Zane Tarence

Investment Banking and Creating a Valuable Business

Subscribe on Apple Podcasts | Google Podcasts | Spotify | Pandora| deezer | Amazon Music | iHeart Radio | Radio Public | tunein

Zane Tarence is an investment banker and a Partner and Managing Director at Founders Advisors. Over the past 20 years, he has led and completed more than 87 technology deals and knows exactly what can make a deal happen and what can cause it to fail.

Zane created and sold two tech businesses of his own to publicly-traded companies, which helped him understand the ingredients necessary to close an exceptional deal. He is a renowned speaker and board member for numerous companies and philanthropic organizations. Zane is also the Founder of Silicon Y’all, a SaaS and internet summit, and the author of 17 Reasons Your Company Is Not Investment Grade & What To Do About It.

Here’s a glimpse of what you’ll learn: 

  • Zane Tarence explains what investment banking involves
  • What makes a company investment worthy?
  • Rich Goldstein and Zane discuss the importance of sustainability and predictability
  • What creates value in a company?
  • How intellectual property protection and documentation increase a company’s predictability
  • Zane talks about the risks of concentrating on only one or two big customers
  • Why innovation and growth matter in investment banking
  • Zane talks about Silicon Y’all and explains how to get in touch

In this episode…

What makes a company investment worthy? What can limit a company’s prospects of getting many investment bids?

Investment bankers and institutional investors want to see growth in any company they’re considering investing in. They also want a company with valuable data, effective management teams and advisors, excellent financial records, thorough documentation, and efficient processes. All these help in differentiating a company from its competitors and increasing its value in the eyes of an investor.

Zane Tarence, an investment banker, and Partner and Managing Director at Founders Advisors, joins Rich Goldstein in this episode of the Innovations and Breakthroughs Podcast to talk about creating a valuable business. Zane discusses the importance of predictability and sustainability in revenue, the value of securing intellectual property protection, why innovation matters, and more. Stay tuned.

Resources mentioned in this episode:

Sponsor for this episode…

This episode is brought to you by Goldstein Patent Law, a firm that helps protect inventors’ ideas and products. They have advised and obtained patents for thousands of companies over the past 25 years. So if you’re a company that has a software, product, or design you want protected, you can go to https://goldsteinpatentlaw.com/. They have amazing free resources for learning more about the patent process. 

You can email their team at welcome@goldsteinpc.com to explore if it’s a match to work together. Rich Goldstein has also written a book for the American Bar Association that explains in plain English how patents work, which is called ‘The ABA Consumer Guide to Obtaining a Patent.’

Intro (00:09):
Welcome to innovations and breakthroughs with your host, Rich Goldstein, talking about the evolutionary, the revolutionary, the inspiration and the perspiration and those aha that change everything. And now here’s your host, Rich Goldstein,

Rich (00:33):
Rich Goldstein here, host of the innovations and breakthroughs podcast, where I featured top leaders in the path they took to create change. Past guests include Joe Polish, Roland Frazier, and Brian Smith. This episode is brought to you by my company, Goldstein patent law, where we help you to protect your ideas and products we’ve advised and obtained patents for thousands of companies over the past 27 years. So if you’re a company that has software product or a design, you want protected go to Goldstein patent law.com, whether our amazing free resources for learning about the patent process, and you could email my team@welcomegoldsteinpc.com to explore if it’s a match to work together. You could also check out the book I wrote for the American bar association that explains in plain English, how patents work it’s called the ABA consumer guide to obtaining a patent. I have with me here today, Zane Terence, Zane is an investment banker he’s partner and managing director of founders advisory technology practice.

Rich (01:29):
Over the past 20 years, Zane has led and completed more than 87 technology deals. And so he’s well in touch with what can help make a deal happen and what can cause it to fail. Uh, and before he worked with founders, Zane created and sold two tech businesses of his own to publicly traded companies, which helped him to really understand the ingredients that are necessary to close an exceptional deal. Uh, Zane frequently speaks on stages as a board member of numerous companies and philanthropic organizations. And I’m very pleased to welcome here today. Zane Terence, welcome Zane.

Zane (02:02):
Thank you. Rich. Excited to be here, my friend.

Rich (02:05):
Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. And, and so, so here’s the thing. So investment banking, uh, it’s a term, so I’m a lawyer. And so I’ve been trained in, in some legal financial things let’s say, but it’s investment banking is a term that’s always alluded me. I never quite, I have have an idea of what it is. I, I never knew exactly what it is and what elements go into it. So, um, I’d say for other people who’ve been afraid to admit that they don’t quite know what investment banking is. I’d love. If you can just give us a bit of a primer on, on the, the area of, of your field of endeavor

Zane (02:45):
Really rich. And that is a great question. And I’m a different, uh, type of investment Pinker because of the way I, I got to this space, um, like many of your listeners, uh, I was an owner and operator, as you said, um, in my intro and I worked for IBM before that, and I ran a consulting practice for IBM global services. And I like you, uh, it was kind of fuzzy to me what investment bankers did after I started my first business. Um, IBM actually was a corporate venting partner. And then I ended up high having some VC groups involved and then a private equity group. And one day rich, my investors in a, in a meeting in a board meeting said, Zay would want to introduce you to somebody. His name is chip Porter. He’s an investment banker. I’m 56 years old right now.

Zane (03:34):
I was 32 years old then, and that’s really my first time to really get with this. And here’s what they do. And we do now. Um, and I’ll give a little bit about my background in a minute, the way I got here, uh, we help entrepreneurs and founders of private companies. And this is what all investment bankers do. The bigger ones on wall street work with more publicly traded companies of boutique bank. Like we are, we have about 42 bankers, uh, and, and we are a broker dealer. And of course you, as an attorney, understand that we are regulated by the security and exchange commission, um, and also FINRA to where we can literally, uh, work with private companies to securitize them so we can take them to a broader market of investors, um, and they can, um, they can invest in those businesses. So what we do is we help these entrepreneurs and founders understand their liquidity options and, and these vary, most entrepreneurs don’t understand this.

Zane (04:35):
They need a Sherpa, they need a river guide to say, here’s my company in, am I truly investment grade? And are there different types of investors and buyers, um, out there that would be interested in me and how do I access that? And, and most entrepreneurs don’t know how so we help ’em do that. We help you get underwritten, tell your story, get your financials, your growth strategy, unity, economic models in position for institutional investors to give you capital or to purchase stock in your company. That’s what we do now. There’s some other things as well, like fairness opinions when somebody needs, you know, if you have investors and they want evaluation, it’s like, Hey, what’s this company war earth, right? Or, um, buy side work. If you have a, uh, growth strategy that includes growth by acquisition, we’ll help you in, uh, implement a buy side strategy, but basically we’re river guides to help entrepreneurs understand and prepare for all the optionality that’s in the more marketplace for their business.

Rich (05:44):
Hmm. Got it. And I, and I guess another way to say that too, is that you help structure deals. You you’ve helped figure out what are the options. And then you structure deals, which allow them to obtain some liquidity or get some investment, uh, into their business, even if they’re not leaving. Right. If they’re right. Uh, if they’re just restructuring in a way that brings capital in

Zane (06:09):
A absolutely. And, and that takes all kinds of forms in primary capital, that’s basically going to the balance sheet or secondary capital where, or a, uh, owner of a private company says I’d like a little liquidity, whether it’s 20%, 40%, 80% or a hundred percent. So you’re exactly right. We, we guide them through that and we are deal people. And of course you, as an attorney, um, attorneys are a big part of our client’s teams because y’all help memorialize the, these deals and make sure the risk, um, is appropriately allocated, you know, amongst the seller and the buyer.

Rich (06:45):
Got it. Um, okay. And so then, like what helps make a company investment worthy? Like if you were an entrepreneur, um, and I know you’ve been an entrepreneur, but speaking to entrepreneur, um, that are, um, are considering that they want to gain some liquidity. They want to make their, their company investment worthy. Like what are some things that they can do or they should look out for to, to make that happen.

Zane (07:14):
Rich. That is one of my favorite questions, uh, because right, let’s

Rich (07:17):
Go,

Zane (07:18):
Hey, let’s go, Hey, you better watch out. You’re gonna have to stop me. And of course, you know, um, the book I wrote, the 17 reasons your company is not investment grade and what to do about it was born out of that question over and over that I got from entrepreneurs. What makes a valuable company? What, what makes sit to where if I go to market, um, I’ll get a lot of bids versus zero bids. And so that is a fantastic company. I mean, question, uh, I’m gonna tell you the first thing. Uh, I, I believe this with everything in me and I know it through experience, I’ve seen thousands of letters of intent and indications of interest, and think we did our 91st, uh, institutional deal, uh, with technology companies, uh, two weeks ago. And then I’ve done, um, four of my own companies, two that I started.

Zane (08:11):
Um, and two that I basically invested in and hired a CEO. It is this one thing is the most important thing. Predictability. What makes a great public company is predictability of the earnings of the risks predictability. And that’s the reason revenue streams are so important. How predictable are your revenue streams? If you have one time revenue, uh, and you don’t really know when it’s gonna happen, that is not a very attractive company. If you have recurring revenue that you on, you’re on a subscription or your utility, or you’re the type company that it’s very easy to predict the demand, that’s a valuable company. So I would say I have 17 reasons in my book, but predictability is the key and great companies have instrumentation in their business where they know what’s happening. They can predict what they’re gonna make next core and why. And you’re rewarded for that because institutional investors, rich, they want one thing, risk adjusted, future cash flows. So predictability is number one, recurring revenue, reoccurring revenue are one time revenue, but, but you’re able to get that over and over because you’re in. So that’s number one. I got a lot more, but that’s number one. Yeah.

Rich (09:38):
Well, let’s hit on that one, then we’ll go to the next one. Right? So with predictability, I think also in there is sustainability, right? Because it’s like, it’s like not just predictable of what direction it’s going, but I think if someone’s paying you a multiple on what you are EBIDA is what your profitability is, right. It’s say they’re paying you multiple of three. Like they’re basically, um, banking on the fact that the party is going to continue for at least three years.

Zane (10:09):
Exactly, exactly.

Rich (10:10):
Whatever’s happening. It’s gonna keep rolling for at least three years and that’s justifies a multiple of three, right. And that’s sustainability, right? So sustain predictable in a sustainable way like that. Your profits will be sustained based on the systems and everything else you’ve created.

Zane (10:28):
And rich, you, you, you are spot on it’s, endurability sustainability, predictability, and, and that has to do with some other reasons, right? Uh, other things like the markets you’re serving, what are the headwinds and tailwinds in your market? If you’re in a market that’s got fundamental issues or that’s changing so radically that, you know, oh no, are we gonna continue? You know, to achieve growth and profits, you’re not gonna trade for much. And people say, why does this company trade for so much? And that one doesn’t, they’re in the same industry. It’s because of predictability and durability sustainability. And, and so that’s your market. That’s also your ability to retain and attract talent in the world that you work in rich. And I do with, uh, industries of the mind that have intellectual property and software and unique processes. Um, you gotta have a culture to retain those people because if those people leave you, so does your predictability and your endurability. So, so people and markets matter are you participating in a market that is growing, that is thriving, that you are well positioned with your intellectual property, your barriers to entry, Hey, rich. If anybody can come in your business and set up shop and compete with you with limited barriers to entry, my friend, as we say down south, you don’t have a business and we call it a business down here. You, you don’t because I can just go and hire your best salesperson or hire your COO. So you must,

Rich (12:08):
And then I’m in business.

Zane (12:10):
And then you’re in business. And, and, and basically I trained my competition and I’ve done that before. I’ve experienced that. And a lot of my clients have done that. And so, um, same with intellectual property. You know, what you do for your clients and clients that, that we know together, you help ’em build that beautiful thing called a defensible moat that adds so much, uh, you know, enduring nature to that business because they can use that IP over and over and over and have a, a competitive advantage. So I have that

Rich (12:43):
Barrier entry

Zane (12:45):
Barrier to entry mode. And I love this. I, I love this statement. Um, I, I study, uh, Charlie Munger, uh, who is Warren Buffet’s partner, 98 years old. My wife thinks I’m crazy, but I’ll just sit and watch his YouTube. Sometimes rich. He is so brilliant and he gets to the point he’s just direct. And I was listening one time to him in, uh, uh, Warren buffet. Talk about these barriers to injury. These defensible moats, M O a S around the castle you’re business. And somebody asks a question, Hey, Warren, and Charlie, how do I create a defensible mode for my business, a barrier to entry? Cause you guys are always talking about you in your companies. You love the ones that have that, that barrier to entry. Cuz they have pricing power. It was so funny. I saw this, I forgot where I saw this in some YouTube Warren buffet got the mic. This guy said, how do I create a defensible mode for my business? And he said, if I know, that’s the reason I purchase companies that have them that’s important, have something that differentiates you from your competitor and that they can’t easily replicate.

Rich (13:55):
Yep, absolutely. And so then you could say if, if, if that’s what Warren Buffet’s saying, then he’s basically saying that the whole key to entrepreneurship, um, well, or maybe one big key is creating that defensible mode right on primarily you’re gonna create value. You’re gonna create something that, that, that, um, sustainably creates value in the world old. But then on top of that to make a business that he wants to purchase, you’ve gotta figure out how to create your defensible boat

Zane (14:24):
E exactly. Because why would I purchase you? Why would he purchase this? He could go hire a team. Right. You know, he’s got plenty of capital land, labor, capital, talent. Why does he have to buy you if, if he can replicate it?

Rich (14:37):
Exactly. And then that’s the, the measure of the value then without the IP, the measure of value is well, okay. Um, yes, maybe a multiple on your profits, but on the sideline here, what would it cost for me to just create what you’ve created for me to hire a bunch of people and do enough advertising to get the, the level of clients that you’ve achieved, like, and would it be cheaper to just do that? And then that’s you are competing for

Zane (15:05):
You’re you’re right. So, so that’s another thing. And when you look at all this of what creates value in a pro I company, it’s very similar obviously to what creates value in a public company and public companies, you can study it, they have more transparency. They’re showing all their operating metrics, but a lot of private companies, the owners don’t have a ticker symbol. They can’t type in Google IBM and see what their stocks were today. So you have to look at these different characteristics and candidly, assess yourself and say, how am I really doing against my peers and all these factors, which that’s what drives valuation for a private company. So, and, and, and it’s really calculus. It’s, it’s really, when you put all these things together, institutional investors, they want one thing desperately and they hate something. And you gotta look at this in your business. Here’s what they want. Growth growth can this company, because it’s gotten a unique product market fit, a barity entry, a good market, great management team. Can it continue? Like you said to grow, but guess how they want to grow as risk as possible. So when you have good management teams, good, good advisors, a good patent attorney, a good bank that de-risks that business. And that’s what they like. So the two major things growth and take as much risk out of that business as you can.

Rich (16:33):
Yeah, absolutely. And, and I think there’s another level to that too, with, um, um, you know, in terms of, um, we talking about IP and, uh, and uh, taking those steps is that it, it shows someone that you’ve dotted the eyes and cross the Ts, which probably translates across your business. And so, you know, someone is looking for that, that risk free growth they’re looking to see there’s that predictability. And part of it is they’re looking at you, the business owner saying, have you dotted your eyes and crushed your Ts? And so that’s correct the extent to which you’ve done it in one area, has them believe that your probably doing it across the board, that you’re probably 100% care of business,

Zane (17:19):
100%. And, and let me give a, an area that I see in due diligence that brings out your point, just double clicks. On the point you just made rich these buyers in due diligence, they look at your key processes for your business and they want to, is that documented? Are you just a cowboy running your bill? I come to work every day and I just have a gut feeling. They don’t like that. They like documented processes that are continuously improved that have software systems that instantiate those processes. So you can support a very talented team and produce predictable outcomes. They don’t like Cowboys. They don’t. So, yeah. And Cowboys

Rich (18:05):
Unpredictable.

Zane (18:06):
No, they’re not predictable. You say, oh, but they’re so talent. Yeah, but they’re not predictable. We, we, we like predictable growth. So documentation, I tell owners all the time, show that whatever your key processes are, if they’re sales and marketing, if it’s product development, know those differentiating factors of your business and document those, if you say we’re very good in sales and we’re better than our, than our peer group, we convert more demos to customers than our peer really show me because guess what? The native language of investors is data. I can’t just say I have better customer service. I have better com show me your conversion rates, show me your process and how it’s getting better. So data, data, data, documentation, also the right advisors, because like two of the things on my list in my book are a great financial house. Do you really keep excellent financial records?

Zane (19:05):
Do you know your key performance indicators? Do you have gap accounting? Do you have a quality of earning or audits? Because your record in business are your numbers. Rich. There’s so many great businesses that I get in touch with me. And I say, man, we could, we could work together, get you a deal. And we get involved rich, their accounting is a disaster. And I have to tell ’em let’s, don’t go to market. You got some work to do. We gotta get, get a CFO in here. We gotta get a quality of earnings, same thing with a legal house. And you know, this, one of my reasons is, is your legal house. In order, if you’ve got drama, if, if your customer contracts are all different buyers, just say too much drama. It’s like buying a house and figuring out they have, the house has a found.

Zane (19:52):
If you don’t have your IP, um, protected, if you don’t have all your developers for your software, they’ve signed that everything they’ve done for you is a work for hire rich. I’ve seen companies that should trade for 50, 75 million worth nothing, cuz they don’t. They can’t prove that they even a own their intellectual property. So I’m sorry to get passionate. But when I see people destroy the type of value that I’ve seen destroyed for their, their stakeholders, their families, their employees, um, it really gets me fired up. And it’s the reason I wrote the book. If you don’t do these things great, if you make of money, but you better go invest in apartment complexes cuz no investors ever gonna buy your company. Yeah. So, sorry, rich. I’m getting

Rich (20:39):
My song over there and, and I’ve seen on a, even more simplistic level, uh, e-com companies that have generated great sales. Like they, they would seem to be a great purchase, um, and predictable, sustainable, except that once, um, someone starts digging into it, they don’t own the name. They don’t own their brand name and even more so that there are some pretend issues brewing that maybe someone else has better rights to it. They haven’t taken action yet, but you know, that’s, that’s a deal killer right there.

Zane (21:16):
It is a deal killer and people say, well, Zane you’re overreacting. Um, you, you know, this is gonna be okay. I might not sell my company for 12 times ARR, but if I just sell it for three or four times, they are that’s enough. I’m like, wait, wait, wait a second. These institutional investors, they, they’re not interested in fixture uppers. It’s binary, a quality company sells for fortune a company that, that doesn’t do some of these things, no institutional investor will touch you rich.

Rich (21:45):
Yeah, exactly. And, and, and it’s just, it’s, it’s not, not directly on point, but there’s like an example that I’ve, um, given people about H how important it is to have a patent written well, um, which is that, um, I, I have a client who had a, um, a biotech patent that they sold for 50 mil, $15 million. And, um, there was some, some doubt of whether the other party was going to buy the patent because of one word, there was one word that however, and whoever wrote the application, there was something that made it doubtful of whether they needed this patent or not. And ultimately they did decide to buy it, but it just goes to show you, um, it’s like, um, if not for that one word, they would not have sold the patent or they might not have sold the patent. So the, the difference between a patent that’s well written and one that’s mediocre written is not the difference between getting 15 million or maybe getting 7.5, it’s getting 15 or getting zero.

Zane (22:48):
Exactly. And it’s showing that ownership.

Rich (22:50):
Exactly, exactly the same, but, but the same idea. Yeah. Like you think like, well maybe if we did almost as good a job, then we’ll just get, we’ll get less, but it will still be good. It’s like, no, they’ll walk away because it’s absolutely yield that they want.

Zane (23:08):
Absolutely. Right. Good, good stuff. So, and, and I got, and I got one more that you kind of yeah. Um, brought up there, um, a, another one that brings risk that I see over and over in tech companies and they just don’t realize the risk. This brings them. And again, it’s natural. It starts this way and it’s fine to have cut customer concentration early on. You might have one big customer where you’re perfecting your product. Um, you know, you’re, you’re really getting that product market fit and that one big customer’s awesome. Cuz they’re a good referral source. It’s great. But what does one customer or two customers or three customers that make up 75% of your revenues? What does that add to your business risk? Yeah. What if you lost to one of those, what did the person retired?

Rich (23:56):
What did they add? Sleepless nights of like, well, what would happen if I lost that one big customer? Oh

Zane (24:02):
My God. Oh, well, I’ll tell you what happens. Your evaluation go. Cool. So, so that is another

Rich (24:07):
Because the investors don’t want those sleepless nights.

Zane (24:10):
No, because they predictability. No you, and so, you know, I tell people it’s okay when you’re starting off early, but make sure you put a premium on new accounts. Don’t just, I’ve had to tell certain customers that were doing fantastic. I had a client that had Amazon was their biggest client. And I mean, what a great story and credibility, right. And Amazon was growing like crazy. They had software for their distribution centers, but I told them, you gotta quit taking orders from Amazon because they, you know, they wanted some liquidity within a year or two, their, their customer concentration, they were growing, but their customer concentration was going like that. I said, y’all have got, go get other customers. They said, we gotta turn down business. I said, yes. And guess what your client can do when they’re that important to you, they can squeeze you. And Amazon is like Walmart. They will squeeze you if they can, if they know you’re that important to ’em. So that’s another one to be care.

Rich (25:07):
Yep. I love it. Um, and uh, I, I mean, and, and first of all, it, it sounds like almost all roads point to predictability. And I’m just wondering, is there any, um, any other, maybe we hit ’em one more item that you think really difference.

Zane (25:23):
Yeah. And, and, and, and I hit several of these one, um, is innovation. I used to think innovation seven years ago, even as a tech, guy’s like, ah, everybody’s just talking about this too much. Listen, it matters. There’s a movement right now that, that, that you know about rich, the digital transformation movement for the fortune, you know, 1000 probably ban consulting McKinsey’s and every boardroom telling these, these large C you gotta do digital transformation and what they’re doing now, instead of doing so much R and D they’re purchasing small businesses that have teams and innovation. So I’m gonna say innovation work on that, make sure you have a culture of innovation and, and even innovation in the way you do your contracts innovation in the way you onboard a customer. Innovation matters and strategic buyers, especially cannot resist an innovative company. That’s learning all the time and increasing that’s a big one.

Zane (26:18):
Um, another one I would say, I was thinking about this. When you went through, I talked about the culture a little bit. I talked about growth. You gotta grow. I get a lot of guys saying, you know what? Growing’s pretty hard and I’m satisfied. I’m making good. EBIDA good profit buyers. Don’t buy companies that aren’t growing. So you’ve got, and you might destroy your income statement a little bit. If you invest in growth, cause you have to hire more reps or, or a product manager. But I encourage entrepreneurs to make sure you’re stretching yourself to grow because healthy plants grow healthy families grow healthy businesses grow. Um, I had a, a, a client that, that was very, very wealthy and older used, said, you’re pushing me. I got what I need, uh, growth causes, uh, pain. And, um, he said, I’m just, I’m fine with my business.

Zane (27:03):
But I, one day I wanna sell it to my employees and let them have it. Guess what we found out, even though he was very wealthy, he had to grow, cuz guess what happened? His key talent didn’t wanna work for a company that’s not growing. They wanted to work for their company. That’s healthy, that’s alive. And so he had to grow to keep its talent. And so anyway, I would say growth. And then there’s a lot of nuances in all these with, uh, operations. That’s another one documentation standard operating procedures, rich a company, especially, uh, an industry of the mind like you and I deal with it is a set of people, processes and some product or service that serves the market. And those systems create cashflow. You gotta keep scaling those systems and documenting. And so this thing, even the name cloud computing, I sell a lot of cl, well, where is this thing?

Zane (27:59):
It’s in the clouds. What is it? And, and, and people, a lot of entrepreneurs don’t document the, it, that is their processes, their technology, their people. So those are some of the other things. And it’s, it’s common sense, but you know, there’s a lot of things, common sense, rich that I don’t execute on. It’s common sense for me to know how to stay in shape. My daughter’s a pro CrossFit athlete. Why do I times sometimes struggle with a big belly? Is it because I don’t have the content? I don’t know how to keep from having a big belly. No, I know exactly. I can’t eat the carbs I eat. I know exactly. I can’t eat after eight o’clock at night. My problem is not, I don’t know. My problem is I do not at execute and I find most business owners need accountability cuz they know these things. They say, well, thank you captain obvious for this list. And I’m like, I gave you this list cuz you’re not doing it. So anyway. Yeah. That’s, that’s what

Rich (29:00):
A couple things on that. So it’s like, um, a few of my favorite expressions on some of the things you just said. Well, one is that, um, not knowing how and not knowing why is probably the, the last reason that you’re not accomplishing the result. We like that. Yeah. I, and uh, another one is talking about growth. Is that any decision not to grow is ultimately a decision to decline?

Zane (29:23):
Oh, I like those two. I need to laminate those and put ’em on my board.

Rich (29:28):
I like it. Cool. Well you reminded me of them and, and uh, so thank you for that. And, and I love it. This is fantastic. And you know, it’s also not intuitive. So you’re in Birmingham, Alabama, um, which is pretty far from Silicon valley,

Zane (29:42):
But yet

Rich (29:43):
You’ve done something extraordinary, which is you’re getting Silicon valley to come to you. So, uh, tell me a bit about that.

Zane (29:50):
Oh, good. Well, well thank you for mentioning that. And it is a little bit of, uh, you know, a contradiction, right? Uh, we’re in Birmingham, Alabama, which is you like, wait a second. Is that the, of the world? And we’ve been very blessed to build a bank. Um, and we do a lot of tech deals, um, a whole lot. And we have this event that I started doing eight years ago, rich at my lake place, inviting people from around the world, friends that we had sold or buyers. And we just kind of hung out in Alabama and I called Alabama bash. Well, anyway, eight years later and we had to take two years off, uh, because of COVID we are hosting again, Silicon y’all. So it’s Silicon y’all dot com and we bring, uh, 20 of the top private equity investors in the United States. I mean TA and associates, summit partners, a sale KKR.

Zane (30:40):
Um, uh, we bring them into Birmingham, Alabama with about 80 of the fastest growing SAS businesses and technology of services businesses. And we host them and we have this elite retreat and it’s become a really fun thing. And I was looking at my list of, we have 305 people that have, that have, are on the Waitley and we can, and we can only, uh, accommodate our 80. Um, and so it’s become fun. Um, it’s, it’s a great deal. Uh, and hopefully I want to get you there one year. I would love to be there. I think you could. Yeah. I,

Rich (31:14):
When this space for me, I’ll be there guarantee, Hey, Hey,

Zane (31:17):
Well, there will be cuz you and I, uh, your friend Victor, um, yes is gonna speak this year. And so absolutely I I’ve gotta get you to Silicon. Y’all

Rich (31:25):
All right. That sounds great. And uh, and look, this is such a great conversation. I, I really appreciate you taking the time and um, if people wanna learn more about you again in touch with you, how do they go about doing so?

Zane (31:37):
Oh, uh, thanks rich. Our, our site and I’m out there emailing everything. It’s founders like founders of a company, IB as an investment bank.com or Zane is such a weird name. You can put Zane, Birmingham, Alabama, uh, and my book will come up and, um, that’s where my email is as well. So thank you for asking.

Rich (31:56):
Oh yeah, absolutely. And, um, again, um, thanks for such a like rich and interesting and uh, informative conversation. Uh, thanks for taking the time, you know, really great to, to do this, uh, podcast episode with you. So thank you.

Zane (32:12):
Thank you. Rich. Have a great weekend. My friend,

Outro (32:20):
Thanks for listening to innovations and breakthroughs with your host. Rich Goldstein. Be sure to click, subscribe, check us out on the web at innovationsandbreakthroughs.com and we’ll see you next time.

 

Is it Time to Protect Your Ideas?

Book your FREE Idea Protection Strategy Call

Join over 10,000 others who have asked us to help protect their best ideas and inventions.


Do You Have Intellectual Property (IP) You Need To Protect?

Your FREE Strategy Call is a pressure-free, no obligation way to get all your questions answered.
Goldstein Patent Law patiently listens to you, and then explains your options so you don’t lose your rights.
Call (718) 701-0700 or use the form below to secure your complimentary strategy call now.

By clicking Schedule Now, you agree to our Privacy Policy, including our Cookie Use.

No Obligation. Completely Confidential.

Popular

We're Social

Is it Time to Protect Your Ideas?

Book your FREE Idea Protection Strategy Call

Join over 10,000 others who have asked us to help protect their ideas.