tracking how many Instagram followers are growing? Are you tracking how many subscribers you're getting in your business?
What are the 10? Metrics that you can wake up to in the morning that will give you an idea of not just how much growth you're seeing, but the qualitative nature of that growth. So in Treble's case, tracking the success of their growth is really exciting because they have a mobile app, and inside of the mobile app, they can understand how users are interacting with the mobile app.
If they place a certain artist on the homepage for a certain Latin American country, What's the likelihood that someone will then do other actions that are monetizable? They really have to understand how are the users utilizing the app? What features are they clicking?
And what's the likelihood that they're going to generate revenue as a user inside of Travel? What are you guys doing right now in terms of celebrity? Any celebrities on the line that you're excited about?
What we looked for is global name, big social media reach, but they have to appeal to the US Hispanic market. And the Mexican market because that's where we have a big user base right now. Right. So we narrowed in on Maluma, Pitbull, J Balvin and Bad Bunny. Celebrities are great because they're great at the top of the funnel of awareness.
You have someone like Maluma with 50 million followers. People buy from where they like and trust. So it's really nice, especially when you're opening up new markets. It's one of the most effective ways to reduce your customer acquisition costs because you're not having to scream about, hey, this new service, Hey, here's someone you love and it's their app.
Josh really has the pulse of his generation. Even though he's like half my age and half Gary's age, he has expertise in Gen Z and millennial marketing. So that consultation, we would have spent months just trial and error.
You know, it really paid off in that capacity. So Treble, biggest miss, biggest opportunity. I think a lot of opportunities for sure. It's just really for them, it's about prioritizing.
They're really enamored with these big partnerships. The partnerships do take a lot of time. It's something that Bob has to be very hands-on in.
So I think toward the end of the conversation, Bob realized his M&A experience. You know, he kind of lit up in terms of saying, whoa, this helps me in sales, this helps me grow the business, this helps multiply enterprise value without having to do it all themselves. What are the things that they said to you that make you think they might not have their priorities straight? They're restricted in growth because they have to have a certain amount.
of users five million is what they said but getting to five million you have to really score The right partnership and you're kind of putting a lot on one partner to do that heavy lifting. Yes, the product sells itself, but with them, particularly because of the addressable market, if something goes wrong, it goes really wrong. So there's room to do more than one strategy. Hey guys, breaking news, Los Angeles, California, travel.
Here's what's going on. Our offering's closing on March 30, so get your shares before they run out. But let me give you three announcements.
Number one, NBA star Thad Young and his venture fund, Reform Ventures, has completed an investment into Trevel. In addition, Memo Ochoa, who is the goalie of the Mexican soccer team, joined as an advisor, investor, and spokesperson. The biggest announcement is we closed a multi-million dollar investment from 12 industrialists in Mexico City. We're going to be talking to them about partnerships for advertising and spreading the app across Mexico.
So get your Reggae shares now. Offering closes March 30th. More updates to follow.
We've got an added mentor bonus this episode. Jeff Hoffman is back to meet with Ming and Amy from Proven to check in on their branding progress. Did they take his mentorship to heart?
Let's find out. Ming, Amy, it is so good to see you guys again. I'm excited to hear about the progress since we talked last.
The part you guys know that I was most concerned with was our messaging. The truth in sales is that people have one resounding reason when they pick a product. Proven has a problem finding the line between scientific and emotional. Everybody loves your packaging, but here's what I noticed. When I get the product, nothing in there actually says what you did to make this custom for me.
Yeah, I'd love to show you the latest masterpiece that we're trying to formulate on the branding side. Obviously a big step forward. It's something that I look at it, and I know that the thing I just opened was really made for me. And we have done some branding photoshoot. So we have a very good look and feel that all of the team members are very excited about.
It feels so inclusive and futuristic. It emerged the nerdy AI element into the brand itself. I absolutely love the look and feel. You're sort of mixing beauty and nerdiness.
It's very today, embracing that we're data nerds, and we're science nerds, but we care about people feeling good, and looking good, and loving their skin. That's a tough job. And from what I'm looking at here, you guys are doing a really good job of getting there. Solving a heart problem.
Thank you so much. This looks good. You as founders always know why your product's better and different. The world doesn't.
We've got to find a way to get across to people proven as different, proven as better, so all those customers, when they become investors, can sell proven to all of their friends. When your brand is well crafted, it generates excitement and emotional attachment. Crafting a brand is important to going public because your story has to resonate, and I have to start talking about it, and lots of people have to start talking about it.
If you're going to raise money, A hundred dollars or a thousand dollars at a time, you need a lot of people to step up, but you can do that if you have a brand that resonates. The last time we chatted through this, there were a couple of concepts that we were thinking through. All right, so let's hear about those concepts.
So the concepts are, the number one thing is that it's personalized to fit you. So right now what I'm feeling is not the word personalized so much. Personalized is the process.
Why do you do the benefit is because it fits you. So out of that sentence, I'd like us to keep two words in our vocabulary. It fits you.
So what's the next one? It's backed by data and AI. Do you think we need both data and AI in the same sentence?
Isn't the point of AI is that it makes decisions based on data? I think data is the most important piece. And the second most important piece in it is scientifically driven.
This is really interesting because you left AI on the table. The AI is almost irrelevant. We have the data, which is the evidence that this actually works.
I think that's a really strong concept. I think we're circling in, we may even be close to having the sentence. Something like, scientifically formulated to fit me.
And I'm saying me instead of you because we want people out there telling their friends. Why do you buy Proven? Because it's scientifically formulated to fit me.
What do you guys think? I really like it. I like those.
It's part of our, you know, original DNA. I like it. Let's sleep on that. There's another topic we were discussing that we wanted to chat with you about.
We're just so impressed in every way by your wisdom, by your generosity. But not by my skin. So you're going to give me a box, aren't you?
I can take it. We would love to see if you might be interested in being an official advisor to Proven. We know that you are super busy and a lot of people ask for your help.
So we wanted to run this idea by you. I'm very honored that you asked me. And I really, really appreciate it coming from you two, because I know how picky you are.
You know, for me, first thing I look at is the people. Are these people I want to be in the trenches with? Do I believe in your values?
I already know that you guys want to make more people's lives better around the world, right? This is bigger than skin care to you. So I'm humbled and honored that you guys would ask me that, and I would absolutely love to be part of your team formally. Thank you so much.
I'm looking forward to the journey together. Likewise. Thank you, Joe. Heading over to Chris's house.
Why? To get him to invest in Hammett. I've followed Tory Burch, the brand that he started, since before I started Hammett. He seems like a person that leads with his heart.
I'm hoping that I can just get in there and connect, and we can just talk. Hello! Hey brother!
How are you brother? I'm good. What's with the hat?
You know what? It's kind of my lucky hat. It was given to me by one of my best friends and I wear it a lot because people are like, are you a pilot? Dude, you're f***ing insane. I don't know how this meeting's gonna go.
I'm a little nervous. Are you? Yes! Don't be. No, I'm completely calm.
Why would I not be nervous? I've never been in a house like this. Jesus. So tell me where you grew up. I'm born and raised in Cleveland, Ohio.
Went to college in Ohio, Bowling Green. Tell me about your mom and dad. What did they do?
My dad had a grocery store. And how big was it? Was it like a small little bodega type?
Yeah, like three 7-Elevens. Everyone has a bit of nervousness, but I like to think that walk we did, and by getting into who they are, is the best way to ease people into feeling comfortable. So the first 20 minutes was about him. So by the time I went in this... started talking about the product, he should have felt really comfortable like I was his best friend.
How much are you doing in sales now? So we did 15 million in 19 and we're approaching 28.5 to 30, 2021. That's good. This is a hot bag. Thank you.
Is it selling? You know what it's named? What?
The Tony. Yeah. That's good looking.
You picked it. And you're also at a very, very good price. So let's go to this bag.
This handbag is 595. Right, right. What does it cost you? I don't do the cost.
anymore. I have a CEO, Andrew, running it. All of our products will fall within high 60s to an 82 margin.
My instinct is you're paying way too much for your product. I think it's critically important that you check your sourcing. I've spent 13 years hearing buyers tell me that we need to be cheaper.
And my manufacturer, they always deliver. There are no defects. That's how we can give a lifetime warranty.
If you're not constantly delivering higher quality all the time, eventually you're going to get buried. I want my team to look at all your financials, look at your gross margin, talk to your merchants, and see where they're going for the future, what they like, what they do. But $25 million handbag is great.
You haven't even seen the product yet. Well, let's go look. This is freaking beautiful.
I love the big reveal. I mean the leather is really soft and beautiful. We have real suede leather in there as you can see, which no one does. This is really beautiful. We have the softest leather in the industry, hands down.
People touch the bags and they're like, oh, that's when people fall in love with our brand. So now you've touched it. Yeah.
And we spoke. Will you invest in Hammett? You're doing great. Packaging is great.
Feel of it's particularly good. It's like touching cashmere. But for me, I wouldn't be interested as an investor only if I knew I could increase your supply chain and cut your cost of goods by 50%. And I think you can be, you know, a multi hundreds of millions of dollar business.
I don't know if he's the right guy. I'll be honest. But to have a $25 million company this year from start is remarkable.
Thank you. I mean, in the end, there has to be a match, right? Everyone always says, watch who you take it from and why you take the money.
I believe that my vision for Hammett is the right vision. I believe the trust you build with customers should be unassailable, and you want to make sure you just keep building on that. I have to maintain the vision for us to get where Hammett can be.
Whoa! We're out here at the Wine Festival and Car Show at the Rolling Hills Country Club. There's over a hundred cars here worth a hundred and fifty million dollars.
There's a diamond retailer, high-end sunglass, Hammett of course. It's just really great to mix art, architecture, fine wines, great people. I can hang out here.
Hey, how are you? So this comes out in a couple of weeks. It's our It's our first like really deep blue.
I love their bags. I like the quality of it. This is number 105 and there's only 150. Between bags and wallets I have like 15 to 20 maybe more.
You could ask my husband, he's here. He would tell you all about my Hammond Habit. I'm here today to introduce the Hammond investment to people that love our brand and also people that don't know us. We got our first customer! Frankie closed two real estate deals the last month.
Yeah. Charge her double. I think what I love about Reg A is the same thing I loved about building Hammett. We go directly to the people that believe in who we are. One person at a time.
Our fans. Our vendors. the associates that have been selling it, and we let them decide if Hammett's a great brand.
It's so exciting. I wish you all the luck in the world, man. I think the person that's looking for a quick buck, we don't want you. I think the person that doesn't truly believe in what we're trying to do, build a hundred-year brand, we don't want you. We want people that trust myself as the leader.
They trust the product because it speaks for itself. And they trust our entire team to always make the right decision because we always do what's right. Sometimes that is not a quick buck.
Matter of fact, building luxury, it's never that. We're delivering on every promise today so that 50 years from now, we can be a classic investment. Hi, this is Tony.
It takes a special eye and an authentic passion to feel deeply moved and inspired by the future of American luxury. And if you're feeling drawn to our formula of fashion and functionality, well then we see something special in you. I invite you to join Join us now as one of our esteemed flagship shareholders.
We're more than halfway through Going Public's 10 episodes, and this is your chance to own a piece of Hammett. Don't miss this opportunity. There won't be another Hammett Reggae at this price.
So join us. at invest.hammett.com. We've officially passed the halfway point on Going Public. We've seen high-pressure pitch meetings, world-class mentorship sessions, up-close internal workshops, and the very personal side of these companies. And that's just the beginning of what's in store.
If you're interested in learning more about these companies or want to click to invest yourself, head over to goingpublic.com for more info. Next week on Going Public, we're digging deep. into these offerings.
Our founders are headed to KPMG, one of the largest global professional services firms, to meet with some advisors who know how to turn insight into opportunity. Why does the world need another handbag company? They're talking valuation, Reg A offering terms, and the three little letters on everyone's mind. IPO.
What are some key milestones that we should hit to be able to IPO? And some potential big news for two companies. One landed a follow-up investor meeting. I'm going to make sure that I do not leave until he clicks to invest.
While the other is talking terms with the major brand for strategic investment. Have you made up your mind yet? We're going a little bit back and forth. There's more to come on this Reg A journey. See you next time on Going Public.
Going public is for entertainment purposes and at no time do the company sponsors nor any participants provide investment advice endorsement analysis or recommendations with respect to securities on going public You're going to hear from four companies that are giving you an opportunity to invest through an exemption from registration with the SEC called regulation a These offerings have not gone through a registration process with the SEC and do not have the investor protection that it provides And it should be noted that just because the show is called Going Public, there is no guarantee that any company will in fact go public or ever list on an exchange like NASDAQ, for example. Bottom line, you need to know the risks going in. And Going Public makes no assurances or guarantees that any potential investor commitment or strategies discussed will result in companies'success. Another thing you need to know is that Going Public is operated by Crush Capital.
And Crush Capital is being compensated by the companies featured on the show. And some of our mentors have interests in the companies as well. These relationships mean that there could be a conflict of interest between the investors, Crush Capital, the companies featured, and the mentors on the show.
We detail all these potential conflicts on the Going Public website at goingpublic.com.